My making a silly comment pointing to the similarity between water and alcohol makes me a partisan hack? You digested this single statement into pages of blah about chemical naming conventions that are, by definition, completely arbitrary and, therefore, based in the realm of semantics. They're not important.
There is no similarity between water and alcohol. What part of that is so difficult to understand? This is not some simple semantic naming difference - we call one "water" and one "alcohol" to denote the fact that they are two completely different things which behave completely different.
You made a stupid statement and I proved that you were both wrong and ignorant. Take it like a man.
No, sir. The argument that Bush is not eloquent has been stated time and time again in this thread. What evidence do you need that he's not eloquent? You yourself are arguing the exact same thing.
As I have said before "Bush is not eloquent" is an opinion. It offers no way of explaining why. What, in your opinion, is responsible for him not being eloquent? What evidence to you offer to prove your point?
Are you calling me a liar? If so, all I need do is consult the most elementary of thermodynamic texts to prove that any body is, indeed, compressible due to changes of pressure or temperature. If you would like, I can scan in said statements from a textbook, since you obviously don't own one yourself.
Yes, I am calling you a liar. Are you seriously suggesting that Bush has been surrounded for the last 20 years by a bubble of pressure and temperature completely different from anyone else? You do realize that the STP (Standard Temperature and Pressure) has remained constant, right, and that you're claiming thermodynamic effects is ridicululous.
Would you have us believe that people in Denver and Tibet have larger brain sizes because of the lower atmospheric pressure? Or that Americans are smarter in the summer because of the temperature increase?
How do I know you are ignorant when it comes to thermochem? Simply because you would post this shows that you have no real understanding in the first place.
Whatever thermodynamic processes are involved pale in comparison to the biological ones involved.
I
highly recommend that you stop this nonsense right now because I know my thermochem and will inevitably expose your ignorance in this area.
Are you serious? You said that average scores for Yale are only higher "for those who are admitted on academic merit. Not for those who are legacy admits." Bush was below average - this was clearly stated. However, you can't arbitrarily declare who was admitted based on academic value and legacy and rule the averages to be different accordingly, which is exactly what you're trying to do. Bush was above the national average, but below average for Yale. You can't argue with that statement, can you?
No, I am not. I am only claiming that those admitted on academic merit had high SAT score (you know, that would be part of the "merit") while legacies wouldn't need to. They aren't two completely different scale but we know where each group falls on the curve, and that was the point to which I was alluding. Legacy admits would be near the lower part of the curve while merit admits would be near the higher end.
You sure you're a philosopher?
I conceed that there is such a thing as "Burden of Proof Fallacy" but clarify that I did not commit that fallacy. Asking you to provide proof of your claims is not this fallacy, regardless of what you'd like to think. In fact, according to the site which you linked, "Another version occurs when a lack of evidence for side A is taken to be evidence for side B in cases in which the burden of proof actually rests on side B."
This would mean that you are the one committing the fallacy - it rests on you to prove your claim.
Why is Bush not eloquent?
"Over a large enough number of studies the trend is quite clear - alcoholism causes brain damage." Are you serious? The author himself admits that the data is limited he does? Care to point out where he does? and might not be extendable to a larger set, yet you're going to make the exact opposite assertion by assuming that his findings are universally applicable? Hopefully, you're not still involved with research in any role other than as a lab technician.Ad hominem attack
Where does my author ever claim that his findings are not universally applicable? I read over it again and nothing of the sort appears, although the lines "Confabulation is a clinically well-documented accompaniment of selective types of memory impairment, especially in brain-damaged alcoholics" implies
all alcoholics and his conclusion that "These findings lend support for the association of alcohol-related confabulation with visual, as well as previously-documented verbal material among brain-damaged alcoholics" is meant to be applicable to all alcoholics who met the inclusion criteria. Basically you have lied about what the author claimed.
Just to make you happy I have searched for more extensive studies.
Possible alterations in brain neural network by ethanol
Yamamoto M, Ukai W, Tateno M, Saito T
"Advances in the neurosciences over the past two decades have elucidated that alcoholism is a chronic and easily recurring disorder, which is based on
brain damage induced by long-term ethanol consumption. Researchers have identified neural circuits that subsume the actions of ethanol and they have also elaborated many of the intracellular signalling pathways that follow receptor activation by ethanol, suggesting a substantial difference between the addicted brain and non-addicted brain."
The possible role of acetaldehyde in the brain damage caused by the chronic consumption of alcohol
Forn-Frias C, Sanchis-Segura C
There are currently different experimental findings that appear to support the proposal that the substances resulting from the metabolism of ethanol can be important mediators in the
brain damage associated with the chronic consumption of alcohol. Although more research is required, this theoretical proposal is very interesting, not just because of its relative novelty, but also because it is based on the same principles put forward to explain the toxic effects of alcohol consumption on organs and tissues.
Neuropathological alterations in alcoholic brains. Studies arising from the New South Wales Tissue Resource Centre.
Harper C, Dixon G, Sheedy D, Garrick T
P
atterns of damage appear to relate to lifetime alcohol consumption but, more importantly, to associated medical complications. The most significant of these is the alcohol-related vitamin deficient state, the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS), which is caused by thiamin deficiency but is seen most commonly in alcoholics. Careful selection and classification of alcoholic cases into those with and without these complications, together with detailed quantitative neuropathological analyses has provided data that gives clues to the most vulnerable regions and cells in the brain.
Brain shrinkage is largely accounted for by loss of white matter.
Some of this damage appears to be reversible. Alcohol-related neuronal loss has been documented in specific regions of the cerebral cortex (superior frontal association cortex), hypothalamus and cerebellum. No change is found in basal ganglia, nucleus basalis, or serotonergic raphe nuclei.
Dendritic and synaptic changes have been documented in alcoholics and these, together with receptor and transmitter changes, may explain functional changes and cognitive deficits, which precede more severe structural neuronal changes.
The fact is, your study showed that the brain shrank, then regenerated over time. Nowhere have you shown a correlation to brain mass/volume and intelligence. I don't believe such a correlation exists. Therefore, your whole argument is nothing.
No, mine does not depend on there being a correlation of brain mass and intelligence. It only requires that alcohol cause damage to the brain, including shrinkage. It did not "regenerate" over time, it partially recovered. Not all, some.
Do you know what I think? I don't think you have any research experience at all. I think you are making it up.
And here let me warn you - drop the ridiculous thermochemical argument before I expose your ignorance just as surely as I did your ridiculous "water is an alcohol" argument. I know my thermochem and am beyond prepared to prove it.
I think it is also important to point out how you completely avoided answering me when I said
I believe your argument was "I am a great researcher who knows about research while you do not." When asked to provide some kind of proof of this claim you slink away, as usual, by distorting it into the claim that I am attacking your credibility when you were the one who called their credibility into account.
and when I said
My argument for why this applies to the president is:
1) In human who abuse alcohol there are characteristic patterns of brain damage
2) George W Bush is a human
3) George W Bush abused alcohol
4) Therefore, George W Bush has characteristic patterns of brain damage from abusing alcohol
It takes "decades" to do the damage. That is what those studies that I posted earlier all concluded, and it makes sense.
But like I said - I think you have no actual research experience and are making that up, like you have almost everything else.