Announcement Next week I am on vacation as I prepare for the Cultural Event of the year. There will be no new posts: there may be classic reposts.
Last week I was invited to a National Association of Scholars event, hosted by Scott Turner: Is Science Broken?
The answer is yes. Yes, it is. Here’s what they said about the event:
On the surface, modern science glitters like a shining jewel, a rare instance of government spending that works. The MEDLINE database lists more than 1.6 million scientific papers published in 2022 alone. Scratch the surface, though, and the picture looks less rosy. Validation is dicey. Retractions are ramping up. Outright fraud bubbles up more frequently. Politics, not reason, is firmly in the driver’s seat. Breakthroughs are rare, and seemingly independent of spending. More and more, science seems to be something like a very expensive version of Head Start: a money sink that has no aim but self-preservation.
They have had, and will have, many similar events—at the link above.
You can watch the recording here.
(Yes, my lighting stinks, I look sallower than a fatted pig fallen into a vat of rancid butter, and the sound is not so hot either, but Steps Are Being Taken to rectify these shortcomings. Regular readers know how much I love video, hence the delay. But since the Broken Science podcast is now starting, I am forced to upgrade from the spoken to the visual word.)
We had some time to answer a few questions from viewers (start at around 45 minutes). I also received this thoughtful email from Anon, which might be of interest to many. My answers follow.
Dear Mister Briggs,
Many thanks for your fantastic webinar yesterday. I learned a lot of great things again. I would like to ask you some follow-up questions and remarks.
First, as you already mentioned, a practical how-to book would be very nice. A book like Data Analysis for Business, Economics, and Policy by Gábor Békés and Gábor Kézdi, for example. This is more of a hands-on book.
Moreover, are you familiar with the logical thinking process of cause and effect developed by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt and fine-tuned by William Dettmer and Lisa Scheinkopf? Do you find logical maps based on observations useful?
In addition, are you familiar with Professor James Tour and his harsh critique on (a)biogenesis? Mister Tour talks a lot about the vast over-certainty in his field of chemistry. I believe this is one of his most interesting videos about bad science.
Lastly, are you active on the blog Watts Up With That? People often mention the importance of measurement error analysis (e.g., John R. Taylor). One of the prominent voices here is Mister (Patrick) Frank. I have attached some of his papers; maybe you can give them a quick look if you are unfamiliar with his work.
I hope to hear from you.
Many thanks again. Keep up the good work!
Best regards,
[Anon]PS I deeply admire you for your work, humor, and extreme intelligence. You are one of few people that can see through the web of lies in this modern society.
PSS The Amazon suggestions The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality and Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis are also very interesting examples.
Yes, I’ve started a book to rival Uncertainty, in more general terms. Maybe a good title is Broken Science — And How To Fix It. Or some such banal thing. I’m terrible at titles.
I don’t know the works of Goldratt or his followers, or of Tour. Maybe some of our readers do?
Frank’s efforts I do know, and admire. His papers should be looked up and read by everybody as terrific arguments that “climate change” science is vastly more uncertain that most know. The ones you sent (for everybody else) are: “Are Climate Modelers Scientists?“, “Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections“, and “LiG Metrology, Correlated Error, and the Integrity of the Global Surface Air-Temperature Record“.
I don’t publish directly at Anthony Watt’s fine site, though some followers of mine post my things there from time to time. Many of their guys drop by here, too.
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$cience goes to the highe$t biden…err…bidder!
I don’t know about science, pretty much nobody is engaged in science nowadays. Scientism, however, is not broken and is working perfectly for the powers that be.
You are right, John, but at least we have the “leading scientists” from the “diametrically opposed to the globalist project of the Great Reset”, Russia. The hope is here.
For a lttle (from all “diametrically opposed”) example:
Two of – according to Klaus Schwab, who wrote it in 27 January 2022 in his book The Great Narrative – “the 50 foremost global thinkers and opinion-makers” (which, unknown why, are completely unknown), Leonid Grinin and Anton Grinin, about “covid”:
ScienceDirect:
…
project No. 20-61-46004, PROJECT CARD:
Name: World development and “limits of growth” in the 21st century: modeling and forecast
Supervisor: Viktor Antonovich Sadovnichy, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences*
[*former Club of Rome member]
Financing organization, region: Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education “Lomonosov Moscow State University”, Moscow
Years of implementation with the support of the RSF: 2020 – 2022
Contest: 2020 Contest “Conducting fundamental scientific research and exploratory scientific research on behalf (instructions) of the President of the Russian Federation” (leading scientists)
Field of knowledge, the main code of the classifier: 01 – Mathematics, computer science and systems sciences, 01-211 – Mathematical modeling of social and economic processes
Status: Successfully completed
…
Annotation
Until recently, human civilization has developed along the path of mainly extensive development. In the second half of the twentieth century, the situation began to change dramatically. Thanks to the activities of the Club of Rome, the UN, and other organizations, it became clear that extensive economic development and consumer attitude to nature will inevitably lead to an environmental catastrophe, that scientific knowledge should be directed not only to improving the material aspects of human life, but also to ensuring the sustainability of socio-natural processes.
Traditional forecasting methods have lost their effectiveness in the face of rapid technological changes and the sharp aggravation of many global problems. A qualitative breakthrough is needed in the development of quantitative methods of modeling and forecasting global processes (ecological, climatic, demographic, socio-economic, political), in the interests of timely identification of development constraints, possible crises and justification of ways to overcome them.
The project aims to:
– to improve existing and develop new methods of mathematical modeling and forecasting of global ecological, climatic, demographic, socio-economic, political processes;
– to create a comprehensive system of global modeling based on modern mathematical methods and models;
– on the basis of a set of developed mathematical models to make a forecast of world development in technological, ecological, climatic, demographic, socio-economic, political spheres, to identify the limitations of this development (“limits of growth”);
– on the basis of modeling, to develop a system for assessing the sustainability of global processes and emerging risks of global development in various fields, to determine the tasks that humanity will have to solve in the coming decades;
– to develop a methodological apparatus (mathematical models, methods) for information and analytical systems of strategic planning in the Russian Federation in the interests of ensuring the safe and sustainable development of the country;
– Prepare a report to the Club of Rome outlining the Russian vision of achieving the sustainability of global development and overcoming the “limits of growth”.
…..
Abstract of the results obtained in 2022
…
[…] The results of mathematical modeling have shown that humanity is currently moving to a fundamentally new phase of historical development, when the old economic and social technologies no longer work. There is a transition of human society into a new phase state, the shape of which has not yet been determined. In this situation, we are not talking about forecasting, but about designing the future in new historical conditions. The analysis of options for further world development is made. Based on the analysis and modeling results, a project of the future society with the conditional name “World-organism” is proposed, based on the primacy of the principles of cooperation over the principles of competition. If this project is implemented, as mathematical modeling shows, it is possible to solve global problems related to ecology, global warming, and energy. Based on the conducted research, an initiative report was prepared to the Rome Club, which was sent to the Club’s management.”
…
(More – in the links.)
Nowhere in alternative media. And it will probably stay that way. Probably not important.
And, the Hope is here.
@Patient you are doing God’s work bringing this stuff to peoples’ attention.
Be careful, Patient! According to our old friend Yuval Noah Harari, you are engaging in dangerous Wrongthink!
“A top World Economic Forum (WEF) official has called for so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ to be banned from accessing the internet due to their ‘dangerous’ belief that a global cabal of elites control the world.”
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/top-wef-official-dangerous-conspiracy-theorists-must-be-eliminated/
“Yuval Noah Harari, who is Klaus Schwab’s right hand man, condemned the theory that a shadowy elite of billionaires and globalists control the world as “anti-Semitic” and “dangerous.”
An Israeli Jew says noticing the World Economic Forum is “anti-semitism”. How original.
@Ann Cherry identifying the people imposing the Great Reset even though they constantly talk about it, have loads of websites about it, and have succession of international meetings where world leaders talk about, has always been anti-semitic, racist, and xenophobic. If you don’t think so then you’re anti-semitic, racist, and xenophobic, QED.
Leftist Media: Eating Bugs Is a “Right-wing Conspiracy Theory.” Leftist Media: “Everyone Should Eat Bugs to Save the Planet.”
https://thenewamerican.com/leftist-media-eating-bugs-is-a-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-leftist-media-everyone-should-eat-bugs-to-save-the-planet/
The Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov (September 19, 2022):
Russian alt-media, 21 and 22 September 2022:
The scientists of Tomsk State University (TSU):
+A short video about the monumental research.
(Just a couple of examples, there are more developments of universityites and also factories for the incredibly promising protein from black lion larvae.)
Leftist Media? I haven’t heard. Right-wing media? Nothing + “WEF-Bilderberg-Biden-Trudeau are making us (only Westerners) eat bugs!!”. + And besides making Westerners eat bugs, the cabal is at war with Russia, which defends traditional values 🙂
After twenty or so posts of various poorly or completely unknown things about russia in one forum, the owner told me I was “posting like a cia/fbi agent” 😀
And, really, Ann, I need to take a lesson and listen harder to the wisdom of Israeli Jew, Jewish university professor, atheist, openly gay and married to her husband and his producer, top transhumanist and advisor at WEF. Yuval, who, in the children’s section of National Geographic, told kids that the human mind is almost like a dog’s, he himself considers Christianity cheap propaganda, but is a fan of Indian practices and meditates a lot to “liberate” himself. 🙂
@John Pate, It’s amazing, it’s a real tangle. I have a lot of thoughts on it, but I’m not going to stretch any new chewing gum right now. All I can say is that usually when one (outside of Russia) gets separated from the usual “Russia is fighting against Kabbalah and for traditional values, and that is”, then comes across the two with supposedly the most accurate and honest information about Russia from Russian sources (you know which ones, one writes mostly about the plandemic and partly about the reset, the other about the “war”).
And then he gets, from, the journalist who left RT yesterday, about 30-40% of the real Russia’s great reset, softened and in the wrong context, which is explicitly cleared of “conspiracy theory” links because “it’s very more complicated”. And gets endless confidences about the real war (and real mutiny), which is by no means part of the reset, because none of the “all credible military expert commentators from across the ideological spectrum” (or anything like that) don’t say that…
Can I see the facts? No, but look at the “experts”.
Very complicated madness. Moral magic transcends all boundaries. Maybe it’s random?
You know what Time on the calendar we are, I’m sure. We’re exactly there.
Well, who as he wishes, free choice. I’m very bad at health anyway and I have little left. That’s not that bad.:) The experts and their endless magical explanations will remain as the actual reset takes place.