Category: Uncategorized

Scientistry and sciensophy

Keep this sordid history of scientific consensus in mind every time you hear the AGW/CC charlatans selling their global government scam on that basis:

In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines. The guidelines shaped the diets of hundreds of millions of people. Doctors base their advice on them, food companies develop products to comply with them. Their influence extends beyond the US. In 1983, the UK government issued advice that closely followed the American example.

The most prominent recommendation of both governments was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol (this was the first time that the public had been advised to eat less of something, rather than enough of everything). Consumers dutifully obeyed. We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker.

Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane. Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000. In the UK, the line is flat for decades until the mid-1980s, at which point it also turns towards the sky. Only 6% of Britons were obese in 1980. In the next 20 years that figure more than trebled. Today, two thirds of Britons are either obese or overweight, making this the fattest country in the EU. Type 2 diabetes, closely related to obesity, has risen in tandem in both countries.

At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe. Naturally, then, a search for culprits has ensued. Scientists are conventionally apolitical figures, but these days, nutrition researchers write editorials and books that resemble liberal activist tracts, fizzing with righteous denunciations of “big sugar” and fast food. Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats.

Nutrition scientists are angry with the press for distorting their findings, politicians for failing to heed them, and the rest of us for overeating and under-exercising. In short, everyone – business, media, politicians, consumers – is to blame. Everyone, that is, except scientists….

In a 2015 paper titled Does Science Advance One
Funeral at a Time?, a team of scholars at the National Bureau of
Economic Research sought an empirical basis for a remark made by the
physicist Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather
because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that
is familiar with it.”

The researchers identified more than 12,000 “elite” scientists from
different fields. The criteria for elite status included funding, number
of publications, and whether they were members of the National
Academies of Science or the Institute of Medicine. Searching obituaries,
the team found 452 who had died before retirement. They then looked to
see what happened to the fields from which these celebrated scientists
had unexpectedly departed, by analysing publishing patterns.

What they found confirmed the truth of Planck’s maxim. Junior
researchers who had worked closely with the elite scientists, authoring
papers with them, published less. At the same time, there was a marked
increase in papers by newcomers to the field, who were less likely to
cite the work of the deceased eminence. The articles by these newcomers
were substantive and influential, attracting a high number of citations.
They moved the whole field along.

A scientist is part of what the Polish philosopher of science Ludwik
Fleck called a “thought collective”: a group of people exchanging ideas
in a mutually comprehensible idiom. The group, suggested Fleck,
inevitably develops a mind of its own, as the individuals in it converge
on a way of communicating, thinking and feeling.

This makes scientific inquiry prone to the eternal rules of human
social life: deference to the charismatic, herding towards majority
opinion, punishment for deviance, and intense discomfort with admitting
to error. Of course, such tendencies are precisely what the scientific
method was invented to correct for, and over the long run, it does a
good job of it. In the long run, however, we’re all dead, quite possibly
sooner than we would be if we hadn’t been following a diet based on
poor advice.

It is always necessary – it is absolutely vital – to carefully distinguish between scientody, or the scientific method, and scientistry, which is the scientific profession. The evils described in this article are not indicative of any problems with scientody, they are the consequence of the inevitable and intrinsic flaws with scientistry.

To simply call everything “science” is to be misleading, often, but not always, in innocence. Science has no authority, and increasingly, it is an intentional and deceitful bait-and-switch, in which the overly credulous are led to believe that because an individual with certain credentials is asserting something, that statement is supported by documentary evidence gathered through the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, and successful replication.

In most – not many, but most – cases, that is simply not the case. Even if you don’t use these neologisms to describe the three aspects of science, you must learn to distinguish between them or you will repeatedly fall for this intentional bait-and-switch. In order of reliability, the three aspects of science are:

  • Scientody: the process
  • Scientage: the knowledge base
  • Scientistry: the profession

We might also coin a new term, sciensophy, as practiced by sciensophists, which is most definitely not an aspect of science, to describe the pseudoscience of “the social sciences”, as they do not involve any scientody and their additions to scientage have proven to be generally unreliable. Economics, nutrition, and medicine all tend to fall into this category.

Will they ever learn?

It’s not that I expect everyone to have read SJWs Always Lie. But it amazes me that people are still failing to notice that backing down and attempting to virtue-signal in the face of manufactured SJW outrage only leads to additional attacks:

The furore began when Atonement author McEwan gave a speech to the Royal Institution last week about the representation of the self. He had said: ‘The self, like a consumer desirable, may be plucked from the shelves of a personal identity supermarket, a ready-to-wear little black number.

‘For example, some men in full possession of a penis are now identifying as women and demanding entry to women-only colleges, and the right to change in women’s dressing rooms.’

The Man Booker Prize winner then reportedly clarified his comments to a member of the audience, saying: ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to think of people with penises as men.’

His remarks prompted criticism from the transgender lobby and he was accused of being ‘backward-looking’ by cross-dressing comedian Eddie Izzard.

Whilst appearing to back down on his views, McEwan’s statement indicates he was surprised by the reaction to his comments. He wrote: ‘In response to a question, I proposed that the possession of a penis or, more fundamentally, the inheritance of the XY chromosome, is inalienably connected to maleness. As a statement, this seems to me biologically unexceptional.’

He went on to condemn discrimination against the transgender community and to say that changing or redefining gender is an ‘extension of freedom’.

‘That the transgender community should want or need to abandon their birth gender or radically redefine it is their right, which should be respected and celebrated,’ he wrote. ‘It’s an extension of freedom and the possibilities of selfhood. Everyone should deplore the discrimination that transgender communities have suffered around the world.’

LGBT charity Stonewall, which last week described McEwan’s views as ‘uninformed’, said yesterday: ‘Although it’s good to see that he has acknowledged the hurt that has been done to the trans community, his comments at the lecture and statement do nothing to help their situation and in fact further isolate trans people and entrench transphobic attitudes.’

But the message is getting out there nevertheless, and so strongly that the SJWs are afraid of it. I did an interview recently that was intended for the Huffington Post, but when the editors there saw it, they spiked it. They are terrified of exposing their left-liberal readers to alt-right ideas, because even when presented with all the usual spin and virtue-signaling, those ideas are proving more convincing, attractive, and in harmony with reality than their dogma.

Thus proving the Alt-Right right

Actual headline and subtitle at the increasingly mistitled Reason:

The Alt-Right Is Wrong: Trump Is an Enemy of Western Civilization, Not Its Champion

If your candidate opposes free trade and free speech, he’s not a defender of classical liberalism.

This is almost astonishingly ignorant. It amazes me to have to point out that classical liberalism is not Western Civilization, which predates classical liberalism by literal centuries.

Moreover, it is free trade that poses a deadly danger to Western Civilization, as the combination of cheap travel and communications technology, relaxed border controls, and the free movement of people that is necessary for the operation of free trade are putting Western Civilization in the greatest peril it has known since the Turks were knocking at the gates of Vienna.

It’s not just a stupid headline writer either, as Robby Soave doubles down in the body of the article itself:

No presidential candidate who fails to grasp why unrestricted trade across national borders is the hallmark of a civilized society is fit to lead one, and no leader who seeks the power to shut down newspapers who criticize him can be trusted to defend classical liberalism from its enemies.

Apparently Robby is not only ignorant of European history, but of American history as well; no American president has ever favored unrestricted trade across national borders, not even Bill Clinton or George Bush.

And, again, classical liberalism is not Western Civilization. The temporal and conceptual subset should never be confused with the set.

The campaign takes its toll

A few people have asked me what is wrong with Trump lately, given his recent media missteps and his bigger-than-expected loss in Wisconsin. I think the answer is very simple. He’s tired. This nomination campaign is a marathon, not a sprint, and it is an exhausting process. In every human endeavor, we see the pattern of ebb and flow, the fractal Elliott Wave pattern of 1-3-5 with the 2-4, the back-and-forth swing of the momentum pendulum.

Trump has had two big surges, one that began in New Hampshire and carried through Super Tuesday, the other that carried him through big victories in Florida and Arizona. The question is if he can summon up the energy required for the final push to victory.

The last two weeks have been what happens when a candidate who depends upon his high energy to carry his campaign through finds himself flagging. And, as usual, all the short-term linear thinkers who look only at the present assume that it’s all over and his trajectory is downward.

I suspect that being back home in New York will energize Trump and he’ll roar back into aggressive action after he is remotivated by a landslide win over Cruz there. Whether that will be enough to carry him through California, I don’t know, but remember, what he absolutely needs to win before the convention are: a big win in proportional New York, solid wins in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a minor state win, and then a clinching victory in California.

That’s not certain, but it is far from being impossible, or even unlikely. April 26th looks to be an interesting day, as Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware will vote and the finalists for the Hugo Awards will also be announced.

UPDATE: Nate adds an important observation:

I think this is a fair assessment. but you’re also ignoring Trump’s weak spot, which is also one of his strengths. Trump doesn’t handling failure well. Oh, he’s fine losing one or two while winning 10. But he’s had a bad couple weeks and it is clearly showing. You can see it in his temperament. Looking back at the debates where Cruz and Rubio were ganging up on him he was clearly off-his game in the post debate interviews.

When he’s winning he appears to have a better grasp on what attacks to address and what attacks to ignore. When he isn’t winning he appears to lose that ability and lash out at everything and everyone that says anything negative about him.

This is an excellent point, and it is one reason why I’ve been saying New York is so important even though it’s not winner-takes-all. Trump is a high-energy front-runner who feeds on momentum. He’s a steamroller, he’s not a counterpuncher who is energized by finding himself on the ropes, a die-hard who will fight until the bitter end, or a comeback kid who needs to be knocked down once or twice before he even starts to get serious.

Making SF awards great again

Lela Buis comments on the new Dragon Awards:

I see today that DragonCon has announced they will give out awards in 2016. This is kind of a biggie. DragonCon is a huge convention, with an annual on-site attendance of about 70,000 people. The press release says the awards will be based on nominations and votes from all fans, not just attendees or members, through an open system. They’re apparently going to run this off their Website where voters can register to vote.

Contrast this attendance figure with WorldCon that gives out the Hugo Awards. Wikipedia lists 4,644 attendees and 10,350 who bought memberships to vote the 2015 Hugo Awards, which was a record for numbers. With DragonCon moving into the awards game, I’m thinking the Hugo’s are officially undermined. The Puppy scandal has not only disrupted the voting system, but it seems to have led to an inspection of the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.

While most people aren’t going to swallow the Puppies’ complaints of a vast conspiracy whole, their grievances do seem to have resulted in concerns about the fairness of the process. WorldCon has scrambled to provide additional controls, but it could be that their credibility is already shot.

Yes, indeed, I think the Hugo Awards might have just taken a few hits over the last decade or two. In any event, I’m sure the science fiction fandom community is every bit as delighted about people taking their advice and setting up a new and alternative award as they were about people taking John Scalzi’s advice to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards.

I am registered to vote in the Dragon Awards and I would encourage you to do so as well. I’ll post my recommendations here the week after the Hugo shortlist is announced, in the event that any of you might happen to be curious about them.

The funniest thing is the way a self-appointed Hugo Defender immediately popped up to white-knight for Worldcon in the comments at Lela’s site. That, more than anything, tells you how fandom actually feels about the new competition.

You wrote: “…it seems to have led to an inspection of the Hugo process where works are winnowed through a narrow review and recommendation system and onto the ballot.”

What does that mean? The Hugo Awards are nominated by the thousands of members of the World Science Fiction Society. How is that a “narrow review and recommendation system?”

Whatever does it mean, Mr. Standlee asks, even as the rules are changed to protect the perceived interests of the Tor Books cabal.

Beamdog CEO statement on Baldur’s Gate Gate

Trent Oster, CEO of Beamdog, releases a statement concerning Siege of Dragonspear.

I’m Trent Oster, CEO of Beamdog.

First off, everyone here is ecstatic to have shipped Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. Siege represents years of hard work by a dedicated team that we grew from a combination of home grown talent, original Baldur’s Gate modders and former Bioware developers.  Siege of Dragonspear represents more than 25 hours of new Baldur’s Gate gameplay, and more than 500,000 words of writing. I’m proud of our team for launching this great expansion.

We’ve received feedback around Mizhena, a supporting character who reveals she is transgender. In retrospect, it would have been better served if we had introduced a transgender character with more development. This is a lesson we will be carrying forward in our development as creators and we will be improving this character in a future update.

The last few days have showed us how passionately many of our fans care for our games. We’ve had a lot of great feedback from players who love the expansion and are having a great time experiencing the first new Baldur’s Gate story in 15 years. While we appreciate all feedback we receive from our fans, both positive as well as negative, some of the negative feedback has focused not on Siege of Dragonspear but on individual developers at Beamdog — to the point of online threats and harassment.

I just want to make it crystal clear that Beamdog does not condone this behavior, and moreover that it will not have the desired effect as we stand behind all our developers 100%. We created the game as a group, and moving forward we’ll work on the game’s issues as a group, which I believe is exactly as it should be.

We’ve received valuable feedback around some bugs we failed to catch for ship. We’re hard at work right now patching up the issues that slipped through and we’re striving to ship fixes and improvements quickly. We will provide a complete list of the issues we plan to address in our next update. Issues of note we are addressing are:

Multiplayer – We are acting on reports of multiplayer issues and hope to have this fixed in the next update.

Minsc – Minsc has a line which generated controversy. Looking back on the line, we agree with the feedback from our community, it has nothing to do with his character and we will be removing the line.

We hope all our players continue to enjoy Siege of Dragonspear and we look forward to providing an update in the near future.

Regards,
-Trent

This is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. It’s a feeble attempt at damage control. There is no apology for calling critics “small minded”, there is no apology to those who have been banned from the forums, there is no apology for the inept writing or attempting to cram Social Justice Games, as the responsible writer called them, down the throats of Baldur’s Gate fans, and most of all, there is no announcement that the Social Justice Game writer and creator Amber Scott is no longer employed by Beamdog.

This simply isn’t good enough, Mr. Oster. It doesn’t indicate that you understand in any way what the core problem is or why so many fans of Baldur’s Gate were appalled by what your company did with the license.

Here is my advice: get rid of Scott and whatever other SJWs are waging their little cultural war on gamers at your expense, hire some better writers, and publicly assure fans of the series that you will not continue to utilize the Baldur’s Gate license to add diversity, preach about refugees or other current political issues, or advocate for social justice, and I’ll be happy to buy your games.

If we want to get preached at, we’ll go to church. If we want to get lectured, we’ll go to college. A game is no place for SJW culture war campaigns.

This is the damning bit: “we stand behind all our developers 100%”

Too bad. We stand against them. Because they stand against us.

UPDATE: Steam is accepting refunds from those who purchased the game or the Enhanced Editions and are unhappy with Beamdog’s public statements.

Steam accepted my BG:EE refund request after forum ban with more than 2 hrs played

Explained I had more playtime and I was aware of that, and that I would have been glad to eat the mistake had I simply made a bad purchase – but that after being banned on their forums and called a ‘harasser’ for no good reason than disagreeing that I’d had enough of the company.

BAM, refund approved within 30m, despite it being 9:30pm on a Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I’ll be drafting an open letter that contains relevant elements of various digital distribution platforms ToS’ that everyone can copy and send to Steam, Amazon, GoG, GMG, and all the different platforms Beamdog is selling their product on, along with detailed information including archives and screenshots which are now deleted, showing a conscious attempt on the part of Beamdog to manipulate user reviews across various platforms. Which violates EVERYONES policies, basically.

ADDENDUM: This Q&A says it all about SJWs in games. “Killer” is right. From an interview with a former senior writer at Bioware:

What is your least favorite thing about working in the industry?

Playing the games. This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but it has definitely been the single most difficult thing for me. I came into the job out of a love of writing, not a love of playing games. While I enjoy the interactive aspects of gaming, if a game doesn’t have a good story, it’s very hard for me to get interested in playing it. Similarly, I’m really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly — I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don’t like tactics, I don’t like fighting, I don’t like keeping track of inventory, and I can’t read a game map to save my life. This makes it very difficult for me to play to the myriad games I really should be keeping up on as our competition.

If you could tell developers of games to make sure to put one thing in games to appeal to a broader audience which includes women, what would that one thing be?

A fast-forward button. Games almost always include a way to “button through” dialogue without paying attention, because they understand that some players don’t enjoy listening to dialogue and they don’t want to stop their fun. Yet they persist in practically coming into your living room and forcing you to play through the combats even if you’re a player who only enjoys the dialogue. In a game with sufficient story to be interesting without the fighting, there is no reason on earth that you can’t have a little button at the corner of the screen that you can click to skip to the end of the fighting.

Dani Bunton wept.

Trump is still the only option

It’s not Trump vs Cruz at this point, it’s Trump vs Ryan. Matt Forney explains that Cruz is just Ryan’s stand-in at the moment:

While Ted Cruz and his fanboys might fantasize about him winning the nomination in a brokered convention, it’s not likely to happen. Beyond Cruz being ineligible to serve due to being a natural-born Canadian, he’s widely despised by his fellow Republicans for his habitual dishonesty and abrasive attitude. The only reason he’s currently racking up endorsements from party insiders like Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham is because they want to use him as a club to beat Trump with.

GOP establishment hacks have begun floating the idea of nominating House Speaker (and 2012 vice presidential nominee) Paul Ryan as a compromise candidate at the convention. Not only would this represent an unprecedented insult to the party’s base, nominating Ryan would guarantee a Democratic victory in November. The Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan brand of Republicanism is so repulsive to voters that not only did it lose them the 2012 election (an election they should have won due to Obama’s unpopularity), Ryan’s own hometown refused to support him.

In any event, Donald Trump and his supporters will need to turn the heat up after his loss in Wisconsin in order to thwart the GOP establishment. Voting for Ted Cruz will ensure that the nomination goes to Ryan, Romney or another Wall Street-owned company man who will both disregard the interests of the American people and lose to the Democrats. If you’re serious about pulling up the floorboards of the GOP to expose the rot within, Trump is your only option.

It’s rather remarkable that so many Republicans would rather lose to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders than simply get on board with Donald Trump. C’est la vie, as it has been said by others before, at this point, all politics in the USA is little more than laying the groundwork for Round Two.

I wanted to like Paul Ryan, but he’s been an unmitigated and shady cuckservative for nearly as long as he’s been on the national scene.

On being underwhelmed by economists

One of the things I’ve learned about the internet is that it has a way of stripping the intellectual glamor from those one had reason to respect for one reason or another. I discovered that Thomas Sowell was rather less bright than I’d believed when I had a direct personal encounter with him over Michelle Malkin and Pearl Harbor. And it was disappointing to learn that Thomas Woods is considerably more conventional, and considerably less serious, as an economist than I’d imagined him to be.

Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
Free trade advocates don’t realize
they’re supporting a failed theory that never applied to modern
economies or technology in the 1st place.

Bent Nail Retweeted Supreme Dark Lord@ThomasEWoods  free trade failed Tom…just like the non-aggression principle .only works if all comply.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
No, it doesn’t work at all. Free trade is totally incompatible with having a nation.

Tom Woods ‏@ThomasEWoods
No, that’s completely wrong. Why not block out the sun? It’s not playing fair, giving all that light for free!

Tom Woods ‏@ThomasEWoods
“Having a nation” = “forcing people to pay higher taxes to the sociopaths who oppress them.” Got it.
Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
I mean literally having a nation at all. With true free trade, HALF of Americans under 35 will have to emigrate.

Tom Woods ‏@ThomasEWoods
Especially the US lightbulb industry, which deserves to suck at the proverbial teat forever. Nationhood demands it

Woods is a good Austrian, in the economics sense, but he’s obviously in over his head here. I am entirely confident that he has literally never considered the obvious consequences of free trade from a labor mobility standpoint, despite the fact that labor mobility is a necessary component of free trade from theoretical, logical, and empirical standpoints.

In fact, with a very few number of exceptions, such as Gary North, who rejects the core concepts of “nations” and “borders”, I daresay that fewer Austrian economists understand that their free trade dogma is absolutely antithetical to the survival of Western civilization than libertarians grasped that their open borders policy was self-refuting twenty years ago.

I find it amusing because the conversation usually goes like this:

FREE TRADER: Free trade is good! Just look at how domestic free trade has benefited the US economy!

VOX DAY: Very well. Now look at US labor mobility rates.

FT: (stricken look) Um, labor mobility isn’t necessarily part of free trade.

VD: Yes, it is. But more importantly, it is observably part of the US economy.

FT: (wide-eyed horror, crash, reboot) Why not block out the sun? Japan! 1970s automakers! Ricardo! Smoot-Hawley!

They literally have no comeback for this argument, because most of them are unwilling to openly declare themselves anti-American globalists who don’t believe in nations, let alone national sovereignty, let alone the US Constitution. And that is the only rational response that remains to them if they are going to retain the free trade dogma.

I have yet to hear a single free trader even TRY to respond to my point that if the international economy was opened up to free trade to the extent that the domestic economy is, US labor mobility indicates that nearly half of all Americans would be forced to emigrate by the time they turn 35.

Free trade. Nations. Pick one.

Mississippi stands firm

The governor doesn’t hesitate to sign a religious liberty bill:

Mississippi’s governor signed a law on Tuesday that allows public and private businesses to refuse service to gay couples based on the employers’ religious beliefs.

Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523, despite opposition from gay-rights groups and some businesses who say it enables discrimination. Some conservative and religious groups support the bill.

The measure’s stated intention is to protect those who believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman, that sexual relations should only take place inside such marriages, and that male and female genders are unchangeable.

“This bill merely reinforces the rights which currently exist to the exercise of religious freedom as stated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the Republican governor wrote in a statement posted to his Twitter account.

The measure allows churches, religious charities and privately held businesses to decline services to people whose lifestyles violate their religious beliefs. Individual government employees may also opt out, although the measure says governments must still provide services.

“This bill does not limit any constitutionally protected rights or actions of any citizen of this state under federal or state laws,” Bryant said. “It does not attempt to challenge federal laws, even those which are in conflict with the Mississippi Constitution, as the Legislature recognizes the prominence of federal law in such limited circumstances.”

Other states have considered similar legislation. North Carolina enacted a law, while governors in Georgia and South Dakota vetoed proposals.

Meanwhile, Paypal decides it’s a good idea to play politics in North Carolina:

PayPal has canceled its plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte, following passage of a North Carolina law that prevents cities from creating non-discrimination policies based on gender identity.

The measure also mandates that students in state schools use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender when they were born.

On March 23, North Carolina, in an emergency session, passed the controversial Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act. 

It’s always educational to see how corporations are willing to virtue-signal on certain issues, while cheerfully doing business with some of the worst regimes on Earth at the same time.

And now various governors are getting into the act.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed an executive order banning all non-essential state travel to Mississippi. The order requires all New York State agencies, departments, boards and commissions to immediately review all requests for state funded or state sponsored travel to the state of Mississippi, and bar any such publicly funded travel that is not essential to the enforcement of state law or public health and safety.

Round Two is coming. I don’t know which issue will set it off yet, but it’s increasingly obvious that Round Two is on the horizon. There is no nation any longer, and the sooner the various nations inside the USA go their separate ways, preferably in peace.