Lets not go crazy...

Lets not go and advocate that Scientists should lead the world. Scientific thinking is all well and good, but not all Scientists strictly follow this. They are not free from Bias. Huge pressure for results from their financiers, or for prestige for themselves and their organisations (think tanks, Universities ect) means that Science is by far no means free from fraud.

Remember Hwang Woo Suk? The Korean Scientist who claimed to have cloned a human embryo and successfully extracted stem cells? The journal Science, one of the most esteemed out there, published the two fraudulent papers out into the public domain. Donald Kennedy, Science editor-in-chief at the time, says "Scientific fraud is not new and is not rare, luckily it's not common either." in regards to the incident.

Linda Miller, the US executive editor of Nature, even says "If the fraud is clever enough, it is likely that referees and editors will not notice it," The sourced article is particularly noteworthy as it shows how unpoliced many journals are in regards to fraud. This raises the question of how much fraud goes undiscovered?

Other cases of Fraud include Jan Hendrik Schön, who worked with Carbon Based Semi-Conductors (article also mentioning the fradulent discovery of elements 116 and 118 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Also this is Lorenzo's own field of Science, thought to be the most secure in terms of scientific fraud, unlike that whore of a science Biology, where trying to falsify research isn't such an easy task.

While looking for an article on Robert Slutsky, another scientist found to have fabricated data, I sound these two articles. The first is a summary of a paper stating in its conclusion that "Scientists do not, and probably cannot, identify published articles that are fraudulent." I also found this, which seems to be a course named Responsible Conduct of Research, which looks an excellent read. It cites more examples of scientific fraud.

Now sure, the very idea of scientific method involves independent experiments to replicate findings. Sounds great, but in the case of the LHC, who had another one to try and falsify its findings? When scientific experimentation runs into the millions, and often billions, then it becomes impossible to independently check results. You have to take the data presented at face value, which as we have seen above, can lead to problems. Can you imagine the LHC finding absolutely nothing? While no results would still further human understanding, the outcry would be massive. The pressure these guys must be under to get results must be staggering. However, being wrong is fundamental to science. You publish a theory, and someone improves upon it, or even eventually proves you wrong. It is an important stepping stone, but who wants to be the guy to be improved upon, or even worse, shown to be wrong? With such financial and career pressure, I don't think most want to be that guy or girl.

Shafto, Adam and I had a very interesting chat with UKHotDave regarding this in medical science. He was saying that the vast majority is funding and research is made into slightly improving and modifying current medicines. The reason for this is the patent of medicine is 7 years (I believe he said, perhaps Adam or Shafto can correct me), so if it is modified slightly then they can renew the patent on the medicine. The other reason, as I mentioned above, that looking for the next big miracle cure is expensive, takes many many years of research and usually yields absolutely nothing. It isn't seen as cost effective, lots of money is used up in a big gamble. To me this is the essence of science, but in you results dependent world this isn't satisfactory. Dave went as far as to say that all the big medical breakthroughs have happened. The ideal and the reality is very different.

That's what I am essentially talking about. We have an ideal about the scientific method, and how it can lead us to a new and beautiful future, but in reality it isn't the case. Bear in mind, much of science is speculative, just like economics. Lorenzo, you said here that the LHC exists to find dark matter, that thing that has speculated on that has been made up by scientists to make current theory work. Just think of all the science that is speculative. I don't think speculation is bad, it is just predicting an outcome based on past trends and current knowledge. Wasn't Darwins Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection speculative in his time? We now have much more evidence that supports it.

Economists are no more fallible than Scientists. What we need is a public of critical thinkers to keep all these so called 'experts' in check. We need to take the power back! Who wants to join me?!

Who's responsible? You fucking are.

I've been away 3 weeks....and you idiots actually bailed out the banks?!

Here's some articles about why the economy must be drastically revised. Not written by filthy stupid economists, but by scientists who look at evidence and data and come up with reasonable conclusions.

Required reading

The free articles are labelled as such at the bottom. I've got the printed issue if anyone wants to read the "not-free" articles(hypocrite capiltalist swines!). I can mention interesting not-free parts here:-

1. If an economist tells you that growth is essential to lift the poor from poverty(always their last line of defence), he is a fanny, and by any reasonable assessment is claiming the impossible. In today's financial system, for the poor to gain a tiny bit of wealth, the rich have to get much, much more richer, and increase all consumption to ridiculous levels. Some simple number crunching shows that to get the poorest onto just 3 dollars a day, we need 15 PLANETS WORTH of biocapacity. We need a new model, clearly.

2. Former senior economist of the World Bank Herman Daly explains that growth must be kept in sustainable limits, but all economists assume the Earth is an infinite well of resources. The Commission on Growth and Health earlier this year reported on 13 developing countries, including Brazil, China, Japan, etc, and suggests the entire world should follow their example of growth over the last 25 years. A global economy would be 5 times the size it is today in 25 years at this rate of growth. This is not sustainable by our planet.

3. One particularly awesome article is a report written from the point of view of a reporter 10 years in the future, in an alternate reality where we transform into a "steady-state" economy to save ourselves. It is intensely scary how different everything would be. It's a world run by scientists, who set rules for consumption and emission. Then economists work out how to achieve those limits. There's no income tax, but all resources are taxed at the point of removal from the biosphere. This increases prices encouraging their spare usage. The tax system is easy to enforce, and almost impossible to dodge(coincidentally, governments lose about 250 billion dollars a year in tax from rich cunts storing money in tax-havens). No fancy mobiles, or next generation wii's or xboxes i'm afraid. Things are buit to last, not to be replaced in 6 months - 6 years. Births are monitored and restricted. Everyone works part-time as a co-owner of a business rather than an employee. Incomes are lower, and we have much more time. It's also regressive: the poorer pay a higher proportion of their wage than the rich do to live. This is offset by benefits programmes from the awesome taxes we're collecting. It's interesting stuff, and illustrates a system which is not a socialist state nor the ultra-capitalist regime we have just now. It's still capitalism, but a relaxed kind.

4. The articles don't focus on the argument about whether global warming is caused by us, because at this stage it's a moot point, quite frankly. It's about the fundamental concept that an economic growth is sustained by inputs and outputs that banks refuse or are too scared to accept exist.

The article that Adam linked to below by an economist was one of the more hilarious rebukes of consumption by an economy I've read, the guy is completely deluded! I quote: " These myths were injected into the mainstream mainly by Keynesian economists or demand-siders who were trying to influence public policy." Hmmmm. Ecological Keynesianism is actually one of the few solutions to the problem of consumption, you fucking moron. And it is sustainable ecologically and economically. Far from hampering the economy, it was what lifted America out of the Depression during wartime thanks to creation of shite-loads of opportunities that weren't available before-hand and rationing of all food and oil.

His "Dependance on foreign oil" myth-busting misses point entirely. In fact, all his "myth-busting" seems to miss the point. Every argument he makes, in fact, the only argument, is that it is due to the control of central banks that everything went down the shitter. This is a complete and utter avoidance of the problem. It goes without saying that if the markets ran free there would be awesome unlimited growth. This has been proven many times mathematically. Awesome unlimited growth, however, is the problem, and it's only by a few smart individuals within the World Bank's efforts that there's still any constraints at all upon the trading system. The markets MUST be controlled and restrained to a much greater degree than they are at the moment to avoid running out of resources.

I haven't blamed the recent economic crisis on various different factors that I've been hearing in the news and on the street. It's speculation and rumour, all of it. The simple fact is, economists' maths failed them miserably after years of "innovation," and we've bailed them out like the capitalist pigs we are. They're all laughing, bet your dick on it. And they'll go on investing money that doesn't exist yet until one of two things happen: our planet collapses or the market dies due to lack of resources. Both will probably happen simultaneously

We are observing the first worldwide civilization dying under it's own weight, gentlemen. Nero fiddled while Rome burned: that is to say, there's not much we can do but point and laugh. I'm off to listen to some Manics: JOIN ME NOW!!!

RIP Levi Stubbs

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review

No Retreat, No Surrender! EVER!

'JCVD' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

This. looks. awesome.

pishy phone

Text messaging has fucked up on my phone, so don't expect a reply at the moment if you send me one as I am unable. We just have to chuff it out during these hard times.

Cheese it.

Had Enough of Religious Bullshit?

H.E.R.B.

And after our economic discussions the other night I stumbled across this,
some economic myth busting... apparently.

Little Big Planet

I know nothing really about little big planet, but apparently it's a pretty versatile level creator, which does actually look like a lot of fun.

Here's a working calulator some guy made

When it pans up to show the mechanics involved... it's amazing.
Acording to kotaku it has 10 magnetic swtiches, 500 wires, and 430 pistons.

More Batman! Saving you pennies and getting you Lego mini figures!

Game are doing the best Lego Batman Preorder, for 29.99 you get the game AND a lego minifig keychain...! happy times!!!

I totally HotUKDaved this. make me HOT!

And i've totally found a site that tells you how to make your own lego customs, and it appears pretty straight forward. Happy times indeed!

Win Amp went to the man

... like 9 years ago!


Just noticed a wee 'AOL' under the Winamp on my player and those three wee letters knocked me for six.

So just in case you use WA and don't wan to use AOL, here's 10 alts
...ones itunes but that leaves 9 others!
Oh and I hear Sonique got bought by Lycos.