In their search for "true beliefs" they would quickly discover that there is no such thing as "actually true" but that science deals in more and more viable models. So, they would abandon their search for "truth" and would go onward to the search for better and better fitting models. (See definitions of science ... and, for a philosophical point of view, radical constructivism).

Our senses don't perceive the "real" world. They build a highly refined and effective illusion of complete perception. (See for example the blind spot in the eye, the physiology of color perception, or our sense of hearing.

Likewise, our minds always use simplified models. No one would be able to catch a falling ball if he had to actually calculate the flight curve - yet, even children are able to do it. That's because if you keep your eyes fixed at the ball and have to lower your head in a constant way you are standing at the right spot to catch the ball. (If your rate of head-lowering is slower you have to move till it is.)

So, doing the actual calculations would be a waste of time, because there's a simpler way to catch a ball.

Even if one uses always the best and newest models science provides, you will never, ever be really at the frontier because so many papers are published every day. And even if one could, scientists are able to err. And do so frequently.

(See for example selection bias. There are LOTS of papers about it.)

So, someone on a quest to find "truth" is a romantic twerp who will accomplish nothing, because he will expect to find something static and final. Science and understanding are processes.

The only fields of human endeavor where you find "truth" are mathematics and religion.

(Most things I mention in this article are findable in the wikipedia. If you don't understand, look them up. Everyone should now about scientific models, "truth" and constructivsm. Oh, and the physiology of our senses.)

People with normal weight and higher (exact numbers depend on gender etc.) have a lot of adipose tissue, which absorbs and releases fuel all the time - after every meal there's excess energy, between meals and at nights there's deficit of energy, it actively manages that.

When you eat insufficient amount of food, your body tries to keep your energy in homeostasis by things like:

• increased hunger (strongly countered by ECA)
• decreased energy levels (strongly countered by ECA)
• decreased metabolic rate (somewhat countered by ECA which has minor thermogenic effect)
• increased release of fuel from adipose tissue (what we want, maybe somewhat enhanced by ECA)
• increased breakdown of lean tissue (maybe somewhat countered by ECA, eating relatively higher protein diet may have protective effect here)

Your homeostasis will get what it wants somehow, and ECA tries to prevent it from doing it the way you don't want it to, so it's more or less limited to primarily relying on releasing fuel from adipose tissue. Trying to starve yourself, and willpower the hunger away works much worse than that.

If your adipose tissue cannot do that since it lacks sufficient stored fuel, your body will try the other things harder, and you may have some nasty side effects.

Anyway, who the hell would want to take ECA while being at BMI 18?

What kind of rationalists are you? There is one way to lose weight with tons of research backing it, and perfectly valid molecular explanation how it works - one ECA pill every morning until you're done, if you're losing weight faster than 1kg/week definitely eat more as that's not very healthy.

You should behave like proper rationalists now, read some pubmed, order some pills, and lose as much weight as you want. No significant side effects observed, unlike "natural" dieting which causes hunger, loss of willpower, loss of energy etc. Your appetite will be so low you'll have to use alarm clock to remind yourself to eat, but it won't hurt when you do, so no willpower expended either way. Ask any random bodybuilder for advice if you need it, they mastered the art of getting rid of fat without harming rest of the body.

I'm 79 kg (bmi 22) down from 106 kg (bmi 30) five years ago, so unlike 95% of after-diet rebouncers I know what I'm talking about.

Because it works something like this, in a grossly oversimplified explanation:

Human genes are organized on 23 chromosomes, 2 complete sets of them, so 46 in all, with 50% being redundant. Your DNA is fragmented in 46 stripes of neatly ordered DNA.

Information on these two sets of chromosomes aren't identical, just redundant: On one set could for example be the information to make fair hair, on the other the information for brown hair, with the carrier of those genes getting brownish hair.

If a human produces gametes (cells used for reproduction, sperm and eggs), each gamete will get half of the set of chromosomes.

So, to oversimplify even more, your daddy will put one of its two sets of chromosomes into his sperm, yielding sperms with each half of his whole set of chromosomes. For the sake of clarity, lets call the sets of sperms he can produce D1 and D2. Mommy will do the same, just getting M1 and M2.

If they procreate, the embryo will get chromosomes from 2 randomly chosen gametes, which can be M1 or M2, and D1 and D2.

That leads to following possible genotype-mixtures: M1D1 M2D1 M1D2 M2D1

The outcome is completely random, so you would have a chance to get a sibling with identical genes 25%, with half of your genes 50% and with none of your genes also 25%. Which gets to an average of 50% of identical genes per sibling.

Evolution works with huge numbers and enormous timescales, so it is save to assume that this statistic works out true and is safe enough to bet on.

Less simplified, each the chromosomes which is put into a gamete is randomly chosen. So, each gamete gets 23 completely randomly chosen chromosomes from the whole set of 46 chromosomes. (Keyword here is meiosis, biologogenes for "making gametes"). And, to complicate matters further, in one step of the meiosis the DNA-strands which make up the chromosomes are broken randomly (but at the correct places) and joined. (This process is called crossover.)

So, the body does it's best to make the genetic makeup of any gamete to a very randomly chosen set of all genes in the body. (That's because the body does not know and isn't able to find out which of his genes make him fit in an evolutionary sense. So, randomness is the best chance. Again, that's very simplified.)

That boils down to the fact, that siblings share approximately 50% of their genes, give or take a few.

If you want to know that a bit better, read Dawkins "The selfish gene" (no atheism in there, just good old biology). Really good book, which clarifies many things regarding evolution and genetics with just traces of chemistry.

Or, if you want to know it really good, read a book about genetics, I would recommend the tome "Genes IX" by Benjamin Lewin or similar.) (Serious biologenes and chemistry there, though.)

Hope that helped.

The problem with this idea is that I have a very strong expectation that the barbarians are going to kill me, then no amount of money would convince me to fight. Even if you enforce payment from all the non-fighters, I still wouldn't fight. Better to incur a trillion dollars of debt than to die, right? Especially if everyone else around me also incurs a trillion dollars of debt such that after the war, we all agree that this debt is silly and nullify it.

The point of banned goods is not that they are banned because of the hazards for the people alone who buy them but for everyone else also. Sulphuric acid for example is easily usable as a weapon especially in concentrated form. (It grows very hot if it touches water. And it is very acidic. So, by using a simple acid proof squirt gun one can do serious damage.)

And, that's not really all: Suppose I could go into such a shop, proof that I'm sufficiently intelligent to handle dangerous stuff without being a danger for myself and buy a) a PCR machine b) a flu virus genome sequence c) a HIV genome sequence d) some assorted chemicals e) some literature about virology f) lungs tissue cell cultures g) some pigs/monkeys to test it

and wipe out Japans population just for the sake of it? (Contagious like flu and deadly as AIDS. It would take some months or even years to clone it but it would be manageable.)

Well, Japan wouldn't actually a sensible target for that. To much risk of travelers spreading the virus worldwide. Choose your own isolated country to test.

I sleep better in my bed each night because I know it is not that easy to get really dangerous stuff in Shops.

You write "The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death."

Is there any evidence for that? That sounds much like the typical sort of sociobiologistic hypothesis which sounds so convincing that no one really thinks about it and just nods in agreement. So, are there any papers, experiments, mathematical models to back it up?

I would rather more suggest a hypothesis that it was (and is) very favorable for humans in terms of fitness to belong to a certain group of people and stick to that group - whether that group is a sports team, a class at school or a political party.

Well, I wouldn't dare to disagree with the rest of your article. Just that choosing of a political party has nothing to do with actual politics, just with sticking to a group.