Category Archives: Science

The Baby Choice

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | Sep 24, 2016

The inversion of language

The inversion of language

My college philosophy teacher was and probably still is an atheist, yet he was an amazingly brilliant teacher … one of my best. Despite his lack of faith or belief in things unseen or unproven by his deductive method, he was staunchly anti-abortion. He reasoned as did I that once you minimize or devalue life at one end of the spectrum (very young) what logically will prevent you from minimizing it at the other end (very old); and once so done, one’s foot is squarely placed on the proverbial slippery slope. And where does this slope lead? Well it leads to further adjustments at either or both ends. So if we have scarce resources —which we always do– the value of a person prior to being productive for society would be less than say a person of working age and likewise the value of an older person incapable of vigorous work would be less valuable. So at some point, this logic trip leads us to the conclusion of stratification of value based on age; such that a society would be more interested in investing and/or saving the life of someone between the age of 18 and 35 say. Outside this range, you are less valuable and therefore on your own; or possibly a candidate for post-birth abortion. In fact this is already occurring. We have death panels with Obamacare and recent opinion polls on college campuses show a growing approval of post-birth abortion up to age five if it would save jobs. So there you have it. Ideas have power and they have consequences that on first blush you may not have even considered.

If you are religious, you can find many persuasive arguments against abortion from the pulpit; but if you are not religious, these arguments are unimpressive, unconvincing and annoying.  If you believe that there is no creator, and that we are just the end result of eons of random successful genetic mutations originating from a primordial soup, the idea of a fetus being just a blob of cells like your liver or spleen– to be removed at will when necessary or convenient– is intellectually reasonable if not entirely emotionally satisfying.  The non-religious would naturally wonder what the big fuss is all about and rightfully feel these religious nuts are encroaching on “my reproductive rights!”   Amazingly, however, faith has found a place in the hearts of the faithless…once the fetus is beyond the birth canal, umbilical cord cut and fetus viable; it somehow magically attains full rights of an individual human being and is so named.   This is part of a long list of “well-established” facts that comprise the credo of the secular world.  They reason that perhaps life may begin a bit earlier than this, but not by much.  To make things more confusing, we are told that no one really knows when life begins anyway; so we can now use this fuzzy construct to smudge any clear demarcation and add confusion to the ill-trained mind.

What kind of barbarian would deny a woman the right to control her own body or her right to practice birth control as she sees fit?   And what about rape, incest and the mother’s life or the quality of life of the infant due to poverty, genetic irregularities, malformations or congenital maladies?  Or you wanted a boy and not a girl or it’s just not convenient just now.  Surely you must see the logic of allowing women to abort their fetuses?   And, to combat the religious nuts, there are websites dedicated to proving that abortion is biblical just in case you are not so sure about all this Deity stuff.  So what’s the big deal?  The non-believer has every angle covered.  It’s just a medical procedure performed by a doctor and his patient.

So, if we are to make any headway on this debate, we have two choices:  we can convert everyone on the planet to agree with our particular religious views—unlikely– or we can take a logical, scientific view upon which believers and non-believers can agree.

So what is a fetus?  Is it a blob of cells?  Yes and no.  Is it a weed or a flower, trash or treasure? A series of electrochemical reactions or a blessing?  I think we can agree that the term fetus is a cold, disinterested name given to a very young human.  It is not a dog.  It is not a cat and it is not a liver or an abscessed tooth to be pulled or a hair or finger nail to be cut.  It is something different.  It depends on the mother for sustenance but it is not part of the mother and does not share its DNA with any other cell in the mother’s body.  Every cell in the Mother’s body has the same DNA as every other cell in the Mother’s body except the fetus or baby which resides within the mother’s womb…there by no fault of its own. Helpless, nature’s most vulnerable.  The baby possesses some DNA from the Father and some from the Mother but woven together in a very unique way.   No two siblings are exactly alike even identical twins differ in terms of gene expression and space and time…and none possess the same combination of DNA as the Mother.

So I think we can safely say that the fetus is not part of the Mother’s body in any logical since unless you also consider the male’s penis part of the mother’s body during coitus and could be aborted as well if not attached to a legally defined separate human.  But such conclusions illustrate the foolishness of the abortionists logic more than my crassness.  And we can safely say that the fetus is a young human though we may disagree if it is alive or not. Since we have no good definition of life this can be problematic.  Some viruses defy our definition of life by many accounts; however, most of us can tell the difference between a virus and a rock yet we get confused when discussing a fetus.

For the non-believer none of this may matter much anyway since the pain to the little human is short –if at all– and it benefits the greater good of the collective to reduce the population, but you must admit that this is a little more consequential than getting a tooth removed or a haircut and there may be some ethical question about killing an innocent life.  And for the agnostic or the ethically challenged… if perchance there is a Creator, I would imagine this creator might be just a little bit pissed at a people who chose of their own free will to pass a law that has resulted in the death of over 58 million of His most innocent ones.

Additional Reading from ClearNFO:  Opus 014: The Hoax of materialism

Sources:

The Absurd Theories of Quantum

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | Jan 03, 2016

bustos-756620_640

I know I will get a lot of flack from this heresy, but it has been a splinter in my brain that must come out. I will not spend endless hours debating this, but I will paint a simpler and a more complete picture soon. The impact of modern philosophy on today’s science: Not many realize that philosophy and science were once the same thing (called natural philosophy); until they split in the late 1,700s. The scientific method transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity called science; and metaphysics was concerned with the non-empirical inquiry into the nature of existence. Not only that, Immanuel Kant and Plato before him sought to destroy the metaphysics of 1) Identity; 2) Causality and 3) The law of non-contradiction set forth by Aristotle. Aristotle said that A is A; and A is not non-A. Kant, ushering in the modern philosophy, said we really can’t know anything for certain and there are no absolutes (which in itself is a logical fallacy). Examples: Everybody’s entitled to their opinion or It may be true for you but not true for me. This violates any idea of an external reality and has insinuated itself into all aspects of modern theoretical physics. It has bastardized the ideas of identity, causality and the law of non-contraction providing us with the absurd theories of Quantum, String and M-theory and many others which cannot be reconciled into classical physics. It is interesting to note that around this same time our Trivium education system was replaced by the Prussian system which removed critical thought, identity and the law of non-contradiction.

Calculus

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | Jan 03, 2016

Math

Math

Now I have taken many math classes at the University: from linear & abstract algebra to Calculus 1-3, Topology and more but one day while in Advanced Calculus we had been studying a cut theory for weeks, trying to figure out the difference between a 1 and a 2, and it occurred to me how utterly simple and basic all this math stuff was conceptually; and that even a first grader could understand it; and in fact it is my opinion that we should teach Calculus to all our children in elementary school. To put this into context, I’m not saying we should teach them how to solve complex equations, derivatives or integrals. It is a fact that I was a lousy math student in public school since I didn’t have good number sense or a calculator. I made straight ‘Fs’ in math until I got to the University, where I made straight ‘As’. The difference? The higher you get into math, the less it has to do with numbers and the more it has to do with concepts. What I am saying, is that the concepts are so simple and profound that they apply to everything and should be taught to our children at a very early age. In fact I have taught all my kids calculus –without them knowing it—by the first or second grade. Simply put Calculus is magical, philosophical and depends on faith. It solves an ancient unsolvable problem of determining the exact area under a curve. It just says as you make each square smaller and smaller and as the size goes to zero the limit of the equation that describes the curve is exactly equal to this. Kids can get this stuff and see the beauty and usefulness of math.

Albalone shellserveimage
When you walk along the sea shore, you can pick up an Abalone Shell and tell your kids that if you had the equation for this shell, you could tell EXACTLY how many drops of sea water it would hold.

 

"a boy playing on the seashore"

“a boy playing on the seashore”

“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

–Isaac Newton (developed Calculus in the 17th century)

The unsung Magic of Calculus

The Spectre of Globalism and what to do about it

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | Oct 25, 2015

Time to read, listen and learn…

Globalism“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”

–Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 1848
Communist Manifesto (Prologue)

And today, there is yet another spectre, only this spectre learned to use Karl Marx’s communism and all the other ‘–isms’ (whose common effect is to concentrate power),  in a grand conspiracy to place the entirety of humanity under its singular control. It has many names: New World Order, Global Governance, Globalism, the Network, Shadow Government, etc. but represents the same Anglo-American Establishment.  This is not merely a conjecture or a theory; but a well-documented fact found in their own writings, speeches and actions; and in the detailed writings of Quigley, Sutton, Griffin, Plummer and others, yet most of the structure and the purpose of this spectre remains unknown to the masses.

Unlike the tyrants we have studied in history, this new, fresh batch of authoritarian predators have a much improved arsenal of technological weapons to enslave humanity and they are moving rapidly to consolidate their control with the help of their paid technocrats, political talking heads, international money masters and corporate media organs.

The root of their power was created from and sustained by the ignorance of the masses. Who are the masses? That’s you and me bub.

If ignorance of this threat is the root cause of the enablement of this danger, perhaps the opposite would be the inoculation against this virus unleashed on the world by the predator class though education and the teaching again of the lost art of critical thinking.

THE CURE:

If you have a work-a-day job like I do or a long commute to and from work like I do, along with family responsibilities like I do, how on earth do you squeeze out enough time to become educated on important current and historical events?

The average American watches between 2.8 and 5 hours of TV per day. This wide variance depends on whose statistics you use (Nielsen or BLS), age, race and sex. In any event, it can be seen that a lot of TV is watched by Americans on a daily basis as a leisure activity and for news.

Researching for this article, I found thousands of articles on how fast people read, but most sited no authority or source for the generally agreed to speed of 250-300 words per minute. The very few who did site a source: Forbes, for example, all sited the same study which was actually a speed reading test by Staples. It’s worrisome that almost no one takes the time to site sources! This speed reading test is apparently a smart marketing campaign by Staples. In any event, Staples possesses the only statistic I was able to find and this truth-claim has crept into the collective consciousness as a well-established fact.

More detail from Forbes:

  •   Third-grade students = 150 words per minute (wpm)
  •    Eight grade students = 250
  •    Average college student = 450
  •    Average “high level exec” = 575
  •    Average college professor = 675
  •    Speed readers = 1,500
  •    World speed reading champion = 4,700

So if the average American adult can read say 300 words per minute, how many words can they read in 5 hours? The math is simple: 300 wpm X 60 minutes = 18,000 words per hour; times 5 hours = 90,000 words per day. Even if we cut this number by half, that is a lot of words!

Books have an average of 350 words per page according to Writers Services so theoretically the average American could read 257 pages per day rather than watching 5 hrs. Per day of TV. 257 pages per day seems a bit high to me and of course for many, reading is not a leisure activity and thus we aren’t comparing apples to apples here, but it does drive home the point that if most American chose to become educated, they could prioritize their time to provide for their own self-education on matters that matter.

The reason I took the time to go through this analysis was to prove to my fellows and to myself that we do indeed have the time to read some of the most important books of our era, and this reading and resultant enlightenment would change the world we live in permanently for the good. It would usher in true human freedom by putting the powers that shouldn’t be out of business. This is not just another Utopian ideal, since their power has been proven on these pages to be a function of our collective ignorance. What is Utopian is the expectation that enough people will take time away from their leisure to become informed. What are some of these important books? There are many, but here are a few key books that I believe would change the world we live in forever and for the better:

  • Quigley’s Anglo-American Establishment – 354 pages
  • Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution by Antony C. Sutton 165 pages
  • Wall Street & the Rise of Hitler by Antony C. Sutton 148 pages
  • Wall Street and FDR by Antony C. Sutton 177 pages
  • Dishonest Money by Joseph Plummer 175 pages

Total pages = 1,019

At 51.4 pages per hour, the average time to read: 19.8 hours, say 20. So if we borrowed an hour per day from our TV time to read, we could complete the entire reading list above in 20 days.  I suppose it would take much longer depending on the density of new information and gravitas of what is being read, but this gives us some sort of basis.

Now I chose the short reading list above from a much larger and more comprehensive list  based on the importance of the information contained therein and the shortness of the book. I believe all these books are available for free  on the author’s web site (Joe Plummer) or as a text or PDF on the internet; but if you prefer to touch the book as I do, you can order a real book from Amazon or other booksellers. There are many other equally important books to add to your reading list –some longer and some shorter– that would be good supplements and additions after you have read the above books. A more complete list can be found here.

Now that we have reallocated / adjusted our TV-viewing time a bit, it’s time to look at our long commute to and from work chasing those little green energy flakes we call money. You can chose whatever you like to listen to, but why waste all that time listening to the same establishment drivel every day on the radio. Time to load your smart device with some real NFO. There are many, many sources, but I prefer to download and listen to those who have actually read Quigley. After you have read Quigley and realize just who this man was, I think you will agree. Two of my favorite sources that provide free downloads of their videos and podcasts are:

To get you started, here are two excellent links you can download and place on your smart device:

Additional Reading at ClearNFO:

Interesting background from two select videos: first one on UN Agenda 21 with Rosa Korie and the second on Technocracy by Patrick Wood.  Interesting to note that Patrick Wood was good friends and co-author with the infamous and brilliant historian Antony C Sutton.  Enjoy!

ROSA KOIRE ~ “Secrets Behind U.N. AGENDA 21 & Global Sustainability”

Published on Aug 21, 2014

Age Of Truth TV presenter Lucas Alexander is interviewing American author, truth researcher, Director of the Post Sustainability Institute and former forensic commercial real estate appraiser, ROSA KOIRE in the film: “Secrets Behind U.N. AGENDA 21 & GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY” [Age Of Truth*TV]

Rosa Koire is the author of the book “Behind The Green Mask” and is giving controversial lectures all over the world, exposing what she believes, is the real control agenda behind the 300 page, 40 chapter action plan of U.N. Agenda 21, which was approved and implemented locally by 179 countries at the Rio De Janeiro earth summit in 1992.

~ “UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL” ~ Rosa Koire

Rosa Koire is connecting U.N. Agenda 21 with the political, financial and globalized New World Order plan, which most alternative truth researchers claim is a fully controlled One World Government, implemented through a “Problem, Reaction, Solution” strategy.

A fascinating and eye-opening in-depth interview with Rosa Koire by Age Of Truth TV, filmed at the Open Mind Conference at Audonicon, Skanderborg – Denmark on the September 21, 2013.

Premiere and cinematic screening / presentation before a live audience was held at PH Caféen, Copenhagen on August 20, 2014.

Rosa Koire:
“Secrets Behind U.N. AGENDA 21 & Global Sustainability”

Interviewed by: Lucas Alexander
Filmed by: Lauge Felix Black, Erik Hansen-Hansen, Mike Kirkeby Pedersen.

Special Thanks:
Rosa Koire, Open Mind Conference, Mads Wedel-Ibsen, Frank Bjerregaard Rasmussen, Carol Coenca, Sonny Wilson, UP, Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen

© AGE OF TRUTH TV 2013

Caravan To Midnight – Episode 250 Patrick Wood: Technocracy Rising

Published on Mar 20, 2015

Episode 250 – Today we welcome Patrick Wood on board to show us why the U.S., and the world for that matter, has transformed the way it has; and to bring light to the solutions that will quell these issues.

Buy This Caravan To Midnight Episode for 2.99
http://caravantomidnight.com/product/…
Please Subscribe At

Homepage Updated

Reference notes:

Homosexuality and Chimerism, Rethinking Our DNA

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by KRISTINA BRUCE | Cutting the Gordian Knot | July 30, 2015

Science is full of “Eureka!” moments. Why is something so obvious being ignored?

It has perplexed me for a number of years now that the scientific community has not come to the conclusion that homosexuality is predominately genetically based. It doesn’t require an advanced degree in reproductive genetics to connect the dots and come to a conclusion which would be relatively simple with today’s technology to confirm.

DNAI became aware of the possibility of proving a genetic basis for sexual orientation in 1991, after reading the work of Dr. Simon LaVey; a Cambridge and Harvard educated neuroscientist who had shown anatomical differences in the hypothalami of deceased homosexual men who had succumbed to A.I.D.S.. His findings demonstrated that the hypothalami of the gay men studied were consistently the same size of a female.  The study had a small sample group, because of course there just aren’t that many gay men offering up their corpses for necropsies on a daily basis. The study was derided by many in the scientific community and not a tremendous amount of attention was given to it as the years went by. About a decade ago though I had my own eureka moment when I learned more about genetics and the existence of chimerism, mosaicism, vanishing twins and the existence of even microchimerism between mothers, their children and even transplant recipients. It didn’t take long after learning about these naturally occurring phenomena to put 2 and 2 together.

The vast majority of homosexuality is likely the result of chimerism.

I will try to break it down in as few words as possible how chimerism is most likely the basis of non-traditional sex orientation or sexual identity.

Not everyone is running around with just one set of DNA. Nope, many of us unknowingly carry blue prints from not just one plan but two and sometimes even more individuals. How does this happen? Well it’s pretty interesting. Many times women produce more than one egg during ovulation. As a matter of fact, many pregnancies are multiple para in the beginning, it’s just that not very many second or third eggs are viable and don’t make it to implantation. So when these other embryos break apart on their little trip down the fallopian tube, cells from the demised gamete can come in contact with a viable one. When this occurs, often times the viable gamete absorbs and incorporates the DNA of the non-viable twin into its own structure. It’s why you see people occasionally express these traits as an odd colored eye or a shock of blonde hair in a scalp dominated by brunette. Most times it’s not noticeable at all because where this DNA has been incorporated isn’t seen. There are cases of women whose reproductive organs are not their own but that of an unborn twin. Imagine going to have genetic testing to see if your children are a match for a kidney transplant only to find that you’re not a genetic match with your child. Then being told that they are only a close relative because the ovaries which produced them belonged to your unborn sister. This was the case for one 52-year-old woman suffering from renal failure. Read the case study here. There have been multiple cases discovered in recent years of mothers who have given birth to the children of their own unborn twin as in the case of Lydia Fairchild.

How to recognize a chimera? Most times you can’t.

Animals born in large litters are more chimeric than humans. Cats are a good example of this. Male calico cats and male tortoise colored cats are chimeras. They’re expressing the female coat patterns but retain the sex organs of the dominant male DNA. In humans sometimes you’ll see subtle things like dark patches of skin which tan differently than other body parts, elaborate mosaic patterns of different colored skin and even the occasional supernumerary nipple. Some of them are striking to look at.

Read the full article at Cutting the Gordian Knot.

Is a Duck Watching You?

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | May 29, 2015

Anatidaephobia: the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you

Anatidaephobia: the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you

Wouldn’t surprise me to find ‘Anatidaephobia’ in the fanciful and non-scientific book of psyches and propaganda entitled ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)’ where everything is a disorder. The DSM is the Psyche’s attempt at creating their own PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference) thus giving them the appearance of legitimacy and therefore allowing them to attach to the great money teat of qualified health insurance. However, the duck picture featured here is a very funny and interesting picture. And, I’ve often wondered if some humans possess a 6th sense alerting them when someone is secretly watching. BTW, the DSM is just another example of science by consensus masquerading as real science. Anyone capable of critical thought recognizes that science by consensus is not science at all but propaganda.  Don’t buy their BS. Think for yourself. Beyond the muting and the destruction of countless lives, you will find behind the DSM are billions of dollars in Big Pharma psych drugs which are the proximate cause and are at the scene of the crime of the majority of the mass murders we view in horror in today’s headlines. Yet this fact is lost on our MSM (“Mainstream Media“).  Despite documented evidence that gun ownership in the USA reduces crime, these crimes are attributed rather to gun ownership by the media which receive 70% or their advertising revenue from Big Pharma. At the same time, there exists some evidence that certain psychoactive drugs when used properly can have short-term, beneficial effects for psychosis and for bipolar disorder; however, long-term they are not curative and don’t treat the root of the problem. It is important to also read the warning labels on most of these drugs which include “Homicidal & Suicidal Ideation”, which explains much of the irrational carnage we find at gun-free schools, movie theaters, etc.

Reference Documentation:

Related topics from ClearNFO: The Corruption of Science

The Corruption of Science – beware of the white lab coat

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | May 26, 2015

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” – Richard Feynman

Scientist in Lab Coat

Scientist in Lab Coat

I’m a scientist at heart, so why do I love to ridicule my fellow scientists so much? I think it’s because of their highly exalted and unassailable position in our so called modern era (1946 – present) and because so many are sellouts who serve the selfish agendas of the moneyed “powers that shouldn’t be” and more particularly many serve down-right evil corporations that just happen to sign the front side of their paychecks, provide grants and donate huge sums to our likewise exalted and corrupted universities …  and it’s also partly due to the fact so many people have been trained that if someone in a lab coat says something then it has to be true. Turn off your brain… case settled.

Though many scientists are waking up to the systemic fraud and deception throughout our scientific community, the average citizen is completely unaware.

And it appears that the ‘Scientific American’ wants to have it both ways. First they are more than willing to point out the fraud, yet they are themselves a big part of the fraud perpetrated on the hapless public as evidenced by their two articles below. One supports GMO with trickery and sleight of hand while the other article complains about ‘An Epidemic of False Claims’ in scientific studies. You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Scientific American.

I’ve been reading the Scientific American since I was twelve, yes twelve years old; though I can’t claim I understood what I was reading at that age. With all the colorful diagrams and mathematical formulas, I just knew they were talking about something important and wanted to know what it was.

So what is the evidence that the once exalted Scientific American is one of the worst offenders? If you read their article below in support of GMOs, you will discover that they have munged or commingled several terms thereby obfuscating their meanings to suit their preconceived conclusions.

I really get the promise of GMO providing food to the hungry (though recent data has disproved this benefit), but I would prefer to use artificial or natural selection, not transginic bioengineering using gene-splicing and gene insertion from different species. I just don’t trust Monsanto and now I don’t trust SA. I think this article represents the best of bad science: The SA article cleverly commingles several terms: Selective breeding, Artificial selection, Bioengineering and GMO and would therefore have the reader believe they are the same. They are not. And there is a huge difference between Cisgenic and Transgenic. I would prefer Cisgenic only because I don’t think man is smart enough to have a clue about what he is doing. Of course we need to have GMO labeling. I don’t care if my food has been selectively bred: examples are the Delicious apple, the Hereford cow, etc. because in selective breeding you are breeding cow to cow or apple to apple; NOT cow to virus or cow to rat or pig or cow to cockroach…or some other unknown concoction Monsanto may have created. I want to know if there is virus, bacteria, transgenic DNA/RNA in my food and I want to know if there is Glyphosate a.k.a. Roundup® on my food and I want to know if it is safe. Another undisclosed issue is that when GMO corn pollinates adjacent fields of heirloom corn, it destroys for all time the genetics of that heirloom corn. On a global stage, this could be devastating.

Another glaring flaw in this SA article is that they seem content on referring to “other” authorities.   Just give me the science … after all aren’t you Scientific American?

Scientific American comes out in favor of GMOs
By Ashutosh Jogalekar | September 6, 2013

From Scientific American: An Epidemic of False Claims
Competition and conflicts of interest distort too many medical findings
By John P. A. Ioannidis | May 17, 2011

Scientific American Goes Full Anti-Science
September 12, 2020/ Francis Menton

 And from the Lancet, we have the following …

www.thelancet.com
Vol 385   April 11, 2015 by Richard Horton
Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma? (PDF)
“A lot of what is published is incorrect.” I’m not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides. Those who worked for government agencies pleaded that their comments especially remain unquoted, since the forthcoming UK election meant they were living in “purdah”—a chilling state where severe restrictions on freedom of speech are placed on anyone on the government’s payroll. Why the paranoid concern for secrecy and non-attribution? Because this symposium—on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research, held at the Wellcome Trust in London last week—touched on one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations.”

HughPickens.com … writes in today’s Slash Dot the following brilliant little ditty…

“Richard Horton writes that a recent symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research discussed one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with science (PDF), one of our greatest human creations. The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. According to Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, a United Kingdom-based medical journal, the apparent endemicity of bad research behavior is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world or retrofit hypotheses to fit their data.”

“Can bad scientific practices be fixed? Part of the problem is that no-one is incentivized to be right. Instead, scientists are incentivized to be productive and innovative. Tony Weidberg says that the particle physics community now invests great effort into intensive checking and rechecking of data prior to publication following several high-profile errors. By filtering results through independent working groups, physicists are encouraged to criticize. Good criticism is rewarded. The goal is a reliable result, and the incentives for scientists are aligned around this goal. “The good news is that science is beginning to take some of its worst failings very seriously,” says Horton. “The bad news is that nobody is ready to take the first step to clean up the system.”

The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal. Who Was Behind It? Anthony Fauci’s Intent To Block HCQ on Behalf of Big Pharma

Additional Reading from ClearNFO:

And from skeptiko…

Why you, me, and our neighbors have a distrust of science and New York Times science journalists

SCIENTIFIC REGRESS by William A. Wilson May 2016

TED Talks

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by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | March 16, 2015

TED Talks_400x400Like many people, I’ve watched and learned from the many TED Talks that have been produced over the years as published on YouTube and other places.  Lots of different, thoughtful topics have been covered, yet I have always been bothered a bit by how their audiences seem to accept the information contained within these talks as fact without question.  I have also wondered who the gatekeepers were and how the topics and speakers were filtered.  These talks use the tried and true TED format wherein someone gets up on stage and gives a personal testimony of some hidden truth or fact and the audience dutifully oohs and awes and claps in adoration.   Reminds me of my early church-going days where the requirement was to turn off all my critical thought processes and accept what the preacher was saying without question. You can find more on my religious proclivities here: On Religion.  In any event, I have wanted for some time to write an article on how TED Talks are like a religion but Megan Hustadmarch beat me to the punch with her excellent Opinion piece in the NYT linked below.  I would have taken a different approach:  Listing common features of Religion and mapping those to the TED Talks.  I applied this technique to my article entitled: Misc Musings on the surety of science or why I am skeptical of ‘Well-Established’ facts:

“Science…I believe in the empirical method. I also believe that many in our scientific community have let their emotions and political point of view turn their science into a religion. You either believe certain “well-established facts” or you do not get tenure or you are ridiculed or…. These “well-established facts” represent a dogma or a credo similar to any religion. The result is that many place their minds in a box and their ability to take in new information and process this information critically and honestly is therefore necessarily aberrated.”  – David Brown

In any event, TED Talks are part of the human condition and should therefore be part of the exhibits we proffer as we explore the world around us and what it means to be human; they are useful, but shouldn’t be taken as gospel.

Banned TED Talk- The War on Consciousness -Graham Hancock

The Church of TED  By MEGAN HUSTADMARCH 14, 2015

And just for fun, the Satire Web Site Called ‘The Onion’ does a great job poking fun at the TED Talkers:

Compost-Fueled Cars: Wouldn’t That Be Great? – Onion Talks – Ep. 1
Young media professional Cameron Hughes delivers a compelling argument for his vision of the future–one filled with cars powered by compost. He outlines the idea he came up with in detail, leaving the formalities for other visionaries in other fields. One thing is for certain: he already came up with the idea.

Ducks Go Quack, Chickens Say Cluck – Onion Talks – Ep. 3
Young media professional Cameron Hughes delivers a compelling argument for his vision of the future–one filled with cars powered by compost. He outlines the idea he came up with in detail, leaving the formalities for other visionaries in other fields. One thing is for certain: he already came up with the idea.

‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts | This is That | CBC

Related ClearNFO thoughts on science and religion:

Episode 001 – Meet Joe Plummer (Video)

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Joe Plummer SnowPlease join me in a video conversation with author and researcher Mr. Joseph Plummer below.  Joe is the author of several excellent fiction and non-fiction books including  Leaving the Illusion, Dishonest Money and Tragedy and Hope 101. You can find reviews on each of these books and many others at ClearNFO.com.  Despite some serious Skype issues, this interview turned out great. Enjoy!

Meet Joe Plummer

Episode 001 – part 1 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

Episode 001 – part 2 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

Episode 001 – part 3 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

Episode 001 – part 4 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

Episode 001 – part 5 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

Episode 001 – part 6 of 6: ‘Meet Joe Plummer’ by ClearNFO.com

 

Patterns of Life

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Watching the video below provides more than entertainment.  If you notice the repeating patterns, you suddenly realize there is a lot of information in the ‘Pendulum Wave pattern’ whose analogue can be found in natural cycles, rhythms, Feng shui, golden ratios, mathematics, karma, yin yang and the circle of life … we can see the same patterns repeating themselves at the quantum, classical and relativistic levels; and yes, even within our own lives: emotionally, intellectually, culturally, politically and geopolitically.  There are built-in, ontological structures to all that we can see, feel and experience on every scale, underscoring what Horatio said to Hamlet so many years ago “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Pendulum Wave patterns …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RLDtpXr6XQ

 

Helix Nebula (NGC 7293)The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) is a large planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. The Helix Nebula’s estimated distance from earth is about 215 parsecs or 700 light-years. The Nebula has sometimes been referred to as the “Eye of God” in pop culture because of it’s eye like appearance. It was the first planetary nebula discovered to contain cometary knots, which can be seen as globs with tails around the center of the “pupil”. Astronomers have sense discovered similar structures in other planetary nebulae and use the Helix Nebula as a base case for comparison. There are more than 20,000 cometary knots estimated to be in the Helix Nebula. These knots remain somewhat of a mystery to astronomers.

Credit: NASA/Hubble/JPL/Cal Tech

Math and Movies (Animation at Pixar) – Numberphile …