Ignorance & pseudoscience of “Social Science” in one graph. Real science has control groups & compares attendance / non-attendance within each group. With controlled research (symmetric) we find STRONG ASSOCIATION between attendance at religious services & DECREASED mortality.
There are countless studies. It takes time to rule out the BS (which is common nowadays) and find keywords e.g.: intrinsic religiosity vs. extrinsic religiosity, adaptive vs. maladaptive perfectionism, quality of life etc. In physiology I know spirituality correlates w/ oxytocin.
Hubris indeed. The lack of respect & understanding by modern academics is transformed into pseudoscience. That’s the end-product of hubris: ἄτην (blindness)
The most recent study I found in Internal Medicine. If you take just church attendance it may happen that unhealthy people go more often at church. How they controlled for this? They took 74 534 women WITHOUT serious disease and followed them for 20 years.
So in this study they didn’t took people who go to the church and those who don’t. This is naive. They took a group (of healthy people) and controlled mortality with different variables WITHIN this group. They examined mortality symmetrically for each variable.
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. Paris VIII, an extra left-wing LGTB loving, immigrant hosting University in Paris. Posters of Lenin all over the place when celebrating the 100 years of Com. Revolution, often dildos decorating students’ posts as sign of “diversity” and open-mindedness.
Last time I visited Paris VIII library, this month, I noticed bed bugs (highly contagious) crawling all over the place. This made me nervous and I warned the staff: the situation of filthiness & uncleanness is out of control. Les Misérables all over again.
And today this is in the news. Police forces evacuated a building from immigrants (using force & tear gas). What the article doesn’t say is that this happened AFTER diagnosing personnel with scabies (!) highly contagious skin disease.
When marxists face the unintended consequences of their actions they don’t discuss, they gas. No selfies, no talking, just gas. They hide evidence & invite brutal force with tear gas against illegal immigrants, against their “buddies”, the object of their virtue!
I’ve said it many times, l’ll say it again. One day marxist liberals are going to expel homosexuals (again) the same way Lenin did, the same way Paris VIII ousted the “filthy” immigrants. Marxism doesn’t have the slightest shred of humanism or fidelity.
#QuestionDuJour: Does change happens slowly or rapidly? Growth is typically slow. Death, destruction of a system, is rapid. Interesting read: The “Seneca effect” why decline is faster than growth … Photo: Moral letters to Lucilius; Seneca Letter 91
The article shows graphs from “Mayan collapse”. I can’t help but notice a biological pattern here. This how our nerves & muscles work. Cells slowly build up Na+ outside their membranes followed by sudden Na influx. The “sudden collapse” of polarisation is crucial step.
What does this mean? The slow buildup of Na+ takes up ATP (energy) creating a “tension” (polarisation) in the border (cell membrane) like a battery storing energy, waiting an opportunity to “collapse”. Is there a “social battery” storing “social energy” through polarisation?
The “collapse” of Na+ in the nervous / muscle cells is a SUDDEN EVENT called de-polarisation. Depolarisation becomes viral, from one cell to another, populating a nervous /muscle signal.
In a more abstract way (pattern) we see the “collapse” of European monarchy happened suddenly. American Revolution, French Revolution etc. Political polarisation is like a “battery” slowly storing energy? A sudden collapse becomes viral from one cell to another.
The New Testament points out that while pregnancy takes a long time, the birth is a sudden event. The day of birth is unpredictable. Although giving birth is painful, having a newborn is one of the happiest days in one’s life. Lots of symbolism here.
And the opposite is also true. God’s divine plan in Bible is shown in a sudden way with signs of birth or death. The exact timing is unpredictable, but not the fate of those who commit hybris & disrespect the divine laws.
Christian theology is based on the the philosophical & spiritual investigation of “Sudden Change”, birth or collapse, studying situations where you can’t predict the date but the good / bad longterm direction of the outcome.
Following the interesting remark of @Grurray, natural growth is NOT exponential but logistic, converging to a maximum, the “carrying capacity”. You never know where you are on the curve. Exponential growth is just an illusion.
OVERSHOOT: “When a population surpasses its carrying capacity it enters a condition known as overshoot.”
Another interesting perspective, by @GeorgiosGs, on Earthquakes. The research shows a similar underlying mechanism: SUDDEN release of strain that slowly builds on the plates beneath for a long period of time.
A twitter user: How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly Exactly! I also like the clear distinction of @nntaleb on Sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη) vs. Rationality based on “graphs”, “facts” and “evidence”, all based on current state. Current state – one day – will collapse. It’s hybris to act on the presumption of immortality.
People don’t get (2). Let’s elaborate. There is not such a thing as “christian law”. Jesus left no Mosaic laws. The modern legal system of most countries is based on Civil Code, founded on the famous Corpus Juris Civilis, by Justinian, a Saint of the Church.
Wikipedia: “The legal thinking behind the Corpus Juris Civilis served as the backbone of the single largest legal reform of the modern age, the Napoleonic Code, which marked the abolition of feudalism.”
The University of Bologna, where Justinian’s Code was taught, remained the dominant centre of legal studies in the High Middle Ages. It’s considered as the oldest university in continuous operation.
To summarise, the Reformation & Enlightenment was a movement towards the Latin & Greek texts, the original ideas of New Testament & the legal system of Byzantines. Today progressivism is in the OPPOSITE direction based on profound ignorance of linguistics & history.
Although Fr. Revolution was a cultural shock & did amazing “marketing” of the secular spirit, this historically came from UK/US. Voltaire became a philosopher AFTER visiting UK, writing about the “liberté” of Christian Quakers & heritage of W. Penn. US pioneered in many domains. Since the topic here is christianity & the state: – City of Philadelphia was a RELIGIOUS experiment w/ radical secular logic (before Europe) – became economic center – revolutionary center, where the Declaration of Independence was later signed
A twitter user made a comment (deleted) Do you think Academy of Athens in 400 AC was the same as in 400BC? It’s been 800 years. The Academy spent public money to teach Theurgy (!) and Magic (!). Are you sure your children should have this curriculum today? The Byzantine Higher Ed actually REMOVED religious education. […] Take a look at Proclus (Neoplatonist), the last major classical philosopher.
I’ll tell you a secret: EVERYBODY belongs to a minority – the minority of “wearing glasses” is bullied at school – the minority of tall can’t find airplane seats – any health issue puts you in a certain minority, some of them already have privileges (and rightly so) – the minority of rich, the minority of poor – the minority of vegans, the minority of keto dieters (only meat) – … There are 1000+ parameters that can place you into a different minority. The MAJORITY of people belong to multiple MINORITIES.
It’s unbelievable how BS is spreading like virus in modern academy. The IQ-success connection is a nice example. The claim by @jordanbpeterson that IQ is the “single most important factor of success” is both ridiculous & ignorant.
All metrics / tests have specificity and sensitivity. Great sensitivity of a test does NOT imply great specificity!
Example #1: having a driving lisence is a high sensitivity test (over 99%) to detect a good driver in a population. Having a lisence is the secret of good driving?
Example #2: having a healthy body is a high sensitivity test (over 99%) to detect an olympic medalist. So, having a healthy body is the “secret” of winning a medal? What is the specificity of this metric? Extremely low!
Example #3: having a healthy IQ (over 115) is a high sensitivity test (over 90%) to detect a CEO. Having this IQ is the secret of becoming CEO? What is the specificity? Low!
In general, the higher the sensitivity, the lower the specificity, and vice versa. It’s shocking how academics like @jordanbpeterson and his colleauges don’t nuance their analysis of IQ with basic terms in statistics.
We’re talking about basic stuff – statistics 101. ANY HEALTH METRIC is a potential “high sensitivity test” of measuring “success”, just by excluding failure (= test sensitivity). Basic mental & body health are expected to be found in all Olympic winners & CEOs. This is their secret of success?
The research on IQ actually shows that low IQ is connected to low “success” and NOT the opposite, if being “successful” means becoming a lawyer or CEO. Obviously, having cancer / lung disease / heart failure or… low IQ is a metric of low “success” in demanding positions.
I put “success” in parenthesis cause @jordanbpeterson gives a very narrow and materialistic definition. After 600BC the greek & western thought has developed a non-materialistic, deeper, complex & systemic understanding of success that Peterson obviously is unaware of.
The Grant Study at Harvard Medical School is the longest ( 75-year) longitudinal study researching metrics of life success. Even JF Kennedy participated. Very nice summary here:
The end-result of Harvard Grant Study confirms classical greek & graecochristian philosophy: the real secret of success is love (warmth of relationships) and NOT the IQ .
From the same Harvard Grant Study: “No significant difference in maximum income earned by men with IQs in the 110–115 range and men with IQs higher than 150.”
In the “correlation is not correlation” issue I noticed something but I don’t know of any particular technical term, so I call it: “activated correlation”.
Skin cells & muscle cells have exactly the same genes. All cells have the same genes, 100% “DNA correlation”. But different genes are activated in different times in different cells, a timely effect so important that is the “secret” of complex life sharing same information.
And we can see the same phenomenon, much more complex, in social life. Major aspects of behaviour (e.g. violence, morality, religiosity) are “activated” in certain times in certain ways.
And that’s why common sense beats the “evidence” of correlation in social science again and again. Example: It’s naive to make generalisations on any social behaviour, by studying population in times of peace & prosperity.
In biology this is called differentiation, and maybe we need this mental tool in statistics as well. Social differentiation: social correlations come and go, appear and disappear based on context.
A typical example would be the correlation between “faith in God” and “morality”. Social scientists were sure there is no correlation there. They even did a documentary to inform the people that there is no correlation between ethics and faith.
And… suddenly… the millennial generation appears. And in this generation (raised in a context of atheism) we see academic honesty, idealistic consuming behaviour, prosociality & other aspects of morality being linked to…. faith in God in multiple research articles.
Activated social correlation : “the context of the correlation (time & space) carries more information than the correlation itself.”
In more general terms in logic: “the context of any statement carries more information than the statement itself”. Or “you can create a logical paradox by changing the context of the statement” Tunnel Vision: focusing solely on a single statement (here: a correlation)
The butchers of science and philosophy, with naive mono-parametric statistics reaching maximalisations. The “games don’t affect violence” is equally BS with the “games cause violence”. The “IQ is the cause of success” is equally BS with the “IQ is not affecting success”.
Humans build systems, embedded in complex network of causal relationships. Science needs surgical knifes (nuance, polyparametric, longterm, fat tails) while our butchers talk on “religion”, “violence”, “crime”, “IQ” in black & white charts. Either you “have it” or not.
VIDEO GAMES AFFECT SOCIAL OUTCOMES. The keyword here is not “violence”. There are documented negative effects on aggression & prosocial behaviour, particularly in men. Why? It’s complex! We don’t know in what level this is affecting the society in the longterm.
To understand the methodological errors of the “butchers of science” (evolutionary BS vendors) lets compare with a real science: medicine. If we study “all cancer patients” and give them Chlorambucil (chemotherapy) we will find no correlation, no health outcome.
So we divide cancer in types. Nuance! In certain types we test certain chemical agents. Nuance! And… there is a correlation between Hodgkin lymphoma & Chlorambucil. Nuance! If we tested “drugs” & “cancer” in general, this would not be science, it would be “social science”.
-Left: SJW utopia is the solution. Why? capitalism fails! -Right: capitalism is the solution. Why? communism fails! -Social Scientists: IQ is secret of success. Why? low IQ fails!
Ideology is thinking you’ve found the secret of success because you’ve studied …the failure.
We have to remind our socialist friends that STATE TERRORISM (and throwing gays to jail) is not a “side effect” of Marxism, it’s the legitimate firstborn child. This is what happens when the “dictatorship of proletariat” gains the power of… you know… a dictatorship.
We have to remind our capitalist friends that CORPORATISM is not a “side effect” but a legitimate firstborn child of capitalism. The same with mass media hijacking social institutions & prostituting the news narrative to the highest bidder.
And finally, we have to remind our social scientists that 2% of US population (6.514.000 people!) are gifted with IQ over 130. If there was a “dominance hierarchy” of competence based on IQ, this 6M would have taken over US institutions a long time ago. They didn’t. Why?
The strongest signs that western Europe re-enters the Middle Ages:
1. #scientism – the critics of scientific orthodoxy live on the fringe 2. #privilegism – the ruling elite exchanges privileges with loyalty e.g. access to institutions by belonging to a privileged & loyal group 3. Ignorance of the Classics: Petrarch (14th C.) coined the term Dark Ages referencing to the “intellectuals” who remained ignorant on the classics. After the Dark Ages it’s the 1st time west. academics & politicians embarrass themselves w/ profound ignorance on basic history.
I found this old book from a flee market in Paris. Students used to learn Homer as the King of “Les Humanités”. Today Homer is dead. Again. Second time in western history.
The second image is from the “Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom” by Victor Davis Hanson. You can find a sample of his lectures here, e.g. on the “asymmetry that is uniquely western”.
Although I respect Prof Hanson, he didn’t manage to fully cure himself from the disease he fluently diagnosed e.g. he claims “the west was tolerant” pointing to religious beliefs like the Stoics or the Pythagoreans. Then who burned down Pythagoras’ school? Who killed Socrates?
The secret of the west was NOT [naive] tolerance. It was… the habit of negotiating instead of just dominating or submitting the habit of attributing honour to the enlightened & heroic figures the habit of respecting the timeless truths as greater than ephemeral desires
And last but not least, the habit of repenting. The west has expressed remorse on wrongdoing multiple times. The greeks killed Socrates. They repented. They (probably) killed Pythagoras. They repented. For comparison: Talmud is quite proud (until today) for the death of Jesus.
François Benoux wisdom 