Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 September 10

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September 10

Logical Fallacy Name

What is the logical fallacy that states that if something (emotionally) feels wrong, then it is wrong? For instance, one could say that not donating a kidney is wrong when one is perfectly capable of donating one because it feels wrong. Futurist110 (talk) 01:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Appeal to emotion is a good fit. There are a LOT of fallacies (see List of fallacies) and there's a lot of overlap between them, so I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't others. --Jayron32 01:13, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It appears that the one I'm looking for specifically is the wishful thinking fallacy. Futurist110 (talk) 01:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The polar opposite of "If it feels good, do it", yes? Except not quite. If harming someone else in some way feels wrong, then there's a good chance it is wrong, though not necessarily. The fallacy that you pose, though, could also be called, "Always let your conscience be your guide", i.e. the "Jiminy Cricket fallacy". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Fasting

Note, this is not a personal health question but a question about the current state of medical research. I'm curious about the health benefits of fasting. What is the current consensus? Viriditas (talk) 02:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The article Fasting has links to some citations in that area. RudolfRed (talk) 02:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

No, actually, it does not. The relevant section, "Therapeutic application", is unsourced. Viriditas (talk) 03:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

That's because the sources have just been removed as non-compliant with WP:MEDRS. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of the cause, my question still stands and remains unanswered. Viriditas (talk) 03:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Read the "Health effects" section. It has references to longer life span, lower cholestrol, and other benefits. RudolfRed (talk) 03:45, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Turns out calorie restriction is useless for primates, torture without benefit.

For 25 years, the rhesus monkeys were kept semi-starved, lean and hungry. The males’ weights were so low they were the equivalent of a 6-foot-tall man who tipped the scales at just 120 to 133 pounds. The hope was that if the monkeys lived longer, healthier lives by eating a lot less, then maybe people, their evolutionary cousins, would, too.... It turns out the skinny monkeys did not live any longer than those kept at more normal weights.

See this in the NY Times. μηδείς (talk) 04:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. However, I'm not referring to caloric restriction, but rather the alleged benefits of fasting. Viriditas (talk) 05:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you need to lose weight, not eating will help. There doesn't seem to be any physical (i.e., non-spiritual) benefit otherwise. Showing that your body can control itself would seem to be spiritually beneficial. μηδείς (talk) 05:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but no, I don't need to lose weight and my query has nothing to do with losing weight. It has to do with the health benefits of fasting. For only one example, I'm trying to figure out what happens physiologically, if you skip all meals but keep drinking fluids, once or twice a week. The reason I'm asking is because I'm working on a hypothesis that I discovered quite accidentally while fasting last week. Viriditas (talk) 09:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I will just note that just as one study cannot confirm the benefits, one study cannot disprove them either. There are lots of studies on both sides of the issue; why this one got in the NYTimes is an interesting question in and of itself, and it's a nice data point, but it's just one study among many at this point. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It's going to depend on what your normal diet is. If you normally eat a healthy diet with the right amount of calories, then it will be a slight negative to stop doing that, even temporarily. However, if you eat total crap and/or get too many calories, then taking a break can be a good thing, as long as you don't make up for it by eating even more junk food later. StuRat (talk) 06:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Assuming that's a response to me, I cannot disagree. μηδείς (talk) 06:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

And here is some more grist to the discussion mill which discuss the benefits of short periods of fasting, to my mind it is just another way of eating less. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.183.74 (talk) 07:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I've discovered that quite the opposite is true. What I found is that by fasting once or twice a week, I actually eat more. Weird, eh? In other words, I found that my appetite increased quite dramatically. That's why I'm curious if there was a physiological change in my digestive system. Viriditas (talk) 09:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not just you. The typical dietician will confirm that effect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I see yet another medical advice discussion brewing. Consider this: On Jewish fast days, the very old and the very young and the ones in poor health are exempted. That should tell you something. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not looking for any medical advice, nor do I require any. I'm looking for information about the physiological changes that occur if one were to theoretically fast once or twice a week, and what happens to the body as a result. I've seen related information on this subject in the media (journal article I believe) regarding jet lag and how to avoid it by immersing oneself in darkness and refraining from eating. My understanding is that fasting can alter the circadian rhythm. Viriditas (talk) 09:30, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

We've had a huge protest going on near my office, but when I went over to see the hunger strikers, they were on their lunch break.DOR (HK) (talk) 09:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

There was an article on fasting and the current medical consensus in Harper's a few months ago that I found fascinating: Starving Your Way to Vigor: The Benefits of an Empty Stomach. The author concludes that the current medical consensus is that fasting is not very good for one, but points out that there is considerable evidence that this is incorrect (from both human and animal studies) and that the original motivations for this consensus are not very empirically based, and that these might be getting in the way of detailed study of the problem. It's an interesting article however you feel about it — I started reading it as a complete skeptic (and someone who is generally suspicious of "doctors don't know and won't admit they don't know" claims), and after reading it was more or less convinced that occasional fasts could be quite beneficial to the otherwise overfed human body (the human organism seems well-evolved to going for some time without food, which makes sense, and our current gluttony is obviously not the state in which we developed our metabolism), and that there were some promising angles of research regarding fasting and chemotherapy (according to the author, there is evidence that when the body enters into a state of prolonged — e.g. week long — fast, it becomes biologically more conservative, and when undergoing chemotherapy this means that the heathy cells uptake less of the chemical poisons, while the cancerous cells lack this conservative approach. As of the writing the evidence was primarily in animal studies, and only anecdotally from human studies, so more work would need to be done to see if that was really true or not). --Mr.98 (talk) 12:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I saw a documentary only a week or two ago. The BBC's Michael Mosley investigated "The power of intermittent fasting" and presented and episode of Horizon called Eat, Fast and Live Longer. Pretty interesting and quite possibly relevant to your question. Astronaut (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm gonna use that title as the perfect example of why commas are important, for those occasions when "Eats shoots and leaves" is inappropriate. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

lol μηδείς (talk) 21:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I have another example for you, Jack. I once asked someone in a chat room their gender, and their response was "f u". Now, "f, u" would have meant "I am female, and you are ?", but "f u" seemed to have an entirely different meaning. :-) StuRat (talk) 19:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Verily. Did you take up their offer?  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:03, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Felix Unger. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Did that take you three hours to figure out?! 121.44.4.39 (talk) 05:27, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a Cockney saying he has an appetite for tabby: "Got the felix 'unger right bad I 'ave". :-) StuRat (talk) 04:51, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

If felix is fingers after, ees still ungry ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Not to interupt the highly hilarious joke fest here, but felix doesn't mean "cat". It means "happy". Felis means "cat". You may now carry on. --Jayron32 05:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Felix the Cat. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Never let the truth get in the way of a good joke, I always say. --Jayron32 05:48, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"...you'll laugh so hard, your sides will ache, your heart will go pitter-pat..." StuRat (talk) 06:47, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like you could die laughing. And if you're old enough to remember Felix the Cat, you might want to be wary of overstimulated felicity. :) 04:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

But cats have 9 lives. :-) StuRat (talk) 17:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Comic publishers that use vector graphics

What companies out there have artists use vector graphics for their print comics? --Melab±1 ☎ 17:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Our article Negima! Magister Negi Magi#Manga says: "Early in the production of the manga, Akamatsu began using CG background elements"... 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC) Martin.

Copyright question

There might be a better place for this question, if so, please let me know. I have a picture of a piece of modern sculpture (by Fernando Botero ) that went on a world tour. Does this mean that because I took the picture in the USA (which does not have freedom of panorama) that i can't use it, but if I found a picture of the same sculpture taken in Paris, France (which I believe does have freedom of panorama) that I could use the latter but not the former? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey Carptrash. The best place to ask this is at WP:MCQ, since people that patrol that noticeboard tend to be better versed in Wikipedia's copyright policy. --Jayron32 20:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it the other way around? France definitely doesn't have freedom of panorama (as you can see in Freedom_of_panorama#Europe, and as I can attest from attempting to upload pictures of modern French buildings on Commons...). Adam Bishop (talk) 21:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I will try asking elsewhere and change France to Spain. Thanks fro the links, all. Carptrash (talk) 23:12, 10 September 2012 (UTC)