How is Natural Science Possible? Whitehead’s first lecture at Harvard
Scientific Misconduct: Can Religion Help?
"A 2009 systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data discovered that among the scientists, 2% confessed to have “fabricated, falsified or modified data or results,” and over 14% had known colleagues to have committed the same. Moreover, over 33% of scientists confessed to “other questionable research practices,” and up to 72% had known colleagues to have done so."
"According to one survey by Nature, more than half of the researchers failed to successfully reproduce their own results; and over 70% failed to successfully reproduce another scientist’s results. Given this difficulty, hindered further by financial and other limitations, and by the complexity of the science concerned, it becomes easy to fabricate, manipulate, or selectively publish results."
"Like many of his contemporary biologists, Haeckel was a materialist. It is not materialism in itself that creates the problem, but rather the lack of accountability that results from it. It clears the way for deceit, corruption, and indeed the worst of crimes against humanity."
The article uses recapitulation theory as example of scientific misconduct:
"The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—often expressed using Ernst Haeckel's phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a historical hypothesis that the development of the embryo of an animal, from fertilization to gestation or hatching (ontogeny), goes through stages resembling or representing successive adult stages in the evolution of the animal's remote ancestors (phylogeny)."
Related:
"Anything not specifically forbidden is mandatory. Which means, if it's possible, it's probable." - Merlin
"Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainly is a ridiculous one" - Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
#Comment: Assorted high weirdness, which in all its colorful "out-there-ness" is by and large more fun and sane than most of the current mainstream post-humanist AI cyborg science extremism. Valid or not, it is certainly thought provoking "post-materialist age" entertainment - enjoy!
SpyCoSomatix: People's actions are strongly influenced by their knowledge and beliefs. They can be manipulated by corrupting their knowledge base, warping historical truth, or ignoring it completely and spinning compelling new myths of consensus reality. This is mind control aimed at crowd control and exploitation.
"To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle." -- George Orwell
CHAOS & CONTROL
Uncertainty is the zeitgeist of our day. We are anxious and unsure. We face potentially catastrophic climatic and environmental change, incurable viruses, pandemics, bioterrorism, endless wars, urban violence, soil and water depletion. Rampant population growth, genetically-engineered food and organisms, and hazardous waste raise profound doubts about Earth's ability to sustain life.
Many species are already going extinct at the rate of 5000 per year. We wonder about own own and our grandchildren's futures, health, and well-being. Mourning the loss of our freedoms, we feel the impact as loss of our cherished dreams for a better future.
Society itself, changes in unpredictable ways, including through human frailty or perversity, such as crime and war. Political figures, in particular have the ability to affect great masses of people with their policies and dictates. How we mediate and ameliorate these societal disruptions is a major part of our personal stories, and the story of humanity, in general.
We did not anticipate this transition from the arrogant certainty of the rational enlightenment promise of techno-utopia to disquieting uncertainty. We have realized only empty promises of solutions to life's fundamental problems, such as world health, food, and peace. Despite all our knowledge we have not been able to control or dominate our environment successfully. Knowledge is not wisdom, or even understanding. We need to recognize our innate spirituality. By changing our internal image of reality, we can change the world. There is a deeper current in life and it is embodied in Mystery-- the unpredictable, the unknown, and perhaps unknowable.
THE BIG PICTURE
The Long War is an Intelligence War. We can all participate in more intelligent intelligence. It doesn't belong exclusively to the apostles of the cult of intelligence. Personally and collectively, Intelligence involves information collection and analysis. It helps us determine The Big Picture by synthesizing the forces at play in the world today so we can make prudent decisions about the future of our security.
ANTICIPATORY THINKING
The parallel tracks of roughly seven forces are running the world: Governments, Military, Law Enforcement, Business, Academia, NGO and Media, and Civil (Class, Religion, Labor). Each has its own worldview and agenda which sets the priorities in its point of view, from plutocrats to technocrats and bureaucrats. Many have failed so utterly they have become Roadmaps to Nowhere. We have to step beyond the bounds of elite greed and failed ecology to a less narcissistic, more mature citizenship.
OVERT INTELLIGENCE
Technology, markets, resources and policy interact dynamically. All prediction markets agree that nano-neuro-bio-info products will shape the future. These forces and ideas then filter into manufacturing futures, politics, business, academics, the media, science and military where they take root (or not) in our minds and become part of our cultural mandate. They acquire traction and velocity as people jump on the bandwagon. Despite the techno-utopianism, the economic keyword for 2008 is "debt."
GOD IS AN AMERICAN
The war for your mind has moved from the outside to inside the mindbody of each and every one of us. Propaganda controls the message but the message itself is control. We really have been programmed from the cradle to the grave to worship GOD -- Gold, Oil, & Drugs. We worship and seek solace outside ourselves when the answer is within in our hearts and spirits.
RUNNING ON EMPTY
It's no accident we feel empty and can't get enough. These are the addictions of our culture. We are running on empty, overextended in energy and credit, and militarily. We have traded social safety nets for unsustainable imperialism. We have sheepishly accepted the curtailment of our former freedoms out of fear, or by believing the fear-mongers who create public opinion. Our nation has hostage syndrome. We've been sold a bill of goods and the balance is coming due.
CONSPIRITUALITY
In the Age of Intelligence, modern IO is not about the old messages of psychological operations (PSYOPS), but rather about empowering billions of people with both information tools and access to truthful information. It is about education, not manipulation. It is about sharing, not secrecy. Reality is up for grabs. The present is revealed only after acquiring the entire past. Then the constituents fall into place in a holistic context. The imaginary future influences its creation, from toxic visions like The Matrix to false techno-utopianism. Computers were supposed to save us work, but we wind up working more for less. But, the one who dies with the biggest toys is not the winner. We are living on borrowed time.
THE LONG WAR
The power struggle of The Great Game set up an ongoing quiet war between Britain and Russia for Afghanistan. And after the Soviet defeat, the US was sucked into the continuing quagmire of events involving Iraq, Iran [Persia], India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia described in Zbigniew Brzezinski's book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. This neoconservative strategy has failed utterly as a foreign policy.
INFOTEL
Intelligence in The Age of information is a vision of the convergence of computers, media, and telecommunications - hacking and tracking. It means the ultra data-glut of the net-centric war of information. But where do we go from here? Do you live a white-picket fence / big screen TV fantasy in a militarily-defined world with optimistic delusions of victory? What comes after the fetishizing of information technology and looming economic meltdown of the Greenback?
Instead of the greater free time for creativity imagined in the Cold War era, people have come to work harder and for longer hours for less net gain. But, Voltaire said that, "Man is free the instant he wants to be."
The ‘X17’ particle: Scientists may have discovered the fifth force of nature
"In 2016, observations from Hungarian researchers suggested the existence of an unknown type of subatomic particle. Subsequent analyses suggested that this particle was a new type of boson, the existence of which could help explain dark matter and other phenomena in the universe. A new paper is currently awaiting peer review."
#Comment: The slow motion collapse of the cult of the standard model and materialism continues. The Fifth Force (no, not that bad scifi movie 'The 5th Element') or any other magical quick fix most likely won't change that. In infinity, there is always one more mysterious particle waiting to be discovered - a sisyphusian endeavor. In summary, "I got 99 problems but a X17 ain't one". #Science #Space
A natural biomolecule has been measured acting like a quantum wave for the first time: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614688/a-natural-biomolecule-has-been-measured-acting-in-a-quantum-wave-for-the-first-time/ #Biology #Science #Biotech
Thoughts on physicist Mario Livio talking about "Why Is There Anything At All?":
#Comment: So many fancy words used to essentially just say "we don't know - at all". Particularly contemporary western scientists with their "knowledge fetishism" seem to have a very hard time acknowledging, that there are a great many questions which are fundamentally "unknowable" (situated right at the base of the "pyramid of knowledge/science", threatening to collapse the entire game built upon them). One would think, things like Gödel's "incompleteness theorem", Asimov's "The Last Question" or countless Zen Buddhist texts would have made the case rather clear by now, but apparently not. Scientist pretense of knowledge is especially comedic, such as when they tell us what happened a femtosecond after big bang or what happens inside the event horizon. They state their wild speculations as facts while they clearly just confuse their models and equations with reality. In praxis, contemporary scientsist resorts to the very same tricks the christian church used for millennia: First make up fictive ghost stories that sounds important but way too complex for anyone to understand. Then convince the public that they are the only ones that can make sense of this and use this to grab respect, authority and power. This comic summarizes this silly game nicely: https://samim.io/p/2019-10-30-proposal-for-a-monument-to-logical-fallacies-by-san/
Researchers create blueprint for 'quantum battery' that doesn't lose charge:
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-blueprint-quantum-battery-doesnt.html #Science
Remote Consciousness: Latest Results from Optically Excited Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy - talk by Dr. Serge Kernbach.
M.I.N.D. (Mind Influence Notification Device) - a high-resolution sensor based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This very sensitive device represents a tool for empirical research of the human mind and consciousness: http://mind.cybertronica.de.com/
AquaPsy - a Group Interactive Platform Exploring Experiments Involving the Measurement of Consciousness: https://www.aquapsy.com/
Characterizing the non-chemical water treatment – advanced biological and electrochemical approaches - talk by Dr. Serge Kernbach
Lao Tzu (601 BC) on Knowledge
'It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.' - Aldous Huxley
“Proposal for a Monument to Logical Fallacies” - by Sandow Birk.
The crisis in physics is not only about physics: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-physics-is-not-only-about.html
What is the quantum measurement problem? https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-quantum-measurement-problem.html
Global distribution of earthworm diversity: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/480/tab-pdf https://sci-hub.tw/https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/480/tab-pdf
"Spiral Grain and Wave Phenomena in Wood Formation": https://www.amazon.com/Spiral-Phenomena-Formation-Springer-Science/dp/3642737811 #Science #FFHCI
Here's Why Ants Are Practically Immune to Traffic Jams, Even on Crowded Roads: https://www.sciencealert.com/ant-roads-are-practically-immune-to-traffic-jams-even-when-it-gets-crowded #ML #Science #Biology
Electromagnetic fields as structure-function zeitgebers in biological systems: environmental orchestrations of morphogenesis and consciousness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4224074/ #Science
New supercomputer simulations explore magnetic reconnection and make a surprising discovery: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-supercomputer-simulations-explore-magnetic-reconnection.html #Science #Space