My impression is that conventional science is becoming increasingly pseudoscience, that is subservient to the plutocracy. The plutocracy is the class of wealthy people who own and control the major media and the literature of the education system. The general population seems to be increasingly under the sway of the plutocracy's media propaganda. There has to be some real science behind technology, but much of the rest of science appears to be highly unsound.
It appears that the science of propaganda is dominant and is destroying the rest of science. By science of propaganda I mean the science of manipulating human behavior and beliefs via false information as well as direct influence on the brain and senses.
I think it's true that there is always some progress in most or all sciences, but the progress in the science of propaganda seems to be outpacing all other science and seems to be leading toward a totalitarian society, especially in the U.S. And totalitarian science is pseudoscience, which presents a false reality.
Consider science in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Scientists were controlled there in a totalitarian manner, where the only science allowed was that which was deemed good to promote the racist goals of the Nazis. Many of the plutocrats that financed the Nazis are the same ones who have both before and after WW2 gained control also in the U.S.
The internet has improved freedom of speech quite a bit and the sharing of ideas, but it does not seem to be improving the public's understanding of real science, or increasing scientific attitude of objectivity instead of dogmatism.
The subject which the public seems to have become most dogmatic about is antrhopogenic global warming. The public also seems to be nearly as dogmatic about the subjects of evolution, the age of the Earth and the age of rock strata and fossils in the Earth's sedimentary crust.
I blame the education system for the most part for the increasing pseudoscience, or antiscience. Teachers or textbooks are credited as absolute authorities on all subjects and students learn their dogmatic attitudes there.
Is home schooling doing any better?
If my impression is correct, how can the scientific method help us expose and successfully oppose conventional pseudoscience and the science of propaganda?
List of Probable Pseudoscience Theories:
- Big bang
- Expanding universe
- Black hole
- Neutron star
- Worm hole
- Stellar gravitational accretion
- Solar nuclear furnace
- Venus greenhouse & anthropogenic global warming
- Radiometric dating of fossils and rock strata
- Health: vaccines, mercury fillings, chlorinated & fluoridated water, toxic medications, toxic therapies, junk food
- Authoritarian education
...
What did I leave out?
Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
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Zyxzevn
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Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
magnetic reconnection = super bad science.Lloyd wrote: What did I leave out?
most of Psychology,
most of psychiatry,
"Random" evolution,
Health (without recognizing self-healing capability of body),
General purpose Artificial intelligence,
Multiverse and the basis of multi-worlds theory,
string theory,
most of economics,
theories and laws on "intellectual property",
ancient parts (and secret parts) of history,
origin of mineral oil,
Generally anything that is:
1) not supported by direct evidence or
2) is controlled by money or
3) is based on prejudice or
4) uses wrong models or
5) uses too simple models or
6) uses too complex models.
More ** from zyxzevn at: Paradigm change and C@
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Brigit Bara
- Posts: 643
- Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:37 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
I have good news, and good news.Lloyd says, I blame the education system for the most part for the increasing pseudoscience, or antiscience. Teachers or textbooks are credited as absolute authorities on all subjects and students learn their dogmatic attitudes there.
Is home schooling doing any better?
The most recent comprehensive report on test results for homeschooled students in the US show an average score of above 80 in all subjects. Scores from three well-known tests were used-- California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test [--] for the 2007–08 academic year. Public schools show an average score of 50.
The other good news is that teen agers do not really just believe everything adults say. They are very contrary and nit picky much of the time. If any one has any doubts, be my guest teaching my teens for a few days. (: But that is good. They are meant to begin to question and explore.National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest Homeschool Public School
Reading 89 50
Language 84 50
Math 84 50
Science 86 50
Social Studies 84 50
Core a 88 50
Composite b 86 50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.
It's THE POWER AND PURPOSE OF THE TEENAGE BRAIN.
[Also,] my experience is that they develop skills on their own, naturally. At home they are able to master skills in their spare time--given a good atmosphere and support. So learning is really self-directed and self-motivated for homeschoolers, often in areas that are beyond their own teachers and parents.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer
~Homer
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Lloyd
- Posts: 4433
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
Brigit, thanks for that info. We need to find out if home schoolers are much less gullible than public school kids. Are they more open-minded? How open-minded are they?
I've been posting links to home schooling and unschooling articles for a few years at http://forum.freestateproject.org/index ... ic=16789.0. My username there is Luck. I post stuff about economics, authoritarianism, health etc on the same forum at http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=63.0.
Thanks, ZZ, for your info too. I agree with most of your additions to the list of pseudoscience. Some I need more info on to understand what you mean. I agree on magnetic reconnection, multiple universes (although I believe there is a spiritual reality), string theory, most of economics (in the link above I post links to excellent articles on economics), theories and laws on "intellectual property", etc. Regarding laws about property etc, economist Michael Hudson explains that the ruling class (racist greed addicts) uses its influence to make laws that allow its members to get other people and even nations into unrepayable debts in order to have an excuse, that most people accept, to steal their property.
I agree about conventional "Health (without recognizing self-healing capability of body)". That's an excellent insight in my opinion. Conventional medicine gives people the impression that, without medical drugs and treatments like surgery and radiation etc, people soon get sick and die, whereas in reality, all living things thrive and self-heal as long as their environments contain a minimum of what they need. I think the racist greed addiction goes back to global traumas during cataclysms. Is that what you meant by "ancient parts (and secret parts) of history"?
Would you like to explain what you mean by calling these things pseudoscience? You said: "most of Psychology, most of psychiatry, 'Random' evolution, General purpose Artificial intelligence, and origin of mineral oil".
I'm likely to agree with all of those, but I don't know specifically what you mean, so I don't know. What do you mean by random evolution? And what do you think is real evolution? Do you disagree with the idea that almost all of the sedimentary rock strata were deposited on the continents during the Great Flood a few thousand years ago? If the fossils all formed that recently, then there would only be a few thousand years of evolution. Right?
What do you think is the general purpose of artificial intelligence? I doubt that artificial conscious intelligence is possible, although I'm a bit open-minded about it. Some people think that human consciousness can be downloaded into computers and stored indefinitely, but I don't see how that would be possible. I think consciousness may already be imperishable anyway, so trying to store it would not be useful.
I'd like to be more optimistic that humanity will rid itself of a ruling class some day, but, since wealth seems to be concentrating in fewer and fewer hands these days, the trend seems to be in the wrong direction. Hopefully there's something coming that will reverse the greed trend. Does anyone know what might do that?
I've been posting links to home schooling and unschooling articles for a few years at http://forum.freestateproject.org/index ... ic=16789.0. My username there is Luck. I post stuff about economics, authoritarianism, health etc on the same forum at http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=63.0.
Thanks, ZZ, for your info too. I agree with most of your additions to the list of pseudoscience. Some I need more info on to understand what you mean. I agree on magnetic reconnection, multiple universes (although I believe there is a spiritual reality), string theory, most of economics (in the link above I post links to excellent articles on economics), theories and laws on "intellectual property", etc. Regarding laws about property etc, economist Michael Hudson explains that the ruling class (racist greed addicts) uses its influence to make laws that allow its members to get other people and even nations into unrepayable debts in order to have an excuse, that most people accept, to steal their property.
I agree about conventional "Health (without recognizing self-healing capability of body)". That's an excellent insight in my opinion. Conventional medicine gives people the impression that, without medical drugs and treatments like surgery and radiation etc, people soon get sick and die, whereas in reality, all living things thrive and self-heal as long as their environments contain a minimum of what they need. I think the racist greed addiction goes back to global traumas during cataclysms. Is that what you meant by "ancient parts (and secret parts) of history"?
Would you like to explain what you mean by calling these things pseudoscience? You said: "most of Psychology, most of psychiatry, 'Random' evolution, General purpose Artificial intelligence, and origin of mineral oil".
I'm likely to agree with all of those, but I don't know specifically what you mean, so I don't know. What do you mean by random evolution? And what do you think is real evolution? Do you disagree with the idea that almost all of the sedimentary rock strata were deposited on the continents during the Great Flood a few thousand years ago? If the fossils all formed that recently, then there would only be a few thousand years of evolution. Right?
What do you think is the general purpose of artificial intelligence? I doubt that artificial conscious intelligence is possible, although I'm a bit open-minded about it. Some people think that human consciousness can be downloaded into computers and stored indefinitely, but I don't see how that would be possible. I think consciousness may already be imperishable anyway, so trying to store it would not be useful.
I'd like to be more optimistic that humanity will rid itself of a ruling class some day, but, since wealth seems to be concentrating in fewer and fewer hands these days, the trend seems to be in the wrong direction. Hopefully there's something coming that will reverse the greed trend. Does anyone know what might do that?
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Zyxzevn
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- Contact:
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
"ancient parts of history"
The ancient parts I refer to the work of Graham Hancock and others. The historians seem oblivious of the
technological capabilities of ancient civilizations (almost all over the world) and
the history told by the local people themselves.
"secret parts of history"
The secret parts are more like: who financed the nazis, what parts of the bible were rewritten, etc.
The historians just assume that what is written is correct, but forget that the history is written by the victors.
And that much information is destroyed or hidden away, because certain people did not want it to be seen.
And some of this information can still be relevant today.
A clear example of something that certain people want to be hidden:
Recently saw an interesting documentary about Hitler's escape from Berlin. It showed clear evidence
of his presence all along a certain route to Argentine, and debunked the evidence for the suicide.
Still most people and historians will not belief this, and it will be hard to discuss this topic seriously.
"most of Psychology, most of psychiatry"
In psychology and in psychiatry the whole model is wrong, they only look at "nurture and nature".
Thoughts are the main issue. Emotions are seen as a by-product. The instinct is mostly ignored.
Influence of Epi-genetics and of microbes has been ignored until recently.
Chemicals are seen as a dominant cause and solution to a problems.
These ideas are all false, and have been falsified in tests.
What is systematically ignored is the spirit of someone, and the evidence of a
non-material component in it. While this idea is seen as pseudo-science, it has
far more basis for reality than the models that are seen as science.
As I wrote somewhere else, the philosophy of science is designed in such a way
to avoid and ignore evidence of this.
But whatever you belief, see my usage of spirit here as whatever you like:
as morphogenetic fields, or quantum-something.
Neurology models a brain as a perfect adaptive receiver,
but can't even recognize it as such.
Here we see again the avoidance of some kind of spirit that is present in the body.
But this is not listed as pseudo-science, because it does not produce as much false theories
as psychology and psychiatry does. The model is mostly incomplete, but not completely false.
'Random' evolution"
The DNA containing sequences of TGAC - can be compared with a set of cards.
Shuffle them, by throwing it in the wind (or water). If the cards do not form
a house of cards, in complete sorted order, throw away the old ones and
wait until you find a new set of cards in your hands.
Keep doing that until you get the complete sorted house of cards.
That is how biology came to life. According to theory.
Then while you have the house of cards, remove some and add some more.
By randomly throwing more cards on it.
If the house falls you have to start again. If too many houses fall, you
can not use an existing house, but have to build a new one, by random chance.
Now make a house twice as big, sorted in a different way.
This is how biology evolves. According to theory.
Now look at real bacteria and give them difficult environments.
They adapt within a few generations.
So this evolving is clearly not random.
How this is done is a whole other story, and includes DNA-exchanges,
epi-genetics and all kinds of other tricks.
Adding to I believe that it works together with the spirit of the living being,
in some way. But it is certainly not random.
"General purpose Artificial intelligence"
An artificial intelligence that can improve itself, without any oversight or programming.
This idea is supported by many scientists, but is easily debunked.
A program can be made in such a way that certain random changes can help the program
to produce better results. This is how neural networks work.
I see this problem similar as the halting problem.
By "randomly" changing a program it seems that a program can improve itself.
But what can tell the program whether these changes are correct?
So you need a smarter program to tell the changing program what is better,
which defeats the whole purpose of improvement.
This answer seems in conflict with the idea that the brain makes us intelligent.
And it does. We are intelligent, because our spirit works as a guide to make our brain intelligent.
"origin of mineral oil"
We learn on school that oil comes from plants long gone. But research from some scientists show that this
is not true. It even seems that this idea was invented to give the idea that oil is very scarce, so it could
be sold for a higher price.
The ancient parts I refer to the work of Graham Hancock and others. The historians seem oblivious of the
technological capabilities of ancient civilizations (almost all over the world) and
the history told by the local people themselves.
"secret parts of history"
The secret parts are more like: who financed the nazis, what parts of the bible were rewritten, etc.
The historians just assume that what is written is correct, but forget that the history is written by the victors.
And that much information is destroyed or hidden away, because certain people did not want it to be seen.
And some of this information can still be relevant today.
A clear example of something that certain people want to be hidden:
Recently saw an interesting documentary about Hitler's escape from Berlin. It showed clear evidence
of his presence all along a certain route to Argentine, and debunked the evidence for the suicide.
Still most people and historians will not belief this, and it will be hard to discuss this topic seriously.
"most of Psychology, most of psychiatry"
In psychology and in psychiatry the whole model is wrong, they only look at "nurture and nature".
Thoughts are the main issue. Emotions are seen as a by-product. The instinct is mostly ignored.
Influence of Epi-genetics and of microbes has been ignored until recently.
Chemicals are seen as a dominant cause and solution to a problems.
These ideas are all false, and have been falsified in tests.
What is systematically ignored is the spirit of someone, and the evidence of a
non-material component in it. While this idea is seen as pseudo-science, it has
far more basis for reality than the models that are seen as science.
As I wrote somewhere else, the philosophy of science is designed in such a way
to avoid and ignore evidence of this.
But whatever you belief, see my usage of spirit here as whatever you like:
as morphogenetic fields, or quantum-something.
Neurology models a brain as a perfect adaptive receiver,
but can't even recognize it as such.
Here we see again the avoidance of some kind of spirit that is present in the body.
But this is not listed as pseudo-science, because it does not produce as much false theories
as psychology and psychiatry does. The model is mostly incomplete, but not completely false.
'Random' evolution"
The DNA containing sequences of TGAC - can be compared with a set of cards.
Shuffle them, by throwing it in the wind (or water). If the cards do not form
a house of cards, in complete sorted order, throw away the old ones and
wait until you find a new set of cards in your hands.
Keep doing that until you get the complete sorted house of cards.
That is how biology came to life. According to theory.
Then while you have the house of cards, remove some and add some more.
By randomly throwing more cards on it.
If the house falls you have to start again. If too many houses fall, you
can not use an existing house, but have to build a new one, by random chance.
Now make a house twice as big, sorted in a different way.
This is how biology evolves. According to theory.
Now look at real bacteria and give them difficult environments.
They adapt within a few generations.
So this evolving is clearly not random.
How this is done is a whole other story, and includes DNA-exchanges,
epi-genetics and all kinds of other tricks.
Adding to I believe that it works together with the spirit of the living being,
in some way. But it is certainly not random.
"General purpose Artificial intelligence"
An artificial intelligence that can improve itself, without any oversight or programming.
This idea is supported by many scientists, but is easily debunked.
A program can be made in such a way that certain random changes can help the program
to produce better results. This is how neural networks work.
I see this problem similar as the halting problem.
By "randomly" changing a program it seems that a program can improve itself.
But what can tell the program whether these changes are correct?
So you need a smarter program to tell the changing program what is better,
which defeats the whole purpose of improvement.
This answer seems in conflict with the idea that the brain makes us intelligent.
And it does. We are intelligent, because our spirit works as a guide to make our brain intelligent.
"origin of mineral oil"
We learn on school that oil comes from plants long gone. But research from some scientists show that this
is not true. It even seems that this idea was invented to give the idea that oil is very scarce, so it could
be sold for a higher price.
More ** from zyxzevn at: Paradigm change and C@
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Lloyd
- Posts: 4433
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
ZZ, I'm pretty sure you meant petroleum, rather than mineral oil. Mineral oil comes from petroleum, but it is used on the skin to retain moisture, as in cosmetics. I like your further comments on pseudoscience, but I was just reminded of something that might help solve the problem of pseudoscience.
SOLUTION TO END MAINSTREAM PSEUDOSCIENCE
We need collaboration, cooperation, discipline etc and the first place to start could be this:
Program Dreams
I was just reading Dr. McKenzie's article on programming dreams at:
http://www.alternativeapa.com/wp-conten ... ctives.pdf.
Purpose. The purpose of programming our dreams is to receive insights and comforting.
Procedure. It seems that all that's needed to program our dreams is to tell ourselves at bedtime that we want to hear a sound that wakes us up when an important message of insight, guidance, or comforting is coming to us. And when we wake up we should briefly write down just the insight that is needed.
Proposal. I propose that all of us try this procedure, programming our dreams by asking for insights on how to organize ourselves and how to persuade the general public to see the big picture of how the 1% owns and controls the major media and the educational literature and how they can learn the truth in all fields by being open-minded and examining alternative claims about reality.
- I propose that we share the insights we receive from good dreams here.
Agree? Who's with me? Should I contact forum members to request help with this? Do you have other proposals?
SOLUTION TO END MAINSTREAM PSEUDOSCIENCE
We need collaboration, cooperation, discipline etc and the first place to start could be this:
Program Dreams
I was just reading Dr. McKenzie's article on programming dreams at:
http://www.alternativeapa.com/wp-conten ... ctives.pdf.
Purpose. The purpose of programming our dreams is to receive insights and comforting.
Procedure. It seems that all that's needed to program our dreams is to tell ourselves at bedtime that we want to hear a sound that wakes us up when an important message of insight, guidance, or comforting is coming to us. And when we wake up we should briefly write down just the insight that is needed.
Proposal. I propose that all of us try this procedure, programming our dreams by asking for insights on how to organize ourselves and how to persuade the general public to see the big picture of how the 1% owns and controls the major media and the educational literature and how they can learn the truth in all fields by being open-minded and examining alternative claims about reality.
- I propose that we share the insights we receive from good dreams here.
Agree? Who's with me? Should I contact forum members to request help with this? Do you have other proposals?
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Zyxzevn
- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 4:48 pm
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Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
English is not my native language. We use a similar word in my country in a different way,Lloyd wrote:ZZ, I'm pretty sure you meant petroleum, rather than mineral oil.
so I thought it was the same thing.
Sorry for the confusion.
More ** from zyxzevn at: Paradigm change and C@
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Lloyd
- Posts: 4433
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
That's what I figured, ZZ. Petroleum means "rock oil" which would seem to be the same as "mineral oil", but in English the definition of mineral oil is skewed a bit.
Programmed Dream Experiment
I hope everyone will like to try the experiment. At bedtime say the following and have pencil and paper handy for when you awake from your dream:
"I will have a dream about the cause of mainstream pseudoscience, and the dream will tell me exactly what to do."
Programmed Dream Experiment
I hope everyone will like to try the experiment. At bedtime say the following and have pencil and paper handy for when you awake from your dream:
"I will have a dream about the cause of mainstream pseudoscience, and the dream will tell me exactly what to do."
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Zyxzevn
- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 4:48 pm
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Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
You may like this video about lucid dreaming.Lloyd wrote: "I will have a dream about ..."
I just saw a horror-movie review which stated:
"It is more scary when something can not be explained. It stays with you".
If I generalize this towards science, I get: "we have to explain everything with what we know,
even when it is false, otherwise it is scary".
Are many scientists actually very scared?
More ** from zyxzevn at: Paradigm change and C@
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Lloyd
- Posts: 4433
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
Dream Experiment Report
So far, I haven't had a dream that told me exactly what to do. Also, I neglected to write down what I'm supposed to say and then read it at bedtime. Maybe I'll remember to do that tonight.
So far, I haven't had a dream that told me exactly what to do. Also, I neglected to write down what I'm supposed to say and then read it at bedtime. Maybe I'll remember to do that tonight.
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Lloyd
- Posts: 4433
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm
Re: Is There Scientific Progress Overall?
Play Games with Me. I invite you and others to my new thread on improving science and science discussion at http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... 41#p112941. I started a game there, called Doutery. Its purpose is to improve critical thinking and science discussion. I want to practice the game with other critical thinkers and improve the game enough to perhaps have an effect on improving science. The game will have to be FUN in order to succeed. To me it will probably be fun already, but for others it may need tinkering with to make it much better. So I hope you can take a little time to post there for a while, like for a few days or weeks, if you like. I submitted Big Bang as a theory for Doutery, but feel free to submit other theories, even including your own, if you like. We're not trying to disprove any theory, but only to find the best counter-evidence to theories. That should help improve critical thinking, which science greatly needs, I think. Right?
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