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--- i_m_from_missouri [2024/12/15 02:39] – 71.71.5.21
+++ i_m_from_missouri [2024/12/16 03:11] (current) – kc
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 Anyone who learns this lesson will not casually pass on as factual something that is actually unsubstantiated. Even if the Dalai Lama told you, it still might be factually incorrect.
-Anyone who is given such an affirmation by an authority figure will not automatically give it credence. If it is important enough to worry about, it is important enough to check it out. If your MD tells you one thing that leaves you in doubt, you can always ask for a second opinion and/or do yourown research.
+Anyone who is given such an affirmation by an authority figure will not automatically give it credence. If it is important enough to worry about, it is important enough to check it out. If your MD tells you one thing that leaves you in doubt, you can always ask for a second opinion and/or do your own research.
 If, say, the African American community in West Philadelphia around 1970 knew how to vet information proactively, the politicions who make excuses for why their junior high students were given old English textbooks centered on a Dick and Jane world in the 1950s would have to come up with some real answers.
-To forestall objections based on the fact that garter snakes generally give only defensive bite, that most bites do not put human extremities deep into the mouths of these snakes so there could not be any envenomation, and the fact that when envenomations have been observed they have not bother the victim much, let me point out some things I have learned about other instances of venoms. The effectiveness of venoms can often if not always be dependent on the ratio between the quantity of venom received and the body mass of the victim.A full envenomation by a black widow spider that would not cause serious damage to a 250 pound man might easily kill a 90 pound child. It must be rare for a human to be bitten in such a way that the rear teeth of the garter snake stat engaged for any length of time. The child in this story weighed less than an adult and the envenomation continued until the child died. A third thing to keep in mind is that some individuals may be extraordinarily vulnerable to a particular venom.
+To forestall objections based on the fact that garter snakes generally give only defensive bite, that most bites do not put human extremities deep into the mouths of these snakes so there could not be any envenomation, and the fact that when envenomations have been observed they have not bothered the victim much, let me point out some things I have learned about other instances of venoms. The effectiveness of venoms can often if not always be dependent on the ratio between the quantity of venom received and the body mass of the victim.A full envenomation by a black widow spider that would not cause serious damage to a 250 pound man might easily kill a 90 pound child. It must be rare for a human to be bitten in such a way that the rear teeth of the garter snake stat engaged for any length of time. The child in this story weighed less than an adult and the envenomation continued until the child died. A third thing to keep in mind is that some individuals may be extraordinarily vulnerable to a particular venom.
 Back to the central idea, everybody generally has an idea of what things don't matter enough to take special care. What difference does it make whether you drink Coke or Pepsi. And we also have people we have learned rarely give us a bum steer. I trust my neighbors to tell me which auto shop does good work. But for the big issues, even if it's your best teacher, it's better to "trust and verify" than to make a decision that backfires on you. For instance, it is scary how much misinformation veterinarians and even MDs sometimes give out on rabies. A friend of mine told me that carpenter bees do not have venom. If he told his mistaken idea to somebody wno believed him and confidently grabbed a female carpenter bee, that person would have received a massive dose of powerful venom. (It turns out this friend had only played with male carpenter bees. Male bees do not have stingers.The females do have stingers.)