Point/Counterpoint by Democrat/Republican Assembly leadership. Question the "experts" even when it's an expert witness. Lastly, quorums: bacterial, not legislative.
Point and Counterpoint.
The Assembly session will be coming sooner than you think. The two op eds linked below are from the Senate President (Fenberg--D) and the Minority Leader (Lundeen--R).
Both outline the visions that both have for the coming Assembly session. I'd give both a look, but understand that the Republicans can have all the ideas they want. Their political irrelevance means that the best they'll be able to do is stall and play the clock in order to force a compromise; Assembly Democrats have shown themselves to be near to uncaring with regard to bringing in views different from their own.
I wish the Republicans luck because the last line of Fenberg's op ed ought to give anyone who values his freedom, money, and property pause:
"I can’t wait to hit the ground running this January and spend my final year in the legislature advancing transformational progress for a better Colorado for us all."
Yep.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/what-we-democrats-in-the-state-senate-will-prioritize-in-2024-opinion/article_8e73af28-9ed8-11ee-992e-9f9523ee85bc.html
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/state-senate-gopers-will-fight-for-relief-for-coloradans-in-2024-opinion/article_2f0070fc-9ed9-11ee-9b83-cb32ef755ca3.html
You should question the things you hear, even when it's an "expert" saying it.
The Reason magazine editorial by Kopel goes into detail on his amicus brief in the Federal court case against Colorado's magazine ban.
Mr. Kopel spends most of his time in the op ed on the disconnect and inconsistency involved in regulating magazines for citizens but not for law enforcement. For example, you having a magazine with 15 rounds or more (regardless of the gun) makes it dangerous, but not so for a member of the police having THE EXACT SAME gun and magazine.
The op ed is worth a read, but I want to take this post to focus in on something else from Kopel's amicus brief (linked second below the op ed for convenience): the idea that you it is not only okay to question things experts say, but that you should make a habit of it. And, yes, this applies even to things outside of gun control.
The relevant section I will refer to starts on p 14 of the brief under the heading "Defendant’s experts are unreliable and not credible." Note--the defendant here is Colorado's Attorney General doing his statutory (though probably relished) duty of defending the law.
I'll leave it to you to follow through the various examples listed, but the overall thrust here is that often the outcome of any particular study or scholarly look at data is sensitive to what is included and what is not.
For example, when the AG's expert witness claims that (quoting from the brief on p 15): "Similarly, Klarevas [the AG's expert witness] declares that 'since 1990, the use of LCMs in high-fatality mass shootings has resulted in a 54% increase in average fatalities per incident.'” what gets left out is the fact that not all of the extra fatalities were the direct result of a weapon with a so-called large capacity magazine. Some of the extra fatalities were due to the fact that there may have been more than one shooter or more than one weapon involved.
Details such as whether or not the researcher bothered to account for more guns or gunmen at a scene matter. Not including the confounding cases mentioned would drastically cut into the claim that there are 54% more fatalities per shooting when the guns have more than 15 rounds in their magazines.
And the problem creeps in when, through a combination of expedience (the fact that the conclusion is useful whether or not it's accurate) and thoughtlessness, "facts" such as these make their way into our discourse because "facts" such as these are pretty sticky. They hold to Mark Twain's old joke about a lie making it around the world before the truth has put its boots on.
That's why I say that you should be questioning things you hear. Whether you agree or not. Whether it's said by an expert or not. No one that's on the up and up will object to you checking, and you cannot reliably lean on someone else to do it for you.
Experts, whether they have an agenda or no, are human. They have confirmation bias. They can get rushed.
Reporters, whether they have an agenda or no, don't read things in a serious manner. They get a couple quotes, then they talk to someone who disagrees for a quote or two, file their story and on to the next.
Get in the habit of checking sources and asking questions.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/12/11/law-enforcement-officers-are-part-of-the-people-not-above-them/
https://davekopel.org/Briefs/Colorado/Gates/Law%20Enforcement%20amicus%20brief.pdf
Lastly, quorums: bacterial, not legislative.
The more politically astute will already recognize the term quorum, but this being the last post til Sunday, you better believe it's not going to be about politics.
I was listening to something recently and the topic of antibiotic resistance came up (and what to do about it). One approach that some researchers think may hold some promise is trying to interfere with the way in which bacteria attack.
Some (at least--I have to admit I don't know everything about bacteria so some might not act this way) bacteria wait til they have enough numbers before making a move. Interfere with the signaling they use and they might multiply a little but not get to infection strength.
So what is this? I gave you three links below to read up on if you'd like, but let's talk in simple general terms.
First, you need to try and adopt the perspective of a cell floating around in liquid. The world looks a lot different down there and you face a lot of competition for resources. You, unlike humans, face a minute-by-minute fight for your existence. You also can't fall back on the assured abundance we take for granted; we can be a little more cavalier about how we expend our resources.
Cooperation with other individuals to help ensure the survival of the group or the organism at the species level is a big help in this regard. We (obviously, and through a variety of means) do this. We band together to grow and distribute food, fight off enemies, and protect our resources.
Well, it turns out (according to some new-ish) research that bacteria do so too, albeit in a way that is not conscious.
Bacteria that can team up are constantly releasing chemicals that can turn genes in their fellow bacteria on or off when the chemicals reach a high enough concentration. If the numbers of the bacteria in a certain area are small enough these chemicals are below the concentrations needed to start a reaction in their neighbors. They simply diffuse into the liquid around the bacteria.
Once the population gets high enough, however, the chemical hits a threshold concentration and the chemicals released cause the bacteria's DNA to activate certain genes that allow for behaviors like producing antibodies to neutralize threats to them, produce biofilms that "hide" the bacteria from another's immune system and/or protect them, and the release of toxins that would harm the (foreign) cells around them.
In the links below there were some interesting ideas (which I'll leave for you to explore at your leisure):
--There seems to be some interspecies quorum sensing. I'm reminded here of how birds of different feathers will flock together in the winter for their mutual benefit.
--There is a limit to this quorum process (see the first link)
--There seems to be some sense that quorum sensing might explain how it is that single cells operating on their own were able to become the complex, multicellular organisms we see today. I.e. how is it that you go from bacteria to cells that become, say, a liver working in concert with cells that become a small intestine working in concert with a skeleton, and so on.
Interesting stuff.
Have a good rest of the day. Back at it Sunday!
https://asm.org/articles/2020/june/how-quorum-sensing-works
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543102/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11544353/#:~:text=Quorum%20sensing%20is%20the%20regulation,a%20function%20of%20cell%20density.