OT: New Evidence Supports the Bio-Weapon theory

The theory is 'gaining steam' and ZeroHedge is the 'steam engine' if you will.

Whether you think ZH runs on steam or hot air tends to be a matter of opinion

It's high on hysteria but often links to stuff that the Associated Press wouldn't touch.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

Science teaches us to doubt. 

  Claude Bernard

Yeah, they're pretty good as long as you never, never take their investment advice. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

They seem to have a vested interest in the price of gold.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

If you want to appeal to people like Cursitor Doom you do have to dial down the plausibility a lot. This isn't a virtue.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Newton vs Hooke and Liebnitz for instance. Or more recently Fred Hoyle (steady state) vs Martin Ryle (Big bang cosmology). Scientists egos can be pretty enormous and some new theories are disputed by a few mavericks right until the last of the rearguard for the old one finally expires.

Some things are big budget. But most of the scientists I know do it because they enjoy figuring out how things work at a fundamental level. They are seldom in it for the money. Highly numerate degree holders tend to go into investment banking if they are prepared to sell their souls.

It isn't completely immune at least to fighting over limited funds but it is ultimately self correcting when new experimental evidence can always trump an elegant theoretical model. We are in a golden age of observational astronomy at present with just about every waveband covered and in fabulous angular resolution too from radio to X-rays.

Scientists are human too. The scientific method is ultimately self correcting but it can still follow plenty of dead ends. I was taught that 10% of everything in the peer reviewed literature will ultimately be shown to be at best misleading and at worst plain wrong eventually. (it isn't a bad heuristic either to consider most of it 90% correct)

In an exam other than mathematics that would be an incredibly good pass.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

Sure, I know lots of folks like that too--I'm one myself. What I want is an optical table, an interesting problem, and somebody to sign my purchase reqs. (Nowadays I have to sign my own. On the other hand, the money I don't spend, I can keep.)

But not everyone is like that, unfortunately. The dangerous folks congregate where all the money/prestige/power is, and nowadays that's in the fields that intersect public policy and big tax money.

"Ultimately" is a long time. And not every field has crisp experiments.

Neil Ferguson's model was shown to be garbage fairly fast, but not before politicians got spooked into wasting trillions of dollars and seriously infringing the liberty of billions of people, apparently for very little benefit in the end.

Fun, isn't it? :)

In my neck of the woods, that's an absurdly optimistic figure. For the optical engineering and measurement papers I get sent to review, half is more like it. (Most of the garbage ones eventually get published, AFAICT, but not without my opposition.)

In fields such as neuroscience and psychology, it's much worse. A few years ago a full third of all neuroscience papers were invalidated at a stroke when somebody proved that a popular statistical method was completely wrong--people were correlating brain functional areas with random noise in MRIs. There are lots more examples, such as 'p-hacking', thinking up hypothesis after hypothesis until you get one where the null hypothesis is 'excluded'. Google "reproducibility crisis" for much, much more. One example is

The self-correcting bit only applies to work that's important enough for people to try reproducing it on a largish scale, which nowadays is rarely done, and on the word getting out when results can't be reproduced, which is also quite rare.

A great many folks use their same old citation list for N papers in a row, and use Google Scholar or something to find other references. That method will pull in the bad and the good indiscriminately, unless a paper has actually been retracted, and sometimes even then. (Letters to journal editors typically don't show up unless you search on the title of the paper.)

And in fields intersecting public policy, such as epidemiology, nutrition, environmental stuff, entomology, child development, and so on, an incredible amount of damage can be done before the glacially-slow self-correction process has a chance to occur. People get so invested in their positions that a generation may have to die off before the conventional wisdom can change.

This happens even in physics. I forget who it was, who when asked "Why do we believe in the wave theory of light today?" replied "Because all the people who believed in the particle theory have died."

And then there are many situations in which the politics is running the science--remember the Superfund? Kinsey? The Stanford prison experiment? "Naturalness" arguments for the next big collider?

Unfortunately there's no short-cut to arrive at the truth--'believing the science' uncritically is the last refuge of a scoundrel or a fool. A pity, but there it is.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

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The problem is that many other things are wrong but will never be allowed t o be "shown" to be wrong. For instance , anything that has to do with glob al warming (Why did the scientific marketers have to change it to climate c hange-- isn;t that kind of an admission that it was wrong to begin with?)

Nope. How about pseudo-Thai?

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Or upside-down?

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You need special fonts for a few things, especially button-pushing. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

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Fred Hoyle didn't have many supporters for the steady state theory once the cosmological data started falling in line with the big bang.

Newton versus Hooke wasn't any kind of scientific dispute, nor was Newton v ersus Liebnitz - it was all personalities and priorities. Newton got to cal culus first, but we all use the Liebnitz notation because Liebnitz publishe d his methods and Newton only published his results.

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Pontification is a popular failing.

to be "shown" to be wrong.

That's a standard right-wing nit-wit line. They don't know enough to be abl e to come up with anything that might look like a reasoned objection to the reality of whatever it is they don't like so they decide it's conspiracy o f some kind, and think they then don't have to bother.

cientific marketers have to change it to climate change-- isn't that kind o f an admission that it was wrong to begin with?)

Climate change might have been more attractive to the marketing department. It doesn't make any difference to the nature of the - well - documented ch anges that are going on. The delusion that there's anything wrong with the science is cultivated energetically by people who make money out of diggin g up fossil carbon and selling it as fuel, and are short-sighted enough to want to keep on doing it.

Falling for their propaganda merely indicates that you don't know much abou t the science involved. John Larkin is the classic example, but we do have others.

.

You aren't being examined on what you agree with, but rather on what you un derstand. There's a difference.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

You and Sloman are a match made in Heaven. Or somewhere.

My dad was a milkman. My mom a cafeteria worker. They didn't do my science projects for me. They couldn't afford a lawyer. They could rarely afford meat. In New Orleans, people who couldn't afford burger meat had to do with fish and shrimp and oysters.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

Science teaches us to doubt. 

  Claude Bernard

The guy who saved my retina, with a midnight surgery, is Thai. His first and last names are each about 20 letters long and unpronouncable, so everybody calls him Dr B. He makes us Thai tea when I visit him. He welded my retina to the back of my eyeball with his ancient CW argon ion laser that hurt like hell, and left some big ragged blind spots. Nobody notices blind spots.

He also did a "secondary cataract" repair by cutting a big hole in the cloudy rear part of my lens capsule, with a pulsed YAG.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

Science teaches us to doubt. 

  Claude Bernard

I think I was visiting at the time.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

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he cosmological data started falling in line with the big bang.

versus Liebnitz - it was all personalities and priorities. Newton got to c alculus first, but we all use the Liebnitz notation because Liebnitz publis hed his methods and Newton only published his results.

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ed to be "shown" to be wrong.

ble to come up with anything that might look like a reasoned objection to t he reality of whatever it is they don't like so they decide it's conspiracy of some kind, and think they then don't have to bother.

scientific marketers have to change it to climate change-- isn't that kind of an admission that it was wrong to begin with?)

t. It doesn't make any difference to the nature of the - well - documented changes that are going on. The delusion that there's anything wrong with t he science is cultivated energetically by people who make money out of digg ing up fossil carbon and selling it as fuel, and are short-sighted enough t o want to keep on doing it.

out the science involved. John Larkin is the classic example, but we do hav e others.

Here is an example. Susan Crockford tried to "show" some flawed science. What was her outcome? Fired, of course. How many principled scientists ha ve risked their academic reputation to defend her right to her research and conclusions? (ZERO?)....She was born in 1954, so she can speak up at this point in her career.

Fledgling "scientists" know that they better toe the party line or there is very limited opportunity for a paycheck.

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understand. There's a difference.

pushing

Edward Teller.

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the cosmological data started falling in line with the big bang.

on versus Liebnitz - it was all personalities and priorities. Newton got to calculus first, but we all use the Liebnitz notation because Liebnitz publ ished his methods and Newton only published his results.

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ould be

but

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.

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owed to be "shown" to be wrong.

able to come up with anything that might look like a reasoned objection to the reality of whatever it is they don't like so they decide it's conspira cy of some kind, and think they then don't have to bother.

he scientific marketers have to change it to climate change-- isn't that ki nd of an admission that it was wrong to begin with?)

ent. It doesn't make any difference to the nature of the - well - documente d changes that are going on. The delusion that there's anything wrong with the science is cultivated energetically by people who make money out of di gging up fossil carbon and selling it as fuel, and are short-sighted enough to want to keep on doing it.

about the science involved. John Larkin is the classic example, but we do h ave others.

What was her outcome? Fired, of course. How many principled scientists have risked their academic reputation to defend her right to her research a nd conclusions? (ZERO?)....She was born in 1954, so she can speak up at th is point in her career.

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pass.

u understand. There's a difference.

remember all those scientists who worked for the tobacco companies in the 6

0's and 70's who concluded that there was no danger to smoking? They were real scientists right? It no different today. You take your pay from a go vernment agency then you better not call into question the accepted dogma. I do not see how you self deluded "men of science and data" cannot see the inherent flaw in science. That flaw is that politics trumps everything ex cept for the rare individual with courage. A science degree does not confe r that trait. Most courageous people are those with "nothing left to lose"

e:

Probably not. We both have a low opinion of your grasp of reality, but we a re unhappy about it in rather different ways - not that you pay enough atte ntion to have noticed.

So what.

They could rarely afford meat. In New Orleans, people who couldn't afford burger meat had to do with fish and shrimp and oysters.

They provide a perfectly adequate diet. Quite a few people would see it as downright luxurious.

My parents didn't do my science projects for me either. They would have see n it as cheating, and - more important - as interfering in the process of g etting me into a state where I could work stuff out for myself.

I had the advantage that they could have done - both had university degrees in chemistry - which my father had done part time while working as a labor atory technician during the Great Depression. My mother's family had had mo re money and she studied full time.

None of this makes a blind bit of difference now. You've been a tertiary ed ucated adult for quite a while now, and you've had loads of time to fill in the inadequacies of your early training.

I've been doing electronics for money since 1970, and I haven't had any for mal training in electronics as a specific discipline, and can't say that I think I've missed much. There's a lot of information out there if you know where and how to look for it, which doesn't seem to be something you've lea rned.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

pushing

Edward Teller.

ho

ere

yle

can

ricks

es.

the cosmological data started falling in line with the big bang.

on versus Liebnitz - it was all personalities and priorities. Newton got to calculus first, but we all use the Liebnitz notation because Liebnitz publ ished his methods and Newton only published his results.

f, and

ould be

but

f

.

h is

t

ely

ly.

owed to be "shown" to be wrong.

able to come up with anything that might look like a reasoned objection to the reality of whatever it is they don't like so they decide it's conspira cy of some kind, and think they then don't have to bother.

he scientific marketers have to change it to climate change-- isn't that ki nd of an admission that it was wrong to begin with?)

ent. It doesn't make any difference to the nature of the - well - documente d changes that are going on. The delusion that there's anything wrong with the science is cultivated energetically by people who make money out of di gging up fossil carbon and selling it as fuel, and are short-sighted enough to want to keep on doing it.

about the science involved. John Larkin is the classic example, but we do h ave others.

What was her outcome? Fired, of course. How many principled scientists have risked their academic reputation to defend her right to her research a nd conclusions? (ZERO?)....She was born in 1954, so she can speak up at th is point in her career.

The Washington Times did mention " her associations with climate skeptical organizations such as The Heartland Institute and the Global Warming Policy Foundation."

Basically The Heartland Institute takes money from the fossil carbon extrac tion industry and spends it on climate change denial propaganda, which is t o say that it is one of the merchants of doubt.

If Susan Crockford was silly enough to take money from them, she's not goin g to be popular in an academic environment

is

You don't have to be a fledging scientist to be aware that taking money fro m an anti-science propaganda organisation isn't going to make you popular w ith people whose efforts to do science are being subverted by these organi sations.

This isn't about toeing the party line - it's about not collaborating with the enemy. The first chapter of the Merchants of Doubt is all about the way they made life difficult for a regular scientist who was working on a pro ject they didn't like. They didn't bother trying to change his mind about w hat he was doing - they just made it difficult for him to get the work done .

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

That's very touching but yer Mom and Dad weren't the only parents in the world.

These were the people that got caught, that shit has been going on for decades at all levels.