Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 September 21

= September 21 =

White poverty in America
states, "Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press. The gauge defines 'economic insecurity' as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent. Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones."

Who are the authors of the Oxford University Press measure described? EllenCT (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Is it any of these? 142.134.215.140 (talk) 13:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I can't say for certain, but the authors of may know. Thanks. EllenCT (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Population Gap
Why central (east of the Rockies but west of the Mississippi) North America so sparsely populated? Is it as simple as a lack of water routes? All of the population centres are on major lakes, coasts and rivers, so this seems like the likely answer, but what accounts for Denver, Calgary, or Kansas City say, but not much else? This isn't to say that these and other cities aren't meaningful, but there is nothing like the density or sprawl of Chicago, LA and the Northeast Megalopolis. Mingmingla (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * WAG warning. The middle of the continent is good farmland, the Great Plains. Farming = low population density. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:19, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The answer is: What is there in the central part of the U.S. that would have made a good site for a city? Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, etc.  are where they are because of what is where they are.  That is, the local physical geography makes them ideal locations for large population centers to grow.  Those places aren't, by and large, in Iowa or Nebraska.  -- Jayron  32  23:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Chicago is the biggest city of the midlands because it borders the Mississippi and the Hudson rivers by way of the Erie Canal, the same for Buffalo, New York. St. Louis, Missouri is the easiest southernmost east-west passage of the Mississippi.  New Orleans, Memphis, Tennessee, and Pittsburgh are local riparian trade foci of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.  Denver, Colorado is an east-west railroad nexus.  Other central areas like the Black Hills and cities like Dallas, Texas are the beneficiaries of gold and oil wealth.  The topic is worth a doctoral study, so you need t be more specific if you want a more focused answer. μηδείς (talk) 02:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Chicago doesn't really interact with the Mississippi very much, as it doesn't naturally connect. But it certainly exploits the Great Lakes, as do all the "rust belt" cities. There's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. The coasts are naturally the first areas to develop, especially clustering around the mouths of rivers. As canals and roads and eventually railroads are built, opening up the interior lands, various communities of various sizes are established at intervals to service those entities. The interstate highway system has undergone a similar phenomenon. And these developing "tank towns" generate needs of their own that can help keep them going and growing. A place like Kansas City served both the railroad industry and the cattle industry. As to why some areas are not well-populated, it's a matter of whether they ran the railroads and interstates through those areas or not - and what can be done with the land. Iowa is good for agriculture. Wyoming, not so much. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I would take issue with the part about Chicago and the Mississippi system. 17 million tons of freight a year travels through Lockport (the first lock downstream of Chicago on the Illinois Waterway). The partly manmade connection opened in 1848 and was very important in Chicago's early growth. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure. It's just that Illinois "borders" the Mississippi, but Chicago does not. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't think it was necessary to point out that Chicago is connected to the Mississippi river system by means of a canal, but doing so doesn't hurt. μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * In any case, the Ohio-Mississippi River system, and its various tributaries, remains a huge conduit for commerce. The lack of such conduits in much of the great west accounts at least in part for the relatively sparse population. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:04, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

How many (notable) Roman Catholics and ex-Roman Catholics are also researchers/scientists using embryonic stem cell research?
I am told an interesting story about a Korean scientist who lost his credentials by faking results in human cloning. I checked out the story and navigated my way to the Wikipedia about it, which reported that he was formerly Roman Catholic. I find that note interesting, seeing that embryonic stem cell research is ethically controversial. Anyway, are there other Roman Catholic or ex-Roman Catholic scientists in embryonic stem cell research? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:59, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Do yo mean people who are notable as Roman Catholics? The last such I can think of in science are Georges Lemaître and Gregor Mendel.
 * Those two probably weren't using embryonic stem cells for their research. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:23, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's why I expressed doubt about people notable as Catholics and described these as the only ones I could think of in science. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Oliver Brüstle is one, see this story in Nature. There are surely many others. 142.134.215.140 (talk) 12:58, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I will take this opportunity to note that with 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, you will find that we are a varied people who don't all toe the line on such teachings. Without a reference I can't prove it, but with 1 in 6 people in the world being Catholic, it is virtually certain that there are many scientists in embryonic stem cell research who are Catholic. Mingmingla (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Ooh, Mingmingla, I am telling. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * There may even be Catholics who have (gasp) provided the embryos for embryonic stem cell research! (what, did you think they all came from God Fearing Protestants?) Blueboar (talk) 00:32, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

With questions like this (and I have run into them a lot in academia), the question always turns on the answer to this query, "Who is gathering the data that might answer this question?" There are lots of interesting questions one can ask but if there is no source of this information, ah, well, these fascinating questions go unanswered. And there are millions of unanswered questions because there are not enough financial resources or trained people to address them.

Approach these kinds of questions by considering, "Who would be in a position to know the religious affiliations of scientists involved in embryonic stem cell research?" Well, there are a couple of possibilities...it could be someone conducting social scientific survey into the stem cell issue but there would have to be a lot of trust involved for scientists to reveal their religious backgrounds to that person(s) (or the promise of anonymity). Still, even with assurances, it might be seen as an intrusive question.

A second source of this information would be if there were professional associations which had religious affiliation as part of its membership. For example, the Association for Sociology of Religion was originally a professional organization for Roman Catholic scholars of the sociology of religion who felt unwelcome in other SoR organizations. One no longer needs to be a Roman Catholic to be a member now, of course. But some of these types of groups still exist. The issue here is that these are usually professional support groups for academics working in a secular setting and their existence is not well-publicized because they rarely take on a public role. Plus, if you located such a group, it is unlikely that they would just give you their membership list.

So, the only other source of information that could address this question would be self-identification, from the scientists involved, either in interviews or the books they publish. You might have some luck with interviews but in the "hard sciences" (as opposed to the social sciences), scientists are discouraged from "writing themselves into the book", that is, incorporating their own subjective views and experiences into the subjects they write about. There are exceptions but even still, this would be anecdotal information and you'd have a small sample.

Sorry for the long answer but I frequently ran into this myself in my own graduate work and I see in on Wikipedia...plenty of insightful, interesting questions are asked but if there is no systematic way of gathering this data and if no one is working on the topic, we're all out of luck. Of course, there are always new scholars graduating, dissertations being written, funding sources that can be reapplied to different projects so there is a possibility that these questions could be addressed in the future. Liz Read! Talk! 00:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Science and religion are often not as incompatible as it sometimes seems. You might be interested in the Society of Ordained Scientists, here . SemanticMantis (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium's oldest and largest university opened it's own stem cell research institute in 2005. I assume a Catholic university has at least a few Catholic researchers... Catherine Verfaillie, head of the institute was critical of the EU decision in 2006 on financing of embryonic stem cell research, calling it "more liberal than the U.S., but hypocritical", because of the condition that no EU money can go to research projects where human embryos are destroyed. Ssscienccce (talk) 13:34, 24 September 2013 (UTC)