I wasn't aware that biologists used this model, except as a simplification. Biologists must know that hybridization isn't just something you overlook:

But it's true I've never seen hybridization used specifically to explain larval forms. That's interesting!

Fun fact. The US is no longer the home where the buffalo roam. Or, not exactly. About 95% of American bison aren't purebred, but rather crossbred with domestic cattle. American bison and domestic cattle aren't just different species, but also different genera.

Give me a home where the beefalo roam!

Sounds like my sock drawer.

I have negotiated with an out-of-network doctor to get in-network rates, but a mandate is something else.

But as Doc Jay said, even without this new rule, ER service isn't very markety. You just  never  know what it's gonna cost, or even if you've paid everything they asked for.

I once made the mistake of seeking urgent care at the ER during college. (The school clinic was closed, and I didn't know where else to go for urgent problems that fell short of a life-threatening emergency.) In the months that followed, I  thought  I had paid all my ER bills...

Little did I know that the ER physician's group billed separately. And they spent about three years sending that bill to a stranger's address. 

These days, I avoid the ER religiously, and pay up-front for medical services as much as possible. Though even paying up-front has a cost. Sometimes you miss out on health plan discounts that could have gotten if you had just waited a while to pay the bill.

Why should medical billing be harder to decipher than quantum mechanics?

Fr Sirico's book is  very  good. I wouldn't mind seeing it get more attention from church authorities.

This whole conversation leaves me wondering if perhaps the Pope should just have Hernando de Soto over for tea.

(Do popes drink tea?)

Does this mean you can get around the soda ban as long as you've got the right container?

For tendencies rather than certainties, assigning causality isn't just straightforward logic. However...

The logical equivalent to "If people can't adequately control themselves yet, then we need more government" is "If we don't need more government, then people must already be able to control themselves adequately," not "If people can adequately control themselves already, then we don't need more government."

The causality I assigned was that doubting the power of non-governmental constraints causes desire for more government, not that belief in the power of non-governmental constraints causes the desire for less.

But if you do believe in the power of non-governmental constraints, you have one less reason to want more government, and so you'll probably end up wanting less government than average, since the average includes people who doubt non-governmental constraints. That's the correlation.

Ah. I wasn't clear. I didn't mean sufficient constraints on everything, but rather sufficient constraints on a given aspect of human behavior. (Say, for example, on soda consumption.)

As an expletive, "Nipples!" has a certain panache.

Perhaps because having "God is a Socialist" as the top title in the Member feed is an inducement to join Ricochet to see what all the fuss is about.

Well, you can't just suppose causality. I actually thought carefully about that before posting and tried to word my comment in a way that would leave causality out of the picture. (If I failed, I apologize.)

But I do think there is correlation. If sufficient constraints can exist outside of government, what is the need to impose more?

I can relate, having often been the underling who should know better.

I have a funny story along these lines:

This spring, our group recorded  yet  another  round of Copland-esque arrangements of American folk songs. I wasted a lot of rehearsal time secretly hating on the composer, wondering  what  he could be thinking when other people before him had done it already -- and done it better.

Then the composer visited us during a final rehearsal. Turns out he didn't want to arrange these folk songs either, not when they had been already been arranged by so many competent composers. But... the people commissioning him insisted on  these  songs.  He had to do his best to make them new and different, even if he'd rather not.

I liked the music much better after that. I even became fond of it.

Speaking of Williams and stinking on ice, if you haven't seen this cover of the Star Wars theme, your life as a musical geek is not complete.

It's so awful, it cute. (Probably wasn't a good idea to listen to it about 100 times before my musicianship final, though.)

On the other hand, it's fun to hear about others' tastes, no? Especially if their enthusiasm introduces you to something you end up liking.

Especially the professionals, I should think.

If you're passionate enough about music to make a living at it, I imagine you must feel musical likes and dislikes rather intensely. Not that you can always afford to let it show.

On the one hand, I'm inspired: I should be more like this woman.

On the other hand, Doc, are you sure you don't have some sort of vampire fetish?

Or perhaps more cannons and fewer canons?

But surely, existence of procedural constraints outside of government can be good evidence that expansive government powers are less necessary.

Maybe this is easiest to see from the other direction:
A lot of people favor expansive government  because  they doubt (or simply lack awareness of) how much non-governmental constraints can influence human behavior.

For example, people who doubt that the risk of earning a bad reputation is enough to keep most businesses from engaging in unscrupulous practices tend to be much more supportive of regulating businesses than those who already believe that loss of reputation already acts as a powerful natural constraint on businesses' bad behavior.

It seems to me that a healthy belief in non-governmental constraints on human behavior can lessen the demand for expansive government.