Tag: science

A new hypothesis

Scientists discover a physical manifestation of autism:

A team of scientists has discovered that a particular region of the brain is affected in those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They believe that finding the brain region which causes social deficits in those with the condition could point towards new types of therapies. The team included scientists based at ETH Zürich, Trinity College Dublin, Oxford University and Royal Holloway.

They ran MRI brain scans on people with ASD, and on healthy volunteers, in an attempt to track down the brain region linked to some of the behaviours seen in those with ASD and find differences between the two groups.

Dr Joshua Henk Balsters, the team leader, is based at ETH Zürich but performed much of the research at Trinity while working as a postdoctoral research fellow. He described how ASD can disturb normal personal exchanges. “The ability to understand how other people make decisions and what happens to them as a result is key to successful social interaction,” he said. “A big part of social interaction is to try and understand another person’s point of view. You need to understand another person’s perspective and that is very difficult if you have ASD.”

The researchers identified changes in a region called the gyrus of the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain that responds when someone else experiences something surprising. They published their findings in the current edition of the journal Brain.

My new hypothesis is that scientists will eventually discover that people with these changes in the gyrus of the anterior cingulate cortex also happen to possess a statistically significant predilection towards atheism. Remember, there have been two university studies based on my original 2007 hypothesis that there is a correlation between ASD and atheism, and both studies achieved results that tended to support the hypothesis.

Sam Harris had it backwards. Atheists and theists don’t think differently due to their beliefs, but atheists have different beliefs due to their abnormal brain structure. It’s neither superior reason nor a dedication to logic that tends to produce an atheist, but rather, a lack of ability to grasp the perspective of others. There are other causal factors, of course; this does not explain the “mad at Dad” atheist or the “I will brook no limitations on my sexual behavior” atheist, but it does explain the spergey, socially clumsy sort that bring up their active disbelief at every opportunity.

The IQ delta

It has been observed that the exceptionally intelligent think differently than those with conventional minds, even those which most people would consider to be highly intelligent. The difference is qualitative, not merely quantitative, in nature, and is akin to the difference between the genuinely mathematical mind and the non-mathematical mind. It is, to use one acquaintance’s example, the difference between the minds that can ascend the mountain by the winding path or by climbing straight up, and the mind that takes a helicopter ride directly to the peak.

I have been asked on more than a few occasions to explain what the qualitative differences are and to provide some perspective on how the different thought processes work. Now, obviously I am somewhat handicapped in explaining this because I have never not thought the way that I do now, but I do have the advantage of observing considerably more conventional thinkers than any conventional thinker, no matter how intelligent, has been able to observe non-conventional thinkers. However, upon beginning to read Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, I believe I may finally able to articulate a few of these differences.

There are a few observations I have made over the years that are of limited utility in differentiating between what I think of as “very smart” vs “brilliant”. The terms themselves are meaningless and entirely subjective here, to put it in terms the quantitatively minded can accept, let’s call them VHIQ vs UHIQ for the time being, with the understanding that what applies to the VHIQ also applies to midwits and average minds, whereas what applies to UHIQ does not.

And FFS, if you’re reading this and think something might apply to you, please understand that is not a signal to decide that you are an unconventional thinker or exceptionally intelligent and share that fascinating observation with everyone. That very reaction is a pretty reliable indicator that you’re not. If you can’t fathom that, go ask a very tall person how excited he was this morning about discovering that he was tall.

Keep in mind that these are tendencies, not iron-clad laws. If they don’t make sense to you, don’t worry about it. On average, the responses will fall into six categories:

  1. Huh?
  2. Hmm.
  3. Vox just wants to talk about how smart he is again.
  4. Vox is right/wrong because [x].
  5. OT: Something off-topic because IMPORTANT. Link goes to the Drudge Report, which no one reads.
  6. Hey, I can use this as an excuse to talk about ME!

Regardless:

  • VHIQ inclines towards binary either/or thinking and taking sides. UHIQ inclines towards probabilistic thinking and balancing between contradictory possibilities.
  • VHIQ seeks understanding towards application or justification, UHIQ seeks understanding towards holistic understanding.
  • VHIQ refines the original thought of others, UHIQ synthesizes multiple original thoughts.
  • VHIQ rationalizes logical conclusions, UHIQ accepts logical conclusions. This is ironic because VHIQ considers itself to be highly logical, UHIQ considers itself to be investigative.
  • VHIQ recognizes the truths in the works of the great thinkers of the past and applies them. UHIQ recognizes the flaws in the thinking of the great thinkers of the past and explores them.
  • VHIQ usually spots logical flaws in an argument. UHIQ usually senses them.
  • VHIQ enjoys pedantry. UHIQ hates it. Both are capable of utilizing it at will.
  • VHIQ is uncomfortable with chaos and seeks to impose order on it, even if none exists. UHIQ is comfortable with chaos and seeks to recognize patterns in it.
  • VHIQ is spergey and egocentric. UHIQ is holistic and solipsistic.
  • VHIQ will die on a conceptual hill. UHIQ surrenders at the first reasonable show of force.
  • VHIQ attempts to rationalize its errors. UHIQ sees no point in hesitating to admit them.
  • VHIQ seeks to prove the correctness of its case. UHIQ doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the jury.
  • VHIQ believes in the unique power of SCIENCE. UHIQ sees science as a conceptual framework of limited utility.
  • VHIQ seeks to rank and order things. UHIQ seeks to recognize and articulate concepts.
  • VHIQ is competitive. UHIQ doesn’t keep score.
  • VHIQ asks “how can this be used?” UHIQ asks “what does this mean?”

This obviously doesn’t explain how a UHIQ thinker thinks per se, but it might provide some perspective concerning the qualitative differences between conventional high IQ thinkers and unconventional high IQ thinkers previously observed by others. For example, when I read something, even something about which I am inherently dubious, I do so in what is essentially an intellectual clean room. I am not merely open to being persuaded, I am, in the moment, fully believing whatever the author is saying.

However, upon encountering an obvious falsehood, non sequitur, bait-and-switch, or erroneous leap of logic, the clean room is muddied. The more mud that accumulates, and the more rapidly it is accumulated, the more certain that I am of the text containing errors. I don’t know exactly what they are yet, because I’m not reading critically, and I don’t retain more than a general sense of where on the page the mud is, but I know where to go and look for it, and perhaps more importantly, I know with almost 100 percent certainty that I will find something there. Every now and then I pick up a false reading, but that doesn’t happen more than 2-3 times per year.

I’ll demonstrate this in action in a longer post about Fukuyama’s book, specifically, the introduction, in a few hours. In the meantime:

The topics of genius and degeneration are only special cases of the more general problem involved in the evaluation of human capacities, namely the quantitative versus qualitative. There are those who insist that all differences are qualitative, and those who with equal conviction maintain that they are exclusively quantitative. The true answer is that they are both. General intelligence, for example, is undoubtedly quantitative in the sense that it consists of varying amounts of the same basic stuff (e.g., mental energy) which can be expressed by continuous numerical measures like intelligence Quotients or Mental-Age scores, and these are as real as any physical measurements are. But it is equally certain that our description of the difference between a genius and an average person by a statement to the effect that he has an IQ greater by this or that amount, does not describe the difference between them as completely or in the same way as when we say that a mile is much longer than an inch. The genius (as regards intellectual ability) not only has an IQ of say 50 points more than the average person, but in virtue of this difference acquires seemingly new aspects (potentialities) or characteristics. These seemingly new aspects or characteristics, in their totality, are what go to make up the “qualitative” difference between them [9, p. 134].

Wechsler is saying quite plainly that those with IQs above 150 are different in kind from those below that level. He is saying that they are a different kind of mind, a different kind of human being.

SJWs are bitter about Infogalactic

One way you can be certain that Infogalactic already threatens the SJW’s control of the cultural high ground that is the online knowledge base is the reaction of SJWs to it. I am reliably informed our old acquaintance and master of rhetoric, Cameltoes Freckeltongue, is bent out of shape about the fact that our editors are removing the ideological graffiti that litters many, if not most, Wikipedia entries.

I thought that you might like to know about Camestros’s latest meltdown. He’s posted about infogalactic and the science article editing out the “women in science” section. He uses this to claim you are erasing women’s contributions to science, without of course the understanding that the inclusion of such would be motivated by feminist worldview, and irrelevant to science as practice and theory.


I do so love the smell of SJW outrage in the morning. Our email correspondent is correct, as it appears Cameltoes understands the difference between “science” and “political activism directed at science” about as well as he grasps the difference between “dialectic” and “rhetoric”.

Voxopedia: where information about women goes to be erased

The erasure of women’s achievements in science is a known phenomenon, but it is rare that you get to see it happen in such a simple and direct way. Over at our new favourite train-wreck, Vox Day had been busy quite literally erasing women’s contribution to science.

This is the relevant Wikipedia page sub-section from the main ‘Science’ article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science#Women_in_science

The Voxopedia, sorry Infogalactic page has had the section removed: https://infogalactic.com/info/Science#Science_and_society

It’s true, the “women in science” section has been deleted from the Science page. Why? First, because there is absolutely no case whatsoever that justifies its inclusion there. Second, because there is already a separate and detailed Women in Science page that is, quite correctly, devoted to the subject.

The topic “women in science” is an entirely separate subject than the topic of “science” for the same and obvious reason that the person sitting inside the car is not the car. Moreover, if “women in science” was a legitimate aspect of the topic “science”, then literally every topic would obviously need a similar “women in x” section.

Otherwise, it would quite clearly be sexism, historical discrimination, and thoughtcrime to fail to devote a section to women for every entry from Art to Zoology, including, but not limited to, the Battle of Borodino, the Sicilian Vespers, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and the page about Milo Yiannopoulos. Women were somehow involved in all those things, so there is no rational basis for which a “women in x” section can be justified for one topic and fail to be justified for another.

The real question is: Why was “women in science” ever part of the Science page in the first place? After all, there are no “Negroes in science” or “children in science” or “Native Americans in science” sections. There isn’t even a “men in science” page addressing the unique concerns of men as they relate to the method, the profession, and the knowledge base of science.

The answer, of course, is that “women in science” is nothing more than an ideological intrusion by SJWs attempting to converge the very description and summary of science toward “the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice”. They aren’t genuinely concerned about either women or science. What concerns them is maintaining control of the flow of information and converging it to suit the Narrative as necessary, which is why Wikipedia’s 531 thought police patrol the encyclopedia so relentlessly.

Infogalactic threatens that control and the SJWs know it. They’re already past the Ignore phase and have entered the Mocking phase, which is remarkably fast considering that we only launched it one week ago. We’ll know Infogalactic is firmly established when they do a 180 and go from mocking it as “Voxopedia” to denying I had anything to do with its success. Anyhow, if you’d like to help us shatter their control entirely, as we intend to do within the next 36 months, sign up for a subscription, buy a Planetary Knowledge Core t-shirt, or donate to Phase Two: Neapolitan Spoon.

Note to Infogalactic supporters: we had a highly productive Techstars meeting Monday night with 19 volunteers, and as a result of the considerable technical talent now available, we have decided to significantly modify the Roadmap. The modified Roadmap will be posted later today; check out Infogalaxians this afternoon if you’re interested.

Mailvox: women in science

It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what is going to happen if you put a selection of intelligent, not very attractive women in amongst the biggest collection of gamma males in the known universe:

I’m a STEM worker, at a research lab. Lots of females have come through here. Increasingly more over the years. I have to say that most of them are coasters. Let’s face it, I’m dealing with a LOT of socially challenged men here. This is NERD CENTRAL.

The girls are VERY adept at getting the guys to do the heavy lifting for them. And, they are even more adept at establishing social networks beyond the ken of anything your standard issue STEM male could possibly comprehend.

This has led to some very interesting situations.

But, on the whole, the women in my 17-year history with this lab have caused FAR more problems than they have solved.

Of course, there is the odd exception, when you find a female scientist or engineer who is an absolute treasure. They DO exist.

But they represent a very small percentage of the women coming through here. And the chaos caused by all the other women makes one wonder if they are worth it.

Sad to say. VERY sad to say. C’mon we WANT HOT SEXY BABES WORKING HERE! WE ARE A LEGION OF GEEKS!

First, these women are naturally going to be inclined to make up for lost time in enjoying their high relative SMV for the first time in their lives. Second, it’s going to be the cheerleader/geek homework scenario writ large. Third, women are going to take over and rule the administration and HR, and promptly steer the organizations in the direction that happens to be of interest to them, which may or may not have anything to do with either a) science, or, b) the nominal purpose of the organization.

And it will happen every single time. No amount of education or professional training trumps the socio-sexual hierarchy.

The primary contribution any woman can make for science is to stay completely out of it. No matter how good she is, no matter how smart she is, she cannot possibly compensate for the complete devastation and distraction she is going to leave in her wake over the course of her career among the socially and sexually hapless gammas who might have otherwise happily spent decades slaving away in the laboratories.

Science is hard, Barbie

Actually, it’s not, but it’s still too hard for women and minorities. Just ask an overeducated SJW:

College science classes are hostile to women and minorities because they use the scientific method, which assumes people can find reliable truths about the natural world through careful and sustained experimentation, concludes a recent dissertation by a doctoral candidate at the University of North Dakota.

Laura Parson, a student in the university’s education department, reviewed eight science class syllabi at a “Midwest public university” and said she discovered in them a hidden hostility to women and minorities:

Initial exploration of the STEM syllabi in this study did not reveal overt references to gender, such as through the use of gendered pronouns. However, upon deeper review, language used in the syllabi reflects institutionalized STEM teaching practices and views about knowledge that are inherently discriminatory to women and minorities by promoting a view of knowledge as static and unchanging, a view of teaching that promotes the idea of a passive student, and by promoting a chilly climate that marginalizes women.

Even though the course syllabi contained no “gendered assumptions” about students or other overtly discriminatory implications, Parson writes, they display prejudice against women and minorities because they refuse to entertain the possibility that “scientific knowledge is subjective.”

Throughout her dissertation, Parson assumes and asserts that women and minorities are uniquely challenged by the idea that science can provide objective information about the natural world. This is an unfair assumption, she says, because the concept of objectivity is too hard for women and minorities to understand. “[N]otions of absolute truth and a single reality” are “masculine,” she says, referring to poststructuralist feminist theory.

Instead of promoting the idea that knowledge is constructed by the student and dynamic, subject to change as it would in a more feminist view of knowledge, the syllabi reinforce the larger male-dominant view of knowledge as one that students acquire and use make [sic] the correct decision.

These SJWs would be useless on a chain gang. They are literally worse than useless for any intellectual work. This is why the Alt-Right is not only right, it is absolutely necessary for preserving the West. Conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians alike have no answer for these people.

FFS, how in the names of Earth and Gor do you think you’re ever going to reason with these people?

Scientistry vs scientody

The profession is structurally incentivized to fold, spindle, and neutralize the scientific method:

There’s no shortage of warnings from the scientific community that science as we know it is being drastically affected by the commercial and institutional pressure to publish papers in high-profile journals – and now a new simulation shows that deteroriation actually happening.

To draw attention to the way good scientists are pressured into publishing bad science (read: sensational and surprising results), researchers in the US developed a computer model to simulate what happens when scientists compete for academic prestige and jobs.

In the model, devised by researchers at the University of California, Merced, all the simulated lab groups they put in these scenarios were honest – they didn’t intentionally cheat or fudge results.

But they received greater rewards if they published ‘novel’ findings – as happens in the real world. They also had to expend greater effort to be rigorous in their methods – which would improve the quality of their research, but lower their academic output.

“The result: Over time, effort decreased to its minimum value, and the rate of false discoveries skyrocketed,” lead researcher Paul Smaldino explains in The Conversation.

And what’s more, the model suggests that the ‘bad’ (if you will) scientists who take shortcuts in relation to the incentives on offer will end up passing on their methods to the next generation of scientists who work in their lab, creating in effect an evolutionary conundrum that the study authors call “the natural selection of bad science”.

“As long as the incentives are in place that reward publishing novel, surprising results, often and in high-visibility journals above other, more nuanced aspects of science, shoddy practices that maximise one’s ability to do so will run rampant,” Smaldino told Hannah Devlin at The Guardian.

This isn’t even remotely a surprise. Scientists are people and people respond to economic incentives. To claim that scientists are “trained”, so they won’t be tempted to put a thumb on the scale is absurd; accountants are trained to do math correctly too and that doesn’t seem to stop a few of them from somehow failing to make the numbers add up right from time to time.

And keep in mind this doesn’t even account for the known quantity of dishonest scientists. The model was created to determine the extent of the effects the perverse incentives are expected to have on honest scientists.

I know some people think it is bizarre that I distinguish between science and science, and even give the three different aspects three funny names, but how do you expect to fix a conflict of this sort if you can’t even distinguish between the two parties, let alone determine how one influences the other? Clarity in articulation is the first step in clear thinking.

Best of Gab

Stickwick gets my vote today for this response to a Nature request:

“Are you a working scientist who plans to vote for Donald Trump? We want to talk to you.”

About what, fast-tracking the fiery death of your career? If Nature is surprised by a lack of response, they should read Scott Adams.

Putting it on the line

Thanks to you all, we already hit our goal and I am running the Color Run in a tutu. With only 36 hours to go, Spacebunny has decided to throw down in case the original goal is doubled.

If we get to $10k by Saturday night I’ll run in a bikini and tutu….. it’s for a great cause.

There is more information about the event on her page, but to summarize, she is raising funds for a prospective cure for Crohn’s Disease that is in the testing stage.  And yes, I will post the pictures here.

Observation is not conspiracy

There is room for a lot of discussion and debate concerning what actually happened 15 years ago in New York City. But there is no room to argue that the collapse of WTC7 was anything but a controlled demolition, despite Sillon Bono’s attempt to argue otherwise.

I discussed the way the towers collapsed with other people at the time who also had considerable “understanding in structural mechanics” and everybody agreed that at least the twin towers didn’t look “uncharacteristic”.

I haven’t heard any video or collection of witness say anything about hearing explosives going off when the WTC7 went down.

You can believe what you want, I’m not telling you to do otherwise, show me links where the explosions can be heard.

As I said, from the angles where it was filmed the WTC7 building collapse “looks” like an intentional controlled demolition.

“Looks” it is not the same as “it was”.

We all have a hunch that the entire 9/11 is nowhere near clear, but to make assertions like a building was purposely demolished using explosives in just a few hours of preparation is a bit too much.

Controlled demolition of a building that size requires a hell of lot of preparation, and (((very loud explosives))).

First, the National Institute of Standards and Technology already implicitly admitted that WTC7 was demolisehed in their report which describes how the building collapse featured 2.25 seconds of freefall with no internal structural resistance.

Free fall acceleration for approximately 8 stories or 32.0m (105 ft). Free fall acceleration means that there was no resistance encountered while the top of the building when through the space where 8 floors of reinforced concrete stood just seconds before. We are talking about a building with had 58 perimeter columns and 25 core columns. And yet, 8 floors of that somehow disappeared almost instantly. If you read the full report, you will see that NIST does admit this, but never recognizes the implications of this fact. In fact, under a separate section entitled “HYPOTHETICAL BLAST SCENARIOS” NIST specifically excludes any controlled demolition based on the completely wrong assumptions that no blasts were heard (they were, of course). 

Second, there were plenty of explosions reported. You can even hear them yourself on the various videos from the day. You can hear the firemen talk about them. If you haven’t heard them, or heard the testimony of eyewitnesses talking about them., you obviously haven’t even gone to the trouble of a single Google search for them.

There. there is no doubt about what happened to WTC-7 whatsoever. It was intentionally demolished with preset explosives.

CRAIG BARTMER NYPD: “I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn’t see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn’t hear any… I didn’t hear any creaking, or… I didn’t hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming ‘get away, get away, get away from it!’… It was at that moment… I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself… Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit’s hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you’re hearing “boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” I think I know an explosion when I hear it…”

In addition to hearing the sound of the explosions, you can also hear firefighters and police telling each other to move back because the building is going to be blown. This was live on CNN. It’s one thing to be skeptical, it is another to deny a) eyewitnesses, b) video evidence, c) physics, and d) logic.

Keep them off the coal

The old challenge for parents used to be keeping their girls off the stripper pole. Now the more pressing challenge is to keep them from burning coal, before they end up as STD-infested single mothers with no paternal support in the best case scenario, or, in the worst case scenario, eaten by alligators.

Drexel was last captured on video on April 25, 2009, leaving the Blue Water Hotel in Myrtle Beach, where she was staying against her parents’ permission. A different inmate serving time at Georgetown County Jail told officials he was informed Da’Shaun Taylor picked Drexel up in Myrtle Beach and transported her to McClellanville.

Munoz said the FBI believes Taylor “showed her off, introduced her to some other friend that were there…they ended up tricking her out with some of their friends, offering her to them and getting a human trafficking situation.”

As the media spotlight grew ever brighter on the desperate efforts to find Drexel, the girl was “murdered and disposed of,” Munoz said.

Given the recent study that reported only two percent of black fathers of mixed race children with white mothers support their children, it would be interesting and informative to work out whether a coal-burning woman’s odds are higher with regards to a) getting married, having children, and being supported by her black husband or b) getting raped and murdered.

They’re both obviously very low. It would be unfair to fail to recognize that the vast majority of black men are simply not going to support a white woman under any circumstances. Or rape and murder one, for that matter. I’m just interested in learning which scenario represents the lower probability.

I should probably note that the aforementioned study was published by an African-American scientist. Please don’t question it, as that would be terribly raciss and I would hate to be forced to disavow any of the commenters here.

On the plus side, the short-lived romance of Da’Shaun and Brittanee does provide a useful answer to parents whose daughters demand to know “what is the worst that could happen?”

Gang-raped, tricked out, shot in the head, and fed to alligators, my dear.