Reposted from NYTimes: "Worshiping the False Idols of Wellness."

This blog post is almost exact copy of The New York Times post "Worshiping the False Idols of Wellness." Its link is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/style/wellness-industrial-complex.html

Charcoal, "toxins" and other forms of nonsense are the backbone of the wellness-industrial complex.
by Jen Gunter. Aug 1, 2018.

Before we go further, I'd like to clear something up: Wellness is not the same as medicine. Medicine is the science of reducing death and disease, and increasing long and healthy lives. Wellness used to mean a blend of health and happiness. Something that made you feel good or brought joy and was not medically harmful - perhaps a massage or a walk along the beach. But it has become a false antidote to the fear of modern life and death. The wellness industry takes medical terminology, such as "inflammation" or "free radicals," and levigates it to the point of incomprehension. The resulting product is a D.I.Y. medicine for longevity that comes with a confidence that science can only aspire to achieve. Let's take the trend of adding a pinch of activated charcoal to your food or drink. While the black color is strikingly unexpected and alluring, it's sold as a supposed "detox." Guess what? It has the same efficacy as a spell from the local witch. Maybe it's a matter of aesthetics. Wellness potions in beautiful jars with untested ingredients of unknown purity are practically packaged for Instagram. I also want to clear up what toxins actually are: harmful substances produced by some plants, animals and bacteria (and, for them, charcoal is no cure). "Toxins," as defined by the peddlers of these dubious cures, are the harmful effluvia of modern life that supposedly roam our bodies, causing belly bloat and brain fog, like a microscopic Emmanuel Goldstein from George Orwell's "1984." For without these toxins there can be no search for purity - "clean" tampons, "clean" food, "clean" makeup. There are also sacred acts and rituals to follow, and if you have unlocked the right achievement level you will release your inner goddess.
Medicine and religion have long been deeply intertwined, and it's only relatively recently that they have separated. The wellness-industrial complex seeks to resurrect that connection. It's like a medical throwback, as if the halcyon days of health were 5,000 years ago. Ancient cleansing rituals with a modern twist - supplements, useless products and scientifically unsupported tests. The dietary supplements that are the backbone of wellness make up a $30 billion a year business despite studies showing they have no value for longevity (only a few vitamins have proven medical benefits, like folic acid before and during pregnancy and vitamin D for older people at risk of falling). Modern medicine wants you to get your micronutrients from your diet, which is inarguably the most natural source. Yet the wellness-industrial complex has managed to pervert that narrative and make supplements a necessary tool for nonsensical practices, such as boosting the immune system or fighting the war on inflammation. The resulting fluorescent yellow urine from multivitamins may provide a false sense of efficacy, but it's a fool's gold (and the consequence of excessive B2 that couldn't possibly be absorbed). So what's the harm of spending money on charcoal for nonexistent toxins or vitamins for expensive urine or grounding bedsheets to better connect you with the earth's electrons? Here's what: the placebo effect or "trying something natural" can lead people with serious illnesses to postpone effective medical care. Every doctor I know has more than one story about a patient who died because they chose to try to alkalinize their blood or gambled on intravenous vitamins instead of getting cancer care. Data is emerging that cancer patients who opt for alternative medical practices, many promoted by companies that sell products of questionable value, are more likely to die. Moving the kind of product that churns the wheels of the wellness-industrial complex requires a constant stream of fear and misinformation. Look closer at most wellness sites and at many of their physician partners, and you'll find a plethora of medical conspiracy theories: Vaccines and autism. The dangers of water fluoridation. Bras and breast cancer. Cellphones and brain cancer. Heavy metal poisoning. AIDS as a construct of Big Pharma.
Most people think they will be immune to these fringe ideas, but science says otherwise. We all mistake repetition for accuracy, a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect, and knowledge about subject matter doesn't necessarily protect you. Even a single exposure to information that sounds like it could be quasi-plausible can increase the perception of accuracy. Belief in medical conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is suppressing "natural" cures, increases the likelihood that a person will take dietary supplements. So to keep selling supplements and earthing mats and coffee enema kits and the other revenue generating merchandise, you can't just spark fear. You must constantly stoke its flames. There can be no modern wellness industry without medical conspiracy theories. Even if you completely eschew these sites for the chicanery they are, people who come to believe this misinformation can affect health by both their failure to vaccinate and by voting against evidence-based health policies. Also, as a doctor I take it to heart when I hear about the latest measles outbreak or when a friend spends money on a therapy that can't possibly help. When patients ask for an unsupported test - such as urine or salivary hormone levels, often promoted on wellness sites - I have to explain that I can't in good faith order a useless test. I also don't want people to die. So why do people turn to wellness? There are symptoms that I believe have been with us since the beginning of time, so common that they are likely part of the human experience: fatigue, bloat, low libido, episodic pain, loss of vigor. When medicine can only offer a therapy, not a cure, or when doctors give undesired answers - suggesting attention to sleep hygiene, for instance - it isn't hard to see how the intoxicating confidence and theater of wellness could beckon. Medical illness is also scary. Who wouldn't want to take IV vitamins instead of chemotherapy? I admit that doctors can learn something from wellness. It's clear that some people looking for healers, so we must find ways to serve that need that are medically ethical. We doctors can do more to provide factual information about hazardous substances, such as carcinogens and endocrine disrupting chemicals, in products and the environment from medically vetted sites with no products to sell, such as National Cancer Institute and the National Endocrine Society. Many people - women especially - have long been marginalized and dismissed by medicine, but the answer does not lie in predatory conspiracy theories, a faux religion or expensive magic. In its current form, wellness isn't filling in the gaps left by medicine. It's exploiting them.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an obstetrician and gynecologist practicing in California.

I have copied this text from NYTimes, because recently I met some people from Herbalife who claim that they provide wellness for their clients. I come across this text and it enlightened me. I share it hoping that it will enlighten many more from getting trapped in wellness mania. Thanks.

Doğal seçilim rastlantısal bir süreç değildir.

İddia: Doğal seçilim rastlantısal bir süreçtir.
"Doğal seçilim kör tesadüflere dayanan, rastlantısal bir süreçtir. Oysa, olasılık hesabının ilkeleri, yaşamın rastlantısal olarak ortaya çıkamayacığını gösterir. Örneğin bir DNA molekülünün ortaya olasılığı 1/10600 ise, bu kadar düşük bir olasılık nasıl gerçekleşebilir?"

Yanıt: Doğal seçilim rastlantısal bir süreç değildir.
Osman Gürel'in Yaşamın Kökeni (Pan Yayıncılık, Ekim 1999) ve Elliott Sober'in Philosophy of Biology (Westview Press, 2000) adlı kitaplarından derlenmiştir.

Evrim kuramı, canlıların temel niteliği olan DNA gibi dev moleküllerin tümüyle birdenbire ve rastlantı sonunda ortaya çıktığı görüşünde değildir. Bu nedenle, birdenbire oluşumla ilgili olarak verilen olasılık hesapları geçersizdir.
Bir süreç rastlantısal olduğunda, farklı olanakların gerçekleşme ihtimalleri neredeyse aynı olur. Örneğin, adil bir piyango çekilişinde her biletin kazanma şansı aynıdır. Diğer yandan, farklı olanaklar eşitsiz bir olasılık dağılımı gösterdiğinde, süreç rastlantısal olmaktan çıkar. Sigara içer, yağlı beslenir ve spor yapmazsam ve siz tam tersini yaparsanız, benim uzun bir ömür sürme olasılığım sizinkine göre azalabilir. Böyle bir durumda kimin ölüp kimin yaşayacağı rastlantısal olmaktan çıkar. Rastlantısallığın evrim kuramındaki yerini açıklayan hipotezler de vardır. Ancak doğal seçilim eşitsiz olasılıklarla ilgilidir, bu nedenle rastlantısal bir süreç değildir.
Yaratılışçılar, zaman zaman "rastlantısal" olarak tanımladıkları doğal seçilim için, bir araba mezarlığında esen hortum benzetmesini kullanırlar. Hortum, hurda parçalarını "rastlantısal" olarak yeniden düzenler. Söz konusu "rastlantısal" eylemden bir araba ortaya çıkması son derece düşük bir olasılıktır. Aynısının doğal seçilim için de geçerli olduğunu söylerler: Onlara göre doğal seçilim, "rastlantısal" olduğundan düzensizlikten düzen yaratmaz.
İddiadaki gibi, bu düşünme biçimine matematiksel kesinliği varmış görüntüsü vermek de mümkündür. Araba mezarlığındaki parçaların milyarlarca biçimde bir araya getirilebilecekleri düşünüldüğünde, bunlardan sadece çok küçük bir kısmının iş görür bir araba oluşturacağı görülür. Bu nedenle hortumun böyle bir sonuca götüremeyeceğini söylemek oldukça risksiz bir iddiadır. Bu savın yukarıda bahsedilen "rastlantısallık" tanımıyla bağlantısı hemen fark edilecektir. İma edilen, her düzenlenişin diğerleri kadar olası olduğudur. Öte yandan doğal seçilimi her sonuca aynı olasılıkta ulaşabilen bir süreç olarak görmek büyük bir hatadır.
Gerçekte, kendi içinde dengeli ve tutarlı basamaklar adım adım karmaşıklaşan molekülleri uzun bir süreç içinde meydana getirmiştir. Evrimin yürütücü gücü, kalıtsal moleküllerdeki rastlantısal değişimler ve bunları etkileyen doğal seçilimdir. Biyolojik önemi olan moleküller şans eseri ortaya çıkmazlar. Kinetik ve termodinamik kararlılık, kimi yüzeylere tutunabilme, kendini kopyalayabilme gibi özel niteliklere sahip olanlar doğal olarak seçilirler ve arada ortaya çıkan küçük rastlantılar dışında, karmaşık organik moleküller, bulundukları ortama egemen olurlar.
Doğal seçilim, içinde bulunduğu koşullara olağanüstü uyum göstermiş türlerin var oluşlarının nedenidir. Böylece, bütün türlerin üyeleri, evrimin mekanizmasına göre yeni bir deneme sayılabilir. Doğal seçilim, canlıların görünür yapılarını açıkladığı gibi, evrimin salt rastlantısal değişimlerden ibaret bir olay olmamasının da nedenidir. Böylece uyum kuramayan "yanlışlar" silinir, "doğrular" sürer.


Bilim İnsanları. "Doğal seçilim rastlantısal bir süreç değildir." Harun Yahya Safsatası ve Evrim Gerçeği, edited by Nalan Mahsereci, 2.baskı, Bilim ve Gelecek kitaplığı, 2009, pp. 198-199

I tried to show the source as MLA format of Chapter citation from a textbook in print as shown below.
Last name, First name of the chapter author. “Title of the chapter or section.” Title of the Textbook, edited by First name Last name of editor, version, Publisher, Year published, page or page range.

I don't claim that above text is true or false. I just come over it and decided to write it here. Thanks.

My Browser(they are very very slow) Benchmark tests(kinda) 2018

I have had many problems with Mozilla Firefox. I'm tired of Firefox browser, it is very slow despite the claims that it is very fast. I run multiple different tests

during benchmark test, drowsy, slow firesucks(firefox)

on my different browsers and I want to share them with you. You will decide which browser is the fastest.
My Operating System is Windows 10 64 bit.

Microsoft Edge 17 web basemark score:

MS Edge 17 Jetstream score:

MS Edge 17 Speedometer score:

It is too difficult to MS Edge 17 to handle the ARES-6 test:

Finally MS Edge 17 finished its ARES-6 test:

MS Edge 17 MotionMark score:

Google Chrome 67 web basemark score:

Google Chrome 67 Jetstream score:

Google Chrome 67 Speedometer score:

Google Chrome 67 ARES-6 score:

Google Chrome 67 MotionMark score:

Mozilla Firefox 60 Web basemark score:

Mozilla Firefox 60 Jetstream score:

Mozilla Firefox 60 Speedometer score:

Mozilla Firefox 60 ARES-6 score:

Mozilla Fire(sucks)fox 60 totally stuck when I run MotionMark test on it:

Fire(sux)fox stuck again:

Finally, Mozilla Firefox 60 managed to finish MotionMark test:

Opera 53 Web basemark score:

Opera 53 Jetsream score:

Opera 53 Speedometer score:

Opera 53 ARES-6 score:

Opera 53 MotionMark score:

After all those tests, I don't know which browser is faster, but I do know which is the slowest. I think, Mozilla Firefox is the slowest of all browsers listed here. I used Firefox for last 6-8 years, but over the time Firefox turned into firesucks. It was faster long time ago, but it is very slow now. I don't want to use MS Edge or Google Chrome. I thought of using Chromium, which is kind-of open source version of Google Chrome, but it turns out that Chromium isn't present at the moment for Windows OS. I may use Vivaldi browser, but the lack of commonly shareable bookmarks makes that idea difficult. I wish I had a site where I can store my bookmarks and I could switch between the browsers whenever I wanted. Thanks.

Edit on 10 June 2018, at 21:17 Istanbul time:
Vivaldi 1.96 Web basemark score:

Vivaldi 1.96 jetstream score:

Vivaldi 1.96 Speedometer score:

Vivaldi browser 1.96 ARES-6 score:

Vivaldi browser 1.96 MotionMark score:

I think Google Chrome is faster than other browsers, at least benchmark results point out that, I guess.

Metrics	MS Edge	Chrome	Firefox	Opera	Vivaldi
Web Basemark	180.11	307.89	48.23	363.03	272.94
JetStream(big good)	138.64	105.27	148.01	108.41	146.18
Speedometer(runs/min)	23.3	84.0	29.5	46.6	65.5
ARES-6(ms)	127.25	32.17	111.25	33.96	50.93
MotionMark	245.92	265.42	176.25	181.02	231.99
Overall	Bad	The Best	The Worst	Good	Good

This test was run on 10 June 2018 at PC with Intel 3.50 GHz Processor, 8 GB RAM and Win 10 Pro 64-bit.