Saturday, October 05, 2024

The dangerous chimera called 'scientism'

The crusade to discredit all fact-using professions is an existential threat to us all -- a deliberate effort to lobotomize-away any influence by folks who actually know stuff.  

One of the core elements of this campaign is to deride modern science as a 'mere religion'. A religion called "scientism'. That cult incantation - aiming to cancel out all nerds and every kind of 'expert' - is promoted in this article.

One raver, denouncing Scientific America's endorsement of pro-fact candidates, said: 

"...worshippers at this new altar seem determined to usher in a new post-modern utopia in which science and religion are fused once again. In that light, they cannot help but endorse Kamala Harris because their consciences won’t allow them to do otherwise. It’s not a choice dictated by science, but by theology."

Parse it. The fundamental goal is to demean fact-professions by their own standards, by calling them (without any hint of evidence, or irony) mere boffin-lemmings, yelping in unison as they worship the current paradigm and repress dissenting views.

Of course this is the masturbation-incantation of morons who know nothing about how science works, but desperately seek to justify their war against it. To which I routinely reply:

"Step up now with $$$ wager stakes.
Let's start by forming an eclectic group to visit the research university nearest to you. 
There we'll knock on twenty random doors, to see if even one person matches your egregiously dumb and insulting slander toward those who strive to advance understanding of the universe.*

"If you knew any scientists at all, you'd know we are the most COMPETITIVE beings that this species - that this planet - ever produced. A young scientist only gets anywhere by finding some corner of a standard model and poking at it until something gives. And thus the model improves... or else gets replaced.

"In fact RIGHT NOW I demand that you name a fact-based profession that is not warred upon by Fox n' pals. Go on, name one. One fact profession whose members aren't mass-fleeing your mad cult. (I can name one, but can you?)

"Not just science but also medicine and law and civil service, ranging all the way to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. *

"The latter, mostly lifelong republicans, can now see that the Republican Party has become a Kremlin-serving treason cult. Few of those current and former officers have become committed Democrats! But almost all have left the GOP madness in disgust and taken long showers."


*(And yes, as we enter the danger days of October surprises, even possible Reichstag fires and McVeighsions, we need to pray for the skilled dedication and good work of 80,000 fine men and women heroes in the F... B...I...)


== The underlying narrative of the 'scientism' schtick ==

The entire premise of this campaign to discredit every center of influence other than oligarchy is simple. It boils down to smart people are stupid. 

Parse it. Sure, we all know that:

"High intelligence and knowledge don't automatically make you wise." 

That's a truth we all understand. 

But today's Kremlin-led, foxite cult to sabotage the West has converted that truth into the following lie: 

"High intelligence and knowledge automatically make you unwise."

When it is parsed that purely, they always shrink back and deny it. But they also know that psychotically rephrased version is exactly the campaign pushed by the entire Fox-o-Sphere cult, in their war vs. all fact using professions. 

In their relentless yammer campaigns against universities! The flawed jewels built by the GI Bill generation, that have been responsible for most of the wonders that - for 80 years - truly made America great..


== The current U.S. struggle ==

 

Again, want super-strong evidence that the Republican Party has changed and been hijacked? Well, there are the Cheneys… and hundreds of former GOP officials, including almost every high ‘adult in the room’ during Trump’s Presidency, who have issued public denunciations with signature pages ten or more pages long. 


(There will be NO such 'adults in the room,' during any Trump II.)


And then there’s this…

…showing how likely it is that Ronald Reagan would despise today’s Republican love affair with the same ‘evil empire’ - 
(slightly relabeled) - that he fought against.  I show jpegs of Reagan’s own 1970 re-election flyer. Only jeepers, look at how progressive and liberal he was on so many issues, compared to today’s open Confederates. Golly.



== And finally, pictures are more persuasive! ==

 

I worked hard on this image, which encapsulates in one montage a partial panoply of deplorables who are best buds with Donald Trump. It has so much content, you may need to copy and expand, before you share it around. But in this case the sheer number makes it hard for residually sane Republicans (and we all know a couple) to shrug off. 


And peeling away just half a million such residual decents is really all we need. So use this!



Get them to look at the gloating faces of Trump & Lavrov & Kisliak in January 2017, when they were DT's first and most-beloved guests in the Oval Office, long before any ally, giggling that the USA had fallen to them so perfectly.


 Look at the faces up close and read the caption. And remember Trump raving that he "fell in love' with Kim Jong Un. 


 This is why almost all of DT's former national security folks, from Defense and State to intel agencies to serving officers have called him a direct threat to the nation. But that won't last if he's elected. Those folks will all be arrested and silenced. There will be no further 'adults in the room."

 But we proved resilient.  And we will, yet again. This renaissance is just beginning.

144 comments:

Tony Fisk said...

Sarah Kendzior (a journalist/author based in St. Louis) sums up Trump's character in one sentence:

"Who's friends with *five* pedophiles?"

Tony Fisk said...

That image of Trump and Saudis carressing their globe always reminds me of this scene from 'Sleeper', which the 'residually sane' might be aware of.

Larry Hart said...

Alfred Differ in previous comments:

Quantum mechanics has a baked in observer for wave function collapses and that confuses SO MANY students who fail to separate the human observer from the observer's test equipment.


I've often insisted that the cat in the Schroedinger's Cat scenario is itself an observer.

Tony Fisk said...

There is a meme showing a cat in a box, alongside another box with a cat in it.*
The caption reads 'Now things get interesting.'

* I do not believe any feline fatalities resulted from the creation of this meme.

Unknown said...

Tony,

There is no observer in this situation unless at least 1 cat is wearing a lab coat, Gary Larsen - style.

Pappenheimer

P.S. Regarding 'Scientism', this works strangely. I've met people who assured me that climate scientists are making it* all up for the grant money, but had no beef with science in general. Maybe it has to do selective ox-goring, or just propaganda against specific fields?

*'it' being AGW. Then again, One of these people had no awareness that the current human population was greater than at any previous era, and actually assumed it had fallen since biblical times....

Unknown said...

Then there was the born-again Intel LT who was irate at me for explaining that Iraq was majority Shia.
That is, USAF Intelligence Lieutenant. TBF, she spoke Russian, so that had probably been her specialty - but still, the CIA Factbook was right there online.

Pappenheimer

Larry Hart said...

Darrell E in previous comments:

It didn't help any that several of the notables that contributed to QM in the beginning thought that the observer had to be a mind, an agent. And that assumption persisted for decades among QM experts.


I can buy that in one sense. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The correct answer (IMHO) is that it doesn't matter if it made a sound or not. Only when someone hears the sound does the distinction make any difference.

What it it's a bunny or an insect or another tree that "hears" the sound? Again, it doesn't matter because none of them are asking the question as to whether a sound was made or not. It only matters to someone interested in the answer.

If there is a sapient observer, then that observe knows the answer to the question. Another potential observer does not (yet) know. So the waveform may have collapsed for person A, but not yet for person B. Or in Schroedinger's case, the cat knows it is still alive, but the person outside the box does not. The waveform has collapsed for the cat, but not (yet) for the human.

My wife is as much a nerd as I am, so we can say things to each other like this. Before our child was born and we (purposely) didn't know its gender, we said the baby existed as a probability wave that would only collapse when the birth revealed its gender. Now, because of the physical position of the body, I knew we had a daughter a non-zero number of seconds before my wife did. And she only knew because I said something out loud. So there was an interval of time in which the waveform had collapsed for me, but not yet for her.

In Our Host's uplift novels, the Traeki Asx is able to forestall waveforms collapsing when its* memory wax have not yet congealed. Or it thinks it can, anyway. A part of it knows that it is only fooling itself.

* Yes, it would have been too confusing for many listeners to keep saying "ers" instead of "its".

Larry Hart said...

Deleted and reposted for bad formatting...
Dr Brin in the main post:

The fundamental goal is to demean fact-professions by their own standards, by calling them (without any hint of evidence, or irony) mere boffin-lemmings, yelping in unison as they worship the current paradigm and repress dissenting views.


It reminds me of a scene in Atlas Shrugged* when the villains realize that the need John Galt's expertise, so they attempt to suck up to him and bribe him as if his goal was to have "his gang"--the industrialists--given special privileges by the government. They could not conceive of someone having different motivations from their own.

The religious fundamentalists I've encountered can't conceive of anyone not worshipping a supreme being. They assert that atheists worship the Devil or a leader like Stalin in place of God, or else place themselves as God.

Tony Fisk said...

There is no observer in this situation unless at least 1 cat is wearing a lab coat

... suggesting that the lab coat is the true observer: an (n-1)-dimensional 'brane seeking answers to the n-dimensional space in which it finds itself embedded.
----

Oh dear, the people who get it so wrong on climate change (yet who can control the weather) are predicting another hurricane for the Gulf. This one may be sending the Caribbean surging into Tampa by mid-week.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin in the main post:

The fundamental goal is to demean fact-professions by their own standards, by calling them (without any hint of evidence, or irony) mere boffin-lemmings, yelping in unison as they worship the current paradigm and repress dissenting views.


It reminds me of a scene in Atlas Shrugged * when the villains realize that the need John Galt's expertise, so they attempt to suck up to him and bribe him as if his goal was to have "his gang"--the industrialists--given special privileges by the government. They could not conceive of someone having different motivations from their own.

The religious fundamentalists I've encountered can't conceive of anyone not worshipping a supreme being. They assert that atheists worship the Devil or a leader like Stalin in place of God, or else place themselves as God.

* Yes, this devil can quote Ayn Rand when it suits my purposes

Larry Hart said...

Tony Fisk:

This one may be sending the Caribbean surging into Tampa by mid-week.


I wonder if Florida still gets 30 electoral votes if it is under water.

David Brin said...


“…people who assured me that climate scientists are making it* all up for the grant money,…”

I cannot believe the polemical stupidity of the goodguys in all of this, who never demand to see the actual list of ‘grants.”

Or to poll the METEOROLOGISTS who are vastly richer than climate scientists, from their increasingly awesome weather predictions that use the SAME science over shorter periods. The meteo folks don’t need no ‘grants’ and find me one – other than fake “meteorologists’ on TV – who doesn’t also warn of climate crises.

Such polemics can work... and our side are polemical idiots.

Alfred Differ said...

I suppose one of the hazards of having lived 'long enough' involves witnessing people taking a perfectly good word MEANT to demean a particular group's approach and use it incorrectly (in an opposite kind of way) to demean another group.

Scientism was coined to explain the allure some in the so-called softer sciences had for the tools of science. Numbers, formulae, optimizations, approximations, and ultimately the 'minimizing' approach laid out by Amalaie (Emmy) Noether for discovering equations of motion in problems with complicated constraints from state functions. If we can predict the motion of planets, surely we can predict the macro-variables of economics or the flows of history!

'Scientism' WAS an accusation from the start. Fingers were pointed at people abusing science tools in fields of study where they were inappropriate... or forced to fit problems that were themselves altered to make the fit look better. In economics, we predicted the behaviors of Homo Economicus while real humans used more complicated decision making processes beyond Utility.

I swear we are going to wind up with another situation were a word means something and its opposite. Like 'INFLAMMABLE.' Some fool probably saw the term 'scientism', thought they understood its definition, and now we've got a mess. Problem is, this new way is probably used by many more people since no one reads stuffy early-20th century Austrian economists in their original language much anymore.

Alfred Differ said...

Fallen!?! Yowza! Lots of folks ran around during the 60's and early 70's scared spitless about a Malthusian future. Mao's people were literally starving! Was this person too young to know?

Alfred Differ said...

Schroedinger's Cat scenario was constructed to point out something ludicrous. Set it all up so the experimenter doesn't know one way or the other and the wave function implies the cat is in both states. How could it be, though?!

Most students fail to notice, though, that Bohr didn't really believe a wave function was something real. It was a representation of what was known. It didn't HAVE to be real. All it had to do was contain the possibilities that could emerge from the experiment. Since the 'wave function' for the cat in the box DID contain the possibilities, it was just fine.

Just how 'real' can a Bayesian approach to discovering risks be? Just asking that shows a comprehension failure similar to the one some QM students make. Bohr dodged the cat scenario issue by not fretting about what is real. All he needed was a way to compute predictions. Who cares if the wave function is real? Philosophy students. That's who. 8)

What's neat about QM and many other bits and pieces of physics is that no matter how complex they seem at first, the more you study them, the more you find we've simplified the cosmos SO much (spherical cows!) that human minds are quite a bit more complex. Eventually you'll realize we've simplified it BECAUSE we can't solve the complicated problems.

What is stunning about it all is that the simple stuff works wonderfully well… for physics… and then people go and try to use these tools on activities involving complicated humans and expect them to work! WHY(!) would they possibly believe that? Physics only got simple when we REMOVED animating spirits with moral agency.

Der Oger said...

Not just science but also medicine and law and civil service, ranging all the way to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.

1) the war on islamist terror is not won and still ongoing. It can't be won with the present means of fighting it, and since our societies have become notably less liberal since 9/11, one can argue that OBL had some victories.

2) Right-wing extremism is far more common in our societies, yet authorities usually look the other way unless the pressure of the Public to persecute those crimes cannot be ignored anymore. I contribute it usually to institutional lazyness and similiar world views. In some cases, these agents have become Trojan horses.

3) While the cold war was won, those protectors infringed, and still do so in the current day on civil rights, legitimate political activism and minorities. They helped Juntas removing democratically elected leaders and created pretexts for hot wars (all of which feed into today's challenges).

reason said...

Larry Hart They assert that atheists worship the Devil or a leader like Stalin in place of God, or else place themselves as God.
Larry, it is this whole concept of worship that I don't understand. Why do they think you need to worship anything, or even why do they think that God appreciates being worshipped? It would just annoy me.

Tony Fisk said...

@reason How can order arise from chaos, if not by a directing intelligence? So why not (politely) ask said intelligence for a favour?

(As for the annoyance factor, it's just you asking, right? Ask any girl)

It's quite a leap of intuition to imagine how order can occur on its own, and such a leap is only prompted by the growing pile of noted inconsistencies in the viewpoint of (insert religion of choice)

Larry Hart said...

reason:

it is this whole concept of worship that I don't understand.


The worldview is alien to me, but given the character of modern-day Republicans, I would say that they worship out of fear. There's always something bigger and stronger meaning them harm, so they hope to suck up to the Biggest, Strongest One in hopes that He will smite their enemies.


Why do they think you need to worship anything, or even why do they think that God appreciates being worshipped? It would just annoy me.


I posed that very question to Dave Sim once, and I thought he'd appreciate it as a writer. He "created" many characters in his comic series and I get that sometimes characters "write themselves" and refuse to fit into the square peg their writer had designed. But I proposed to him that if his characters decided to spend all of their time kneeling and praising the glory of him--their writer and creator--that Dave would find it pretty annoying, and wish they would get back to the story.

Larry Hart said...

Der Oger:

Right-wing extremism is far more common in our societies, yet authorities usually look the other way unless the pressure of the Public to persecute those crimes cannot be ignored anymore. I contribute it usually to institutional lazyness and similiar world views.


I'd say the latter more than the former. Police often feel themselves on a war footing with respect to the population they need to both protect and control, and the very nature of the job involves forcing people to do stuff against their will. It's probably inevitable that many fascist or fascist-adjacent people are drawn to the profession.

Also, police are often the protectors of property against humans. The big boogeyman is therefore socialism. Fascism is at worst an embarrassing ally against the communist horde.


In some cases, these agents have become Trojan horses.


In America, I'd say that is true in many or most cases, outside of the major metropolitan areas or predominantly college towns.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

and our side are polemical idiots.


It may be that it feels futile to tilt at windmills. If the Trump voters can believe that Trump defended Obamacare and participated in a peaceful transfer of power, I don't see what presenting them with even more evidence is going to change.

reason said...

We KNOW from our own homes, that we have to work to create order. Absent us, the world reverts to chaos (the proverbial jungle). So I don't get what you are saying. And asking for a favour is not the same thing as worshipping. You can still ask for a favour from a shitty boss.

reason said...

Ah, by order from chaos you are specifically referring to biogenesis. OK, there we have to understand internal and external order and their relationship. Harder, but we still take out the garbage.

Unknown said...

Larry,

Bill Mauldin's opinion of the police, derived from his experience as part of the US Army that liberated Italy and France in WWII, was that they are natural collaborators who truckle to whoever was in power, as long as they get to keep their power over their patch. He knew that the policemen he was dealing with had stayed in power while their country was occupied by Nazis. Not many Captains Louis Renault in the ranks - and even Renault had to make a decision to change.

Pappenheimer

P.S. it is amusing, but sometimes annoying, when you have to rewrite a scene because the character objected. Which is the whole plot of Scalzi's "Red Shirts".

Unknown said...

Dr. Brin,

I have to echo Der Oger on this one - did we win the Warren Terra? Sure, Al Qaeda isn't a direct threat any more, but it seems like we're close to becoming its mirror image...

Pappenheimer

Larry Hart said...

Someone on this list once quoted an authority or other who noted that while soldiers will occasionally side with citizens engaged in civil protest, police never will.

David Brin said...

Pappenheimer: September 1944 the Paris police were central to the uprising and many of them had sheltered Resistance. And a few others were hung.

Characters who object: see BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.

The following is useful polemic and only 90% accurate. Useful though.

“You Putinists wage all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.”

locumranch said...

British historian Arnold Toynbee divided the 'Smart People' demographic into creative & dominant minorities, defining the creative minority as a committed group of smart people who neither control nor abandon the world but engage in it with 'redemptive participation', while identifying the dominant minority as any group of smart people who attempt to hold on (by force) to a position of inherited dominance & privilege which it has ceased to merit.

Toynbee, a strong proponent of the Cyclical History model, credited the rise of each & every civilization to a relatively selfless but productive creative minority which would (eventually) be replaced by a less deserving & more tyrannical dominant minority of smart people, precipitating civilizational collapse, as the Proletariat repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence.

By ignoring this extremely important historical distinction, Dr. Brin erroneously concludes that there exists some sort of universal hatred of Smart People which he variously & simultaneously refers to as the "War on Science, Facts, Education, Competence, Fact-Users & Smart People", even though the West absolutes loves those fact-users who serve the public interests, while simultaneously hating those dominating know-it-alls who arrogate authority & command.

For it is not "High intelligence and knowledge automatically makes one unwise," but it is one's insistence on COMMAND & AUTHORITY that proves one unwise, which brings us to where we are now in the Enlightened West.

If Smart People were so damn smart, then they would remember that they are our servants & not our masters, but they prove themselves idiots, time & again, and history repeats itself.


Best

Alfred Differ said...

...they would remember that they are our servants & not our masters...

Oh indeed, for we must remain servants to other masters.

I don't want to be anyone's master, but f*ck you all if you think I'll serve a master.

Seriously. I do NOT serve you.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

Characters who object: see BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.


That aspect of the novel blew my mind at age 16. It caused me to read everything that he ever wrote, and to this day, I regret never having had a forum like this one or like Dave Sim's lettercolumn in which to personally interact with Kurt Vonnegut.

Larry Hart said...

I recently re-viewed some of the Marvel movies, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That one came out 10 years ago, and if anything, it is more relevant today. If it were in theaters now, 40% of the audience would be cheering for Hydra as the good guys, and thinking that an algorithm that picks out potential enemies and kills them from space is an idea whose time has come.

Tony Fisk said...

@Larry so you think X-men is ripe for a remake?

Larry Hart said...

I'm not a fan of remakes in general. And a movie that I would like using the X-Men would probably not be recognized by today's readers.

Larry Hart said...

Yes, I wondered if anyone else noticed.

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/10/three-things-that-matter-from-last.html

One more thing is worth noting. Throughout the debate, Walz kept talking about what Harris would do as president. Vance kept talking about what Trump would do. Neither of them talked about what they themselves would do as vice-president because what they want to do doesn't fucking matter. It's not the job. As I've said, sure, they can offer advice, but ultimately, they are there to preside over the Senate or replace the president, both on an as-needed basis. Vance and Trump keep attacking Harris as if she is the president, saying that Harris has had four years to do shit. That's another goddamn lie. She's had four years to carry out the policies of Joe Biden that he wants her to carry out. But the policies come from him.

Lena said...

Reason - This is fantastic. I have been asking since I was maybe 15 why a good god wants to be worshipped, and does anyone who wants to be worshipped deserve to be? No one ever answers except with evil glares, so I guess these must be rhetorical questions.

Paul SB

Lena said...

Alfred, while I can confirm that scientism was an invective hurled by people in the phallic "hard sciences" at people in the "soft sciences" - it got hurled right back at them, and not just for their devotion to McNamara's Fallacy. It is likely to have a lot to do with what motivated post-modernism.

Paul SB

Larry Hart said...

I know why Saudi Arabia, Putin, and Netanyahu would greatly prefer a new Trump presidency to the alternative, and why they might try to manipulate the American electorate to that end. I'm not at all clear why Iran would want that.

Can someone enlighten me?

Lena said...

Dr. Brin,

"Parse it. The fundamental goal is to demean fact-professions by their own standards, by calling them (without any hint of evidence, or irony)..."
- This is such a standard tactic among the religious nut sacks that I was actually told to do this in Sunday School, along with the claim that since Hell is forever, saving souls is way more important than telling truth.

Paul SB

Tony Fisk said...

I never encountered that level of indoctrination at Sunday School. Then again:
1. being CofE, I was never exposed to the US evangelical version, and
2. I walked out of Sunday School, aged 8, so may have missed that bit.

Lena said...

Tony,

I probably grew up in a place that was a deviation or two from the mean in terms of fanaticism, and I suspect that the American version of the Church of England (Anglican) is a deviation or two from what you walked out of. (In my case, I didn't have much choice, since my mom dropped me off at a church that was too far to walk to).

Paul SB

locumranch said...

Alfred says:

I don't want to be anyone's master, but f*ck you all if you think I'll serve a master.

Seriously. I do NOT serve you.


From your lips, Alfred, to the ears of David Brin & every other Smart Person who assumes that their superior intellect confers upon them the right to dominate, command & rule over others.

Those are my sentiments exactly, each & every time some eggheaded intellectual tries to order me around for either 'my own good' or 'the greater public good'. Ef'em & the horse they rode in on, even & especially when those eggheads insist that my continued disobedience constitutes some phony 'War on Science, Competence & Smart People'.

I will NOT serve and we will NOT serve.


Best

duncan cairncross said...

Larry Hart
The current "Hard Line" government of Iran was losing power after Obama made a deal
The "Moderates" were on the ascent
Until Trump tore up the agreement and pushed the moderates back down - WAY back down
Having Trump in charge guarantees the Hard Liners at least another four years of power - more like another decade

Der Oger said...

@Larry Hart:
Maybe they think "Trump is Putins boy, so while it may become rough, he will eventually betray Israel and the West."

Or they cannot stand that the most powerful Person on Earth would be a woman of colour and fear the domestic implications.

Darrell E said...

Larry Hart said...
"I can buy that in one sense. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The correct answer (IMHO) is that it doesn't matter if it made a sound or not. Only when someone hears the sound does the distinction make any difference.

What it it's a bunny or an insect or another tree that "hears" the sound? Again, it doesn't matter because none of them are asking the question as to whether a sound was made or not. It only matters to someone interested in the answer."


It does depend on context. Various semantic and philosophical contexts can certainly be interesting to explore. But in any context the correct answer is easily arrived at, at least if the meaning of terms can be agreed on. Of course in philosophy that's where all the fun is, in arguing about what the terms of the argument mean. I must admit that this classic, supposedly deep, thought stimulating, question has always annoyed me.

Larry Hart said...

Darrell E:

I must admit that this classic, supposedly deep, thought stimulating, question has always annoyed me.


We tend to think of sight, hearing, and touch as "objective" senses which inform us of how things actually are. So we presume that a falling tree makes the same sound whether or not anyone hears it. Or that the sky is blue whether or not anyone is looking. Or that sandpaper has a certain texture whether or not someone feels it.

Consider, though, what a gnat sounds like when it files inside of your ear. That's a very different sound from what it makes just flying around a few inches away from you. That difference is not a characteristic of the gnat. It's a characteristic of the observer.

If a gnat flies into the ear of a mannequin (or a dead person), does it make the same sound that it does when it flies into your ear? Inquiring minds want to know.

Larry Hart said...

According to a caller to Stephanie Miller's radio show this morning, it's 100 degrees (F) in San Francisco.

scidata said...

"it's 100 degrees (F) in San Francisco"
Last words from the clown car as it goes off the cliff: "HOOOOAX!!"

matthew said...

It is not that uncommon for heat waves in early October in SF. I go about every other year to a festival (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass) that is always the first week in October, and have been shocked at the temperatures.

David Brin said...

Poor locum does illustrate the pathetic nature of former Jr. high School bullies who find themselves in a future when the former bullied and nerds are doing very well, facing the future unafraid. They assume that the nerds will use their powers the way the bullies would... to bully.

Terrified and outraged that the formerly powerless might use power against THEM, they shriek "NEVER!"at a threat that's in their own fevered and sick minds.

In my case, every aspect of my schtick has been about empowering the process of Pericles, Adam Smith and the US founders, to flatten and open up many diverse arenas for safe and vigorous creative competition. In other words, hey dope, at least fire your salvas in my general direction? I am Waaaaaay over here.

David Brin said...

They can't attribute these mega storms to "Wrath of God" as they do whenever tragic events strike California or New York, esp as these terrible ravages spare the big blue cities of the southeast. So what's the MAGA/MTG to do? Accept they were wrong about climate change? Never!. Instead attribute to their enemies the powers of gods! The entire US nuclear arsenal couldn't divert one of these monster storms, yet somehow those libruls and their science are responsible!

Only... in that case maybe side WITH such power, instead of against it? The wisdom of the playground, dummies? Never mind. Despite your spittle, we're one nation and help is (and always will be) on the way.

Darrell E said...

It's not like I haven't heard these views before. Semantic and philosophical perambulations aside, sound is mechanical vibrations in a material medium.

What to you mean by the sound being a characteristic of the observer? Do you mean how the sound the gnat makes is changed by its interaction with the environment of a person's ear? The shape and physical properties of the outer, mid and inner ear? If you made the mannequin's ear similar enough to a human ear then, the sound would be the same. Simply sound waves interacting with their environment.

Or, do you mean what is perceived in the mind of a human when a gnat flies into their ear and the sound impinges on the ear's sensory equipment, which generates nerve signals that are processed by cognitive systems in the brain, which then lead to the human perceiving a sound?

In that case that sound, which is a completely different category of thing, a human sensory perception rather than mechanical vibrations in a medium, is observer dependent. But, that doesn't mean no sound when a human observer is not there to hear it. It means no perception of sound taking place in a human brain.

Going further, if we dumb down the observer enough it can be any material thing that interacts with the sound. A leaf. A microphone. Or a human. The only way this becomes mysterious is when talking about two different meanings of "sound" at the same time, the physical phenomenon of sound and the perception of a sound which takes place in a person's brain. And or by assuming that there is something mysterious about minds that can't, in principle, be explained while staying within the constraints that the rest of the natural world is bound by .

scidata said...

A good example of scientific psychology is Jeff Hawkins' work on the cortex. All research, no philosophy. Turns out that perception is based on voting.
BTW, "If a Tree Falls" is one of my favourite Bruce Cockburn tunes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13KUZ53NWq0

A.F. Rey said...

I would say that they worship out of fear.

An Jungian coworker always said the origin of religion was people trying to recapture the security and love of their early childhood. Back to a time when they had no worries or fears, because their all-powerful parents would always protect them. All you had to do was obey them and love them, and not incur their wrath, and you were safe.

Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis to me. :)

Larry Hart said...

Darrell E:

The only way this becomes mysterious is when talking about two different meanings of "sound" at the same time, the physical phenomenon of sound and the perception of a sound which takes place in a person's brain


That's exactly the point. The question itself, "Does it make a sound?", relies on confusing the issue between those distinct meanings. If the question were "Does it cause atmospheric vibrations?", the answer would be "Duh, yes, of course." If the question was, "Does it cause aural detection and interpretation of those vibrations," the answer would be "Duh, no, of course."

The point of the riddle is to introduce confusion by conflating two different things.

It's similar to a 1980s National Lampoon parody of USA Today which (among other things) had a story about someone hawking t-shirts with the slogan, "Secretaries do it with fewer errors!" The straight-man author wrote as if the joke went totally over his head, asserting with a straight face that the shirt was confusing because the meaning of the phrase was ambiguous. He "helpfully" suggested either "Secretaries type more accurately," or "Secretaries make fewer embarrassing mistakes during sex," as clearer alternatives.

Darrell E said...

I'm not sure that is the point of the question as it was originally intended. I think the point was to seem profound. But it isn't really up to the task.

scidata said...

Forgot to link to that recent Hawkins interview (his ongoing quest to explain his "A Thousand Brains" book :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0aOEBms3Ig

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

Only... in that case maybe side WITH such power, instead of against it?


Maybe we should be running with that? "Vote blue or the next tornado hits your house!"

Lena said...

I'm listening to a book that Dr. Brin recommended a few months back: "A Forest Journey." I haven't gotten much past the Roman Empire, but it is showing the same pattern that I have brought up here a number of times before. Civilizations are not destroyed by their enemies, they die from within. And hacking down all the trees is the beginning of the end, as maybe some of the regulars here might remember what happened to the Maya. I like that example because it's illustrated by solid data uncorrupted by the writings of the times.

It also reminds me of the time, many years ago, when Choke'Em Ranch made an ass of himself by demonstrating the correlation between ignorance, arrogance, and childishness, mocking me for arguing that we need to conserve forests. Sure, phytoplankton fix more CO2 than terrestrial plant life, but humans have been jacking up the climate for millennia by clearly forests for agriculture, firewood, and building materials. The soil erosion and desiccation of the climate that follows is very rarely reversed. At least in the Maya case the population was blown down to such a low level there were no longer enough farmers left to continue to degrade their own environment. Eventually both Highland and Lowland forests recovered, though it took centuries.

It also shows exactly how a competition-oriented society destroys itself. It's not poverty that brings down civilizations, it's their own prosperity that does it.

Paul SB

Unknown said...

Paul,
If you want to go pre-Roman, the Tigris-Euphrates valley used to be lushly forested. Civilization happened, population density grew, and in the Epic of Gilgamesh the hero has to go up into the hills for good lumber. Same with the Indus Valley, where there are thick forests in the debatable lands between the kingdoms of the Mahabharata. (Then there are all the rocky promontories in the Med who have old names that translate to Seal Point...but no more seals.)
Like the old song, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. We've not much left of Paradise left to pave - and to mix music, as Billy Joel sang, we pay for it somewhere along the line.

Where's an angel with a flaming sword when you need one?

Pappenheimer

Alan Brooks said...

Hypothesis:
If the seven year Tribulation begins in 2026, the End will come in 2033–
the 2000th anniversary of the crucifixion.

Tony Fisk said...

"...and in the second year of the Great Womble's reign, there came upon the world a visitation of tribbles, who did spread and occupy the tonsures of the supremely anointed, and much was the wailing that came up from the peoples of that time..."

It's interesting that Australian indigenous peoples were able to live in the land for something in excess of 60,000 years without turning it into a treeless desert (any more than it was already). Oh, they certainly *changed* the landscape: firestick land management favoured the spread of eucalypts and open woodlands, and I might argue they represent a 'keystone' species for the environment as Europeans found it. No agriculture as is recognised, but there was a thriving trade in portable milling stones about 13,000 years ago, when the climate was wetter.

Population density may have had something to do with the lighter touch, although there is a lot of evidence it was higher than is generally believed.

Speaking of density, George Monbiot puts the case for 'cultured meat' in his book 'Regenesis', which surveys a variety of agricultural practices and concludes it's the only one that scales to feed a hungry world, while allowing rewilding.

Of course, places like Italy and southern US states are proposing pre-emptive bans.

(and, yes, the pros and cons of cultured meat is a hot topic for debate. Obviously one the market cannot be trusted to decide on.)

David Brin said...

Disaster prone areas have (and need)f volunteers who took CERT training to be the bottom rung of first responders, responsible for their neighborhoods... as I was during a couple of California fires. Florida has the highest per capita CERT membership followed by California. Consider taking the training! And meanwhile, look up hurricane KIRK heading for France! And wait till Milton passes before hammering your MAGA uncles who helped bring about this mess.

After the storm... check voter registration. And vote.

https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/individuals-communities/preparedness-activities-webinars/community-emergency-response-team

Cari Burstein said...

Matthew wrote:
It is not that uncommon for heat waves in early October in SF. I go about every other year to a festival (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass) that is always the first week in October, and have been shocked at the temperatures.

I live in the SF Bay Area, and our summer really goes from mid-July to late October, so warm Octobers are not unusual. That said, San Francisco city itself (not the surrounding areas) tends to be much colder than the rest of the region, so getting that hot in the city itself is pretty unusual, regardless of the month.

This has been an exceptionally warm summer throughout the area though- we usually only get a few really hot days a year in the part of the region I live in, and we've had quite a few this year. I imagine this is closer to the new normal unfortunately.

Alan Brooks said...

...this is reading between the lines of what I’ve read and have been told on this subject.

Lena said...

The book has a nice chapter on Mesopotamia that goes into the Gilgamesh story. Apparently after cutting down all the forests, Enkidu decided that it was a bad idea. I decided to borrow the name of the forest guardian monster for the home planet of an alien species in a story I'm working on, just for laughs.

Do you have any good sources for Harappan Civ.? I wrote a paper on them something over 30 years ago, and have read bits off and on since then. At the time I had access to a copy of John Marshall's monograph, but that was from the 1920. Great maps and photos, though.

I wouldn't advise holding your breath for that sword-wielding angel. You'll get more done spreading the facts around to sway the culture.

Paul SB

Lena said...

Is there something special about the number 2000, or is it just a round number and conveniently close? I'm enough of a student of history to know that people claim that the end is nigh pretty much every century.

Paul SB

Unknown said...

Very interesting - Geoffrey Parker, one of the better (and more approachable) historians of the 17th C, has a book out - "Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century". I'll put in an order at the local library, but probably will have to do ILL. It's almost like history keeps following the same patterns - but never quite repeats itself*.

*except that Jerusalem will be under siege at some point. Wikipedia mentions 10 sieges so far.

Pappenheimer

Lena said...

The fact that the entire continent managed to keep from growing beyond the carrying capacity for so long is the truly amazing bit. As long as the population stayed low, social leveling mechanisms would have prevented them from going into the self-destructive competitive mode that so much of the rest of the world is trapped in. No permanent hierarchy, no impetus to destroy everything in sight for short-term profit and screw everyone in the process.
There's a tribe that lived on the central coast of California before the Spanish missions came along and nearly wiped them out. The Chumash people managed to have an exceptionally high population density while maintaining a fairly egalitarian existence. The conventional explanation for this is the vast abundance of the cold California Current, which used to support a huge fishery. I'm none too sure about that, though, given that as a general rule, prosperity gets turned into hierarchy, division, exploitation, and unending cycles of violence.

Perhaps Australia's relatively harsh living conditions have a lot to do with it, but I doubt that's the whole story.

Paul SB

Unknown said...

Don't have a good source for Harappan civ - I'm relying on 20-30 year old memories ensconced in a college library. I spent too much time there to get good grades.
However, there's an article in the Hindu Times suggesting a new dig estimates it's 7-8000 years old. That's new, so far as I know, but not confirmed.

Pappenheimer

Alan Brooks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
duncan cairncross said...

Am I missing something here?
The dead/alive cat simply means that we cannot PREDICT which will happen - it's not some sort of dual existence - just that we cannot know what has happened until we "look"
The idea is that some things are NOT even theoretically predictable
The poison gas capsule could switch a light on or make a noise and until we saw the light or heard the noise we could not predict when it would happen - only that it had happened
No matter how much we knew about the radiation sample we could not predict when a specific atom would decay

duncan cairncross said...

Tony Fisk
Australia did have a larger population - then they screwed the pooch and mostly died out
When Europeans arrived they had gone through that cycle (more than once) and ended up in a stable situation

Tony Fisk said...

Your source for that, Duncan?

Tony Fisk said...

A hurricane hitting Florida is not new.
What's new is a hurricane maturing from tropical storm to extreme (as in 'close to mathematical limits' extreme) cat 5 in under 24 hours, as is having the Atlantic hosting 4 hurricanes simultaneously, in October.

Alfred Differ said...

On-shore winds ensure SF is the temperature of the Alaskan current sweeping by.
Off-shore winds ensure SF is the temperature of Central CA which mostly traps air, but lets it out along broken paths in the coastal range.

This happens where I live too except the off-shore breeze brings me the charms of Simi and San Fernando Valleys. That's usually when everything catches fire around here.

duncan cairncross said...

You are part of that - your mention of a trade in milling stones shows a larger agricultural population
I do remember reading about the higher past population - but I can't put my finger on it just yet

Alfred Differ said...

PSB,

The island Chumash likely led different lives than those further from the coast. I know they traded and self-identified as related, but I live here in Ventura county and those islands are NOT all that close. I suspect their affiliations between their island, coast, and inland groups were fairly loose in the day-to-day sense. It takes a LOT of work to get out there.

Alfred Differ said...

I don't think you are missing anything. Some students are fundamentally objectivists. Write the wave function on the board and they imagine it as something that IS. It has objective reality. That's where the cat-in-a-box problem becomes ridiculous. Wave your hands saying the wave function isn't real and they go looking for something that is believing the theory can't be good.

Many physicists think there is an objective reality to elements of their theories. Did you ever encounter the debate over which was more real in E&M? The Field of the Potential? Same kind of thing really. Ontology choices.

Tony Fisk said...

While there have clearly been extinctions due to human activity prior to European settlement in Australia, there isn't any clear evidence of humans societies collapsing from overtaxing the resources. I'd say that the existence of long standing oral traditions implies that such collapses have been rare.

The millstone trade has only recently come to light.
Accounts of large indigenous communities numbering in the hundreds to a thousand or so have been noted in 'Dark Emu'. Introduced disease and the odd quiet massacre took their tolls.

scidata said...

Tony Fisk: hurricanes
Hoax! Fake news! Abolish NOAA!

Scene from a lifeboat adrift in the open ocean:
One freedom-loving, yet dehydrated-to-delusion, survivor pulls out a pocket knife and starts digging a hole in the hull. An alarmed intellectual exclaims, hey you, stop that! - are you trying to kill us all? The digger snaps back, shut up egghead, you are NOT my master!
The struggle that ensues is as old as time - another tomorrow or a feast for the beasts.

reason said...

Tony Fisk "While there have clearly been extinctions due to human activity prior to European settlement in Australia, there isn't any clear evidence of humans societies collapsing from overtaxing the resources." - do you specifically in Australia? Because worldwide - that statement is just not true. There are heaps of examples - the Maya, the Maori's (exhaustion of easily exploitable moas lead to social breakdown and left warring paranoid tribes behind), Easter Island (even if it was exaggerated by Peter Diamond, it definitely happened). Lots of societies with massive emigration, often combined with vicious wars, are commonly the result of resource collapse - I'm sure it also happened in the Maghreb and in modern Iraq where the limited resource was water.

reason said...

Kirk seems to have dissipated overnight, by the way. Just vanished without a trace. Frankfurt where I live was direct in the path - expecting gusty winds on Thursday. Not forecast anymore.

reason said...

Tony Fisk - re collapses in Australia - I think part of the answer is probably that Australia is just so large, and the inhabitants were mostly not sedentary. So, people just moved.

Larry Hart said...

I did take him to mean "there isn't any clear evidence of human societies collapsing from overtaxing the resources in Australia."

Larry Hart said...

Now, this is polemical judo.

https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle

“17 porn film actors announced that they had launched a $100,000 ad campaign on porn sites warning that #Project2025 —Heritage Foundation blueprint for GOP admin—wants to ban porn & imprison people who produce it. The online ads will run in: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada”

Stonekettle: If they want to reach republicans in the Bible Belt, they'll need to run these ads on gay porn sites.

Larry Hart said...

Must see Lincoln Project ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkaqA0KHj98

"You made me feel like I was the most important person in the world."

"But he was more important."
...
"You chose hate over me."

reason said...

This is the thing - isn't it? If hate is what you selling you will end up alienating more and more people. In the end it will come back to bite you.

A.F. Rey said...

I wouldn't advise holding your breath for that sword-wielding angel. You'll get more done spreading the facts around to sway the culture.

True. But as Leonard Wibberley observed in The Mouse that Roared, "...[T]though the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword speaks louder and stronger at any given moment."
And it would certainly give time for the pen to accomplish it's business.

scidata said...

"Before seeking revenge, first dig two graves."
- Confucius?

A.F. Rey said...

Am I missing something here?
The dead/alive cat simply means that we cannot PREDICT which will happen - it's not some sort of dual existence - just that we cannot know what has happened until we "look"


Now to make a (bigger) fool of myself...

As I vaguely recall from college back in the 80's, the theory states that these wave functions have no value until they are observed. It's not that you cannot predict what value they have; there is none until it is measured (or, I suppose, interacts with something else). We know what the possibilities are, but they all exist until one is "chosen" by an observation/interaction/etc. That's when the wave collapses.
What makes this more than a philosophical exercise is Bell's Theorem, which predicted a measurable difference between the a wave with no determined value and an existing value which we simply cannot observe.
But I must admit I have not been keeping track of this for the last 30 years, so things may have changed. :)

Unknown said...

A former rumpT advisor alleges that TFCG wanted to pull all Navy facilities out of Hawaii because the state voted against him.
Perhaps the base could have been relocated to, say, Oklahoma? Or West Virginia, there's no redder state atm...

Pappenheimer

David Brin said...

Anti-semitism re storms https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/08/hurricane-helene-antisemitic-misinformation-x/

Alfred Differ said...

Negative inclusion works for a while. Hating feels good in a way.
Sometimes it works long enough to grasp power.
Defeating it requires the excluded groups band together enough to act usefully.

Larry Hart said...

Elon Musk apparently wants to test the concept of free speech to destruction.

duncan cairncross said...

Hi Reason
While the Māori did hunt the Moas in an almost industrial fashion there is no sign of any collapse or die back
The Māori started as Polynesian islanders marooned on a couple of large islands with plentiful food
Expanded though that phase
Then the expanding agricultural phase
And were just starting on the next phase - the warring tribes - when the Europeans arrived
The key difference (IMHO) is TIME
Māori were one end of the time at about 500 years
The Australians were at the other end with 50,000 years
I suspect the Australians went through a number of collapse cycles before ending up with a system that was stable over the long term

Tony Fisk said...

@reason I did mean Australia specifically. It appears to go against the experiences elsewhere, which is why it's interesting.
That doesn't mean *no* collapses occurred over sixty millenia, but I don't think there's enough evidence to identify any boom/bust cycles.
I will note that songline traditions can cover large areas and periods of time, and that central to indigenous psyche is an enduring attachment to country, and the importance of caring for it, for its own sake. That argues both for a long period of stability, and lessons learned the hard way.

scidata said...

Geoffrey Hinton is the fourth Canadian in a decade to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. Pretty good, eh?

Alan Brooks said...

Multiples of ten hold significance for them. 10x 200 is the big one.
100 yrs after the Iranian Revolution will be the anniversary of the Jerusalem Desolation.

There’s an old VHS tape of a charismatic preaching to his flock, linking the number three to the JFK assassination.
JFK was 43 when elected-> he was assassinated almost three yrs into his presidency, in nineteen sixty THREE; during the 3rd week of November of that year. Three shots were fired. There were three members of his immediate family, besides him... will spare you the rest.
The congregation loved it.

Unknown said...

One of my co-workers - we've never met, as we both work from home - lives in Georgia but had to relocate to her mother's house due to storm damage where she lived.

Her mother lives in Tampa. I've been on our mutual supervisors about this, but she hasn't evacuated yet.

Looking down the other barrel of the shotgun...

Pappenheimer

David Brin said...

"Geoffrey Hinton is the fourth Canadian in a decade to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. Pretty good, eh?" Um... same population, almost exactly, and care to compare Nobel rates to CALIFORNIA? ;-). Hopfield is Caltech's maybe 50th?

In 12 days I'll be there getting Distinguished Alumnus. Go figure.

scidata said...

Dr. Brin,
If it were up to me, you'd get the Literature Nobel. And yes, Caltech is unmatched. If I was there, and if I had a good pen, I'd give it to you.

Larry Hart said...

@Dr Brin,

Do you realize you put adversaries named Beta in both Earth and Kiln People?

Now, I'm going to be looking for it in your other books.

David Brin said...

Awwwwwww. ;-)

David Brin said...

huh. Took till my 5th book to realize there's always an ape or a monkey....

Lena said...

No marmosets?

Paul SB

Lena said...

It's generally attributed to Kung-fuzi, but not definitively proven.

Tony Fisk said...

No orangutans, though.
"INDEED. THAT WOULD GET VERY CONFUSING."

Tony Fisk said...

There's a Beta in Horizon:Forbidden West too. (another stolen idea? Nah! It makes sense in context)

reason said...

Ok - seems it is back again, just much weaker gusty winds now.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

Took till my 5th book to realize there's always an ape or a monkey....


I can't place one in The Postman. Am I missing something?

David Brin said...

Powhatan tells Gordon a story about a pair of chimps he saw,,,,

matthew said...

This made me LOL.

David Brin said...

Is anyone else sudddenly getting pop-up ad windows on Chrome? Is there any way to stop it?

Larry Hart said...

Under Settings, there should be a way to disable pop-ups.

You might have to then allow certain sites to use them anyway because of the way they interact with you.

Alan Brooks said...

Musk on Mars:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XqssDNGHu-0

Larry Hart said...

I wish he'd go already. :(

Does he seriously think a Republican hegemony is going to help get there?

Tony Fisk said...

I'll meet your youtube video and raise you... ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerZlyLQ6Nk

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

Yes. He probably does.
Take a peek at the people who say he shouldn't be doing what he's doing and ask how they vote.
He's doing one of those "Take them at their word" things.
--------

Tony,

Love the punchline.

Larry Hart said...

Ya think? Emphasis mine.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Oct10-3.html

The idea of turning Gaza into Monaco, or at least into Miami Beach East, is not new with the Trump family. Jared Kushner made the same point earlier this year, adding a small detail. Kushner said that the coastline was "very valuable waterfront property." He envisioned filling it with luxury condos and five-star hotels.

The only problem with Trump's plan and young Jared's plan is that Gaza is not empty. About 800,000 impoverished Gazans live in the Gaza Strip. How would they fit into these plans? Trump doesn't say, but the implication is that they should be gotten rid of somehow. Kushner is more explicit. He wants Israel to bulldoze an area in the Negev Desert and transport the Gazans there so he can make lots of money developing Gaza into Miami Beach East or now maybe Monaco.

Many of the Arab-Americans in Michigan are unhappy with Joe Biden arming Israel, but Biden has never called for physically transporting all the Gazans out into the middle of the desert as Trump's son-in-law has. If Trump wins the election and Michigan ends up being the key to his win by a few hundred votes, they may get buyer's remorse next year when Trump and Kushner actually try to "develop" Gaza into a paradise for rich people and tourists after deporting all the Gazans to the middle of the desert somewhere.

Danny said...

I followed the link and found a piece that is better than would be found in Commentary or The Spectator, if we just juxtapose some (other) conservative rags. Some points are made here, like this:

'The anti-vaccination movement is an example of the dangers caused by bad or fraudulent scientific research.'

Also noting how British gastroenterologist Alexander Wakefield and his co-authors published a paper in the prestigious medical journal Lancet, thus how Wakefield’s claims were able to gain traction because he and his colleagues are credentialed scientists and their work appeared in one of the world’s most authoritative medical journals.

We proceed, by way of Isaiah Berlin and so forth, which seems classy enough, to some stuff about how 'Marxism is more of a pseudo-religion', given, of course, the belief, that scientism *is* science. Ranting about Marxism is the special sphere of operations of conservative rags, but the worst I can say of this is that it's kind of a cliché at this point. I can't quite insist that it's not a *relevant* cliché. Actually, it would help if you had been making this argument about Marxism already yourself, that 'The scientistic camouflage merely made its murderous irrationalism more acceptable for those who scorned traditional religion, but never lost the human need to believe.'

From here though Arthur Koestler and such, classy enough, to how 'The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century created social and economic policies justified by “race science.”' Again, I figure it's a point.

There is nothing much to object to, here, besides the fact that it's not your choice of emphasis. It's difficult to disagree with a word, even -- the article is positively a good article. Choose your battles.

JLowe said...

A thought on scientism. If you've never spent time collecting and analyzing data on a topic, including developing a sampling plan and Data Quality Objectives (DQOs), I'm sure you as a really smart person who might readily fall into scientism. If you don't know what DQOs are and think your a scientist, I feel sorry for you. If you're not humble enough to recognize that you are nowhere nearly as smart as you think you are, you're prone to scientism (someone's collected data on this recently https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0310216)

Alfred Differ said...

If you're not humble enough to recognize that you are nowhere nearly as smart as you think you are, you're prone to scientism

That assertion has a number of definitions baked in that conflict with past uses of terms. I actually agree with the need for humility, but that isn't the issue with scientism.

The problem comes about when we MISUSE the tools of science in a field of study where they don't really apply. Most of the time the issue involves assumed theoretical models that wind up being unfalsifiable in that field. The data collected to confirm them is just a secondary misuse stemming from a failure to understand the method.

Humility is necessary, but so is ego. We accomplish this seeming balance by having many people involved who mix them in different ways. CITOKATE applies from there.

scidata said...

Of course, it's hard to work at the edges. Dimensions for DQOs are iffy there. And CITOKATE only works when there are other people interested in doing what you do.

Like computational psychohistory. It's why I only work with history and not future. Fortunately, it lends itself to simplistic, stepwise thinking, unfettered by scientism's mathiness and fashion.

David Brin said...

What absolutely stunning crap! It proves this fellow is just an incantation masturbator who knows nothign about science. The thing that keeps science honest - a trait NEVER held by any religion - is competition. Scientists are the most competitive beings our species ever created and while they cooperate a lot, their aim is always to beat their rivals to the next discovery...

...and to beat their rivals' theories to a pulp.

THAT is why we learn data analysis, error bars and quality control and all that, in order for our rivals not to pound us and embarrass us and even ruin us. And that is why anyone who even remotely knows scientists - actual ones - would not yatter the yammer chants made now by this "JLowe."

scidata makes a MUCH better point: "And CITOKATE only works when there are other people interested in doing what you do."

Yes it's true. And hence young scientists are urged not to go too far out on libs, but to topple a few giants or paradigms within publishable range, first. The task of impudent Total Paradigm Attack is most often done at the other end, by aged, veneriable... oops I mean venerable ... scientists with reps so solid they can have fun with nothing to lose.

These are FAR more common than are stodgy paradigm defending jerks. I worked for several, including Nobelist Hannes Alfven, the founder of plasma physics, who could not go a week without questioning some common assumption!

What if there's a lot more antimatter than folks think? Would an AM star look any different? What happens when an AM star collides with a matter star? (NOT what you think!). His theory of solar system formation was derided when I was a grad student and later half proved right! (The other half was nuts... but he would just grin.

Roger Penrose! Freeman Dyson! I have been friends with such aged rascals. And only dopes who know no science assume that scientists are lemmings, baying after a shared religious text.

And I mean dopes.

duncan cairncross said...

Hi Dr Brin
I think you have read something into JLowe's post - that is not there - To rebut his point there are lots of people who apply the scientific method without using all of the tools - for the same reason that a shotgun is not the best way of killing an ant!

That article he referenced - interesting - but the method used was not appropriate
Feeding the test subjects with information ignores the Bayesian effect
When I read something new it is "analysed" along with everything I already know
If I had been on that study the knowledge I already have about aquifers and geology would have biased the "answer" - leading me to ignore obviously wrong information
The problem of course is not what we know - but what we know that "ain't so"

Tony Fisk said...

I think JLowe was referring to a general 'you' rather than the specific OGH 'you', although it could have been better expressed if that was the case.

David Brin said...

Seriously guys? A fellow who comes here yammering the following -- "If you don't know what DQOs are and think your a scientist, I feel sorry for you. If you're not humble enough to recognize that you are nowhere nearly as smart as you think you are, you're prone to scientism..."

And I misinterpreted his tendentious hostility? Based upon words cribbed from someone who cribbed the terms, in order to diss the credibility of the millions of highly competitive and often brilliant men and women who have Made America (and civilization) Great since Pearl Harbor?

I used all those methods and many others getting my PhD when I knew there'd be aggressive questioning and pouncing on anything, even slight, that I did wrong. Hey Mr. Wannabe, don't teach your granmother to suck eggs.

Unknown said...

Just saw an internet comment that if you, assuming you are human, don't live in Ethiopia, you count as an invasive species - and a particularly destructive one at that.

Pappenheimer

P.S. there is a tendency among those who don't know any scientists to assume a scientific priesthood with ritual initiations, received wisdom, and sacred garb.
The closest one I could think of in actual history prescribed math and proscribed beans, but I don't think there are many Pythagoreans around these days.

Tony Fisk said...

Just about everything was an invasive species once.

gmknobl said...

Dr. Brin, you're simply having too much fun with your photo editing software!

David Brin said...

Actually I am an old fart doofus at photo-editing, but just arranging a whole lot of super incriminating jpegs next to each other and then taking a screen shot of the resulting montage is pretty easy. Trump makes it (horribly) so easy to array perverts and betrayers and foreign puppetmasters into a collage of evil.

This article about the pager incident is gruesome and amazing: "None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb. And even after thousands of the devices exploded in Lebanon and Syria, few appreciated the pagers’ most sinister feature: a two-step de-encryption procedure that ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated." https://archive.is/SuplC#selection-675.0-675.325

Unspoken... likely a bunch of Hezbollah moles in Lebanese government & military were also unmasked by the event.

We don't have much time to get the world back on track.

Larry Hart said...

On Stonekettle's Threads feed:

https://www.threads.net/@keithedwards/post/DA6qFXap2z9

BREAKING: As Jill Stein looks on, Jill Stein endorser, Hassan Abdel Salam, admits their goal is for Donald Trump to win the election.


Stonekettle comments:

You know, I almost hope Trump wins. Just so I can see the look on this guy's face when Trump has him deported.


Me, I don't hope Trump wins, but if he does, I will take these people's sweet sweet tears as a bitterly inadequate consolation prize.

What I do hope is that Harris wins Michigan without them, or else that she wins the White House without Michigan, proving for the foreseeable future that there is no electoral percentage in giving into these Muslim terrorists.

gmknobl said...

I had been blocked from commenting by unknown scripts or something earlier (not deliberate) and tried to comment on some earlier posts. The one item I remember is how someone said global warming//climate change wasn't on the radar back in the 60s and early 70s. I can assure you it was (along with gun control). My memory is good enough to remember going to Sunday school before church where we discussed if it was possible earth was changing to be more like Venus or like Mercury. We used (very basic) references to scientists and scientific articles. I was born in April of 1963. I remember all sorts of things I've been told to my face I simply could not have remembered because no one can remember things from early childhood. These people are dead wrong. I remember my diapers being changed and trying to get out of a crib. So, I know this was several years later but I was still in elementary school. That places this from 1968 until 1974. Yes, this was discussed - in the Washington, D.C. area during that period. Our church had open arguments about the legitimacy of the Vietnam War and had as members many scientists and civil servants (my dad being both). We also discussed if handguns should be outlawed as they were too easily concealed.

So, yeah, this stuff was on the radar of many people back then but was, as the evidence shows, effectively hushed up later or dismissed with obfuscation by energy industry people.

David Brin said...

Soylent Green 1973 depicted a dying, overheated greenhouse world. When I helped run the Clean Air Car Race it was on the radar... but CO2 was theleast of our worries while trying to get the lead out of gas. (See http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2013/01/getting-lead-out-quirky-tale-of-saving.html

TheMadLibrarian said...

There is one instance I can recall: the Labor Day hurricane in 1935 that trashed the Florida Keys and killed off Flagler's train therein. Records are spotty, but it appears to have been a very compact storm that underwent rapid intensification within 24 hours.

David Brin said...

If putinism is crushed, ideally BY Russians, then we can hope for reformist power in Tehran and Riyadh. Our big troubles with China can be resoved by simply reminding them we were always their best - and ONLY - friend.

I do wish someone would point out that almost none of the 'illegal aliens' crossing the vorder are Mexicans, anymore, as we've made progress in what should have been our major priority for a century, helping Mexico become a middle class nation. Alas, so much violence accompanies that phase.

Larry Hart said...

gmknobl:

I remember all sorts of things I've been told to my face I simply could not have remembered because no one can remember things from early childhood. These people are dead wrong. I remember my diapers being changed and trying to get out of a crib.


I don't have continuous memory back that far, but I do have individual, specific memories from as far back as preschool. I remember flying home from California when I was three, and thinking that the plane was halfway underwater, because the horizon between sky and ocean was about halfway up the window, and it looked just like the view from the submarine ride at Disneyland.

I also have what I suspect is a prenatal or very-soon-after birth memory. Without words, it is as if I woke up and thought the equivalent of, "Oh, it's this again."

Larry Hart said...

I'm starting to think that the Republicans' real plan now is to get Trump elected by hook or crook and then have JD Vance ascend to the throne shortly after Jan 20.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Oct11-4.html

There is simply no question that Donald Trump, right now, is more unhinged than at any other point in his public career. He's seeing bugaboos everywhere, even where nobody else sees them, and he's grossly overreacting, even by his own, already gross, standards. We have two theories as to what's going on. The first is that the inner reality-TV star is coming out. The longer a reality TV show goes on, the more outlandish and gimmicky it has to get, in order to hold on to viewers.

The second theory is that he is losing (or has lost) all mental discipline, and is descending rapidly into madness, Macbeth-style. As much as we don't like to say it, we think this theory is the right one. If we're correct, and he's reelected, god help us all.

Larry Hart said...

Intentionally or not, Donald Trump seems to be on the Glavers' path to redemption--escaping the consequences of his crimes and treason by reverting to the innocence of senility.

Unknown said...

A curious turn - PA GQPers are suing to get overseas ballots discounted.

This suggests that they no longer consider US military personnel voters as a monolithic pro-rumpT bloc...

Or that they're idiots.

Pappenheimer

P.S. sorry to say that I suspect Putin will be crushed long before Putinism is. What government remains is keyed for the next dictator to step in. Hungary has a better chance of regaining some measure of democracy after Orban - and that won't be easy either. Not coincidentally, the GQP is operating using a xerox'd copy of Orban's playbook.

Pappenheimer

Tony Fisk said...

Sarah Kendzior is someone I've been following since just before Trump got in. Her playbook for following the Age of Trump has been her anthropology thesis on the autocracy in Kazakhstan.
Her basic tenet in 2016: truth is a football. Take careful note of what you hold to be true now, because you will not believe how quickly it will be radically altered.

Tony Fisk said...

... I think Americans in 2024 have a better idea of how quickly the truth will be altered.

scidata said...

Geopolitics, especially defense of the Enlightenment, is not chess - it's Monopoly. The oligarchs can't win until they completely extinguish democracy, everywhere. That will require erasure of all historical records, literature, art, science, and philosophy. Not an easy task in the computer age.
"I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them." - Isaac Asimov

David Brin said...

onward

onward