The epidemiological studies, as I understand it, make the association between claims of flossing and improved tooth health unambiguously exist (though not huge). HHS didn't analyse them and find them too week, exactly; they simply want controlled studies for this purpose (for good reason, of course). Nonetheless, everything we know makes it sound like flossing is at least a little effective.
Whether the effect justifies spending minutes every week, who knows.
For what it's worth, the situation isn't really that we've established that it isn't clear flossing helps, it's that we haven't established with the kind of evidence HHS requires that flossing helps. Those sorts of studies are hard to do reliably with things like flossing.
GP clearly thinks so to, which is why they presented the question, clearly trying to accuse GGP of a similar equivocation.
Your actual claim is ridiculous. It is most certainly not the case that believing in God can only connect to Stage One morality. Even in the face of a punishing god, this wouldn't be true, but not all gods are punishing anyway, making it even more off.
Convincing people to offer others programming help on the internet isn't a special accomplishment of SO. From usenet to modern mailing lists to forums to IRC, there are tons and tons of thriving venues for it. The gamification might have helped SO's popularity some, but taking time out of their busy lives to answer others' questions was alive and well.
SO is a dangerous trash heap. It doesn't encourage helping people make good programs; it answers extremely literal questions. Speed of post is important. Style of post is important. Blatantly wrong answers ar... (read more)
"Because the dollar is dirty" is one of those pained, stretched explanations people come up with to explain why they do what they do, not the actual reason (even in some small part) the bookmark was invented and became popular.
I assume the original intent of the quote was about romantic partners, where it means, "Instead of searching so hard, make sure to prioritize being awesome for its own sake."
I was trying to repurpose it to express that action is better than preparing for something to fall into place more generally, and I think it's appealed to people.
Quite possibly.
The epidemiological studies, as I understand it, make the association between claims of flossing and improved tooth health unambiguously exist (though not huge). HHS didn't analyse them and find them too week, exactly; they simply want controlled studies for this purpose (for good reason, of course). Nonetheless, everything we know makes it sound like flossing is at least a little effective.
Whether the effect justifies spending minutes every week, who knows.