Cristina flexes her critical thinking muscles and investigates the legitimacy of why 10,000 steps a day is promoted as the magical number to stay healthy and fit. Adam looks at statistics to check claims that fatal anti-transgender violence is a national epidemic in the U.S. Lastly, Darren gives an overview of Pedro Domingos’ book, “The Master Algorithm”, a thought-provoking look at machine learning.
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10,000 Steps?
Guardian: Watch your step: why the 10,000 daily goal is built on bad science
Atlantic: What 10,000 Steps Will Really Get You
BBC: Do we need to walk 10,000 steps a day?
HuffPost: What Science Actually Says About Taking 10,000 Steps A Day
Harvard: 10,000 steps a day — or fewer?
Dave Asprey: Walking 10,000 Steps A Day Is Bad Advice, Finds New Report
10,000 Steps Daily
NCBI: How many steps/day are enough? for adults
Wiki: Pedometer
JAMA: Association of Step Volume and Intensity With All-Cause Mortality in Older Women
Participaction
Transgender Violence A U.S. Epidemic?
Transgender homicide rate ‘remarkably low’ despite cries of ‘national epidemic’ – Washington Times
Transgender homicide rate ‘remarkably low’ despite cries of ‘national epidemic’ – Washington Times
Are We in the Midst of a Transgender Murder Epidemic? – Quillette
A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in America in 2018 – HRC
Understanding the Transgender Community – HRC
Homicide statistics by gender – Wikipedia
The Master Algorithm
The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos (at Amazon)
Hi Checkers,
Bravo for your exploration of the stats on anti-trans violence. And good for you for taking on this radioactive topic, especially in Canada, where Meghan Murphy needs round-the-clock bodyguards because she has the temerity to demand that women’s shelters, women’s prisons and women’s sports exclude transwomen and remain safe spaces for women only.
Anyay, I appreciate your thoughtful dissection of the issue. I’d also like to direct you and your listeners to a YouTube video by Sophia Narwitz, a video game designer and transwoman. Narwitz is one of those rare transwomen who has no problem acknowledging that she is, in fact, a biological male. Her video reports on the supposed epidemic of murders of trans individuals and digs into the back stories of specific deaths. Her findings reveal that although these deaths were reported by the HRC as hate crimes against trans people, many of them involved the police, as the so-called victims were brandishing weapons. In other cases, the victims were killed by friends or died due to illness or other causes unrelated to their trans status. Narwitz also presents a complex political analysis (i.e., her opinions) of the HRC’s motivation for framing these statistics as examples of anti-trans violence. Very interesting, especially coming as it does from a transgender woman.
“The Trans Murder Epidemic is a Lie”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHmQKSENazg
This doesn’t mean that transgender people are never the victims of hate crimes. Of course we know that it happens, and as with any murder that targets a specific group, it’s horrible. But why the disingenuous hype on the part of HRC? For what purpose? Isn’t the truth enough?