Starting today, scientists in Switzerland will again be able to apply for some research funds from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program—including coveted grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Both sides reached a short-term deal undoing restrictions imposed on Swiss scientists after a referendum to curb mass immigration back in February. (1)
This is the way we go into the future.
Via forgetting.
Not remembering…
Carlos Moedas, secretary of state to Portugal’s center-right prime minister, has been appointed European commissioner in charge of research, science, and innovation here today. If his appointment is approved by the European Parliament, he will take over from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn for a 5-year term.
Moedas will oversee the use of funds from Horizon 2020, the European Union’s €80 billion research program. In his mission letter, Jean-Claude Juncker, president-elect of the European Commission, says Moedas’s tasks shall include monitoring national research policies, making sure that “Commission proposals and activities are based on sound scientific evidence,” and focusing more on applied research.
Moedas, 44, has no particular research policy experience. He worked as an engineer before turning to banking and economics. After an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2000, he worked as a banker for Goldman Sachs and Aguirre Newman and founded his own investment company in 2008. (1)
Science dictated by bankers.
Science dictated by money.
But true knowledge is way too expensive to buy.
True knowledge claims your very life.
Like Midas chasing down Silenus, are you ready to give away everything in order to learn the secret of existence itself?
No, it takes no dollars or euros.
Just your body and flesh…
Give them up in order to see beyond them.
No Paypal required!
PS. AFTER I wrote the article did I realize the fact that the man in the article was named “Moedas” like Midas I mentioned in my comment! The subconscious plays an important role. Or was it pure coincidence?
Last April, President Obama assembled some of the nation’s most august scientific dignitaries in the East Room of the White House. He spoke of using technological innovation “to grow our economy” and unveiled “the next great American project”: a $100 million initiative to probe the mysteries of the human brain. Along the way, he invoked the government’s leading role in a history of scientific glories, from putting a man on the moon to creating the Internet. The Brain initiative, as he described it, would be a continuation of that grand tradition, an ambitious rebuttal to deep cuts in federal financing for scientific research. “We can’t afford to miss these opportunities while the rest of the world races ahead,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to seize them. I don’t want the next job-creating discoveries to happen in China or India or Germany. I want them to happen right here.”
Absent from his narrative, though, was the back story, one that underscores a profound change taking place in the way science is paid for and practiced in America. In fact, the government initiative grew out of richly financed private research: A decade before, Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, had set up a brain science institute in Seattle, to which he donated $500 million, and Fred Kavli, a technology and real estate billionaire, had then established brain institutes at Yale, Columbia and the University of California. Scientists from those philanthropies, in turn, had helped devise the Obama administration’s plan. (1)
Some people call these billionaires “philanthropists”.
But how can someone caring for science be a “philanthropist” and not a “philoscientist”?
Sure some people believe science serve humans after all. But how many example have you seen of particle discoveries that help you? How many exotic invisible field discoveries improved your life? How many new cosmological theories helped you live a happier life?
We often confuse science (creation of prediction models) with philosophy (seeking the “truth”), with inventions (creation of things that help us in our lives by people who are usually not scientists and do not even understand how and why the things they make work) and with human happiness (are you happy because you have a computer? Have all your human problems been solved with the new 3G network?). Scientism-lovers love to feed this confusion for their sake. It is the duty of honest clearly-thinking men (and women of course) to destroy such illusions.
If all people had love, then they would be happy.
They would live happy. They would die happy.
Love is the best invention of them all. And it needs no funding at all.
Love humans by loving humans. Not by loving something else.
Simple truths, difficult to understand…
Multiple Personality Disorder is fake. At the height of the most recent fad in the ’90s, it seemed that every third or fourth patient was presenting with a long list of newly developed multiple personalities. The modal number of personalities per patient started multiplying exponentially from just two to 16. Αn iatrogenically inspired diagnosis inappropriately inflicted on vulnerable patients by the poorly trained therapists who came away from their silly weekend workshops armed with an MPD hammer that seemed to fit every patient nail. (1)
Do you have conflicting emotions? Conflicting thoughts? Well, you have MPD! Simple huh? As simple as saying “I am a lousy doctor bored to death to really help you and eager to make some money”. The only way for someone to control your mind, is to GIVE AWAY that control yourself!
Do not afraid of conflicts in your thought!
Do not afraid of conflicts in your emotions!
Life is full of conflicts! Life is full of antinomies! Accept them! They are part of life! Only through the antinomies and the conflicts can we find the One behind everything!
PS. And for the sake of knowing, MPD declined as a diagnosed disease only after insurance companies stopped paying for its treatment!!!
PS2. Search for similar cases of industry-determined illnesses. Do you know who defines what cholesterol levels are considered “normal”?
UPDATES
Climate change seems indisputable, but it is not. If someone searches enough, he will see that specific dogmas (“innocent” assumptions? – see the MOTIVES at the end of the article) hide behind all the climate models used by the IPCC (mark the words, only by using these in Google will you be able to find any truly valuable article related to the theme).
Earth is heated by the Sun and radiates energy back to space (known as “flux”). If the energy radiated is equal to the energy sent from the Sun, then the temperature stays the same.
And here comes the important part: the role of clouds (cloud feedback). Many people think CO2 is the main greenhouse gas, but they are wrong: water vapor is. (1) Clouds can have two types of feedback in global warming: positive or negative.
Positive feedback: Some warming leads to a decrease in clouds due to the increase of the atmosphere’s ability to hold more dispersed evaporated vapor. (2) This decrease in clouds, leads to more Sun radiation reaching Earth’s surface and, thus, in an increase in warming. (3)
Negative feedback: Warming leads to an increase in clouds which act as a shield for Sun’s radiation, thus leading to less warming. (3)
Now here comes the important part: IPCC takes for granted that the clouds have POSITIVE feedback. This assumption makes all of their climate models show this relation between the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and to changes in radiation flux (4):
Now let’s take a look at the actual data we have from satellite measurements (4):
See also here or here on why the clouds have negative feedback after all or here for how scientists are starting to realize the mistake from IPCC. Could it be possible that cloud feedback is dependent on the area we analyze? (see here)
Get it?
IPCC is using climate models which do not model the climate correctly (5). And then they go on and attribute their wrong models poor performance to human made warming that (supposedly) their models did not predict!
Every time you look at a temperature increase diagram, pay attention to its scale (is the increase so HUGE or have we just magnified a small change?), check which are the uncertainty bounds in the diagram (could it be possible that within the error limits we do not have any change?), but MOST IMPORTANTLY: LEARN THE ASSUMPTION ON WHICH THE DIAGRAM IS BASED!
Assumptions rule our world.
Assumptions rule science.
Assumptions rule philosophy.
And when we forget we use them, they turn into a much more dangerous thing: DOGMAS.
But WHY? Why would anyone use wrong assumptions in such a way? Does Al Gore want our good?
The reason is simple: Money & Politics!
One could think of many potential reasons to promote a “anthropogenic climate change” agenda. Gain money through the CO2 stock exchange. Gain money through the new policies imposed all over the world for new cars, houses etc. A perfect excuse to keep developing countries… developing! Or the opposite: A good excuse to stop US from growing more and give China the chance to be No.1. It all depends on how you look at it. The fact is that everyone is pushing their own agenda here. Science is the least of their worries.
Science has lost its innocence a long time now.
And it is difficult to earn back something like that…
From that point of view, the world is really becoming cold. Too cold…
Additional sources against the climate change (a.k.a. “humans make the planet warm”) hypothesis…
“Against ecology” main articles list
