[FRIAM] Today's meeting

[Nicholas Thompson]

All -

 

Frank and I will be a bit late this morning, but we are coming.  Should be
safely there by 9.45.  N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

http://www.cusf.org  

 

 


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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Douglas Roberts]

But they do promise life everlasting.

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 11:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Again, acting in my capacity as the Village Pragmatist, I would assert that
> science is the only procedure capable of producing lasting consensus.  The
> other methods  various forms of torture, mostly ... do not produce such
> enduring results.  N
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 6:12 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the
> TED
> Controversy is Sending
>
> Douglas Roberts wrote at 04/04/2013 04:45 PM:
> >  I was using "evidence" in the scientific sense,
>
> You say that as if everyone agrees on the scientific sense of the term,
> which of course they don't.  Even reputable scientists disagree on what
> constitutes evidence.  I know you're willing to insult anyone with whom you
> disagree.  But the fact remains that standards of evidence differ depending
> on the context of the discussion, the domain of inquiry, etc.
>
> Evidence in, say, cosmology or evolution is very different from evidence
> in,
> say, biology or physics.  And that's without leaping out into the softer
> sciences.
>
> --
> =><= glen e. p. ropella
> Looked pretty horny if I do say
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>



-- 
*Doug Roberts
d...@parrot-farm.net*
*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*
* 
505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile*

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[FRIAM] good news about apple

[glen e. p. ropella]

I'm sure you Apple fans have heard this news, already.

Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57577887-38/apples-imessage-encryption-trips-up-feds-surveillance/

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not
become a monster.   And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also
looks into you.   -- Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil"



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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[glen]

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 04/04/2013 10:03 PM:
> Again, acting in my capacity as the Village Pragmatist, I would assert that
> science is the only procedure capable of producing lasting consensus.  The
> other methods  various forms of torture, mostly ... do not produce such
> enduring results.  N

While I agree with you in the abstract, it still doesn't address the
meaning of "scientific evidence".  My assertion is that the variance
exhibited by the many meanings of evidence within science is wide enough
to cast doubt on the stability (or perhaps even coherence) of the term
in science.

And if that's the case, then claims for the superiority of scientific
evidence over other meanings of evidence are suspicious claims ...
deserving of at least as much skepticism as anecdotal evidence or even
personal epiphany.

Rather than assume an oversimplified projection onto a one dimensional
partial order, perhaps there are as many different types of evidence as
there are foci of attention, a multi-dimensional space, with an
orthogonal partial ordering in each dimension.

-- 
=><= glen e. p. ropella
This body of mine, man I don't wanna turn android



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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Douglas Roberts]

+1

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:

>
>  Just one small teensy note of clarification: I usually only insult
> people who disagree with me when they are/have been complete assholes about
> it.  Which fortunately narrows the field down a bit.
>
>  -Doug
>
> I can testify to this, as I disagree with Doug often and he only insults
> me when he's being a complete asshole about it !
>
>  - Steve
>
>  On Apr 4, 2013 6:11 PM, "glen"  wrote:
>
>> Douglas Roberts wrote at 04/04/2013 04:45 PM:
>> >  I was using "evidence" in the scientific sense,
>>
>> You say that as if everyone agrees on the scientific sense of the term,
>> which of course they don't.  Even reputable scientists disagree on what
>> constitutes evidence.  I know you're willing to insult anyone with whom
>> you disagree.  But the fact remains that standards of evidence differ
>> depending on the context of the discussion, the domain of inquiry, etc.
>>
>> Evidence in, say, cosmology or evolution is very different from evidence
>> in, say, biology or physics.  And that's without leaping out into the
>> softer sciences.
>>
>> --
>> =><= glen e. p. ropella
>> Looked pretty horny if I do say
>>
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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>



-- 
*Doug Roberts
d...@parrot-farm.net*
*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*
* 
505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile*

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Roger Critchlow]

And given exponential growth in science, who knows first hand what the
variance in accepted scientific evidence actually is?

Any claims to know what science "is" and what scientists "do", for the
purposes of distinguishing between science and non-science, are claims to a
revealed truth, not something that anyone has established empirically.
 Ouch.

-- rec --


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 9:12 AM, glen  wrote:

> Nicholas Thompson wrote at 04/04/2013 10:03 PM:
> > Again, acting in my capacity as the Village Pragmatist, I would assert
> that
> > science is the only procedure capable of producing lasting consensus.
>  The
> > other methods  various forms of torture, mostly ... do not produce
> such
> > enduring results.  N
>
> While I agree with you in the abstract, it still doesn't address the
> meaning of "scientific evidence".  My assertion is that the variance
> exhibited by the many meanings of evidence within science is wide enough
> to cast doubt on the stability (or perhaps even coherence) of the term
> in science.
>
> And if that's the case, then claims for the superiority of scientific
> evidence over other meanings of evidence are suspicious claims ...
> deserving of at least as much skepticism as anecdotal evidence or even
> personal epiphany.
>
> Rather than assume an oversimplified projection onto a one dimensional
> partial order, perhaps there are as many different types of evidence as
> there are foci of attention, a multi-dimensional space, with an
> orthogonal partial ordering in each dimension.
>
> --
> =><= glen e. p. ropella
> This body of mine, man I don't wanna turn android
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[glen]

Roger Critchlow wrote at 04/05/2013 08:23 AM:
> And given exponential growth in science, who knows first hand what the
> variance in accepted scientific evidence actually is?  

That's a great point.  It may help me articulate my objection to the
concept of "the singularity", the sense that technology will soon (has)
outstrip(ped) purely human intelligence/understanding.

It seems more like an explosion of effect[ors] than a "super
intelligence" or anything cognitive, thought-based like that.  Even if
we constrain ourselves to the maker community (3d printers, arduino,
etc.) and the recent pressure for open access to publications, it's
difficult for me to imagine any kind of convergence, to "science" or
anything else.  It just feels more like a divergence to me.

I wonder if there is a way to measure this?  In absolute terms, we can't
really use a "count the people who participate in domain X" measure.
The ratio of the poor and starving to those who have their basic needs
met well enough to participate is too high.  It would swamp that
absolute measure.  We'd have to normalize it.  To some extent,
exploratory science has always been pursued most effectively by the 1%
and those they patronize.  Perhaps a measure of the variation in
standards of evidence would correlate fairly well with the waxing and
waning of the middle class?

> Any claims to know what science "is" and what scientists "do", for the
> purposes of distinguishing between science and non-science, are claims
> to a revealed truth, not something that anyone has established
> empirically.  Ouch.

Absolutely! (Sorry, I had to slip in a contradictory affirmation.)  This
goes directly back to Popper, I think.  There is no entry exam for
science. Every speculation is welcome.

-- 
=><= glen e. p. ropella
Me and myself got a world to save



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[FRIAM] just the facts

[Robert J. Cordingley]

From Abortion, Climate Change, Gun Control to Social Security and 
Taxes, the http://www.justfacts.com/ offers just the [distilled] facts 
on about 14 major topics.  I thought this site with its emphasis on 
objectivity might perhaps be useful to the group.  The sister 
(brother|sibling) site http://www.justfactsdaily.com/ may be more 
politically motivated and picking and choosing what to discuss.


Thanks
Robert C




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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Steve Smith]

Roger/Glen -

Good stuff... I find both topics very compelling:

1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?
2. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or convergent?

1. I have worked on several projects involving the formal management of
   evidence and belief which makes me cynical when people suggest that
   there is "one true form of evidence". Most of it ended up off in
   high dimensional pareto fronts with multiple measures of
   confidence.  The underlying theory (much just beyond my grasp to
   regurgitate) is based in variants of Dempster-Shaffer and Fuzzy
   Sets/Intervals.   There is always a Bayesian in the crowd that
   starts "Baying" (sorry) about how "Bayesian Methods are the *only*
   thing anyone ever needs". This specific example in statistics and
   probability theory is but one.   Similarly, it took a long time for
   anyone to accept far-from-equilibrium systems as being worth
   studying simply because their tools didn't work there.   Like
   looking for your lost keys under the streetlamp because the "light
   is too bad in the alley where you dropped them".
2. I'm not a Singularian myself but I *am* fascinated by the same
   phenomena most of them are.  I would liken the recent past, current
   present, and near future to the Cambrian Explosion.  It as if
   thresholds on many technological fronts have lowered and innovation
   is gushing everywhere, compounding itself, etc.I agree with
   Glen's judgement that (my paraphrase) "an explosion doth not a
   singularity make".   What I'm equally interested in is if there is a
   similar divergence in thinking.  We've been rattling on here about
   religion (including Science and Woo and Science v Woo) and implying
   (for the most part I think) that the (arbitrary) constraints it puts
   on thinking is harmful.  Of course, many here will agree that
   "constraint provides form" and acknowledge that constraints can also
   be useful, and not *just* to contain the otherwise unruly.   I had
   *more* hope for immediate results from the Arab Spring (does anyone
   *else* besides me keep up with former FRIAMite Mohammed El-Beltagy
   and his Whispers from a Seeker
   blog, out of Cairo?)  I believe
   that humans have a natural time constant around belief (and as a
   consequence, understanding, knowledge, paradigms?) on the order of
   years if not decades or a full lifetime.   That time-constant may be
   shrinking, but I rarely believe someone when they claim during or
   after an arguement to have "changed their mind"... at best, they are
   acknowledging that a seed has sprouted which in a few years or
   decades might grow into a garden.

-Steve

Roger Critchlow wrote at 04/05/2013 08:23 AM:

And given exponential growth in science, who knows first hand what the
variance in accepted scientific evidence actually is?

That's a great point.  It may help me articulate my objection to the
concept of "the singularity", the sense that technology will soon (has)
outstrip(ped) purely human intelligence/understanding.

It seems more like an explosion of effect[ors] than a "super
intelligence" or anything cognitive, thought-based like that.  Even if
we constrain ourselves to the maker community (3d printers, arduino,
etc.) and the recent pressure for open access to publications, it's
difficult for me to imagine any kind of convergence, to "science" or
anything else.  It just feels more like a divergence to me.

I wonder if there is a way to measure this?  In absolute terms, we can't
really use a "count the people who participate in domain X" measure.
The ratio of the poor and starving to those who have their basic needs
met well enough to participate is too high.  It would swamp that
absolute measure.  We'd have to normalize it.  To some extent,
exploratory science has always been pursued most effectively by the 1%
and those they patronize.  Perhaps a measure of the variation in
standards of evidence would correlate fairly well with the waxing and
waning of the middle class?


Any claims to know what science "is" and what scientists "do", for the
purposes of distinguishing between science and non-science, are claims
to a revealed truth, not something that anyone has established
empirically.  Ouch.

Absolutely! (Sorry, I had to slip in a contradictory affirmation.)  This
goes directly back to Popper, I think.  There is no entry exam for
science. Every speculation is welcome.




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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Douglas Roberts]

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Steve Smith  wrote:

>  Roger/Glen -
>
> Good stuff... I find both topics very compelling:
>
>
>1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?
>
> In the case of the chemtrail faithful I can safely characterize their
measure (singular) of evidence as: "Look! See the chemtrails? 'They' are
trying to poison us!!!"


>
>1. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or convergent?
>
>
I believe that the true source of divergence (in what? you might ask, in
everything, I might answer: politics, technology, religion, ...) is that
too many people are complete, embarrassingly ignorant assholes.   And
thanks for asking.

--Doug

-- 
*Doug Roberts
d...@parrot-farm.net*
*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*
* 
505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile*

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[FRIAM] Thanks for All the Fish!

[Steve Smith]

Doug -

1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?

In the case of the chemtrail faithful I can safely characterize their 
measure (singular) of evidence as: "Look! See the chemtrails? 'They' 
are trying to poison us!!!"
No argument there but *why* are they trying to poison us!!! Wait... 
I'm on the skeptics side...  nevermind...


 1. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or
convergent?


I believe that the true source of divergence (in what? you might ask, 
in everything, I might answer: politics, technology, religion, ...) is 
that too many people are complete, embarrassingly ignorant assholes.
And just what is your measure of evidence about what the multi-objective 
function of /complete, embarassing, ignorant, /and/asshole/?   And what 
*does* the pareto frontier of that look like in these 4 dimensions?   
Anyone who doesn't understand the question or it's import are /complete, 
embarassingly ignorant assholes/ (by one measure)!

And thanks for asking.
You are most welcome (as always)... anything else you would like me to 
ask ?


For some reason this last line of yours makes me imagine that you are 
channelling Doug(las) Adams (aka Roberts?):


 "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!"
by
Douglas Adams (RIP)


So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all but oh dear?

You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that
grow around you

So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish

The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve(around you)

Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your
pregnant women

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long

So long, so long and thanks
for all the fish

If I had just one last wish
I would like a tasty fish
If we could just change one thing
We would all learn how to sing

Come one and all
Man and Mammal
Side by Side in life's great gene pool

(hhh hhh oooaah- ah ahh)

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long

So long, so long and, !Thanks!
for all the fish!


- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] Thanks for All the Fish!

[Douglas Roberts]

I think I'm always channeling Douglas Adams. Thanks for asking.

--Doug

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:

>  Doug -
>
>1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?
>
>   In the case of the chemtrail faithful I can safely characterize their
> measure (singular) of evidence as: "Look! See the chemtrails? 'They' are
> trying to poison us!!!"
>
> No argument there but *why* are they trying to poison us!!!  Wait...
> I'm on the skeptics side...  nevermind...
>
>
>>1. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or
>>convergent?
>>
>>
>  I believe that the true source of divergence (in what? you might ask, in
> everything, I might answer: politics, technology, religion, ...) is that
> too many people are complete, embarrassingly ignorant assholes.
>
> And just what is your measure of evidence about what the multi-objective
> function of *complete, embarassing, ignorant, *and* asshole*?   And what
> *does* the pareto frontier of that look like in these 4 dimensions?
> Anyone who doesn't understand the question or it's import are *complete,
> embarassingly ignorant assholes* (by one measure)!
>
>  And thanks for asking.
>
> You are most welcome (as always)... anything else you would like me to ask
> ?
>
> For some reason this last line of yours makes me imagine that you are
> channelling Doug(las) Adams (aka Roberts?):
>
>  "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!"
> by
> Douglas Adams (RIP)
>
>
> So long and thanks for all the fish
> So sad that it should come to this
> We tried to warn you all but oh dear?
>
> You may not share our intellect
> Which might explain your disrespect
> For all the natural wonders that
> grow around you
>
> So long, so long and thanks
> for all the fish
>
> The world's about to be destroyed
> There's no point getting all annoyed
> Lie back and let the planet dissolve(around you)
>
> Despite those nets of tuna fleets
> We thought that most of you were sweet
> Especially tiny tots and your
> pregnant women
>
> So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
> So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
>
> So long, so long and thanks
> for all the fish
>
> If I had just one last wish
> I would like a tasty fish
> If we could just change one thing
> We would all learn how to sing
>
> Come one and all
> Man and Mammal
> Side by Side in life's great gene pool
>
> (hhh hhh oooaah- ah ahh)
>
> So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
> So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
>
> So long, so long and, !Thanks!
> for all the fish!
>
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>



-- 
*Doug Roberts
d...@parrot-farm.net*
*http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*
* 
505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile*

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[cody dooderson]

That looked cool. I was particularily interested in what they said about
gun control( http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp ). I went to the
source of their information and it was totally different from what they
reported.

They attribute the data to the source
*[120] Dataset: "20 Leading Causes of Unintentional Injury Deaths, United
States, 2007." U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National
Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Accessed September 1, 2010 at
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html*

And here is their graph. Notice that firearm deaths is 16th.




Here is the exact data i got from from
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html for  2007
Notice than firearm deaths are ranked both 4th and 5th. What is going on
here? Is this a Fox news source. Also, why did they just choose 2007? The
data goes back to 1999

10 Leading Causes of Injury Deaths, United States
2007, All Races, Both Sexes


Age Groups
Rank<11-85
 1
Unintentional
Suffocation
959Unintentional
MV Traffic
41,900
 2
Homicide
Unspecified
174Unintentional
Poisoning
29,824
 3
Unintentional
MV Traffic
122Unintentional
Fall
22,605
 4
Homicide
Other Spec.,
classifiable
86Suicide
Firearm
17,350
 5
Unintentional
Drowning
57Homicide
Firearm
12,608
 6
Unintentional
Fire/burn
39Suicide
Suffocation
8,161
 7
Undetermined
Suffocation
34Suicide
Poisoning
6,356
 8
Homicide
Suffocation
30Unintentional
Unspecified
6,005
 9
Undetermined
Unspecified
28Unintentional
Suffocation
5,038
 10
Unintentional
Fall
24Undetermined
Poisoning
3,759***WISQARS**TM**Produced By: Office of Statistics and Programming,
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention**Data Source: National Center for Health
Statistics (NCHS), National Vital Statistics System*


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Robert J. Cordingley  wrote:

> From Abortion, Climate Change, Gun Control to Social Security and Taxes,
> the http://www.justfacts.com/ offers just the [distilled] facts on about
> 14 major topics.  I thought this site with its emphasis on objectivity
> might perhaps be useful to the group.  The sister (brother|sibling) site
> http://www.justfactsdaily.com/ may be more politically motivated and
> picking and choosing what to discuss.
>
> Thanks
> Robert C
>
>
>
> ==**==
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe 
> http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Roger Critchlow]

Lying with statistics, I don't think that firearm homicide or firearm
suicide (the categories in the second table) count as firearm accidental
deaths (the category in the first graph).

-- rec --


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:45 PM, cody dooderson  wrote:

> That looked cool. I was particularily interested in what they said about
> gun control( http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp ). I went to the
> source of their information and it was totally different from what they
> reported.
>
> They attribute the data to the source
> *[120] Dataset: "20 Leading Causes of Unintentional Injury Deaths, United
> States, 2007." U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National
> Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Accessed September 1, 2010 at
> http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html*
>
> And here is their graph. Notice that firearm deaths is 16th.
>
>
>
>
> Here is the exact data i got from from
> http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html for  2007
> Notice than firearm deaths are ranked both 4th and 5th. What is going on
> here? Is this a Fox news source. Also, why did they just choose 2007? The
> data goes back to 1999
>
> 10 Leading Causes of Injury Deaths, United States
> 2007, All Races, Both Sexes
>
>
> Age Groups
> Rank<1 1-85
>  1
> Unintentional
> Suffocation
> 959Unintentional
> MV Traffic
> 41,900
>  2
> Homicide
> Unspecified
> 174Unintentional
> Poisoning
> 29,824
>  3
> Unintentional
> MV Traffic
> 122Unintentional
> Fall
> 22,605
>  4
> Homicide
> Other Spec.,
> classifiable
> 86Suicide
> Firearm
> 17,350
>  5
> Unintentional
> Drowning
> 57Homicide
> Firearm
> 12,608
>  6
> Unintentional
> Fire/burn
> 39Suicide
> Suffocation
> 8,161
>  7
> Undetermined
> Suffocation
> 34Suicide
> Poisoning
> 6,356
>  8
> Homicide
> Suffocation
> 30Unintentional
> Unspecified
> 6,005
>  9
> Undetermined
> Unspecified
> 28Unintentional
> Suffocation
> 5,038
>  10
> Unintentional
> Fall
> 24Undetermined
> Poisoning
> 3,759***WISQARS**TM* *Produced By: Office of Statistics and Programming,
> National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease
> Control and Prevention*  *Data Source: National Center for Health
> Statistics (NCHS), National Vital Statistics System***  **
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <
> rob...@cirrillian.com> wrote:
>
>> From Abortion, Climate Change, Gun Control to Social Security and Taxes,
>> the http://www.justfacts.com/ offers just the [distilled] facts on about
>> 14 major topics.  I thought this site with its emphasis on objectivity
>> might perhaps be useful to the group.  The sister (brother|sibling) site
>> http://www.justfactsdaily.com/ may be more politically motivated and
>> picking and choosing what to discuss.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Robert C
>>
>>
>>
>> ==**==
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe 
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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>

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[glen]

Steve Smith wrote at 04/05/2013 10:54 AM:
>  1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?
>  2. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or convergent?
> 
>  1. I have worked on several projects involving the formal management of
> evidence and belief which makes me cynical when people suggest that
> there is "one true form of evidence".   Most of it ended up off in
> high dimensional pareto fronts with multiple measures of
> confidence.  The underlying theory (much just beyond my grasp to
> regurgitate) is based in variants of Dempster-Shaffer and Fuzzy
> Sets/Intervals.   There is always a Bayesian in the crowd that
> starts "Baying" (sorry) about how "Bayesian Methods are the *only*
> thing anyone ever needs".  This specific example in statistics and
> probability theory is but one.   Similarly, it took a long time for
> anyone to accept far-from-equilibrium systems as being worth
> studying simply because their tools didn't work there.   Like
> looking for your lost keys under the streetlamp because the "light
> is too bad in the alley where you dropped them".

Well, the first thing to cover is that the definition won't necessarily
be pre-statable.  In order for it to be an accurate measure, it will
have to evolve with the thing(s) being measured.

The second consideration is whatever you mean by "valid".  If I give you
the benefit of the doubt, I assume you mean "trustworthy" or
"credentialed" in some sense.  And, again, I'd settle that by tying
trustworthiness to the thing being measured.  I typically do this by
asking the participants in a domain whether any given measure of their
domain is acceptable/irritating.  Measures of local hacker spaces is a
good anecdote for me, lately.  With the growth of the maker community,
it's informative to ask various participants what they think of things
like techshop vs. dorkbot (or our local variants).

Both these suggest skepticism toward the _unification_ of validity or
trustworthiness.  Evidence boils down to a context-sensitive
aggregation, which is why Bayesian methods are so attractive.  But I'm
sure they aren't the only way to install context sensitivity.  Recently,
I've been trying to understand Feferman's "schematic axiom systems"
http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/godelnagel.pdf and how a
schema might be extracted from a formal system in such a way as to
provide provide reasoning structures that are sensitive to application.
 (My complete and embarrassing ignorance slows my progress, of course.)

>  2. [...] What I'm equally interested in is if there is a
> similar divergence in thinking.  [...] I believe
> that humans have a natural time constant around belief (and as a
> consequence, understanding, knowledge, paradigms?) on the order of
> years if not decades or a full lifetime.   That time-constant may be
> shrinking, but I rarely believe someone when they claim during or
> after an arguement to have "changed their mind"... at best, they are
> acknowledging that a seed has sprouted which in a few years or
> decades might grow into a garden.

Obviously, I'm still not convinced that _thinking_ is all that
important.  It strikes me that _doing_ is far more important.  My
evidence for this lies mostly in the (apparent) decoupled relationship
between what people say and what they do.  I can see fairly strong maps
between immediate, short-term thoughts like "Ice cream is good" and
actions like walking to the freezer, scooping some out, and eating it.
But I see fairly convoluted maps between, e.g., "Logging your data is
good" and what bench scientists actually end up writing in their logs.

-- 
=><= glen e. p. ropella
All the lies I tell myself



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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Steve Smith]

On 4/5/13 11:34 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
From Abortion, Climate Change, Gun Control to Social Security and 
Taxes, the http://www.justfacts.com/ offers just the [distilled] facts 
on about 14 major topics.  I thought this site with its emphasis on 
objectivity might perhaps be useful to the group.
I took a gander (mostly at my favorite hot-button topics) and found that 
while the site *does* emit an *air* of unbiasedness...  I'm pretty sure 
their "distillation" is somewhat deliberately selective.It wasn't 
hard, for example, for me to guess what the (big)Brother site was going 
to espouse.  In fact this site seems to be entirely designed to support 
the arguments of the more (obviously) biased and opinionated site.


The "unbiased" site seems to have been "salted" with facts that 
contradict the position of the "biased" site but when I *then* read the 
more biased site, I found that they had convenient "dismissals" ready 
for the "inconvenient facts" while glomming on to the "convenient" 
ones.  Other, important and "inconvenient" facts were not mentioned 
either place.  Go figure.


I suspect a similar pair of sites might exist with the "opposite" 
leaning with similar features.  I spent most of the 80's, 90's in 
constant horror at the same kind of rhetoric used to support any number 
of "politically correct" positions.  It is not just "one side" of the 
political division in this country that resorts to such rhetoric, but 
somehow it seems to have gotten heavily unbalanced in the last 10-15 
years (might just be my shifting perspective?).
The sister (brother|sibling) site http://www.justfactsdaily.com/ may 
be more politically motivated and picking and choosing what to discuss.



http://www.justfactsdaily.com/the-anti-science-accusation

comes on clear and strong...

I was expecting (hoping for) a *more* unbiased pro/con discussion... the 
kind where when the arguments are complete there are still something 
left standing on both sides, not ones where one side has been trampled 
down and the other stands victorious, foot on the other's chest to a 
roaring crowd of sycophants... waiting for the "thumbs down"!


Carry On,
 - Steve

PS...  good followup Cody...   do remember that both Fox News and Rush 
Limbaugh *claim* to be "entertainment"... which explains why roughly 50% 
of the population is *rabidly* fascinated and the other 50% is 
*morbidly* fascinated by their antics!



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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Nicholas Thompson]

Well, you may all soon tire of my attempt to channel the classical
pragmatist, C.S Peirce, but it is an interesting perspective, one that has
had broad influence on our thought, but whose foundations have gotten
trampled into the intellectual midden in the last 100 years, and therefore,
I think, worth digging up and dusting off.  

I think the classical pragmatic answer to Glen's comment would be, whatever
produces consensus in the very long run is science.  So, as glen would point
out, this does not, by itself, produce demarcations between good thought ...
experimental thought, in the broadest sense ... and the other kinds.  But
Peirce was much taken by the period in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries in which a tremendous amount of opinion was settled ... a
consensus was reached ... on the nature of the elements, a consensus that
mainly endures until today.  So I think he would advise us to turn to the
methods of that period and say, use these as a guide to conduct our search
for the truth in the future.  He would agree that such advice is provisional
... fallible is the term he would use ... but he is contemptible of anything
that smacked of Cartesian skeptism.  Nobody, he would say, is skeptical as a
matter of fact.  Doubt is not something we entertain (except as sophists);
it is something that is forced upon us and it is a painful state that we try
to resolve in favor of belief.  So, it is important to talk not about what
we "can" doubt, but what we "do" doubt.  And when we do that, when we look
at which methods we have confidence in and which we actually doubt,  we will
see that we have ways of arriving at consensus ... in the long run ... about
which methods to use.  And yes that is quasi-tautological.  

Nick 
The Village Pragmatist

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 9:12 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED
Controversy is Sending

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 04/04/2013 10:03 PM:
> Again, acting in my capacity as the Village Pragmatist, I would assert 
> that science is the only procedure capable of producing lasting 
> consensus.  The other methods  various forms of torture, mostly 
> ... do not produce such enduring results.  N

While I agree with you in the abstract, it still doesn't address the meaning
of "scientific evidence".  My assertion is that the variance exhibited by
the many meanings of evidence within science is wide enough to cast doubt on
the stability (or perhaps even coherence) of the term in science.

And if that's the case, then claims for the superiority of scientific
evidence over other meanings of evidence are suspicious claims ...
deserving of at least as much skepticism as anecdotal evidence or even
personal epiphany.

Rather than assume an oversimplified projection onto a one dimensional
partial order, perhaps there are as many different types of evidence as
there are foci of attention, a multi-dimensional space, with an orthogonal
partial ordering in each dimension.

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
This body of mine, man I don't wanna turn android



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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Gary Schiltz]

I also spent 15 minutes or so perusing some of the more politically polarizing 
topics, and it didn't take long to realize the site tilts pretty heavily toward 
the right. It's easy to cherry pick just the facts that support one's own 
position. Does anyone have suggestions for a site that actually accomplishes 
what this one purports to do?

Of course everyone's idea of what is right vs left differs. My brother 
considers Fox News to be objective and CNN to be liberal. Other friends find 
CNN to be conservative and Democracy Now to be objective. Personally, I think 
CNN does a reasonable job of being in the middle, DN cherry picks for the left, 
and FN cherry picks for the right.

;; Gary

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Nicholas Thompson]

Roger, 

 

Speaking in my role as the Village Pragmatist, I think I would insist that
your implication is incorrect that there is no purchase on the slipperly
slope you describe.  Your despair is premature.  

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 9:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED
Controversy is Sending

 

And given exponential growth in science, who knows first hand what the
variance in accepted scientific evidence actually is?  

 

Any claims to know what science "is" and what scientists "do", for the
purposes of distinguishing between science and non-science, are claims to a
revealed truth, not something that anyone has established empirically.
Ouch.

 

-- rec --

 

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 9:12 AM, glen  wrote:

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 04/04/2013 10:03 PM:

> Again, acting in my capacity as the Village Pragmatist, I would assert
that
> science is the only procedure capable of producing lasting consensus.  The
> other methods  various forms of torture, mostly ... do not produce
such
> enduring results.  N

While I agree with you in the abstract, it still doesn't address the
meaning of "scientific evidence".  My assertion is that the variance
exhibited by the many meanings of evidence within science is wide enough
to cast doubt on the stability (or perhaps even coherence) of the term
in science.

And if that's the case, then claims for the superiority of scientific
evidence over other meanings of evidence are suspicious claims ...
deserving of at least as much skepticism as anecdotal evidence or even
personal epiphany.

Rather than assume an oversimplified projection onto a one dimensional
partial order, perhaps there are as many different types of evidence as
there are foci of attention, a multi-dimensional space, with an
orthogonal partial ordering in each dimension.


--
=><= glen e. p. ropella

This body of mine, man I don't wanna turn android




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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

Steve Smith wrote at 04/05/2013 10:54 AM:

  1. How do we define/recognize valid measures of evidence?
  2. Is the current "exponential" growth in tech divergent or convergent?


...

Well, the first thing to cover is that the definition won't necessarily
be pre-statable.  In order for it to be an accurate measure, it will
have to evolve with the thing(s) being measured.
This is an important point that I'd like to hear more about...  I have 
my own views and ideas on it but get the feeling you may have a more 
formal or specific idea about this?


Both these suggest skepticism toward the _unification_ of validity or
trustworthiness.  Evidence boils down to a context-sensitive
aggregation, which is why Bayesian methods are so attractive.  But I'm
sure they aren't the only way to install context sensitivity.  Recently,
I've been trying to understand Feferman's "schematic axiom systems"
http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/godelnagel.pdf and how a
schema might be extracted from a formal system in such a way as to
provide provide reasoning structures that are sensitive to application.
  (My complete and embarrassing ignorance slows my progress, of course.)
I've downloaded and will read the paper and if my own complete and 
arrogant ignorance (thanks for the succinct description of this state 
Doug!) doesn't bog me down even worse, I'll try to respond to that under 
separate cover.

  2. [...] What I'm equally interested in is if there is a
 similar divergence in thinking.  [...] I believe
 that humans have a natural time constant around belief (and as a
 consequence, understanding, knowledge, paradigms?) on the order of
 years if not decades or a full lifetime.   That time-constant may be
 shrinking, but I rarely believe someone when they claim during or
 after an arguement to have "changed their mind"... at best, they are
 acknowledging that a seed has sprouted which in a few years or
 decades might grow into a garden.

Obviously, I'm still not convinced that _thinking_ is all that
important.  It strikes me that _doing_ is far more important.  My
evidence for this lies mostly in the (apparent) decoupled relationship
between what people say and what they do.  I can see fairly strong maps
between immediate, short-term thoughts like "Ice cream is good" and
actions like walking to the freezer, scooping some out, and eating it.
But I see fairly convoluted maps between, e.g., "Logging your data is
good" and what bench scientists actually end up writing in their logs.
I *do* appreciate the harping you have been doing about doing vs 
thinking (or talking or posturing or gesturing) and take it painfully to 
heart.   My prolificness (prolificacy? wot?) here suggests that I prefer 
to talk and think to do.   That is not *completely* true, as a lot of my 
"doing" happens at the same keyboard and screen as my "talking" and 
"thinking" on the other hand, the new heating element to my dryer 
came in yesterday and I *still* haven't installed it.  And Spring is 
springing and I *still* haven't bled the brakes on my dumptruck to go 
get my usual Springtime loads of manure and woodchips... and I am 
*still* yammering away here as April 15 looms over the horizon and my 
P&L records are still woefully under-attended... and ...  well, you get 
the picture.   Talk *is* (relatively) cheap, though not without a price.


I also appreciate what you probably *really* intended to illuminate... 
that what we *do* says more than what we *say*.   But the two *are* 
duals... even if some of us *say* one thing and *do* another, there is a 
correlation.   In fact, those of us who protest most loudly about this 
or that might be the best suspects for acting differently.   Anecdotally 
it is a given that rabid homophobes are likely to be gay and it is easy 
enough for me to believe that those who proselytize most grandly might 
be compensating for their own lack of belief.


But the point I was trying to make, independent of the measure (I think) 
is that human time scales, the time between beginning to 
accept/understand/experience/act differently and a "full embrace" of it 
can be quite long.   This feels like a bit of a ceiling (more aptly 
"floor") to constrain any runaway acceleration of thinking OR action?


I could be arguing for your point (even more than intended) as I know 
that if I can encode an idea into an action and an action into a habit, 
it often doesn't take long for me to shift from one mode to another...  
there is a power of tactile/embodied habituation that mere 
thinking/talking doesn't touch.


Thanks
 - Steve



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[FRIAM] Fwd: Re: The nature of Discussion Fora

[Steve Smith]

Glen, et al -

Here is a response from a friend/colleague (some of you knew him when he 
was at BIOS) who attempted to CC FRIAM and I'm sure it bounced as he is 
not a subscriber.


- Steve


 Original Message 
Subject:Re: [FRIAM] The nature of Discussion Fora
Date:   Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:56:16 -0700
From:   David R. Thompson 
To: Steve Smith 
CC: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 



Steve,

Thank you for forwarding this twitching message. I realize that this
thread is probably long past its prime, though I wanted to mention my
appreciation. The term "twitching" bugged me at first, and this was a
good thing. My pejorative interpretation poked at me, probably because
its connotation rings with some important truth for me.

My interest in our storied lives is parallel with my interest in the
Buddhist notion of our "conditioned" lives, our lives wherein we break
the world world down into - this vs. that -, and see our arbitrary
ontologies as real, and see the entities in our arbitrary ontologies as
containing their own (self generated) essence. Though the entities of
our conditioned views are powerfully useful fictions of individuality,
when mistaken as "real" they (and we) become unwitting actors in
unquestionable stories (people, trees, cars, chairs ...).

Put another way, if I connect this with my understanding of the radical
and 2500 year old Buddhist view, the twitching (and the ensuing dukkha
driving the twitching) arise from seeing our useful fictions, our
conditioned worlds and the stories we weave about them, as hard reality.
When our stories are hard reality, rather than a way of attempting to
negotiate our infinite ignorance in the world, we act from them as the
"subject" of our doing. When lost in stories as the subject from which
we act, we cannot see or question them, their relative nature is
unthinkable, so we twitch and dance to our stories.

My understanding is that, when we wake up to see the practicality of our
stories and ontologies, that they are useful fictions and partial
understandings, and that essence is only in the dance of the broader
interaction, we can make our "subject" views and stories into "objects".
We can act directly on our operational stories and become authors. And,
as evinced by the discipline required to retain authorship ("the path"),
it is hard to be in authorship in a world where so many forces tell us
that we must act in someone elses' stories to be safe. Creating and
maintaining these roles and perceptions of ourselves is the core of the
pain pointed to in anatta (not self, or no self).

Thank you for the insightful "twitching" term Glen! It has stuck in my
mind for a couple of weeks.
David
__
David R. Thompson -- Problem Resolution Advocate
Blog : http://storyresolution.org/
Email: david.thomp...@storyresolution.org
home : 509.624.1018
cell : 509.263.0792

Clumsy is the dance of one brain clapping
__
On 3/19/2013 3:08 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

Glen -

This is twitchin awesome!  But for some unexplained reason, I feel
pithed about it. (lame puns intended, punning being one of *my*
twitches).

I'm still enjoying my illusion of free-will and get a little skitchy
around overstated pre-determination (or a fully mechanistic model of
the universe?).  This is probably just a twitch itself?

I do think that a great deal of what we (think we) do consciously is
some level of "twitch" as you call it.  Coupled dynamical systems, all
of us in one great grand ensemble of twitching frog-legs all wired
together...  or in Stephenson's Diamond Age like the "Drummers" (sorry
Carl).   I also accept the idea that *much* of what we think we
understand or control is just a post-hoc rationalization of what
happened  without even our involvement much less understanding.

You have referred to yourself in the past as a "simulant" which I took
to mean that you are a professional creator of "simulations"
(simulation scientist?) despite the fact that it was too close to
"Replicant" from Blade Runner and sounded more like you were claiming
that "you" were just a somewhat modularized region in a giant simulation.

This of course wanders me into Fredkin/Wolfram/Chaitin land where
their digitally updated version of Leibnitz' Monist Metaphysics is
expressed variously as Digital Philosophy or Digital Physics.

In some circles it is a truism the "we are what we eat"... which
suggests that someone who "eats simulations" for a living is likely to
"become a simulation" at least in their own mind.  Or perhaps it is
your twitch that you *are* a simulation scientist *because* you see
the world as one grande simulation and the ones you create and execute
are just modularized simulations within the simulation?

In my offline conversations with Rich Murray, it is becoming apparent
that we (he and I) share the feeling that by giving over to
"consciousness" bein

Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Arlo Barnes]

I don't think Democracy! Now purports to be 'just the facts' - while of
course they wouldn't say they *distort* the truth, mostly they are devoted
to news and interviews about left-leaning topics, or civil/humanitarian
rights in general. Fox News, on the other hand, is equally focussed on
conservative viewpoints, and occasionally makes stuff up. CNN is going for
whatever draws viewers (controversy) without angering them (any perception
of sidedness, even where it is an inapplicable concept).
Ultimately it is up to the viewer to attempt to perceive, intuit, and
presume biases and to gestalt multiple sources to try to construct an
accurate view of the world. So if one wants 'just the facts', they will
have to go where facts are generated - firsthand sources and data. For
example, in the so-called 'Climategate' issue, why not find a general
journal you have access to, and sample papers that have been published
about climate change - do most of them have data showing causes as being
anthropogenic, or not? And because papers cite other papers, you can see
what responses have been to any given study. This is a lot of work if done
properly and does not guarantee you a fairer worldview but it certainly
helps.
-Arlo James Barnes

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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Nicholas Thompson]

It think the Village Pragmatist would insist, contra Roger, that even as
there is an explosion of small doubts at the periphery of our collective
understanding, so also there is an explosion of the stuff that we have come
to agree about.  

Nick 

-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 10:58 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED
Controversy is Sending

Roger Critchlow wrote at 04/05/2013 08:23 AM:
> And given exponential growth in science, who knows first hand what the 
> variance in accepted scientific evidence actually is?

That's a great point.  It may help me articulate my objection to the concept
of "the singularity", the sense that technology will soon (has)
outstrip(ped) purely human intelligence/understanding.

It seems more like an explosion of effect[ors] than a "super intelligence"
or anything cognitive, thought-based like that.  Even if we constrain
ourselves to the maker community (3d printers, arduino,
etc.) and the recent pressure for open access to publications, it's
difficult for me to imagine any kind of convergence, to "science" or
anything else.  It just feels more like a divergence to me.

I wonder if there is a way to measure this?  In absolute terms, we can't
really use a "count the people who participate in domain X" measure.
The ratio of the poor and starving to those who have their basic needs met
well enough to participate is too high.  It would swamp that absolute
measure.  We'd have to normalize it.  To some extent, exploratory science
has always been pursued most effectively by the 1% and those they patronize.
Perhaps a measure of the variation in standards of evidence would correlate
fairly well with the waxing and waning of the middle class?

> Any claims to know what science "is" and what scientists "do", for the 
> purposes of distinguishing between science and non-science, are claims 
> to a revealed truth, not something that anyone has established 
> empirically.  Ouch.

Absolutely! (Sorry, I had to slip in a contradictory affirmation.)  This
goes directly back to Popper, I think.  There is no entry exam for science.
Every speculation is welcome.

--
=><= glen e. p. ropella
Me and myself got a world to save



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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[glen]

Take your own data.  Excellent suggestion!  For some reason, it made me
remember this site.

   The Centre for Investigative Journalism
   http://www.tcij.org/

I think there is a middle ground between the sensationalism of our
infotainment outlets and the often daunting task of gathering our own
data.  But I have yet to find a reliable middle ground.  Each source of
news I find turns out to seem biased (to me).  That leads me to question
what type of person becomes a journalist.  What types of journalists are
there?  Etc.

I actually dated a journalism major in my last years of college and a
few years after graduation.  Aside from the obvious, I was drawn to her
unbias and devotion to rationality in the face of all the prejudice
surrounding us.  That unbias eventually turned into apathy and the need
for extraordinary stimulus ... like hanging out with the hippies across
the street who didn't bother to bathe, much less wash dishes or clean
house.  She started listening to Blues Traveler 24/7 and finally dumped
me for an alpha hippie (a weird breed, actually).

Arlo Barnes wrote at 04/05/2013 12:32 PM:
> I don't think Democracy! Now purports to be 'just the facts' - while of
> course they wouldn't say they /distort/ the truth, mostly they are
> devoted to news and interviews about left-leaning topics, or
> civil/humanitarian rights in general. Fox News, on the other hand, is
> equally focussed on conservative viewpoints, and occasionally makes
> stuff up. CNN is going for whatever draws viewers (controversy) without
> angering them (any perception of sidedness, even where it is an
> inapplicable concept).
> Ultimately it is up to the viewer to attempt to perceive, intuit, and
> presume biases and to gestalt multiple sources to try to construct an
> accurate view of the world. So if one wants 'just the facts', they will
> have to go where facts are generated - firsthand sources and data. For
> example, in the so-called 'Climategate' issue, why not find a general
> journal you have access to, and sample papers that have been published
> about climate change - do most of them have data showing causes as being
> anthropogenic, or not? And because papers cite other papers, you can see
> what responses have been to any given study. This is a lot of work if
> done properly and does not guarantee you a fairer worldview but it
> certainly helps.
> -Arlo James Barnes


-- 
=><= glen e. p. ropella
Beams of darkness streak across the sky



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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Steve Smith]

Arlo -


I don't think Democracy! Now purports to be 'just the facts' - while 
of course they wouldn't say they /distort/ the truth, mostly they are 
devoted to news and interviews about left-leaning topics, or 
civil/humanitarian rights in general. Fox News, on the other hand, is 
equally focussed on conservative viewpoints, and occasionally makes 
stuff up. CNN is going for whatever draws viewers (controversy) 
without angering them (any perception of sidedness, even where it is 
an inapplicable concept).
I generally agree with your analysis, and in fact appreciate it's 
insightfulness.


I limit my "push" media to DN! but with a fairly good awareness that it 
is very *selective*.  I listen to it *for* it's strong progressive 
voice.  I am fairly confident in their honesty and accuracy within the 
limits of their bias.   I cannot say the same for Fox News.   I am 
pretty sure that they are strongly in the camp of  "the ends justifies 
the means" and "say anything".   Their 2008 mascot, ms. "I can see 
Russia from here and they ARE coming, let's go shoot some wolves from 
helicopters, I'm a Maverick"  was such a huge caricature of that kind of 
"form over substance" that I  gag when I see their talking heads and 
banners (who *IS* that woman commentator with the constantly flaring 
nostrils?).


CNN is a very commercial beast as you point out... my confidence in them 
fell 25 years ago when my sister and brother-in-law moved from Spain 
(where all media was government controlled) to Chile (where they had 
access to Satellite media from the US and Europe).  This was during some 
of the big unrest in Santiago.   My brother in law drove past the 
Capital building *every day* and then would come home to watch Riots and 
other things happening on CNN *at the Capital* that had patently NOT 
happened.  WTF?!


He and I were roughly crossing poltical/ideological paths at that 
point.  He was a young (but older than I) highly charged 
progressive/liberal and I was somewhat caught up in the rhetoric of the 
conservative/libertarian world.   This was about the point where he (who 
had become a successful exploration geologist) was starting to believe 
in the message his International Corporate (backed by the US, UK, etc. 
govts) bread-provider was telling him and *I*, was starting to *doubt* 
the nationalistic/patriotic truisms of the National Laboratories, Big 
Government, and Mutual Assured Destruction rhetoric.   His TV now runs 
Fox News 24/7, and of course, I spend all my time and attention 
yammering on FRIAM and up to an hour a day listening to Amy Goodman's 
voice reel off all of the horrors against humanity (sometimes even 
including white males) of the day.
Ultimately it is up to the viewer to attempt to perceive, intuit, and 
presume biases and to gestalt multiple sources to try to construct an 
accurate view of the world. So if one wants 'just the facts', they 
will have to go where facts are generated - firsthand sources and data.
Absolutely.  *this* is what makes the internet as powerful (for me) as 
it is.  I have *half a chance* of getting within one or two degrees of 
separation of *source material*.   I have regular correspondence with 
several people who live in the middle east (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) 
who are variously US ex-pats and Westernized Muslims.   I *can* find raw 
data from many sources (though it is always hard to be sure how "raw" or 
"cooked" some sources are) and I *can* find others who have the 
expertise to help me "cook" it to my own liking whilst at least 
acknowledging their own biases.
For example, in the so-called 'Climategate' issue, why not find a 
general journal you have access to, and sample papers that have been 
published about climate change - do most of them have data showing 
causes as being anthropogenic, or not? And because papers cite other 
papers, you can see what responses have been to any given study. This 
is a lot of work if done properly and does not guarantee you a fairer 
worldview but it certainly helps.
It is a bit trickier than that.   Up until about 2000, even though I had 
fairly direct access to a variety of climate scientists (LANL, NOAA, 
NCAR, etc.)  I was not convinced of anthropogenic climate change.   I 
was *inclined* to believe it, but I wasn't convinced by the "facts" I 
could find that anyone knew for sure.  And it seemed pretty arrogant to 
assume so much power for our puny little selves.


I don't remember a specific "factoid" that broke this camel's back, but 
I did notice that when I was standing on the beach in New Zealand on 
Boxing day December 2000 and got a *sunburn* in less than 10 minutes 
(having come from 7000 ft elevation, I am used to humid sea-level 
locations giving me *much* more time to frolic without bubbling skin).


This experience didn't make suddenly *believe* in the ozone hole, it 
just made it *palpable*!   I already had an abstract belief in the 
(anthropogenic) ozone hole (by that time already "healing")

Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Bruce Sherwood]

It is understandable that many people can't believe that we puny humans
could possibly have a big impact on the environment. My parents used to
refer with reverence and awe to "the inexhaustible sea"..

Bruce

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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

Take your own data.  Excellent suggestion!  For some reason, it made me
remember this site.

The Centre for Investigative Journalism
http://www.tcij.org/

Our own Tom Johnson!  No, that is: http://www.analyticjournalism.com/ ...

My own holy grail is *context*.   I appreciate pointers to *facts* but 
without *context* they mean nothing.   It is context that moves data 
into information and in another way information into knowledge and (IMO) 
at the apex, knowledge into wisdom.  Unfortunately this is a steep and 
slippery slope to climb.  I am seeking (waiting for it to land on me?) 
an application of self-organizing behaviour and emergence to make sense 
of this chain.


Does data somehow magically (I mean emergently) exhibit it's own 
metadata/context enough to bootstrap into becoming information?  My work 
around the edge of data mining and visual analytics suggests it might.   
And my work around the edges of ontologies, etc suggests the same for 
"information into knowledge"...   "knowledge into wisdom" is way 
trickier... maybe as you suggest, *practice* is the only way up that 
last bit to the top?


The term (used here in another thread?) of "Received Wisdom" suggests a 
form of Faux Wisdom... which is what the likes of (a few?) of us 
reject.   While it fills the same niche as "Really Real Wisdom" I think 
it is intrinsically contingent on sharing a particular world view.  I 
*do* accept that you (Glen) will likely suggest that what I'm seeking is 
a mirage and it is not beneath me to accept that you might be right.



I think there is a middle ground between the sensationalism of our
infotainment outlets and the often daunting task of gathering our own
data.  But I have yet to find a reliable middle ground.  Each source of
news I find turns out to seem biased (to me).  That leads me to question
what type of person becomes a journalist.  What types of journalists are
there?  Etc.
Oh boy!  When I was getting totally jaded by my work as a PI in the late 
1970's, it was partly because I had come to learn through my jobs, way 
too much about the upstanding citizens and the institutions I was living 
amongst.   I flirted briefly with shifting over to Investigative 
Journalism to capitalize on what I already knew and the skills I'd 
developed in "just looking" (Yogi Berra was my mentor).My acute 
sense of integrity (lame, but acute) at the time told me that I couldn't 
in good conscience take all the things I'd learned (mostly about my 
clients while working for them) and cash in on them... I would be 
violating some kind of implicit confidentiality relationship.   I also 
realized that I was getting tired of squirming around in the muck with 
the other vermin (Lawyers, Judges, LEOs, criminals, and businessmen)... 
I'd had enough of the seamy underbelly...


So off I went to help build weapons of mass destruction instead! (ok... 
capture high speed protons and teach them to do a round dance).  I never 
meant my Physics/Math/CS education to be *practical* but it did turn out 
that way.  Ronnie Raygun's Buck Rogers planssounded pretty cool to me 
(at the time) and where better to put a giant sixgun than in the sky 
over the evil enemies heads!



- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Steve Smith]

On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
It is understandable that many people can't believe that we puny 
humans could possibly have a big impact on the environment. My parents 
used to refer with reverence and awe to "the inexhaustible sea"..
My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry McMurtry's 
characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of unlikely mountain men in 
a typical discussion.


   "Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in a winter
   right here at this bend in the river?  We been coming here for 30
   years or more and now we can't hardly find a one anymore?  What
   happened to 'em all?"

- Steve






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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[cody dooderson]

This website pisses me off every time i try to check their sources. Why did
they even put sources in if they were going to blatantly lie about what
they contain.

Their caption reads "* The following pictures are of U.S. submarines
surfacing at the North Pole in March of 1959 and August of 1962:"
Notice that the real description from
http://navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm does not actually say anything
about the north pole
[image: Skate]Three crew-members of the *Skate (SSN-578)* checking the ice
on deck while above the Arctic Circle in 1959.
US Navy photo courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory.
This is what the pictures of the north pole look like
[image: Skate]
On 17 March 1959, *Skate (SSN-578)* surfaced at the North Pole to commit
the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic waste.Text
courtesy of DANFS.
USN photo # NPC 1149126 courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine
Laboratory,Scott
Koen & ussnewyork.com .

They might of well of put a picture like this up, since they
are deliberately trying to deceive readers





On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:

>  On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
>
> It is understandable that many people can't believe that we puny humans
> could possibly have a big impact on the environment. My parents used to
> refer with reverence and awe to "the inexhaustible sea"..
>
> My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry McMurtry's
> characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of unlikely mountain men in a
> typical discussion.
>
> "Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in a winter right
> here at this bend in the river?  We been coming here for 30 years or more
> and now we can't hardly find a one anymore?  What happened to 'em all?"
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Roger Critchlow]

Oh no, someone is wrong on the internet!

-- rec --


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, cody dooderson  wrote:

> This website pisses me off every time i try to check their sources. Why
> did they even put sources in if they were going to blatantly lie about what
> they contain.
>
> Their caption reads "* The following pictures are of U.S. submarines
> surfacing at the North Pole in March of 1959 and August of 1962:"
> Notice that the real description from
> http://navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm does not actually say anything
> about the north pole
> [image: Skate] Three crew-members of the *Skate (SSN-578)* checking the
> ice on deck while above the Arctic Circle in 1959.
> US Navy photo courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory.
> This is what the pictures of the north pole look like
> [image: Skate]
> On 17 March 1959, *Skate (SSN-578)* surfaced at the North Pole to commit
> the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic waste.Text
> courtesy of DANFS.
> USN photo # NPC 1149126 courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine 
> Laboratory,Scott
> Koen & ussnewyork.com .
>
> They might of well of put a picture like this up, since they
> are deliberately trying to deceive readers
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
>
>>  On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
>>
>> It is understandable that many people can't believe that we puny humans
>> could possibly have a big impact on the environment. My parents used to
>> refer with reverence and awe to "the inexhaustible sea"..
>>
>> My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry McMurtry's
>> characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of unlikely mountain men in a
>> typical discussion.
>>
>> "Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in a winter right
>> here at this bend in the river?  We been coming here for 30 years or more
>> and now we can't hardly find a one anymore?  What happened to 'em all?"
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[cody dooderson]

good point



On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 4:01 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:

> Oh no, someone is wrong on the internet!
>
> -- rec --
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, cody dooderson wrote:
>
>> This website pisses me off every time i try to check their sources. Why
>> did they even put sources in if they were going to blatantly lie about what
>> they contain.
>>
>> Their caption reads "* The following pictures are of U.S. submarines
>> surfacing at the North Pole in March of 1959 and August of 1962:"
>> Notice that the real description from
>> http://navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm does not actually say
>> anything about the north pole
>> [image: Skate] Three crew-members of the *Skate (SSN-578)* checking the
>> ice on deck while above the Arctic Circle in 1959.
>> US Navy photo courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory.
>> This is what the pictures of the north pole look like
>> [image: Skate]
>> On 17 March 1959, *Skate (SSN-578)* surfaced at the North Pole to commit
>> the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic waste.Text
>> courtesy of DANFS.
>> USN photo # NPC 1149126 courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine 
>> Laboratory,Scott
>> Koen & ussnewyork.com .
>>
>> They might of well of put a picture like this up, since they
>> are deliberately trying to deceive readers
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Steve Smith  wrote:
>>
>>>  On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
>>>
>>> It is understandable that many people can't believe that we puny humans
>>> could possibly have a big impact on the environment. My parents used to
>>> refer with reverence and awe to "the inexhaustible sea"..
>>>
>>> My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry McMurtry's
>>> characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of unlikely mountain men in a
>>> typical discussion.
>>>
>>> "Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in a winter right
>>> here at this bend in the river?  We been coming here for 30 years or more
>>> and now we can't hardly find a one anymore?  What happened to 'em all?"
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>>
>>
>>
>> 
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>

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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Robert J. Cordingley]

So is the consensus that justfacts.com 
 is perhaps not just wrong but 
misleading and deliberately deceptive while claiming 
 not to be so at the same time?  
We really need unbiased investigative journalism.  Does the Center for 
Investigative Journalism  do a better 
job or the BBC  or FactCheck.org 
?  The thing is, the [honorable] idea behind 
justfacts.com is a good one.


-- Robert C
Trust me, never trust anyone who says trust me!


On 4/5/13 4:01 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

Oh no, someone is wrong on the internet!

-- rec --


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, cody dooderson > wrote:


This website pisses me off every time i try to check their
sources. Why did they even put sources in if they were going to
blatantly lie about what they contain.

Their caption reads "* The following pictures are of U.S.
submarines surfacing at the North Pole in March of 1959 and August
of 1962:"
Notice that the real description from
http://navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm does not actually say
anything about the north pole
Skate
Three crew-members of the */Skate/ (SSN-578)* checking the ice on
deck while above the Arctic Circle in 1959.
US Navy photo courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory.


This is what the pictures of the north pole look like
Skate
On 17 March 1959, */Skate/ (SSN-578)* surfaced at the North Pole
to commit the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to
the Arctic waste.   Text courtesy of DANFS.
USN photo # NPC 1149126 courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine
Laboratory, Scott
Koen & ussnewyork.com .


They might of well of put a picture like this up, since they
are deliberately trying to deceive readers





On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Steve Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:

On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:

It is understandable that many people can't believe that we
puny humans could possibly have a big impact on the
environment. My parents used to refer with reverence and awe
to "the inexhaustible sea"..

My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry
McMurtry's characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of
unlikely mountain men in a typical discussion.

"Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in
a winter right here at this bend in the river?  We been
coming here for 30 years or more and now we can't hardly
find a one anymore?  What happened to 'em all?"

- Steve







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com





FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Robert J. Cordingley]

Democracy Now - PBS TV 9.1 - on now (4/5/13 5:30pm) !  Just talked to 
the author Robert W. McChesney of Digital Disconnect 
 
about problems with journalism.  Coincidence?


-- Robert C

On 4/5/13 4:30 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
So is the consensus that justfacts.com 
 is perhaps not just wrong but 
misleading and deliberately deceptive while claiming 
 not to be so at the same time?  
We really need unbiased investigative journalism.  Does the Center for 
Investigative Journalism  do a better 
job or the BBC  or FactCheck.org 
? The thing is, the [honorable] idea behind 
justfacts.com is a good one.


-- Robert C
Trust me, never trust anyone who says trust me!


On 4/5/13 4:01 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

Oh no, someone is wrong on the internet!

-- rec --


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:56 PM, cody dooderson > wrote:


This website pisses me off every time i try to check their
sources. Why did they even put sources in if they were going to
blatantly lie about what they contain.

Their caption reads "* The following pictures are of U.S.
submarines surfacing at the North Pole in March of 1959 and
August of 1962:"
Notice that the real description from
http://navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm does not actually say
anything about the north pole
Skate
Three crew-members of the */Skate/ (SSN-578)* checking the ice on
deck while above the Arctic Circle in 1959.
US Navy photo courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory.


This is what the pictures of the north pole look like
Skate
On 17 March 1959, */Skate/ (SSN-578)* surfaced at the North Pole
to commit the ashes of the famed explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to
the Arctic waste.   Text courtesy of DANFS.
USN photo # NPC 1149126 courtesy of US Navy Arctic Submarine
Laboratory, Scott
Koen & ussnewyork.com .


They might of well of put a picture like this up, since they
are deliberately trying to deceive readers





On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Steve Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:

On 4/5/13 2:45 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote:

It is understandable that many people can't believe that we
puny humans could possibly have a big impact on the
environment. My parents used to refer with reverence and awe
to "the inexhaustible sea"..

My favorite example is the line (paraphrased) from Larry
McMurtry's characters, Jim Ragg and Bartle Bone, a pair of
unlikely mountain men in a typical discussion.

"Remember when we used to be able to catch a 100 Beav' in
a winter right here at this bend in the river?  We been
coming here for 30 years or more and now we can't hardly
find a one anymore?  What happened to 'em all?"

- Steve







FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] just the facts

[Steve Smith]

Robert -

 > The thing is, the [honorable] idea behind justfacts.com is a good one.

Yup, *I* wanted to believe in them... if you hadn't prompted me by 
warning us there was a parallel blog *with* an agenda, I might have 
swallowed more of their hogwash (until Cody, "the Dood") shared his own 
followup.


> Trust me, never trust anyone who says trust me!

Which reminds me of something I *think* Glen shares with me: Language 
might very well be designed/evolved *specifically* to deceive... to 
"game".   Which might be why he has been putting action above words for 
a while?


Thanks for starting the conversation, even if we all rained on the 
original sources!


 - Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Arlo Barnes]

Unfortunately I think I am coming into this a bit too late to read through
the whole thread and respond, but I would like to present a couple of
related topics and see what people think.

The first is in response to 'would I like people to burst my placebo/nocebo
bubble?': the latest issue of Science magazine has an article on
recommendations by the American College of Medicine of whether people
should be told without being asked that they have alleles that indicate an
elevated risk of disease when looking at genes related to common diseases
(mostly cancers and tissue defects) as a course of a full-genome analysis
for another disease/syndrome/disorder (pointing out that people may already
be in an emotionally fragile state from said disease). Link
here
.

Secondly, I agree that how likable a belief is relies not on how close to
reality it is (although that helps) but how 'humble' it is, how willing to
admit that it could be wrong (put another way, beliefs that come with an
accurate measure of where they came from and therefore how widely they can
be applied). So there is likable woo (cold fusion or the new cold fusion,
LENR; based on my [admittedly minor] perusing of websites and documents the
proponents seem to welcome outside experimentation/verification, and
open-source device plans. That doesn't mean the device works as advertised,
though) and dislikable woo (iridology?) with chemtrails in between (while
it seems very paranoid, I wouldn't put it past refineries that produce jet
fuel to get rid of waste chemicals through their product; and although
neither that nor any other intentional human activity [unless we can count
GHG emissions as intentional just through negligence now?] has effectively
controlled the weather, it is not for lack of trying. Contemporary benign
activities like silver iodide cloud seeding, speak to this) along with
homeopathy (my school tutor keeps recommending this method, whatever that
means in practice, and I just politely change the subject; While I don't
understand the fractionation thing, the idea that it contains the cause of
what it is treating gets some mental preparation from the idea of vaccines).
http://photovalet.com/181459>[Ionosphere Communication Experiment]
Station Otto [Not to be confused with
Ice Station Zebra], outside Vaughn, NM.>
Similarly, there is likable and dislikable skepticism. I think the best
part of science is the experimentation itself rather than the results per
se (although obviously the fruitful part for society is the resulting tech
or best practices); perhaps this is related to Feynman's pleasure of
finding things out (I believe it was that book in which he stirs a pot of
jello that he is holding out a window to see if it will congeal faster in
the cold, or the one in which he and a classmate realise they have
different ways of counting, one auditory, one visual). When this turns into
ridiculing people, however justified, it becomes just no fun anymore.

-Arlo James Barnes

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Rich Murray]

prescience:  piles of random woo

science: linear woo woo trains

unity: fractal woos within woos = WOO !

Rich


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 8:42 PM, Arlo Barnes  wrote:

> Unfortunately I think I am coming into this a bit too late to read through
> the whole thread and respond, but I would like to present a couple of
> related topics and see what people think.
>
> The first is in response to 'would I like people to burst my
> placebo/nocebo bubble?': the latest issue of Science magazine has an
> article on recommendations by the American College of Medicine of whether
> people should be told without being asked that they have alleles that
> indicate an elevated risk of disease when looking at genes related to
> common diseases (mostly cancers and tissue defects) as a course of a
> full-genome analysis for another disease/syndrome/disorder (pointing out
> that people may already be in an emotionally fragile state from said
> disease). Link 
> here
> .
>
> Secondly, I agree that how likable a belief is relies not on how close to
> reality it is (although that helps) but how 'humble' it is, how willing to
> admit that it could be wrong (put another way, beliefs that come with an
> accurate measure of where they came from and therefore how widely they can
> be applied). So there is likable woo (cold fusion or the new cold fusion,
> LENR; based on my [admittedly minor] perusing of websites and documents the
> proponents seem to welcome outside experimentation/verification, and
> open-source device plans. That doesn't mean the device works as advertised,
> though) and dislikable woo (iridology?) with chemtrails in between (while
> it seems very paranoid, I wouldn't put it past refineries that produce jet
> fuel to get rid of waste chemicals through their product; and although
> neither that nor any other intentional human activity [unless we can count
> GHG emissions as intentional just through negligence now?] has effectively
> controlled the weather, it is not for lack of trying. Contemporary benign
> activities like silver iodide cloud seeding, speak to this) along with
> homeopathy (my school tutor keeps recommending this method, whatever that
> means in practice, and I just politely change the subject; While I don't
> understand the fractionation thing, the idea that it contains the cause of
> what it is treating gets some mental preparation from the idea of vaccines).
>  ICE[Ionosphere Communication Experiment] 
> Station Otto [Not to be confused with
> Ice Station Zebra], outside Vaughn, NM.>
> Similarly, there is likable and dislikable skepticism. I think the best
> part of science is the experimentation itself rather than the results per
> se (although obviously the fruitful part for society is the resulting tech
> or best practices); perhaps this is related to Feynman's pleasure of
> finding things out (I believe it was that book in which he stirs a pot of
> jello that he is holding out a window to see if it will congeal faster in
> the cold, or the one in which he and a classmate realise they have
> different ways of counting, one auditory, one visual). When this turns into
> ridiculing people, however justified, it becomes just no fun anymore.
>
> -Arlo James Barnes
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Arlo Barnes]

Compare Urban Dictionary:
woot
.
-Arlo James Barnes

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Rich Murray]

Urban Dictionary: woot 
.
woot
Share on twitter  Share
on facebook  Share on
more 
*4635* up , *1141*
 down 

Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a
computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t".

"w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of
Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the
term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities
and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.
"I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!"

"woot! i r teh flagmastar!" (Think Tribes)

"Woot, I pwnzed this dude's boxen!'
and there's wood, would, woof, Wookie, wool...

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 9:49 PM, Arlo Barnes  wrote:

> Compare Urban Dictionary: 
> woot
> .
> -Arlo James Barnes
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Dean Gerber]

I thought woo was a FRIAM local-ism for the Santa Fe local-ism woo woo now in 
urban usage:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woo+woo


Dean Gerber



 From: Rich Murray 
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2013 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED 
Controversy is Sending
 

Urban Dictionary: woot.

woot 
Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on more 4635 up, 1141 down 
 Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a 
computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t". 

"w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons 
and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the term passed 
into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its 
original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.
"I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!" 

"woot! i r teh flagmastar!" (Think Tribes) 

"Woot, I pwnzed this dude's boxen!' 
and there's wood, would, woof, Wookie, wool...


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 9:49 PM, Arlo Barnes  wrote:

Compare Urban Dictionary: woot.
>-Arlo James Barnes
>
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that the TED Controversy is Sending

[Rich Murray]

1. woo woo
Share on twitter
 Share
on facebook  Share
on more 
*253* up , *126*
 down 

Unfounded or ludicrouse beliefs
Belief in talking to the dead, belief in telikenesis, in fact any belief
not founded on good evidence, the poorer the evidence the more Woo Woo the
belief.
buy woo woo mugs &
shirts
by Russell  Jan
14, 2003 add a 
video
2. woo woo
Share on twitter
 Share
on facebook  Share
on more 
*199* up , *94*
 down 

extraordinary beliefs for which it is felt there is insufficient
extraordinary evidence, and people who hold those beliefs.
The date was going fine, then she started to talk about taking her cat to
her Pet Psychic for an aura adjustment. Just a bit woo woo for me.
buy woo woo mugs &
shirts
bunk 
airy-fairy
 new-agey 
insane
 vapid 
by Daikenn  Feb
3, 2007 add a 
video
3. woo woo
Share on twitter
 Share
on facebook  Share
on more 
*219* up , *166*
 down 

The sound the whistle tip makes.
"Its dat woo woo, no what im sayin? Den you got da flows, aint dat trippy
out da flowmastas and shit" "We do it fo da dekarayshunz man. Dats it and
dats all man, fo dekarayshunz." "You posed be up cookin brehfast fo
somebody, its like an alarm clock- woo woo!"


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 10:30 PM, Dean Gerber  wrote:

> I thought woo was a FRIAM local-ism for the Santa Fe local-ism woo woo
> now in urban usage:
>
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woo+woo
>
> Dean Gerber
>
>   --
> *From:* Rich Murray 
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 5, 2013 11:13 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [New post] The Loud and Clear Message that
> the TED Controversy is Sending
>
> Urban Dictionary: woot
> .
>  woot
> Share on twitter  Share
> on facebook  Share
> on more 
> *4635* up , *1141*
>  down 
> 
> Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a
> computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t".
>
> "w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of
> Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the
> term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities
> and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.
> "I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!"
>
> "woot! i r teh flagmastar!" (Think Tribes)
>
> "Woot, I pwnzed this dude's boxen!'
> and there's wood, would, woof, Wookie, wool...
>
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 9:49 PM, Arlo Barnes  wrote:
>
> Compare Urban Dictionary: 
> woot

Re: [FRIAM] Cloud storage

[Russ Abbott]

All the plans I use are free. They range from 2GB to (I think) 25 GB for
Microsoft! Everything in the designated directories are backed up
automatically.


*-- Russ Abbott*
*_*
***  Professor, Computer Science*
*  California State University, Los Angeles*

*  My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688*
*  Google voice: 747-*999-5105
  Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/
*  vita:  *sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
  CS Wiki  and the courses I teach
*_*


On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Edward Angel  wrote:

> You can specify directories or back up the whole disk. Being a little
> cheap and having 3 computers on my account, I don't back up the OS or some
> aps that are easy to reload. You pay by the how much space you use for up
> to three computers on the basic plan. I think carbonite is about the same.
>
> Ed
>  __
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
> (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
>
> On Apr 4, 2013, at 9:25 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
>
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Edward Angel  wrote:
>
>> I'm pretty simplistic about it and use mozy. My computers are backed up
>> automatically and I don't spend any time thinking about it. The two times
>> there was a failure of their data base on my machine getting corrupted,
>> they were able to recover everything quickly. When we returned to NM after
>> two months away, I found both a crashed disk and a hardware failure the
>> backup disk on my wife's computer, both of which were powered down while we
>> were away. A couple of clicks on the mozy site restored her whole disk.
>> It's worth $150 a year.
>>
>
> So what plan do you have?  How's it work?  Is a full disk backup, or do
> you specify directories?
>
>-- Owen
>  
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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