Cognitive Behavioural Therapy dictates that what we feel is a product of your thinking. Depression and anxiety are therefore a consequence of negative thinking.
Free Association was a therapy technique of psychoanalysis. It encouraged people to express whatever came to mind without the usual mental censorship. Eventually the analysis could see the patterns of thinking, obsessions, and resistances that the analysand struggled with. When they were explored together the analysand could root out what were usually once useful thoughts but had outlived their value.
I have shared my own thoughts as a ‘writer’s journal’. This was the teaching of Julia Cameron in Artist’s Way. She recommended writer’s daily do ‘morning pages’ to free up their creativity.
“Journalling’ is a recognized therapy technique to help people in my words ’squeeze the pus out of their brains’. When I journal in the morning I record those things that are uppermost in my mind. In this way I tell my mind that I have acknowledged its concerns and recorded those matters most important to it. And just as when I make a list I don’t have to keep returning to remember it but can get on with other things till I need to review the list again, so with journalling I can quiet my mind. My mind no longer has to repeat the same concerns.
Fear and resentment are the major negative emotions and daily these primal emotions are triggered by recurrent negative thoughts.
Mostly fear and resentment resolve around security or money. Next they’re a response to interference with ambition or expectation. Something blocks our mental plan or interferes with our intention. Finally fear and resentment revolve around status, how we see ourselves in relationship to other, all the issues that are involved with shame.
Cognitive distortions are recurrent negative patterns of thinking like ‘catastrophizing’, jumping to conclusions and believing the worst. Black and white thinking is the ignoring of the possibilities of grey. Such binary thinking leads to paranoia and persecution delusions. Grandiose thinking is believing it’s all about you when it fact the play might not even have you as a lead. Not every theatre has you as the lead.
Logic is the study of thinking and the basis of philosophy. Rhetoric is the study of ‘sales’ thinking and politicking. Logic endeavours to reach the ‘truth’ whereas rhetoric endeavours to manipulate and ‘win arguments’. The fallacies are well recognized false arguments.
The one I notice most these days is the ‘ad hominem. When I say Justin Trudeau needs to be randomly drug tested others respond attempt to ‘kill the messenger’ and attack the arguer rather than address the thesis. Hence the standard ‘Facebook’ argument, “you’re an asshole to question Justin Trudeau’. This may be true but it’s quite irrelevant and ‘begging the question’.
Sadly most advertising a series of ‘fallacies’. Laboissiere teaches fallacy and sadly given the marketing and political nature of the world today it’s a topic that should be the basis of grade school just as scientific method should be taught that early. However the profound ignorance in the Canadian population reflects the propagandistic nature of the school system which fails to teach children ‘how to think’ by instead teaching them ‘what to think’.
Cognitive behavioural therapy with it’s tools of psychoeducation and logic includes journalling especially free association journalling as a means to allow us to review alone or with another what exactly is going on in our minds. If we can see and understand that then we can root out negative memes that are no longer useful or simply correct the fallacies and cognitive distortions that make life less joyful.
St. Paul taught us to ‘pray unceasingly’. My psychiatrist minister friend Dr. Willi Gutowski used to described the brain as a ‘radio’ which picked up all manner of stray frequencies from the world around us. He recommended taking two hands and turning the dial to the ‘god channel’ and holding it there.
Practicing the ‘presence of the Lord’ requires one to focus on being in the now. God is Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipotential so to know God and all Joy is to be in the present. As my army friend used to tell me when I talked to him, “Bill you have one foot in the future and one foot in the past and you’re pissing and shitting on the day. Get your head in the same room as your ass is.”
Mostly our mind is ranging out into the past where we have resentments or ranging out into the future where we have fears. Meditation is a means of focusing on the present. Mindfulness meditation as taught by Buddha is the means where by we see the thoughts as ‘creatures’. One identifies with the Self of Kohut’s “Self Psychology’. This has also been called the ‘Observer’. C.S. Lewis, the great Christian philosopher encouranged us to join with God and see that God was permanent and infinite and all else was finite and transient. This expression ‘this too shall pass’ refers to all but the essence of the flow, i.e. God.
Emmett Fox, author of Sermon on the Mount teaches that as we address the thinking disease we will find the underlying ‘spiritual laws’ of creation and be better able to live by them.
Selfishness and self centeredness is closed minded and fear based. It’s all the response to hurt. A child is like a fool all trusting until it learns from trial and error the dangers of the world around it. These leads to ruts of thinking, behaviour and attitudes. These had a value at the time and may be held onto for that very survival aspect but later may indeed impede further learning.
Showing posts with label fallacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fallacy. Show all posts
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Climate Change Cartel, Intellectual Terrorism and Ad Hominem
Ad hominem means 'against the man'. It is one of the fallacies that are the basis of rhetoric as opposed to logic. Logic is considered to be the way of 'true thinking' that rationally results in arriving at a 'right answer'. By contrast rhetoric is the 'appearance' of truth, but untrue. One can win a debate with logic or bully with rhetoric.
As a logician or rational thinker, when one encounters a 'fallacy' one is trained to consider that the 'argument' of those who use 'fallacies' is 'weak'. Those with strong arguments don't need to resort to fallacy. Fallatious arguments are normally considered 'false' arguments.
Much of politics is about the use of 'fallacies' craftilly. Much marketting relies on 'fallacies'.
Ad hominem is simply 'name calling'. It's the basis of racism and various immature and untrue postulates.
The specific ad hominem that is most prevalent today is 'Climate Change Denier' (CCD). As a scientist I can easily spot the 'unscientific' and 'pseudoscience' aspects of the present 'debate'. However as a psychiatrist I am most interestedin the use of the psychiatric term 'denier' ie a "person in denial".
As a psychiatrist, when I say a person is 'in denial', I am indeed saying they are 'insane' or frankly 'psychotic', in general or in specific. The word 'denial' was a useful description of a specific 'clinical defence mechanism' that can be seen in mentally ill individuals. Used clinically the term has validity and limitted usefulness.
For example a person with the psychiatric condition 'la belle indifference' may appear to be 'in denial' about the fact that they cannot use their arm because of a 'conversion disorder'.
A psychiatrist may well help the patient gain insight into their emotional denial about the pain they are experiencing in the loss of use of their arm which may well represent some other unconscious process driven by guilt or shame. Denial, in psychiatry, is a 'defence mechanism' hypothesized by a psychiatrist, without a conflict of interest, for the sake of helping the patient.
It is not 'insulting' or 'perjorative' like 'denier' when used by a politically biased opponent.
Used politically the term is arrogant, ignorant and aggressive. The Climate Change Cartel (to use a potentially offensive but potentially equally true term) is self serving and clearly. The Climate Change Cartel does not wishto 'help' their opponents in the debate. To use a psychiatric term correctly they "grandiosely" claim to speak on behalf of the world. With severe delusions of superiority they argue their viewpoint is the only 'true' viewpoint. Indeed their behaviour is frenzied with religious furor rather than tenative and moderate as true science is.
Having working with the violently insane, and been a scientific researcher, I am clinically concerned about the United Nations "Climate Change Cartel" which claims they are 'scientific' yet 'bullies' opposition with an aggressive and ignorant name calling and 'labelling'. The pseudoscence misuse of psychiatric terminology implies that their own position is fundamentally 'weak' because their 'argument' depends on the 'ad hominem' fallacy. Logically and scientifically level minded individuals would question such hysteria, in deed panic, which to the sane might well appear as rank lunacy. Name calling and insulting bullying is frightening, to say the least.
This 'Climate Change Cartel' says most unscientifically , "if you don't agree with our "position", and do as we say, and spend money as we say, not only will the world end but you, who disagree with us will be called 'psychotic' because you are in 'denial'." 'We" (note the supreme 'we') define 'reality' and our 'reality' is true and you are 'deniers'.
I belonged to an organization called Psychiatrist against the Political Use of Psychiatry because political bullies of all stripes have wanted to use psychiatry to abuse their opponents. Russia long held that it's scientists who did not believe in communism were 'schizophrenic'.
Essentially these 'left wing extremists (Communism is the first church of Aetheism) said, those who do not believe in communism are 'communism deniers'. They proceeded to lock up anyone who didn't agree with them.
Yet here we have the United Nations (an oxymoron if ever there was one) (which represents so many countries without civil liberties, freedoms, transparency, rank corruption and 'science deniers' in general) Climate Change Cartel name calling and bullying anyone who 'disagrees' with their 'position'.
They claim this is 'consensus' thinking which fundamentally is itself unscientific. Science is 'hypothetical.' Consensus thinking is more religious than even political since the religious demanded that all believe in their God and their God alone. It was thought the community collectively would experience destruction if there was opposition to their 'divine realization.' The demand that everyone goose step to the same tune pre dates the Climate Change Cartel by at least a millenium.
Which is why the 'Climate Change Cartel' is more religous than scientific. Further the 'science' they 'espouse' is more often as illogical and the fundamentalist as the 'fallacy' their case rest on, ie, that anyone who doesn't agree with them is 'in denial', 'psychotic' or frankly insane'. It's hard to have a discussion anytime with a fanatic of any ilk, scientist or otherwise. The Nazi's were great rationalists and great scientists but suffered from just a touch too much arrogance. It doesn't surprise me that the Catholic Church has jumped in bed with the Climate Change Cartel given their rejection of Galileo and the sad plight of Germany's Bonhoffer.
If I believe my opponent is 'psychotic' and 'in denial', so utterly wrong to be insane, so black that I am by contrast 'immutably' and 'divinely white', then I really don't have to have a discussion with him, do I? What I need to do, is lock him up 'for his own good'.
That's the kind of arguments we saw when in the Psychiatrist against Political Abuse of Psychiatry we saw Jews and people of religious 'faith' disagreeing with the 'divinity' of world leaders whose countries today are members of the United Nations. Kings and emperors and some recent revolutionary leaders still believe they are divine and their position divine. Large swaths of people believe books are divine and there are many still who believe bones are. It's no surprise that the Climate Change Cartel believe their ideas so reverently. Individually we today might consider them 'in denial' looking at them all from a strictly secular perspective. The secular world is in contrast to to many nations of
Frankly, I'm afraid of the Climate Change Cartel just like I'm afraid of any other bullies and name callers. Now perhaps they're be afraid of me because by calling this 'motley crew' a 'cartel' I address the one obvious commonality this disparate group of self proclaimed 'scientists', has in common ie 'monetary interest'.
Before the UN Climate Change Cartel's language became violent, the old climate 'discussion' was simply as follows:
1) Is global temperature getting warmer or colder? Because I'm older than most these days I remember the 'hysteric' campagn in the 60's that claimed 'global cooling'. All of the same players and arguments were made then. That was followed by the 'global warming' fear mongering. 'Computer projections' and the most famous Al Gore's (note, truly a politician/ not a scientist) famous dramatic!!! "speculation" chart".
Computer projections are not 'true science". Ecology and environmental 'science' in general is consider 'soft' in scientific terms. The media doesn't get that all the 'psychological science' used in Criminal Minds is like the "Environmental Sciences' considered 'soft'. For "harder science", see the reliably reproducible chemistry experiment of boiling water which changes water to steam every time - that's science. Fanciful speculative computer projections are based of 'assumed variables'. These are simply 'best guessing" or 'science assisted 'guessing'. The 'truth' or 'fact' about the 'computer projections is that those used by the Climate Change Cartel were found to be grossly wrong, out by a factor of hundreds of years. What immediately followed was 'climate change'.
Everyone knows that 'climate changes' . There is no debate about climate changing. No one disagrees that climate changes. Only fools would be investing millions of UN dollars 'proving' 'climate change' since 'change is life'.
As a psychiatrist listening to these people I'm seriously 'scared' by this very 'creepy' tactic. If you back both sides of the argument, warming and cooling, you can get funding regardless of whether you're right or wrong. My fear is tainted by a little bit of envy that people in power can get away with this sort of skullduggery.
This was what Goldman Sachs did with taking out insurance on the investments on both sides of their 'economic model'. While the world collectively suffered, the Wall Street economic hustlers essentially 'profitted' with 'economic change' 'model'. (As scientists whenever we hear the word 'model' we think, 'fashion", not fact. ). The world economy nearly 'collapsed', all the while Wall Street called the opponents of the 'new economic change model' 'deniers'. Opponents at the time may as well have been called "Economic deniers' because they really did disagree with the 'packaging' . Those that disagreed with the good stock/bad stock real estate hustle that they sold, the dysregulation and subsequent bail outs made the insiders rich were silenced. Is Climate Change another 'insider' get rich game? Is this not the question someone should ask when a bunch of rich UN favorites insist they're doing something for me with my money and they want more money?
Meanwhile climate continues (duh!) to change, but now in addition to confusion about gases, and ozone and temperature there's this new 'variable' called 'extreme weather'. Interestingly the 'data' about 'extreme weather' is a 'variable' for which there is even less data, so it works very well for speculation, scientific or otherwise. Old religious prophets invariably called on the weather change to sell their latest brand of religion. Astronomy always was the secret 'priestly' science'. Prophets and priests hustle 'climate change' long before the United Nations got in the game.
But the real issue isn't climate change since obviously climate change is universally accepted.
2) Is 'climate change' 'man made'? This is part of the 'real issue'. Obviously 'climate change' is not solely man made. We see climate change on Saturn ie Climate changes, independent of man. That is fact. Life changes. The tides change. The seasons change. So obviously claiming climate change is solely man made is wrong. It doesn't matter how you wrap it up and how much perfume you put on it, the sun is this great orb in the sky working as a heater and the planet is orbitting and moving closer and further away from the sun. To 'deny' the influence of the sun, the moon and the orbit on climate would be truly psychotic.
3) The question then is 'how much does man's influence affect the climate versus how much is the contribution of non man factors. " This is indeed a 'scientific question. A typical scientific experiment would be to put a bunch of women and men in a box with a bunch of dogs and measure the fart ratio and density. A good scientist could say that 'human contribution to the fart density is x while dog contribution is y.' This is the question that's never heard in the incredibly stupid media "sports casters 'science' casters wannabe' 'discussions'. It's worse on the internet.
4) The question following this is what scientist call an 'applied science' question. What can we do to 'change' things like atmospheric 'gases'. I've already said that the best solution of all would be to bury universities and grow forests over subterranean cities. The Climate Change Cartel however refuses to listen to reason on this matter. We all went through the hysteria of the world ending with the millenial madness computer scare. Then we had the ozone layer hijacking hysteri when we didn't all fry. In 'applied science' there's real money to be made. My friend became rich selling cheap survival kits for the end of the world to the silly internet people who thought at 2000, Armageddon would come. He wasn't a scientist. He was a businessman.
5) The UN is principally businessmen and politicians and their pets. This is a sad fact. Scientists are tools and don't get paid much unless they 'serve' someone. I love Bob Dylan's song, "Maybe the devil or it may be the lord, but you've got to serve someone!". So at the level of "applied" 'science' there are business 'cartels' and scientists 'serve' these "cartels"
6) I would n't care about this at all but I don't like fallacies, weak arguments, bullies, name calling and pseudoscientists using the language of 'psychiatry' . I don't like that the UN's Climate Change Cartel has used the psychiatric term 'denial' and 'denier' so flippantly and erroneously. Any scientific committee worth it's salt would have consulted psychiatrists about their use of the term 'Climate Change Deniers" rather than misinforming the world with their 'intellectual terrorism'.
The very term "Climate Change Denier" is simply that. Intellectual terrorism.
I don't even want to talk with you as long as you are bullying me, threatening me and name calling. You frighten me. Indeed you are more terrifying to me than any of your 'skys falling' negative projections of the future. I'm even more concerned about your extortionary approach to academic funding. Your over riding demands for money and all your 'consensus' drama is bullying. You frighten me. Stop bullying. Stop name calling. Maybe then 'real scientists' will feel 'safe' to enter a discussion.
The next question is who 'owns climate' and how much 'climate' will the UN big boys allow the little people?
What 'percentage' of the world's economy does the Climate Change Cartel want now? How much more taxes do you want to take from our children to pay for your 'dreams' and 'projections'?
I left the university because I saw inter department fighting worse than provincial and state fighting for funds. Before everyone gets on the latest academic band wagon, remember academics are the best funding infighters.
'Ecologists' and 'climatologists' are not going to say 'oh by the way, I think you should fund 'science education' rather than 'climate change education, ' The future would be a much better place if we all understood science better, especially the media, and especially those who 'debate' on the internet. . Frankly, I'd be even happier if students were trained in 'critical thinking'.
But then the Dalai Lama just said we all needed to meditate (every last one of us) (and be taught in meditation) (meditation teachers are not free) and there would be world peace. So should we do what the Dalai Lama suggests before we do what the UN climate change factions suggest. Now as a scientist I might ask the question in an applied science way, "Which would be the better bang for the buck, giving the Dalai Lama all the money to teach students meditation or giving the Climate Change Cartel all the money? Maybe a real scientist could set up an experiment to test the hypothesis that paying the Dalai Lama money would more likely benefit the world than paying the United Nations? It's just an idea.
In the meantime I just wish the Climate Change Cartel would their stop bullying, intellectual terrorism and name calling first.
As a logician or rational thinker, when one encounters a 'fallacy' one is trained to consider that the 'argument' of those who use 'fallacies' is 'weak'. Those with strong arguments don't need to resort to fallacy. Fallatious arguments are normally considered 'false' arguments.
Much of politics is about the use of 'fallacies' craftilly. Much marketting relies on 'fallacies'.
Ad hominem is simply 'name calling'. It's the basis of racism and various immature and untrue postulates.
The specific ad hominem that is most prevalent today is 'Climate Change Denier' (CCD). As a scientist I can easily spot the 'unscientific' and 'pseudoscience' aspects of the present 'debate'. However as a psychiatrist I am most interestedin the use of the psychiatric term 'denier' ie a "person in denial".
As a psychiatrist, when I say a person is 'in denial', I am indeed saying they are 'insane' or frankly 'psychotic', in general or in specific. The word 'denial' was a useful description of a specific 'clinical defence mechanism' that can be seen in mentally ill individuals. Used clinically the term has validity and limitted usefulness.
For example a person with the psychiatric condition 'la belle indifference' may appear to be 'in denial' about the fact that they cannot use their arm because of a 'conversion disorder'.
A psychiatrist may well help the patient gain insight into their emotional denial about the pain they are experiencing in the loss of use of their arm which may well represent some other unconscious process driven by guilt or shame. Denial, in psychiatry, is a 'defence mechanism' hypothesized by a psychiatrist, without a conflict of interest, for the sake of helping the patient.
It is not 'insulting' or 'perjorative' like 'denier' when used by a politically biased opponent.
Used politically the term is arrogant, ignorant and aggressive. The Climate Change Cartel (to use a potentially offensive but potentially equally true term) is self serving and clearly. The Climate Change Cartel does not wishto 'help' their opponents in the debate. To use a psychiatric term correctly they "grandiosely" claim to speak on behalf of the world. With severe delusions of superiority they argue their viewpoint is the only 'true' viewpoint. Indeed their behaviour is frenzied with religious furor rather than tenative and moderate as true science is.
Having working with the violently insane, and been a scientific researcher, I am clinically concerned about the United Nations "Climate Change Cartel" which claims they are 'scientific' yet 'bullies' opposition with an aggressive and ignorant name calling and 'labelling'. The pseudoscence misuse of psychiatric terminology implies that their own position is fundamentally 'weak' because their 'argument' depends on the 'ad hominem' fallacy. Logically and scientifically level minded individuals would question such hysteria, in deed panic, which to the sane might well appear as rank lunacy. Name calling and insulting bullying is frightening, to say the least.
This 'Climate Change Cartel' says most unscientifically , "if you don't agree with our "position", and do as we say, and spend money as we say, not only will the world end but you, who disagree with us will be called 'psychotic' because you are in 'denial'." 'We" (note the supreme 'we') define 'reality' and our 'reality' is true and you are 'deniers'.
I belonged to an organization called Psychiatrist against the Political Use of Psychiatry because political bullies of all stripes have wanted to use psychiatry to abuse their opponents. Russia long held that it's scientists who did not believe in communism were 'schizophrenic'.
Essentially these 'left wing extremists (Communism is the first church of Aetheism) said, those who do not believe in communism are 'communism deniers'. They proceeded to lock up anyone who didn't agree with them.
Yet here we have the United Nations (an oxymoron if ever there was one) (which represents so many countries without civil liberties, freedoms, transparency, rank corruption and 'science deniers' in general) Climate Change Cartel name calling and bullying anyone who 'disagrees' with their 'position'.
They claim this is 'consensus' thinking which fundamentally is itself unscientific. Science is 'hypothetical.' Consensus thinking is more religious than even political since the religious demanded that all believe in their God and their God alone. It was thought the community collectively would experience destruction if there was opposition to their 'divine realization.' The demand that everyone goose step to the same tune pre dates the Climate Change Cartel by at least a millenium.
Which is why the 'Climate Change Cartel' is more religous than scientific. Further the 'science' they 'espouse' is more often as illogical and the fundamentalist as the 'fallacy' their case rest on, ie, that anyone who doesn't agree with them is 'in denial', 'psychotic' or frankly insane'. It's hard to have a discussion anytime with a fanatic of any ilk, scientist or otherwise. The Nazi's were great rationalists and great scientists but suffered from just a touch too much arrogance. It doesn't surprise me that the Catholic Church has jumped in bed with the Climate Change Cartel given their rejection of Galileo and the sad plight of Germany's Bonhoffer.
If I believe my opponent is 'psychotic' and 'in denial', so utterly wrong to be insane, so black that I am by contrast 'immutably' and 'divinely white', then I really don't have to have a discussion with him, do I? What I need to do, is lock him up 'for his own good'.
That's the kind of arguments we saw when in the Psychiatrist against Political Abuse of Psychiatry we saw Jews and people of religious 'faith' disagreeing with the 'divinity' of world leaders whose countries today are members of the United Nations. Kings and emperors and some recent revolutionary leaders still believe they are divine and their position divine. Large swaths of people believe books are divine and there are many still who believe bones are. It's no surprise that the Climate Change Cartel believe their ideas so reverently. Individually we today might consider them 'in denial' looking at them all from a strictly secular perspective. The secular world is in contrast to to many nations of
Frankly, I'm afraid of the Climate Change Cartel just like I'm afraid of any other bullies and name callers. Now perhaps they're be afraid of me because by calling this 'motley crew' a 'cartel' I address the one obvious commonality this disparate group of self proclaimed 'scientists', has in common ie 'monetary interest'.
Before the UN Climate Change Cartel's language became violent, the old climate 'discussion' was simply as follows:
1) Is global temperature getting warmer or colder? Because I'm older than most these days I remember the 'hysteric' campagn in the 60's that claimed 'global cooling'. All of the same players and arguments were made then. That was followed by the 'global warming' fear mongering. 'Computer projections' and the most famous Al Gore's (note, truly a politician/ not a scientist) famous dramatic!!! "speculation" chart".
Computer projections are not 'true science". Ecology and environmental 'science' in general is consider 'soft' in scientific terms. The media doesn't get that all the 'psychological science' used in Criminal Minds is like the "Environmental Sciences' considered 'soft'. For "harder science", see the reliably reproducible chemistry experiment of boiling water which changes water to steam every time - that's science. Fanciful speculative computer projections are based of 'assumed variables'. These are simply 'best guessing" or 'science assisted 'guessing'. The 'truth' or 'fact' about the 'computer projections is that those used by the Climate Change Cartel were found to be grossly wrong, out by a factor of hundreds of years. What immediately followed was 'climate change'.
Everyone knows that 'climate changes' . There is no debate about climate changing. No one disagrees that climate changes. Only fools would be investing millions of UN dollars 'proving' 'climate change' since 'change is life'.
As a psychiatrist listening to these people I'm seriously 'scared' by this very 'creepy' tactic. If you back both sides of the argument, warming and cooling, you can get funding regardless of whether you're right or wrong. My fear is tainted by a little bit of envy that people in power can get away with this sort of skullduggery.
This was what Goldman Sachs did with taking out insurance on the investments on both sides of their 'economic model'. While the world collectively suffered, the Wall Street economic hustlers essentially 'profitted' with 'economic change' 'model'. (As scientists whenever we hear the word 'model' we think, 'fashion", not fact. ). The world economy nearly 'collapsed', all the while Wall Street called the opponents of the 'new economic change model' 'deniers'. Opponents at the time may as well have been called "Economic deniers' because they really did disagree with the 'packaging' . Those that disagreed with the good stock/bad stock real estate hustle that they sold, the dysregulation and subsequent bail outs made the insiders rich were silenced. Is Climate Change another 'insider' get rich game? Is this not the question someone should ask when a bunch of rich UN favorites insist they're doing something for me with my money and they want more money?
Meanwhile climate continues (duh!) to change, but now in addition to confusion about gases, and ozone and temperature there's this new 'variable' called 'extreme weather'. Interestingly the 'data' about 'extreme weather' is a 'variable' for which there is even less data, so it works very well for speculation, scientific or otherwise. Old religious prophets invariably called on the weather change to sell their latest brand of religion. Astronomy always was the secret 'priestly' science'. Prophets and priests hustle 'climate change' long before the United Nations got in the game.
But the real issue isn't climate change since obviously climate change is universally accepted.
2) Is 'climate change' 'man made'? This is part of the 'real issue'. Obviously 'climate change' is not solely man made. We see climate change on Saturn ie Climate changes, independent of man. That is fact. Life changes. The tides change. The seasons change. So obviously claiming climate change is solely man made is wrong. It doesn't matter how you wrap it up and how much perfume you put on it, the sun is this great orb in the sky working as a heater and the planet is orbitting and moving closer and further away from the sun. To 'deny' the influence of the sun, the moon and the orbit on climate would be truly psychotic.
3) The question then is 'how much does man's influence affect the climate versus how much is the contribution of non man factors. " This is indeed a 'scientific question. A typical scientific experiment would be to put a bunch of women and men in a box with a bunch of dogs and measure the fart ratio and density. A good scientist could say that 'human contribution to the fart density is x while dog contribution is y.' This is the question that's never heard in the incredibly stupid media "sports casters 'science' casters wannabe' 'discussions'. It's worse on the internet.
4) The question following this is what scientist call an 'applied science' question. What can we do to 'change' things like atmospheric 'gases'. I've already said that the best solution of all would be to bury universities and grow forests over subterranean cities. The Climate Change Cartel however refuses to listen to reason on this matter. We all went through the hysteria of the world ending with the millenial madness computer scare. Then we had the ozone layer hijacking hysteri when we didn't all fry. In 'applied science' there's real money to be made. My friend became rich selling cheap survival kits for the end of the world to the silly internet people who thought at 2000, Armageddon would come. He wasn't a scientist. He was a businessman.
5) The UN is principally businessmen and politicians and their pets. This is a sad fact. Scientists are tools and don't get paid much unless they 'serve' someone. I love Bob Dylan's song, "Maybe the devil or it may be the lord, but you've got to serve someone!". So at the level of "applied" 'science' there are business 'cartels' and scientists 'serve' these "cartels"
6) I would n't care about this at all but I don't like fallacies, weak arguments, bullies, name calling and pseudoscientists using the language of 'psychiatry' . I don't like that the UN's Climate Change Cartel has used the psychiatric term 'denial' and 'denier' so flippantly and erroneously. Any scientific committee worth it's salt would have consulted psychiatrists about their use of the term 'Climate Change Deniers" rather than misinforming the world with their 'intellectual terrorism'.
The very term "Climate Change Denier" is simply that. Intellectual terrorism.
I don't even want to talk with you as long as you are bullying me, threatening me and name calling. You frighten me. Indeed you are more terrifying to me than any of your 'skys falling' negative projections of the future. I'm even more concerned about your extortionary approach to academic funding. Your over riding demands for money and all your 'consensus' drama is bullying. You frighten me. Stop bullying. Stop name calling. Maybe then 'real scientists' will feel 'safe' to enter a discussion.
The next question is who 'owns climate' and how much 'climate' will the UN big boys allow the little people?
What 'percentage' of the world's economy does the Climate Change Cartel want now? How much more taxes do you want to take from our children to pay for your 'dreams' and 'projections'?
I left the university because I saw inter department fighting worse than provincial and state fighting for funds. Before everyone gets on the latest academic band wagon, remember academics are the best funding infighters.
'Ecologists' and 'climatologists' are not going to say 'oh by the way, I think you should fund 'science education' rather than 'climate change education, ' The future would be a much better place if we all understood science better, especially the media, and especially those who 'debate' on the internet. . Frankly, I'd be even happier if students were trained in 'critical thinking'.
But then the Dalai Lama just said we all needed to meditate (every last one of us) (and be taught in meditation) (meditation teachers are not free) and there would be world peace. So should we do what the Dalai Lama suggests before we do what the UN climate change factions suggest. Now as a scientist I might ask the question in an applied science way, "Which would be the better bang for the buck, giving the Dalai Lama all the money to teach students meditation or giving the Climate Change Cartel all the money? Maybe a real scientist could set up an experiment to test the hypothesis that paying the Dalai Lama money would more likely benefit the world than paying the United Nations? It's just an idea.
In the meantime I just wish the Climate Change Cartel would their stop bullying, intellectual terrorism and name calling first.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Scientific Method, Bias and Politics
Science is distinct from religion and philosophy. In religion one begins from the position of received 'truth'. God speaks to Moses and tells him to tell the Pharaoh, "let my people go". Beginning with God's word the outcome is a product of the level of obedience to the projected plan by the individual. In philosophy one arrives at truth through reasoning, predominantly deductive or inductive.
In science, truth is not known, but an hypothesis is assumed. An hypothesis is an unproven, but an experiment is devised to prove the hypothesis, thereby arriving at 'not absolute truth' but rather a "prevailing hypothesis".
In religion increasing truth about the world comes from God's sharing this information but in science it comes from human endeavour, that is the accumulation of 'proofs' regarding some aspect of creation. Whereas religion and philosophy delve into the greater meaning of the universe, the why's and wherefore's of creation, science is predominantly interested in the how.
So an hypothesis might well be that the light always returns after darkness. A study is designed where two people wait through the night and sure enough the light comes with the sun in the morning. Eventually the hypothesis that explains this and suggests this is prevailing experience is the astronomical recognition with aid of telescopes and other paraphernalia that the earth revolves around the sun. Even watching the moon in its orbit around the earth one can see in eclipses the lightness and darkness confirming the original idea that the light follows the dark.
Experimentation is therefore central to science and why science students have 'lab' assignments in addition to regular class assignments. In the arts a literature student doesn't require an extra lab class doing experiments with explosives or highly dangerous chemicals. A literature student will listen in class, hear ideas and go away, read books, discuss the ideas and write papers about the ideas. In science classes the students are required to do the original critical experiments that defined the accumulated knowledge that forms the prevailing hypothesis in that field.
In scientific experimentation to better arrived at truth there are a number of variables which are identified and limitted. These 'variables' , aspects of experimental design and work which can influence an experiment unfairly, are generally limitted in elegant experiment because they introduce bias into the experiment. Experiments are like a game in that there are usually two principal outcomes, either the experiment prooves your hypothesis right or it proves your hypothesis wrong. If you are right you get grant money and advancement whereas if you are wrong you can be advised to get an arts degree or perhaps physical education.
Scientists are competitive and science is a competition in this sense.
The first bias to consider is 'selection bias'. In social sciences if you wanted to say "all men are good dancers" you could unfairly prove your 'hypothesis' true by choosing to select only from Negro and Latino men preferably from US inner city. If on the other hand you chose 'white male judges' you'd find that your hypothesis was wrong since everyone knows 'white male judges' can't dance whereas Latino and Black men can. Indeed, this fact alone, to scientists has often explained the 'legal' bias against Black and Latino men by the predominantly white judicial system. However without funding the experiments haven't been done to confirm this obvious example of how envy influences the judicial system scientifically.
Random selection is the way one avoids such obvious bias. Therefore by random selection you stand on a street corner in New York and observe the rythym of every second male regardless of their race thereby removing the 'selection bias' component.
Commonly experiments have at least two study groups. Often in biological sciences the study group is considered the group that something is being done to whereas the 'control' group is the group that is being left wild. In this way, if I wanted to study the sexual behaviour of women under the influence of alcohol, my hypothesis being that alcohol makes women women more sexual I'd have my control group drink coffee in a bar one night whereas I'd subject my study group of women to the influence of alcohol. My experimental design might be the more sexual encounters in 24 hours is the criteria for proof in my experiment.
If I wanted to make the experiment even more 'stringent' I'd introduce "blind" factors. Blinding in scientific method is causing either experimenter or those in the experiment not to know what is being done. In 'double' blind experiments the subject and the experiment is unaware of who is the control and who is the experimental group. In drug research commonly 'blinding' is done with 'placebo pills' such as sugar pills. So one group of students is given LSD and another is given placebo. The experiment design is set up to study whether students on LSD act abnormally. The experimenters rating the behaviour don't know which group took the LSD and the students themselves don't.
Other biases in research include "effects", such as the "halo effects'. In physics it was found that electrons being looked at acted differently from electrons not being looked at. This was the same in social sciences where people who are in an 'experiment' act differently than those not in an experiment.
Alot of 'field work' in anthropology and zoology was developed because in social sciences the very 'context' of the experiment had a biasing effect. Observation in the 'wild' showed that animals for instance acted different than animals in the zoo the same way that humans in night clubs act differently from the same humans in church.
An example of this was a colleague who was so uptight he made a normal Austrian gestapo look left of Democrat. He wore his white lab coat pressed and cleaned each day and had his hair brushed exquisitely. He carried a clip board and didn't talk to people unless he thought they were serious. No one knew this man to laugh and when his sense of humor was questioned he denied the claim insisting that he had a sense of humor most angrily. He did experiments on students showing that LSD caused paranoia by sitting in a locked white room with student who had taken LSD and observing the student while avoiding interacting with him. The subjects became paranoid in his presence and he failed to consider that his own paranoia was the cause of their associative paranoia however his published results made him considerable amounts of money. Another researcher observed students at a frat party taking LSD and did notice that a subset of LSD users became paranoid while others became ecstatic. When he reported his results the original researcher began a political campaign to have him discreditted.
Scientific method with experimentation is a means whereby a study design is set up much like a cookbook recipe with the outcome predicted based on the study. Using the rigors of scientific methods, a scientist knows that if he adds the right ingredients as say Newton or Einstein, he will most likely get chilli rather than curry Subsequently the study is repeated enough times to establish it's 'reliability'. Then it's subjected to analysis to assess 'inter rater reliability'. Over time a 'body' of evidence is achieved whereby a 'theory' becomes established.
Gravity is one such theory.
In social sciences the idea that the disparate complex nature of social behaviour can be simplified in some instances by the recognition that predominant motivational factors for men and women are sex and power. With out this knowledge an arts student with a very beautiful wife and a whole lot of money might not understand the potential behaviour of his somewhat poor single ugly weazel like neighbour who works all day in his laboratory making a bomb. The first man having some general knowledge of theories concerning human behaviour might well show some concern when the neighbour scientist invites him to see how his bomb works.
Bias is the inclination to hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives which might be equally valid is what science attempts to exclude to get a closer look at truth.
However, something as simple as 'funding bias' will politically grossly effect science. This is well understood in science and talked about all the time however in the courts even the suggestion of 'funding bias' can cause one to be held in 'contempt of court' since questioning 'funding bias' is indeed 'fighting city hall'. In law one can't question funding bias but in politics it's what the media does however it was the 'funding bias' of the Nazis that was said to have affected the ethics of the Pope early in WWII when he didn't question the politics of Hitler.
Today if a person develops an experiment to 'disprove' the 'prevailing hypothesis' that 'global warming is bad for the planet" and especially bad for "rich powerful humans living in previous temperate climates now faced with real estate price affecting climate change", since the universities are funded predominantly by people who have an invested interest in keeping their real estate prices high, they might well not get any funding for such an experiment.
This was seen all the time in research on marijuana when the US was on the mission for police acquisition of tanks and helicopters called 'the war on drugs', all research that said 'marijuana might have beneficial medicinal effects' went unfunded. Indeed a researcher suggesting such a matter of research might well find himself in jail or at very least refused tenure and kept under surveillance for years. In contrast if a researcher found marijuana was unhealthy for budgigars, because the second hand smoke affected the quality of their bird song as judged by several choir masters and symphony conductors this researcher was likely get untold millions in grant money and likely become the next president of the university.
Politics, economics, and legal considerations are all such principal biases to day that grossly effect science. Science was once a 'search for truth' in a rather intellectual and joyful pursuit principally by very wealthy bored white folk like Edison and Jefferson. Increasingly science seems predominantly 'applied science' where the proposed use of the scientific product is already decided. Scientists are designated to 'reverse engineer' a product that arrives at the political or even religious or legal truth. This is no longer science aimed at finding 'truth' but in fact science held hostage by bullies with guns in fact. The question is whether this hasn't been the case most often. Da Vinci is known for his air machines but not as well known as the man who developed the best armaments of the day. Indeed it seems that the day job of most scientists is working for the 'man' and only in the night job can they practice their 'science'. It's much like musicians who put out elevator music cover songs in their day job and write their own experimental music alone at night.
Some might indeed argue that all is politics. Then the field "political science" would really just be a euphemism better named 'scientific politics' as in 'scientific warfare'.
As an example I would suggest that noone today is being funded to produce a gun that will make the shooter and the one shot fall in love and want to never kill humans again. No private industry or university is conducting experiments in this or funding researchers to make love guns. Just an example. I'll believe science is once again free from politics, religion and law when I learn that a 'cupid gun' is in the works, especially if it is going to be provided as 'freeware'. But then I'd know that it must be something else, conspiracy theories being so seductive.
In reading research on the internet I'm amazed at how the untrained are routinely being duped by what is usually called 'pseudoscience'.
An example of questionable scientific 'validity' would be my saying 'buy black beans, I'm a scientist, and black beans are my preferred beans for quality farts'. This is 'anecdotal evidence' and doesn't involve the traditional experimentation with groups and hypothesis and inter rater reliability. However because I am a 'scientist' and you don't know that 'black bean producers of Canada' is giving me awesome kick backs for my promotional books, then you will no doubt believe that there is 'scientific proof that' black beans are superior to brown beans or white beans in the production of 'quality' farts. All manner of 'celebrities' have been used to promote all manner of things when a celebrities usual only superior trait is the achievement of 'celebrity' and 'celebrity' status.
Indeed you might well not even know that the word 'quality' is a political and not a 'scientific' words. There are such unscientific 'words'. I personally think my farts smell best so as a measurer of quality of product I will be 'biased' in this regard as each human might and my dog for sure is.
The study of science is the basis for living in what is today a scientific world. Understanding the 'arguments' about products and people and ideas and political platforms is indeed difficult and precarious without scientific training. As one of countless examples marketting agencies have duped the world into believing that many products are 'organic' without realizing that an unholy alliance between marketting spin doctors lawyers and mass food producers came up with the most miniumum criteria for the labelling of a food 'organic'. Even the Canadian Food Certification system which is one of the world's best scientific studies of food source and provision isn't widely understood or known by the average shopper who is commonly duped by the word 'organic' when they should instead be looking for the Canadian Food Certification label.
Indeed if I were to produce a mass destructive instrument today and name it as was done in the 60's and 70's I would n't call it just the 'peace missile' . Instead I'd call it an "organic peace missile' and put some yogurt in it guaranteeing I'd get at least a million or more votes in favour of this overr my competitors 'killer flying bomb' applied science product. Indeed listening to my marketting agency I would have got the funding for the production of my 'organic peace missile' containing yoghurt by insisting that it would be 'guaranteed' to 'prevent global warming'.
It is therefore important to study 'biases' in 'scientific experiments', understand how science and religion and politics and philosophy are distinctive, understand that 'fallacies' in logic are similiar to the 'effects' that can influence experiments and really understand economics and funding to comprehend the limits of the telling of the 'truth' by 'science'.
In science, truth is not known, but an hypothesis is assumed. An hypothesis is an unproven, but an experiment is devised to prove the hypothesis, thereby arriving at 'not absolute truth' but rather a "prevailing hypothesis".
In religion increasing truth about the world comes from God's sharing this information but in science it comes from human endeavour, that is the accumulation of 'proofs' regarding some aspect of creation. Whereas religion and philosophy delve into the greater meaning of the universe, the why's and wherefore's of creation, science is predominantly interested in the how.
So an hypothesis might well be that the light always returns after darkness. A study is designed where two people wait through the night and sure enough the light comes with the sun in the morning. Eventually the hypothesis that explains this and suggests this is prevailing experience is the astronomical recognition with aid of telescopes and other paraphernalia that the earth revolves around the sun. Even watching the moon in its orbit around the earth one can see in eclipses the lightness and darkness confirming the original idea that the light follows the dark.
Experimentation is therefore central to science and why science students have 'lab' assignments in addition to regular class assignments. In the arts a literature student doesn't require an extra lab class doing experiments with explosives or highly dangerous chemicals. A literature student will listen in class, hear ideas and go away, read books, discuss the ideas and write papers about the ideas. In science classes the students are required to do the original critical experiments that defined the accumulated knowledge that forms the prevailing hypothesis in that field.
In scientific experimentation to better arrived at truth there are a number of variables which are identified and limitted. These 'variables' , aspects of experimental design and work which can influence an experiment unfairly, are generally limitted in elegant experiment because they introduce bias into the experiment. Experiments are like a game in that there are usually two principal outcomes, either the experiment prooves your hypothesis right or it proves your hypothesis wrong. If you are right you get grant money and advancement whereas if you are wrong you can be advised to get an arts degree or perhaps physical education.
Scientists are competitive and science is a competition in this sense.
The first bias to consider is 'selection bias'. In social sciences if you wanted to say "all men are good dancers" you could unfairly prove your 'hypothesis' true by choosing to select only from Negro and Latino men preferably from US inner city. If on the other hand you chose 'white male judges' you'd find that your hypothesis was wrong since everyone knows 'white male judges' can't dance whereas Latino and Black men can. Indeed, this fact alone, to scientists has often explained the 'legal' bias against Black and Latino men by the predominantly white judicial system. However without funding the experiments haven't been done to confirm this obvious example of how envy influences the judicial system scientifically.
Random selection is the way one avoids such obvious bias. Therefore by random selection you stand on a street corner in New York and observe the rythym of every second male regardless of their race thereby removing the 'selection bias' component.
Commonly experiments have at least two study groups. Often in biological sciences the study group is considered the group that something is being done to whereas the 'control' group is the group that is being left wild. In this way, if I wanted to study the sexual behaviour of women under the influence of alcohol, my hypothesis being that alcohol makes women women more sexual I'd have my control group drink coffee in a bar one night whereas I'd subject my study group of women to the influence of alcohol. My experimental design might be the more sexual encounters in 24 hours is the criteria for proof in my experiment.
If I wanted to make the experiment even more 'stringent' I'd introduce "blind" factors. Blinding in scientific method is causing either experimenter or those in the experiment not to know what is being done. In 'double' blind experiments the subject and the experiment is unaware of who is the control and who is the experimental group. In drug research commonly 'blinding' is done with 'placebo pills' such as sugar pills. So one group of students is given LSD and another is given placebo. The experiment design is set up to study whether students on LSD act abnormally. The experimenters rating the behaviour don't know which group took the LSD and the students themselves don't.
Other biases in research include "effects", such as the "halo effects'. In physics it was found that electrons being looked at acted differently from electrons not being looked at. This was the same in social sciences where people who are in an 'experiment' act differently than those not in an experiment.
Alot of 'field work' in anthropology and zoology was developed because in social sciences the very 'context' of the experiment had a biasing effect. Observation in the 'wild' showed that animals for instance acted different than animals in the zoo the same way that humans in night clubs act differently from the same humans in church.
An example of this was a colleague who was so uptight he made a normal Austrian gestapo look left of Democrat. He wore his white lab coat pressed and cleaned each day and had his hair brushed exquisitely. He carried a clip board and didn't talk to people unless he thought they were serious. No one knew this man to laugh and when his sense of humor was questioned he denied the claim insisting that he had a sense of humor most angrily. He did experiments on students showing that LSD caused paranoia by sitting in a locked white room with student who had taken LSD and observing the student while avoiding interacting with him. The subjects became paranoid in his presence and he failed to consider that his own paranoia was the cause of their associative paranoia however his published results made him considerable amounts of money. Another researcher observed students at a frat party taking LSD and did notice that a subset of LSD users became paranoid while others became ecstatic. When he reported his results the original researcher began a political campaign to have him discreditted.
Scientific method with experimentation is a means whereby a study design is set up much like a cookbook recipe with the outcome predicted based on the study. Using the rigors of scientific methods, a scientist knows that if he adds the right ingredients as say Newton or Einstein, he will most likely get chilli rather than curry Subsequently the study is repeated enough times to establish it's 'reliability'. Then it's subjected to analysis to assess 'inter rater reliability'. Over time a 'body' of evidence is achieved whereby a 'theory' becomes established.
Gravity is one such theory.
In social sciences the idea that the disparate complex nature of social behaviour can be simplified in some instances by the recognition that predominant motivational factors for men and women are sex and power. With out this knowledge an arts student with a very beautiful wife and a whole lot of money might not understand the potential behaviour of his somewhat poor single ugly weazel like neighbour who works all day in his laboratory making a bomb. The first man having some general knowledge of theories concerning human behaviour might well show some concern when the neighbour scientist invites him to see how his bomb works.
Bias is the inclination to hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives which might be equally valid is what science attempts to exclude to get a closer look at truth.
However, something as simple as 'funding bias' will politically grossly effect science. This is well understood in science and talked about all the time however in the courts even the suggestion of 'funding bias' can cause one to be held in 'contempt of court' since questioning 'funding bias' is indeed 'fighting city hall'. In law one can't question funding bias but in politics it's what the media does however it was the 'funding bias' of the Nazis that was said to have affected the ethics of the Pope early in WWII when he didn't question the politics of Hitler.
Today if a person develops an experiment to 'disprove' the 'prevailing hypothesis' that 'global warming is bad for the planet" and especially bad for "rich powerful humans living in previous temperate climates now faced with real estate price affecting climate change", since the universities are funded predominantly by people who have an invested interest in keeping their real estate prices high, they might well not get any funding for such an experiment.
This was seen all the time in research on marijuana when the US was on the mission for police acquisition of tanks and helicopters called 'the war on drugs', all research that said 'marijuana might have beneficial medicinal effects' went unfunded. Indeed a researcher suggesting such a matter of research might well find himself in jail or at very least refused tenure and kept under surveillance for years. In contrast if a researcher found marijuana was unhealthy for budgigars, because the second hand smoke affected the quality of their bird song as judged by several choir masters and symphony conductors this researcher was likely get untold millions in grant money and likely become the next president of the university.
Politics, economics, and legal considerations are all such principal biases to day that grossly effect science. Science was once a 'search for truth' in a rather intellectual and joyful pursuit principally by very wealthy bored white folk like Edison and Jefferson. Increasingly science seems predominantly 'applied science' where the proposed use of the scientific product is already decided. Scientists are designated to 'reverse engineer' a product that arrives at the political or even religious or legal truth. This is no longer science aimed at finding 'truth' but in fact science held hostage by bullies with guns in fact. The question is whether this hasn't been the case most often. Da Vinci is known for his air machines but not as well known as the man who developed the best armaments of the day. Indeed it seems that the day job of most scientists is working for the 'man' and only in the night job can they practice their 'science'. It's much like musicians who put out elevator music cover songs in their day job and write their own experimental music alone at night.
Some might indeed argue that all is politics. Then the field "political science" would really just be a euphemism better named 'scientific politics' as in 'scientific warfare'.
As an example I would suggest that noone today is being funded to produce a gun that will make the shooter and the one shot fall in love and want to never kill humans again. No private industry or university is conducting experiments in this or funding researchers to make love guns. Just an example. I'll believe science is once again free from politics, religion and law when I learn that a 'cupid gun' is in the works, especially if it is going to be provided as 'freeware'. But then I'd know that it must be something else, conspiracy theories being so seductive.
In reading research on the internet I'm amazed at how the untrained are routinely being duped by what is usually called 'pseudoscience'.
An example of questionable scientific 'validity' would be my saying 'buy black beans, I'm a scientist, and black beans are my preferred beans for quality farts'. This is 'anecdotal evidence' and doesn't involve the traditional experimentation with groups and hypothesis and inter rater reliability. However because I am a 'scientist' and you don't know that 'black bean producers of Canada' is giving me awesome kick backs for my promotional books, then you will no doubt believe that there is 'scientific proof that' black beans are superior to brown beans or white beans in the production of 'quality' farts. All manner of 'celebrities' have been used to promote all manner of things when a celebrities usual only superior trait is the achievement of 'celebrity' and 'celebrity' status.
Indeed you might well not even know that the word 'quality' is a political and not a 'scientific' words. There are such unscientific 'words'. I personally think my farts smell best so as a measurer of quality of product I will be 'biased' in this regard as each human might and my dog for sure is.
The study of science is the basis for living in what is today a scientific world. Understanding the 'arguments' about products and people and ideas and political platforms is indeed difficult and precarious without scientific training. As one of countless examples marketting agencies have duped the world into believing that many products are 'organic' without realizing that an unholy alliance between marketting spin doctors lawyers and mass food producers came up with the most miniumum criteria for the labelling of a food 'organic'. Even the Canadian Food Certification system which is one of the world's best scientific studies of food source and provision isn't widely understood or known by the average shopper who is commonly duped by the word 'organic' when they should instead be looking for the Canadian Food Certification label.
Indeed if I were to produce a mass destructive instrument today and name it as was done in the 60's and 70's I would n't call it just the 'peace missile' . Instead I'd call it an "organic peace missile' and put some yogurt in it guaranteeing I'd get at least a million or more votes in favour of this overr my competitors 'killer flying bomb' applied science product. Indeed listening to my marketting agency I would have got the funding for the production of my 'organic peace missile' containing yoghurt by insisting that it would be 'guaranteed' to 'prevent global warming'.
It is therefore important to study 'biases' in 'scientific experiments', understand how science and religion and politics and philosophy are distinctive, understand that 'fallacies' in logic are similiar to the 'effects' that can influence experiments and really understand economics and funding to comprehend the limits of the telling of the 'truth' by 'science'.
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