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News Briefs 29-08-2006

By Gregon

Another bunch of links to waste your day on. I wouldn’t be offended if you turned off your computer and did something more positive with your time…

Quote of the Day:

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

Gandhi

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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11 Comments

  1. Civilization learning
    [quote]Mayan civilisation collapsed when they learned their kings weren’t Gods. What’s the implication for 21st century civilisation? [/quote]

    Perhaps they could still learn back then.

  2. Neanderthal creativity
    Funny how all these recent TV series on human evolution are being debunked with continual new finds even as they are being aired.

    Scientists take themselves way too seriously and it is detrimental to their own principles.

    1. the conventional wisdom
      The conventional wisdom once held that the Sun turned around the Earth and this view was held in quite some esteem by those who thought about such things, indicative of Man’s special place in all of creation as they thought it to be. Eventually the body of knowledge grew and the question of Earth’s place in the universe went through some changes; some things had to be un-learned and some people were not amused.

      Isn’t that how it should be, that we hold certain things to be true and when our perspective changes and we see things in a new light we re-define our notion of knowledge? We shed some dead-wood and work with a new paradigm, in the awareness that further change is more than likely. Granted that this may upset some folks who obey the understandable tendency to seek permanence in a world whose only constant is change but so what? Is a new truth not preferable to a stale falsehood? Granted that some folk could find it very annoying but I think the situation invigorating…it keeps life interesting.

      And as to your statement that “Scientists take themselves way too seriously and it is detrimental to their own principles.”…well, perhaps you could illustrate that. I doubt that scientists as a group are any more pompous than any other group and if they were I don’t see what bearing it would have on their principles. When a scientist sees something new or sees something old in a new light, it’s his job to alter the conventional wisdom to reflect new insights. High on the list of principles a scientist must honor is this, that when reality contradicts the conventional wisdom the wisdom changes, not the reality. I would think it better this way because the alternative is dreadful, the advancement of knowledge or the descent into dogmatic stasis…I’ll take advancement, wherever it leads, because we’ve already got enough examples of what happens when people ignore reality in favor of dogma.

      Cheers

      Of course there’s a spoon…get a grip.

      1. Taking oneself too seriously
        was not meant as being pompous.

        It means being convinced of being right, falling into the trap of scientific pride.

        Pride is the death of intelligence. It does not prevent intellectual rationalization nor does it prevent conclusions without the whole picture.

        I am not saying here that scientists are worthless but that they hold their newest ideas as gospel and will even declare certain unorthodox proposals as anathema. (Not all scientists of course but as a community.)

        Scientific dogma is no better than spiritual dogma and comes with a territory.

        A theory is just that and not a fact until unproven that can be taught in schools as gospel for the masses to believe. Of course it happens a lot.

        Take the theory of evolution for instance. It is often presented in contradictory ways by mixing adaptation and chance mutations which are or should be mutually exclusive. Then, they will deride alternative concepts as non-scientific, as if a non-scientific concept was necessarily devoid of reality.

        Dismissing anything that does not fit in the range of scientifically acceptable concepts and scientific methodology is in my view a serious mistake as this attitude takes for granted that there is nothing greater than the current science paradigm even though it evolved from a psychologically limited human condition.

        The way science works today is through extrapolations based on partial information and analysed rationally by an ego who is already conditioned by his experience.

        If scientists were more open minded outside of their sphere of competence, therefore not taking themselves so seriously, they would then evolve scientific thought beyond its state.

        When you have a territory, you tend to both stick to it and protect it at all cost. The same thing happened with religion against science.

        Unless we make the synthesis of these opposing fields, we won’t have an evolutionary science but will rather be stranded with experimental science, at the likeness of the human experimental consciousness.

        See what I mean?

        1. Reply
          I think I see what you’re trying to say but I’m not yet clear on what your territory is.

          You ascribe motives and behaviors to scientists that are in no way unique to them but are merely Human nature that can show up in any individual or group. Having done so, you seem to proceed to draw conclusions about both scientists and science that seem questionable to me because they appear to be based upon a false premise. There is no monolithic thing called Science, there are just people called scientists who seek knowledge about certain things by the application of an organized system of inquiry and because those scientists were people before they became scientists they bring Human strengths and weaknesses to the process. Can they be vain and arrogant and prideful and any number of other things? Sure…and that makes them different from the rest of the Human race in what particular way? One scientist might discover something and be prideful in that discovery. Another fellow might be quietly awed at an insight into the nature of the universe, another might show a child-like wonder and yet another might be filled with a burning need to see where that insight might lead; there’s any number of possibilities.

          To paraphrase someone whose name I don’t recall at the moment: For every scientist there is an equal and opposite scientist. Much of the current conventional wisdom was heresy once and at some point much of what we now believe will be regarded as quaint superstition…in my experience scientists tend to be much less resistant to change than some other groups, especially when faced with what look like facts. Will some scientists try to hold on to pet theories? Of course, but again how does that differ from the rest of Humanity? And by the way I think there is a substantial difference between scientific and spiritual dogma: to the extent that the former exists it at least has the virtue of being somewhat more connected to observable, predictable and reproducible reality.

          My territory is this: I look at the body of Human knowledge as it now exists and I am impressed virtually to the point of speechlessness…we have come so far, so fast, especially when you look at the countless years Man spent hardly able to do more than bang a couple of rocks together. Knowledge is neither good nor bad in itself but much of our knowledge has placed us in peril and we cannot turn the clock back; peril notwithstanding, in knowledge does our sole hope reside.

          It is merely Human to place trust in what demonstrably works and many people will not want to get rid of what works before something of value exists to replace it. Maybe you’re right and there’s a better model to follow, one that might be better than what’s gotten us this far but there couldn’t help but be some general reluctance to try something new when many people don’t see an obvious problem with the old model…and who knows, someday we might even develop a level of wisdom commensurate with our knowledge.

          Cheers

          Of course there’s a spoon…get a grip.

          1. Hi Binro
            You got this right to the effect that I am pointing out the human nature of the scientist, who will then use his psychological nature to taint his observation and apprehension of the facts facing him.

            This also means that he may be prone to reject possibilities that do not fit his understanding, even if those possibilities were closer to reality than he would have them.

            On the other hand, I am in no way suggesting that science should be dropped as a tool. I am merely suggesting that in science, as in any other field of the human experience as you aptly pointed out, this human factor tends to create a contest for territory where the larger numbers will win the right to peddle their theories as gospel.

            So, what I am saying, is that if there was less pride through the impression of ‘knowing’ the mind would be more opened to possibilities outside that particular field of knowledge and then it would be possible to learn more efficiently. It would also ease the need to dominate via impressions.

            In the mean time, our insecurity makes us hold fast to the institutions and mechanism that gives us an impression of control over something.

            Basically, our psychologies are mainly made of insecurity, forcing the ego to constantly strive for an impression of security. This mechanism has been at the root of human progress and has conditioned the reflex we have of delving in our past, our memory, and to increase its ability to empirically explain mechanical observations regardless of the fact that this memory stands more on a field of inexperience than on a field of experience.

            The universe is way to vast to be held in human memory as an archived set of knowledge as directed by the intellect.

            This leads us to extrapolate and hold for true our deductions, even if these are flawed as they can only be descriptive of mechanisms and never shed light on the fundamentals of reality.

            I fault this more on the mind closedness that human psychology creates to protect the investment of a lifetime into a set of beliefs, scientific or spiritual.

            The tool is less at fault than the wielder and you said it, science and knowledge are neither bad nor good. It is our polarized emotional nature that drives us to descry the tools and ignore that in the end, it is us personally who are at fault in creating conditions that are bad or good.

            The model will come with that realization. A psychology cannot project models that are outside of its willingness to let go based on its relative insecurity level. The creations of a psychology are always condition by the limits that psychology creates for itself.

            Then again, in the mean time, we must use the tools at our disposal in an effort to better our predicament. There is no argument there.

          2. Fatal flaws in Science
            Hi Richard and Binro,

            Great discussion! If I may add my two cents. There are some fatal flaws that propagate the status quo. In particular, two ingrained traditions as currently practiced, keep us from advancing science at the rate it could be advanced: 1) all new scientists are trained at the knee of their mentor professors. By the vary nature of this relationship, no student will overturn the work of his/her mentor. This process requires the mentor to die first, but by then the student has made his mark and is now defending the same territory. And, 2) peer review, the very thing that should keep the new research viable and worthy actually becomes a sinister gatekeeping process where the heretics are not allowed to publish in the mainstream journals.

            Let me offer a for instance: Halton Arp is arguably one of the finest astronomers of the 20th Century. He compiled one of the key catalogs that all practicing astronerds use in their work. But, he had the audacity to suggest that not all red shift is related to the Doppler shift that the establishment has been clinging to for about 60+ yrs. Furthermore, he claims that quasars are young objects ejected, generally in pairs, from the centers of certain types of galaxies. His work is quite thorough and understandable and yet is consistently barred from publication in the key journals and he is barred access to telescopes that would help further his research.

            This is more than idle, ego challenging rivalry. I would put it in the realm of scientific malpractice — if there were such a thing.

            Cheers,

            Xavier Onassis

          4. Fatal flaws in science
            2) peer review, the very thing that should keep the new research viable and worthy actually becomes a sinister gatekeeping process where the heretics are not allowed to publish in the mainstream journals.

            Speaking of gatekeeping, when my ex submitted his first journal article, it was accepted for publication, but he was told it would be published sooner if he forked over some cash.

            Kat

          5. Fatal attitudes in science
            An article that can complement this subject can be found on the Times Online site.

            Theories of telepathy and afterlife cause uproar at top science forum.

            With quotes such as:

            “Although it is politically incorrect to dismiss ideas out of hand, in this case there is absolutely no reason to suppose that telepathy is anything more than a charlatan’s fantasy.”

            One must wonder about the intellectual integrity of some scientists who obviously want to be perceived as objective while they are totally subjective in their impression of being right.

          6. What in the world
            Hello,

            X_O i read some of Halton Arps work and what happened to him, and there are many less known others, should and does trouble a lot of other scientists..stay in the box or else…big name or not. Astrophysicists seem most uncertain these days and fearful that their feeble cardhouse will collapse, and who’s going to fund us then ?

            Funding, the death of independant science, the bush and cheney gang made no bones about it, this is the outcome we want, now calculate it, disregard anything ‘obstructive’. Sure enough there was some sputtering in scientific circles, but then this kind of science is common commercial practice.

            The pedastal science has occupied should have been vacated at the beginning of the 20th century, we know what happened to the last independant and brilliant scientist, Tesla, he died empoverished, because he didnt play along and dared to talk and work on free energy. To this date, so called scientists ridicule the concept and talk about law of this or that. This when it could be obvious to any 14 year old that this universe is held together/created by precisly ignoring these ‘laws’. Electrons ‘orbit’ the positive nucleus in discrete shells, they keep their distance when considering their charge they shouldnt, what keeps them (free energy).

            So will the irish company get that magnetic asymmetric inductor on the market this time ? Considering the hot potatoo response by so called scientists i’m not so sure, even if its a good design and produces what they tell us. Fortunately the chinese might take it in, forcing the much more controlled west-in this regard, to follow suit.

            Scientists should come of their pedastal and ackowledge their dependencies when they speak/publish, and im talking about more than references. People have a right to know where they come from.

            “My name is dr. Jones Phd,ive got 2 children, one in college, i’m head of …research work at Monsanto, we have the finest equipment, and i tell you GM food is perfectly safe.” And btw my mind isn’t impaired by my diet-aspertam coke addiction or fluoride, these poisons are perfectly safe. Scientists from Searle(aspartam) and Alcoa (fifties-fluoride) have established it.”

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