Posted on by Florent

The working of modern BS

There is a need for new books. Not about Byzantium or Greeks vs. Romans, this has been extensively researched.
We need scholar research on how BS vendors mask themselves as BS hunters. How naive models are masked as complexity science. How parroting makes new academic fields.

It’s a serious issue concerning the future of academic research. A vicious cycle of naive old models → BS venting → BS hunting → naive new models. And all this simplicity in thinking is masked, now, as “complexity science”. The same way Injustice is packed as Social Justice.

Another element is how implicit intimidation works in scientific groups (mob dynamics & peer pressure) excluding criticism. We need to understand how eugenics once spread in most EU countries, how communist science spread, and how uncritical “complex science” may spread as well.

If we study these dynamics, a strange pattern emerges. Religiously inclined scholars become the strongest opposition against scientific BS. When eugenics was a serious trend, Pope Pius XI explicitly condemned sterilization laws. The Pope, yes the Pope, was the hero in this story.

Another detail, revealing the complexity of ethics, science & reason, is that The Fascist government in Italy abstained from copying Germany’s “scientific” racial & anti-Semitic laws until 1938, while Pope Pius XI publicly asked to abstain from adopting racist legislation.

Another Pope, Pius XII condemned eugenics in scientific conferences, but also pioneered in promoting scientific breakthroughs e.g. Big Bang (cosmic egg) proposed by Lemaître (1894-1966), a Belgian priest who dared to criticise & “correct” Einstein’s model of static universe.

From the examples above, we reach an unfortunate conclusion. It might be more easy to criticise Einstein or even the Pope (often Catholics do that in a sophisticated environment of respect) than it is to criticise the infallible Popes of science cults, and their fan clubs.

Comments
If you go to any major airport in EU or US you’ll see the same collection of best sellers. If you notice most of them try to do the same thing, to redefine truth, to break the myths, to break the old naive “BS models”. And to do so, they create new naive models. It’s a trend.

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Posted on by Florent

Nuance in science

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”.