Hahahahahhaha @ NY Times

Submitted by Steven D on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 2:26pm

Hey, who knew publishing "fake news" crap written by a Man-Made Climate Disruption Denier would finally give The Old Grey Lady a massive headache. From the Business Insider:

The New York Times' decision to publish a debut op-ed column by the newly-hired Bret Stephens, a notable denier of anthropogenic climate change, has sparked an uproar from the paper's subscribers, who are furious that the Times decided to publish a column that is contrary to much of the modern-day scientific consensus on the dangers of global warming.

In his column, Stephens compared the "certitude" with which Hillary Clinton's advisers believed she would win the 2016 election to climate scientists' repeated warnings about climate change risks. As evidence, Stephens said that inaccurate polling data during the 2016 campaign proves that science can miss the mark in other fields as well.

[...]

Stephens' column evoked a swift and angry response from many of the paper's subscribers, who promptly canceled their subscriptions and bashed the Times' decision to hire Stephens as a writer.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving peddler of status quo cow manure.

Tags:

#NewYorkTimes #CorporateMedia #BothSidesOfControversy #FakeNews

Vote

Comments

Submitted by Lily O Lady on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 3:25pm

I'll say here what I said on K4Sanders.

This is why my college designated my major as Politics rather than Political Science, as they held that social studies were not sciences. Stephens is obviously a fool.

—

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by PriceRip on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 3:43pm

Science is not grounded in consensus.

If scientific "truth" was a result of consensus I would have never obtained a PhD. If scientific progress depended upon consensus virtually no advances would have been made during the past 60 years.

I speak only from personal observations and experiences. So, as always ...

Submitted by dance you monster on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 3:50pm

It's odd, . . .

. . . you'd think that going extinct would be something the New York Times and other MSM outlets would have noticed was coming. Maybe they just don't like that news and ached for someone to reassure them that newspapers would be here forever.

Submitted by lotlizard on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 4:36pm

Black students: idea of objective truth = white supremacy

http://claremontindependent.com/students-demand-administrators-take-acti...

“Historically, white supremacy has venerated the idea of objectivity, and wielded a dichotomy of ‘subjectivity vs. objectivity’ as a means of silencing oppressed peoples,” they explain. “The idea that there is a single truth—‘the Truth’—is a construct of the Euro-West that is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, which was a movement that also described Black and Brown people as both subhuman and impervious to pain. This construction is a myth and white supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of America are all of its progeny. The idea that the truth is an entity for which we must search, in matters that endanger our abilities to exist in open spaces, is an attempt to silence oppressed peoples.”

I guess it was inevitable that identity politics would supersede even concepts of “science” and “truth.” What remains? Pseudo-scholarly doubletalk? Weaponized bitter feelings?

Submitted by Dhyerwolf on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 9:04pm

Unfortunately, I hate to say that I know academic departments

@lotlizard that basically follow this type of logic. All the basis of the scientific method and math is disregarded because it was discovered by white men (ignoring that the reasoning isn't even true. I also wish I was joking about the logic, but unfortunately I'm not). You've accurately determined what would remain. And I'm talking about a "scientific" field at a prestigious UC.

Submitted by lotlizard on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:14am

There’s tons of problematic contradictions if activists are

@Dhyerwolf shouting that science and data should reign supreme half the time, and shouting that certain identity groups’ feelings and emotions should reign supreme the other half of the time.

Sooner or later the Alt-Right will bring up Charles Murray.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/06/bell-curve-author-charles-...

Try to refute in an orderly discussion of what is valid science?

Or shut down speech entirely via threatened and real violence?

Submitted by Steven D on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:05pm

Murray has been pretty well debunked

@lotlizard by a number of actual scientists (Murray isn;t one, he just plays on on Fox News).

http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/sciam2.htm

Leaving aside the substantial and unresolved issue of whether a single number can adequately summarize mental performance, "The Bell Curve" plays fast and loose with statistics in several ways. According to Arthur Goldberger, an econometrician at the University of Wisconsin who has studied genetics and IQ, the book exaggerates the ability of IQ to predict job performance. Herrnstein and Murray assert that scores have an impressive "validity" of about 0.4 in such predictions. They report that the Armed Forces Qualification Test, an IQ surrogate, has a validity of 0.62 at anticipating the success of training for mechanical jobs. Yet many of the measures used to assess validity include supervisors' ratings, which are subject to bias, Goldberger notes. Furthermore, the validities that the duo see as so revealing are, in fact, hypothetical quantities that no employer would expect to find in prospective employees. "It's really bad stuff," Goldberger says.

Other correlations that the writers establish between social ills and low IQ scores are equally suspect. Herrnstein and Murray put great weight on comparisons between the ability of IQ scores and parental socioeconomic status to predict what will happen to young people. Yet the measures of socioeconomic status they use cannot ensure that homes are equally stimulating. The point is crucial because numerous studies have demonstrated that early childhood surroundings have a large role in molding IQ scores--certainly more studies than have indicated a significant role for heredity. Consequently, conclusions about the dominance of IQ cannot be taken at face value. Leon Kamin, a psychologist at Northeastern University and well-known critic of research on intelligence, maintains that interactions between genes and environment make attempts to weigh nature against nurture "meaningless."

Herrnstein and Murray's hereditarian bias is also obvious in their account of a study of 100 children from varying ethnic backgrounds who were adopted into white families. The study got under way in the 1970s. At age seven, the black and interracial children scored an average of 106 on IQ tests--considerably better than the national average of black children and close to levels scored by white children. A decade later researchers Sandra Scarr of the University of Virginia and Richard A. Weinberg of the University of Minnesota found that the IQs of the black children had declined to 89, whereas those of white adoptees had fallen from 112 to 106.

A good book that covers the scientific community's response to The Bell Curve and its skewed analysis: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Scientists-Statistics/...

—

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:14am

Bell Curve’s old; Alt-Right now refers to HBD—human biodiversity

@Steven D Chanda Chisala, writing for the Unz Review, does a respectable job pushing back against present-day forms of the intelligence-gap hypothesis.

http://www.unz.com/author/chanda-chisala/

#4.1.1 by a number of actual scientists (Murray isn;t one, he just plays on on Fox News). http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/sciam2.htm Leaving aside the substantial and unresolved issue of whether a single number can adequately summarize mental performance, "The Bell Curve" plays fast and loose with statistics in several ways. According to Arthur Goldberger, an econometrician at the University of Wisconsin who has studied genetics and IQ, the book exaggerates the ability of IQ to predict job performance. Herrnstein and Murray assert that scores have an impressive "validity" of about 0.4 in such predictions. They report that the Armed Forces Qualification Test, an IQ surrogate, has a validity of 0.62 at anticipating the success of training for mechanical jobs. Yet many of the measures used to assess validity include supervisors' ratings, which are subject to bias, Goldberger notes. Furthermore, the validities that the duo see as so revealing are, in fact, hypothetical quantities that no employer would expect to find in prospective employees. "It's really bad stuff," Goldberger says. Other correlations that the writers establish between social ills and low IQ scores are equally suspect. Herrnstein and Murray put great weight on comparisons between the ability of IQ scores and parental socioeconomic status to predict what will happen to young people. Yet the measures of socioeconomic status they use cannot ensure that homes are equally stimulating. The point is crucial because numerous studies have demonstrated that early childhood surroundings have a large role in molding IQ scores--certainly more studies than have indicated a significant role for heredity. Consequently, conclusions about the dominance of IQ cannot be taken at face value. Leon Kamin, a psychologist at Northeastern University and well-known critic of research on intelligence, maintains that interactions between genes and environment make attempts to weigh nature against nurture "meaningless." Herrnstein and Murray's hereditarian bias is also obvious in their account of a study of 100 children from varying ethnic backgrounds who were adopted into white families. The study got under way in the 1970s. At age seven, the black and interracial children scored an average of 106 on IQ tests--considerably better than the national average of black children and close to levels scored by white children. A decade later researchers Sandra Scarr of the University of Virginia and Richard A. Weinberg of the University of Minnesota found that the IQs of the black children had declined to 89, whereas those of white adoptees had fallen from 112 to 106. A good book that covers the scientific community's response to The Bell Curve and its skewed analysis: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Scientists-Statistics/...

Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:21pm

Heir to Murray’s mantle of controversy: prof Philippe Rushton

@Steven D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1mgrTGeDPM

The host of Rushton’s talk is Jared Taylor’s white-identity-matters “American Renaissance” outfit, which has been around for decades — way before there was any such thing as the Alt-Right.

This tongue-in-cheek video name-checks various forerunners and founders of the Alt-Right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7aG-VQYGhA

#4.1.1 by a number of actual scientists (Murray isn;t one, he just plays on on Fox News). http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/sciam2.htm Leaving aside the substantial and unresolved issue of whether a single number can adequately summarize mental performance, "The Bell Curve" plays fast and loose with statistics in several ways. According to Arthur Goldberger, an econometrician at the University of Wisconsin who has studied genetics and IQ, the book exaggerates the ability of IQ to predict job performance. Herrnstein and Murray assert that scores have an impressive "validity" of about 0.4 in such predictions. They report that the Armed Forces Qualification Test, an IQ surrogate, has a validity of 0.62 at anticipating the success of training for mechanical jobs. Yet many of the measures used to assess validity include supervisors' ratings, which are subject to bias, Goldberger notes. Furthermore, the validities that the duo see as so revealing are, in fact, hypothetical quantities that no employer would expect to find in prospective employees. "It's really bad stuff," Goldberger says. Other correlations that the writers establish between social ills and low IQ scores are equally suspect. Herrnstein and Murray put great weight on comparisons between the ability of IQ scores and parental socioeconomic status to predict what will happen to young people. Yet the measures of socioeconomic status they use cannot ensure that homes are equally stimulating. The point is crucial because numerous studies have demonstrated that early childhood surroundings have a large role in molding IQ scores--certainly more studies than have indicated a significant role for heredity. Consequently, conclusions about the dominance of IQ cannot be taken at face value. Leon Kamin, a psychologist at Northeastern University and well-known critic of research on intelligence, maintains that interactions between genes and environment make attempts to weigh nature against nurture "meaningless." Herrnstein and Murray's hereditarian bias is also obvious in their account of a study of 100 children from varying ethnic backgrounds who were adopted into white families. The study got under way in the 1970s. At age seven, the black and interracial children scored an average of 106 on IQ tests--considerably better than the national average of black children and close to levels scored by white children. A decade later researchers Sandra Scarr of the University of Virginia and Richard A. Weinberg of the University of Minnesota found that the IQs of the black children had declined to 89, whereas those of white adoptees had fallen from 112 to 106. A good book that covers the scientific community's response to The Bell Curve and its skewed analysis: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Scientists-Statistics/...

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:36pm

near the extreme, the difficulty becomes,

@lotlizard
"Do we have an obligation to provide a civil forum for someone is known to be a liar?"

with someone like Murray, it's probably hard to pin him down as an actual liar -- someone knowingly telling un-truths; on the other hand, as the faculty members wrote in their protest letter, he has blithely gone on for 20+ years simply refusing to come to terms with the various criticisms of his work. when your methods and conclusions are rejected, not just by those who are ideologically opposed by you, but by pretty much everybody who is not ideologically in agreement with you, why exactly is anyone supposed to be paying any attention to you at all?

the really glaring flaw in The Bell Curve lies, not in the authors' imaginative attachment of causation to a raft of correlative data, but in the fact that their conclusion stands in stark opposition to their own arguments. for anyone not familiar, i will summarize their argument as it is laid out in the book (with lots of data):
A. IQ is an innate intellectual quality, substantially inherited.

B. Little can be done to mitigate below-average IQ. Interventions in early childhood and beyond will only boost IQ by about 10 (I think -- I don't remember the actual number) points. (10 points, for those who care about such things, is 2/3 of a standard deviation, if we're talking about the modern Wexler scale, which has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The older Stanford-Binet used a standard deviation of 18, which means that scoring 154 on the SB is comparable to scoring 145 on the Wexler.)

C. Poor people and criminals have measurably lower IQs.

D. People with below-average IQs observably and measurably make unwise choices, at all scales of ordinary life -- often including criminal choices.

E. There is a specific threshold (I think it was somewhere in the low 90s) that represents a cognitive deficiency where the individual falls of the cliff of being able to both behave responsibly (through wise decisions) and function with economic effectiveness, ie. contribute substantially to the general welfare through their labor.

F. Because IQ and socioeconomic status are thus tightly linked, and because marriages tend to happen between people of similar socioeconomic status, and because IQ is substantially an inherited factor, the inevitable result is a self-reinforcing socioeconomic sectioning of the population into those with above-average IQs and above-average standards of living, versus those with below-average IQs and below-average standards of living. In other words, the poor are poor because they are stupid, and they marry other poor people who are also stupid, and they have children who are stupid, and will thus grow up to also be poor.

THEREFORE:
G. there is no point in spending money trying to mitigate or ameliorate the conditions of the poor, who are poor because they are too stupid not to be poor (and particularly because stupid people are much more likely to engage in criminal behavior that keeps them impoverished), they were born stupid to stupid parents, and they will themselves have stupid children.

Now, I didn't lay all that out there so that y'all can come in and try to refute it point by point, because it doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong about one or another of their points:
even if they are right about A through F, their conclusion is in direct contradiction to the combination of points B and E. If, per B, significant intervention can boost IQ by 10 points, then per E, intervention will shift an ENORMOUS fraction of the population above the level of cognition indicated by their threshold. (Note, BTW, that in the long run the overall scores wouldn't change, because they are scaled to the population's capability. In other words, there will be exactly the same number of people with IQs between 85 and 95 -- they'll just be a lot smarter than people who score in that range today.)

The problem here is precisely that their ideology overruled their "science". Until and unless Charles Murray is willing to admit this simple fact -- not about his ideology, but about his fucked-up conclusion -- there is no reason to give him the time of day, or treat him as an honest participant in an ongoing intellectual conversation about ... well, about anything, nevermind about the selection of social policies that are fair and equitable and humane and decent and rational.

—

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 3:58pm

Yours is a particularly useful comment, U.R.

@UntimelyRippd Demolished the Spencerian gobbledy-gook with reason, logic, and facts. A potent trifecta at dispelling such odious pigeon-holing groups based on preconceived ideas and then adjusting data to prove it. The problem (or one of them) is that one-dimensional studies, such as IQ, never tell the whole story--NEVER. Humans and their life experiences are much too complex to be evaluated by solely one measure. How do you determine the correct measure? How did Murray come to the conclusion that IQ was THE valid measure and ONLY measure to reflect human potentiality?

I will use one example, though there are thousands more, using the same thesis as Murray, i.e., measuring worth and life course through a single measurements, IQ. Consider the case of autistic savants, of which there are large numbers. The vast majority of autistic people are on a scale which can be denoted by their ability to communicate effectively with other people. Such a disturbance can be either neurologic (lack of basic brain function to communicate verbally) or personality-defined, i.e., they have no desire to function in what we consider to be an essential way. So how do you determine the worth of an autistic savant who can play Chopin and Beethoven on the piano with great eloquence, though they speak not with words?

As regard to the Free Speech issue of allowing such prejudicial ideology to be expressed, then we should allow it; after all we let politicians speak, when their stock in trade is lies, lies, and more lies. There are always gullible people. Perhaps it is their right to be gullible and believe the snake oil salesman--after all, didn't millions of gullible people buy Hillary's epic bullshit? Should those people then be denied the right to listen to her, as disgusting as that idea is (and same goes for Trump)?

#4.1.1 "Do we have an obligation to provide a civil forum for someone is known to be a liar?" with someone like Murray, it's probably hard to pin him down as an actual liar -- someone knowingly telling un-truths; on the other hand, as the faculty members wrote in their protest letter, he has blithely gone on for 20+ years simply refusing to come to terms with the various criticisms of his work. when your methods and conclusions are rejected, not just by those who are ideologically opposed by you, but by pretty much everybody who is not ideologically in agreement with you, why exactly is anyone supposed to be paying any attention to you at all? the really glaring flaw in The Bell Curve lies, not in the authors' imaginative attachment of causation to a raft of correlative data, but in the fact that their conclusion stands in stark opposition to their own arguments. for anyone not familiar, i will summarize their argument as it is laid out in the book (with lots of data): A. IQ is an innate intellectual quality, substantially inherited. B. Little can be done to mitigate below-average IQ. Interventions in early childhood and beyond will only boost IQ by about 10 (I think -- I don't remember the actual number) points. (10 points, for those who care about such things, is 2/3 of a standard deviation, if we're talking about the modern Wexler scale, which has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The older Stanford-Binet used a standard deviation of 18, which means that scoring 154 on the SB is comparable to scoring 145 on the Wexler.) C. Poor people and criminals have measurably lower IQs. D. People with below-average IQs observably and measurably make unwise choices, at all scales of ordinary life -- often including criminal choices. E. There is a specific threshold (I think it was somewhere in the low 90s) that represents a cognitive deficiency where the individual falls of the cliff of being able to both behave responsibly (through wise decisions) and function with economic effectiveness, ie. contribute substantially to the general welfare through their labor. F. Because IQ and socioeconomic status are thus tightly linked, and because marriages tend to happen between people of similar socioeconomic status, and because IQ is substantially an inherited factor, the inevitable result is a self-reinforcing socioeconomic sectioning of the population into those with above-average IQs and above-average standards of living, versus those with below-average IQs and below-average standards of living. In other words, the poor are poor because they are stupid, and they marry other poor people who are also stupid, and they have children who are stupid, and will thus grow up to also be poor. THEREFORE: G. there is no point in spending money trying to mitigate or ameliorate the conditions of the poor, who are poor because they are too stupid not to be poor (and particularly because stupid people are much more likely to engage in criminal behavior that keeps them impoverished), they were born stupid to stupid parents, and they will themselves have stupid children. Now, I didn't lay all that out there so that y'all can come in and try to refute it point by point, because it doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong about one or another of their points: even if they are right about A through F, their conclusion is in direct contradiction to the combination of points B and E. If, per B, significant intervention can boost IQ by 10 points, then per E, intervention will shift an ENORMOUS fraction of the population above the level of cognition indicated by their threshold. (Note, BTW, that in the long run the overall scores wouldn't change, because they are scaled to the population's capability. In other words, there will be exactly the same number of people with IQs between 85 and 95 -- they'll just be a lot smarter than people who score in that range today.) The problem here is precisely that their ideology overruled their "science". Until and unless Charles Murray is willing to admit this simple fact -- not about his ideology, but about his fucked-up conclusion -- there is no reason to give him the time of day, or treat him as an honest participant in an ongoing intellectual conversation about ... well, about anything, nevermind about the selection of social policies that are fair and equitable and humane and decent and rational.

Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:31am

The Alt-Right’s IQ-based love-hate relationship w/ Jews & Israel

@UntimelyRippd http://forward.com/news/359889/the-alt-right-hates-the-jews-but-it-also-...

In Alt-Right circles you’ll often hear it argued that people of (Ashkenazi) Jewish ancestry — like East Asians — have a demonstrably higher average IQ than other ethnic groups and that (partially) explains their level of success in Western society far in excess of what one might expect from their percentage of the population.

You’ll also sometimes hear Alt-Righters argue that, Old Testament or Torah-based real estate claims aside, Jewish Israelis’ higher IQ means Israel has a kind of Darwinian right and duty to dispose of supposedly lower-IQ Palestinians and other Arabs.

#4.1.1 "Do we have an obligation to provide a civil forum for someone is known to be a liar?" with someone like Murray, it's probably hard to pin him down as an actual liar -- someone knowingly telling un-truths; on the other hand, as the faculty members wrote in their protest letter, he has blithely gone on for 20+ years simply refusing to come to terms with the various criticisms of his work. when your methods and conclusions are rejected, not just by those who are ideologically opposed by you, but by pretty much everybody who is not ideologically in agreement with you, why exactly is anyone supposed to be paying any attention to you at all? the really glaring flaw in The Bell Curve lies, not in the authors' imaginative attachment of causation to a raft of correlative data, but in the fact that their conclusion stands in stark opposition to their own arguments. for anyone not familiar, i will summarize their argument as it is laid out in the book (with lots of data): A. IQ is an innate intellectual quality, substantially inherited. B. Little can be done to mitigate below-average IQ. Interventions in early childhood and beyond will only boost IQ by about 10 (I think -- I don't remember the actual number) points. (10 points, for those who care about such things, is 2/3 of a standard deviation, if we're talking about the modern Wexler scale, which has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The older Stanford-Binet used a standard deviation of 18, which means that scoring 154 on the SB is comparable to scoring 145 on the Wexler.) C. Poor people and criminals have measurably lower IQs. D. People with below-average IQs observably and measurably make unwise choices, at all scales of ordinary life -- often including criminal choices. E. There is a specific threshold (I think it was somewhere in the low 90s) that represents a cognitive deficiency where the individual falls of the cliff of being able to both behave responsibly (through wise decisions) and function with economic effectiveness, ie. contribute substantially to the general welfare through their labor. F. Because IQ and socioeconomic status are thus tightly linked, and because marriages tend to happen between people of similar socioeconomic status, and because IQ is substantially an inherited factor, the inevitable result is a self-reinforcing socioeconomic sectioning of the population into those with above-average IQs and above-average standards of living, versus those with below-average IQs and below-average standards of living. In other words, the poor are poor because they are stupid, and they marry other poor people who are also stupid, and they have children who are stupid, and will thus grow up to also be poor. THEREFORE: G. there is no point in spending money trying to mitigate or ameliorate the conditions of the poor, who are poor because they are too stupid not to be poor (and particularly because stupid people are much more likely to engage in criminal behavior that keeps them impoverished), they were born stupid to stupid parents, and they will themselves have stupid children. Now, I didn't lay all that out there so that y'all can come in and try to refute it point by point, because it doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong about one or another of their points: even if they are right about A through F, their conclusion is in direct contradiction to the combination of points B and E. If, per B, significant intervention can boost IQ by 10 points, then per E, intervention will shift an ENORMOUS fraction of the population above the level of cognition indicated by their threshold. (Note, BTW, that in the long run the overall scores wouldn't change, because they are scaled to the population's capability. In other words, there will be exactly the same number of people with IQs between 85 and 95 -- they'll just be a lot smarter than people who score in that range today.) The problem here is precisely that their ideology overruled their "science". Until and unless Charles Murray is willing to admit this simple fact -- not about his ideology, but about his fucked-up conclusion -- there is no reason to give him the time of day, or treat him as an honest participant in an ongoing intellectual conversation about ... well, about anything, nevermind about the selection of social policies that are fair and equitable and humane and decent and rational.

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 11:20am

the thing is, i'm smarter than about 99.98% of the population,

@lotlizard
but i don't think that fact entitles me to special ethical status. stupid people love their children just as much as smart people, and they suffer physical and emotional torment just as acutely. thus, i don't even care whether ashkenazi jews are on average smarter than anybody else, any more than i care whether asians are smarter than white people. being really really smart doesn't award you any ethical privilege; it does, however, place upon you some significant ethical burdens.

—

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:17am

Science and truth are two concepts usually conflated

@lotlizard Science is the study of observable facts, whether by human senses or mechanistic means. Its tenets are supposed to be replicable, meaning that other observes repeating the same process obtain similar results. This is even true in the non-physical sciences of which mathematics is the core. Here the core is that mathematical propositions are considered valid using consistent logical processes. Science can be proven or disproven in a laboratory, computer, or in measurable external environments. Replication is the core of science. Can the results be replicated. Are the results co-occurrences or do they have causal relationships. This particular problem is usually solved by either looking for alternate solutions arriving at the same result, or by increasing the depth of investigation, revealing core evidence capable of explaining the observed facts, i.e., co-occurrence versus causality.

"Truth" on the other hand, is not "science". Facts are science. Truth is often subjective, such as I love bananas. This sort of statement is not provable using the scientific method. This statement is also situation-dependent, such as I love green bananas but not on Banana splits. For this Truth to be scientifically verified is impossible. The idea of white supremacy is a subjective thought. But various aspects of this supremacy, such as stating that non-whites are less intelligent or inferior are capable of of scientific investigations. Assertions about lower intelligence quotients, ingenuity, mechanical ability, and sports superiority are capable of proof, using population studies, carefully controlling independent and dependent variables. Each of the above-mentioned considerations are thus capable of scientific affirmation or refutation. But, no amount of fact will dissuade the supremacist from his/her belief. That belief remains "truth" to that person.

Hence on any particular issue, there is only one scientific FACT, but there are many subjective TRUTHS.

Submitted by lotlizard on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 4:17am

Sensible distinction.

@Alligator Ed At the other, more absurd, yet ostensibly progressive extreme, there’s the case of Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and “My Sex Junk” . . .

https://reason.com/blog/2017/04/25/where-science-and-sexuality-goes-to-die

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 11:57am

Well that's a pretty awful "science" music video

@lotlizard

No wonder there are so many climate change deniers.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 11:43am

Do you think the scientific consensus could be wrong ...

@PriceRip

...about human caused, global warming? The facts seem pretty straightforward to me:

- The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly.
- The burning of fossil fuels releases C02, and I don't think another source of CO2 has been found to explain the rapid increase in concentration.
- I'm sure there have been plenty of experiments to demonstrate that CO2 traps heat.
- It is a fact that when CO2 is dissolved in water it makes the water more acidic.
- The acidity of the Ocean has been increasing in proportion to the increase in atmospheric CO2

I hope a great scientist comes along with a provable alternative theory showing that this is just temporary, but I'm pretty sure that scientist won't come from the rank of fake scientists who work for oil companies. All the real scientists seem to be pretty sure about it and pretty scared by it.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by PriceRip on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 12:31pm

No? Yes? What?

@Timmethy2.0

I am not sure what you are asking. I make the observation that scientific "truth" is not the result of consensus. That is, it is not the social construct called "consensus" that defines the nature of science. The process of science happens long before any "consensus" process is engaged.

Progress occurs when individuals ask "what if" questions, and followup with more "what if" questions. Sometimes those "what if" questions are generated by observations (facts) but most of the time they are generated by an imagination in the form of: I wonder if I can make this or that happen or make this or that happen in a different way? The latter is usually grounded in the notion that our understanding is incomplete by virtue of the reality that our evolutionarily driven understanding will (most likely) never allow us to see the real quantum mechanical processes that are responsible for everything.

Data and experiments are guides of a limiting type. They tell us the bounds of our understanding. It is clear that anthropomorphic climate change is real. That is, while we cannot predict how bad it will get we know the least bad we have caused. This one way bounding is what is driving us (socially) to issue warnings.

So, my clan is trying to tell you how bad it will get when the oceans' circulation patterns change, we all know the actual effects could be very much worse than any prediction suggested. Chaos (is the result of processes) that can never be fully modeled. Chaos is analogous (kinda-sorta) to quantum mechanics. Those that think they know what will happen, don't understand what they are doing.

And, as usual, your mileage may vary.

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:21pm

Thanks for that

@PriceRip @PriceRip

Data and experiments are guides of a limiting type. They tell us the bounds of our understanding. It is clear that anthropomorphic climate change is real. That is, while we cannot predict how bad it will get we know the least bad we have caused. This one way bounding is what is driving us (socially) to issue warnings.

So it sounds like it's impossible to know how bad it can get. Is it possible to measure the rate at which things are going to chaos?

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by PriceRip on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:45pm

In 14 words, that's a good summary.

@Timmethy2.0

The only people that expect certainty are nonscientists. And, one of the worst conversations is one wherein a scientist is asked, "How sure are you?" When I hear that I know the conversation is about to spiral into the abyss.

We have some decent models for getting a handle on the rate stuff spirals out of control but do realize those models are progressively less accurate as the projection time increases and as we stray farther from past experience. This is why the defunding of science is such a danger. We need more people out in the field, not less. We have got to stop trusting companies' reports for information. Independently supported regulators should be all over this and the notion of "trade secrets" and "proprietary knowledge" need to be scuttled.

Submitted by dkmich on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 9:05pm

Talk about fake news.

https://youtu.be/jVE5oDnykxM

This is part of a huge Caitlin Johnstone post about the right and left collaborating. I'm on my phone. This is the best I can do with one finger.

Bull shit and lies are not valid opinions.

—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 12:32am

But..but..but, Hillary thought so.

@dkmich

Submitted by MarilynW on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 11:25pm

The comments were closed at about 1,550

I was tempted to write one. We need to have both sides of the Climate debate???? There is no debate. Do we debate whether the sun is hot? How ridiculous! The writer was bad enough but the sickening praise lavished upon him was even worse. Big ZERO for the NYTimes fake news writer and their decision to hire him.

—

To thine own self be true.

Submitted by MarilynW on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 11:38pm

White House Correspondents Dinner, great comedian! Standing O!

“The Daily Show” correspondent Hasan Minhaj was excellent, bordering on vicious, just a little. He left out nothing. Said Rachel Maddow should be restrained with her obsessions - and he actually called them CT, the Russians, the value of Trump's tax returns. Ridiculed CNN for not being a news channel (his gig was being shown on CNN). Wolf Blitzer wasn't laughing. He said no one wanted this gig. But he said "for the record, it's been sold out!" Better if you see the whole performance because his delivery is really something. I think near the end he was fighting back tears. Comedy and tragedy are close partners.

—

To thine own self be true.

Submitted by MarilynW on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 11:45pm

Link

@MarilynW

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/29/a-diff...

—

To thine own self be true.

Submitted by The Wizard on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 12:26pm

The NYT has been fake news for a long time

I grew up in NJ and had my first subscription to the New Your Tines when I was in 6th grade. It was part of our social studies class. We learned that the paper was the paper of record, and we learned how to read it, yes there was a method. We were taught respect for it as the greatest newspaper.

Fast forward to the build up to the Iraq war. The NYT endlessly beat the drums for war, with front page stories. The contents of the stories came from "objective" sources like Dick Cheney. On May 26, 2004 the NYT finally printed a waffling mea-culpa buried inside the newspaper here are some excerpts.

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.

and also:

-- reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation -- we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of.

Are you proud of the estimated one million Iraqis killed, the end to public safety withing the country, the sectarian war that continues and the seeding of ISIS especially with ex Iraq Sunni military personnel (irregulars) and equipment?

You, The New York Times, have blood on your hands. Not for poor reporting but for making promotion of the Iraq war an editorial priority coming directly from management. Needless to say I cancelled my subscription in 2003, and avoid NYT website clicks unless really important for additional research on some topic of interest.

The New York Times owes reparations to the people of Iraq, on the order of $1M per death, or about $1 Trillion dollars. Don't worry, George W(for War) Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and Colin (vile of Anthrax) Powell will help.

—

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Submitted by MarilynW on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:48pm

I well remember the NYTimes' part in the run-up

@The Wizard
propaganda for the invasion of Iraq. I remember Judith Miller and also how the editor buckled to the Bush admin. It was shameful and it helped destroy Iraq. But there's a new generation of writers on board who do not write propaganda or fake news. Not all the writers are in agreement, take the recent US bombing of Syria for example, there were some who agreed and more who didn't.

I grew up in NJ and had my first subscription to the New Your Tines when I was in 6th grade. It was part of our social studies class. We learned that the paper was the paper of record, and we learned how to read it, yes there was a method. We were taught respect for it as the greatest newspaper.

Fast forward to the build up to the Iraq war. The NYT endlessly beat the drums for war, with front page stories. The contents of the stories came from "objective" sources like Dick Cheney. On May 26, 2004 the NYT finally printed a waffling mea-culpa buried inside the newspaper here are some excerpts.

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.

and also:

-- reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation -- we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of.

Are you proud of the estimated one million Iraqis killed, the end to public safety withing the country, the sectarian war that continues and the seeding of ISIS especially with ex Iraq Sunni military personnel (irregulars) and equipment?

You, The New York Times, have blood on your hands. Not for poor reporting but for making promotion of the Iraq war an editorial priority coming directly from management. Needless to say I cancelled my subscription in 2003, and avoid NYT website clicks unless really important for additional research on some topic of interest.

The New York Times owes reparations to the people of Iraq, on the order of $1M per death, or about $1 Trillion dollars. Don't worry, George W(for War) Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and Colin (vile of Anthrax) Powell will help.

—

To thine own self be true.

Submitted by The Wizard on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 5:10pm

Please point me to one objective article from NYT

@MarilynW
From Consortium News:

The New York Times is at it again with another slanted report on the April 4 chemical weapons incident in Syria, applying ridicule rather than reason to prevent a real evaluation of this war-or-peace moment, reports Robert Parry.

I did a search on NYT articles on the US missile attack on Syria and found no objectivity at all. Not even one mentioned of the obvious, that without a UNSC resolution there is no way that such an attack on Syria could be legal according to international law.

—

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Sun, 04/30/2017 - 1:49pm

i canceled my subscription to the Atlantic

@The Wizard
because they

A. jumped on the propaganda wagon (there was a classic propaganda piece based on an insider's account of life in Saddam's inner circle -- it was a pseudo-scientific psychological profile whose objective rigor was on a par with I was Hitler's Doctor, a bizarre book from the WWII era.

and

B. jumped on the "Oh Noes TERRORISTS" bandwagon, most notably with an article baited on the front cover with the question, "Must we Torture?" -- as if that's a question any civilized human being would ever entertain. The only people I ever wanted to see tortured were the torture denialists in the Bush regime (W, Cheney, Woo, etc.), and even then I only wanted to see them waterboarded until they were willing to admit that they were, in fact, undergoing torture.

After which, of course, they'd all have been hanged for war crimes.

Well, that was the dream, anyway.

I grew up in NJ and had my first subscription to the New Your Tines when I was in 6th grade. It was part of our social studies class. We learned that the paper was the paper of record, and we learned how to read it, yes there was a method. We were taught respect for it as the greatest newspaper.

Fast forward to the build up to the Iraq war. The NYT endlessly beat the drums for war, with front page stories. The contents of the stories came from "objective" sources like Dick Cheney. On May 26, 2004 the NYT finally printed a waffling mea-culpa buried inside the newspaper here are some excerpts.

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.

and also:

-- reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation -- we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of.

Are you proud of the estimated one million Iraqis killed, the end to public safety withing the country, the sectarian war that continues and the seeding of ISIS especially with ex Iraq Sunni military personnel (irregulars) and equipment?

You, The New York Times, have blood on your hands. Not for poor reporting but for making promotion of the Iraq war an editorial priority coming directly from management. Needless to say I cancelled my subscription in 2003, and avoid NYT website clicks unless really important for additional research on some topic of interest.

The New York Times owes reparations to the people of Iraq, on the order of $1M per death, or about $1 Trillion dollars. Don't worry, George W(for War) Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and Colin (vile of Anthrax) Powell will help.

—

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Mon, 05/01/2017 - 2:57pm

I actually got some good knowledge from the NYT before Iraq

@The Wizard @The Wizard

They had a few very long articles describing the situation between the Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds and how it was a powder keg waiting to blow up. That was my main source for learning about the real situation there while it seemed like Fox and every other source kept talking about Al Queda and WMD and generally encouraged ignorance. The propaganda was heavily pushed by many outlets that we were liberators and this would all be over soon and the troops would go home. I was disgusted with the Judith Miller episode, and don't like their corporate shilling, but it's not all bad.

I grew up in NJ and had my first subscription to the New Your Tines when I was in 6th grade. It was part of our social studies class. We learned that the paper was the paper of record, and we learned how to read it, yes there was a method. We were taught respect for it as the greatest newspaper.

Fast forward to the build up to the Iraq war. The NYT endlessly beat the drums for war, with front page stories. The contents of the stories came from "objective" sources like Dick Cheney. On May 26, 2004 the NYT finally printed a waffling mea-culpa buried inside the newspaper here are some excerpts.

But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.

and also:

-- reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation -- we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of.

Are you proud of the estimated one million Iraqis killed, the end to public safety withing the country, the sectarian war that continues and the seeding of ISIS especially with ex Iraq Sunni military personnel (irregulars) and equipment?

You, The New York Times, have blood on your hands. Not for poor reporting but for making promotion of the Iraq war an editorial priority coming directly from management. Needless to say I cancelled my subscription in 2003, and avoid NYT website clicks unless really important for additional research on some topic of interest.

The New York Times owes reparations to the people of Iraq, on the order of $1M per death, or about $1 Trillion dollars. Don't worry, George W(for War) Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and Colin (vile of Anthrax) Powell will help.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.