Tag: research funding

Science, money and politics: An unholy bond.

Science and politics…

A group of the world’s leading experts in science, medicine and economics threw their support behind Hillary Clinton in the recent elections. [1] After Trump was elected, almost all known scientific magazines started publishing articles about how everything will be… destroyed because the republican nominee was elected. All of these catastrophy scenarios were mainly related to issues of high poltical tensions like climate change and abortions, where mainstream science has decided to take a stance against the republican and in favor the liberal way of thinking. [2, 3, 4, 5, 8] After all, as Popular Science said in an article before the election, the most important speech of Hilary Clinton was the one where she stated the impressive “I believe in science” motto. [6] Even philosophy pages and sites started bashing the President-elect for his… irrationality. [7] As if they have a specific objective magical way of defining what is logical and what not. As if the one thing thousands of years of philosophy has taught us is not the simple fact that logic is subjective. Scientific pages warn us how easily we accept wrong information without thinking first. [9] Of course “wrong” information about illegal immigrants is on top of the list. Because science today is not science. It is a weapon used by politics for specific agendas. No, Trump will not be “horrible” for the planet. [10]

Let’s not forget that the most cited scientific paper for 2016 was a paper written by… liberal president Obama! A paper which was published in a peer reviewed journal without being… peer reviewed. [11] Science and politics are not just linked together. They literally feed from one another.

Examples of other cases science interferes with politics

  • Scientists call for Trump to abide by Iran nuclear deal. (source) [2017-01-05]: Why and how could scientists have an opinion on such a hot political issue? What is their case? Why should they even care?
  • Bill Nye speaking about why the Science March and science in general should be political (against right-wing ideas of course) (source) [2017-04-19]
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking against the conservatives (while trying to conceal the fact that he speaks against conservatives) (source) [+ why leftists are cherry picking science to support their arguments] [2017-04-21]
  • Why it’s not partisan to march for science. (source) [28/4/2017]
  • Climate change may be upping your risk of diabetes. (source) [28/4/2017]

22overbye10-master675

Science and money…

At the same time the party of scientific projects funding continues. The examples are numerous and all have similar characteristics: A grand scientific goal, usually paired with grand project cost and effort overruns and grand delays. Of course such details matter not since the owner of the project is… “Science”. Take a look at the Webb telescope case. [11] From an initially projected cost of $500 million, it has now reached… $8.7 billion after 20 years in the making. Or take a look at CERN, which costs billions of dollars only to work for some months and then… close again for maintenance. [12] Cost and effort overruns and delays which would be more than enough to end any serious project. But not a “science” project. Not a project shielded by the dominant religion of our times. And of course who can forget the other great fashion of our times… ecology! Billions of dollars spent for solid and well-defined goals such as “The salvation of the planet”, which most of the times means funding small unknown “non-profit” (this is where you laugh) organizations in order to plant 10 trees somewhere and feed their army of employees for ever. (example)

Science and the ruling class…

Two phenomenally irrelevant cases: One for the relationship of science with politics and one for the relationship of science with money. But are they irrelevant? Actually no. They are not. They are actually highly relevant. Science, money and politics make the triangle which is at the core of ruling the world today.

And how could it be otherwise? Politics is built on money. And money is built on whatever controls the masses. Science has for along time been at the forefront of modern civilization as the method to reach “truth”, despite the warnings of philosophy that such a notion is not only elusive but also may not even exist at all (at least not in the objective way we believe). A byproduct of modern philosophically uneducated human arrogance and ignorance, faith in science has been the perfect way to manipulate the masses into what the ruling class thinks is important.

“The scientists say so”…

“Science says so”…

Anyone not adhering to the new religion of science (a.k.a. “scientism”) is automatically tagged as irrational, uneducated, illogical and so on. It takes little education in the actual nature of philosophy and science in order to discover the irrelevance of the latter with the notion of “truth” whatsoever. And it takes minimum education in real world politics in order to understand that science has diminished from a tool to model reality (as it was before the advent of the infamous “war” between religion and science in the 18th century) to a primitive tool of controlling people.

Take not my word for it…

Just follow the billions…

Harmonia Philosophica said so.

Related articles

Stem cells therapies. Stem cells marketing stunts.

An injured knee can cost a pro football player millions of dollars, or even an entire career. MIT Technology Review reports that, in an effort to regrow cartilage and heal injured tissue quickly, hundreds of players are injecting bone marrow cells into their knees and hips. Evidence is weak that the procedure actually works and, as with all unproven stem cell therapies, there could be risks involved. Just ask the lady who grew a bone in her eyelid after getting (illegal) cosmetic stem cell injections.

“We don’t really know exactly what it does, biologically”, orthopedic surgeon Freddie Fu told Tech Review. (1)

Science uses stem cells therapies as a promo for more research funding.
But on the other hand warns against stem cell therapies.
Marketing is good. As long as people do not die.
But how can you advocate for something if you do not believe in it? What kind of religion warns against practicing its own practices for fear of death?
Practices that are funded by the very same people (a.k.a. “taxes”) who are willing to take a chance and try these new therapies?
There was a time when science and religion was one thing.
There was a time when people believed in themselves.
Now we only believe in money.
And we just do not care about people.
As long as they are alive.
As long as they give us their money…

Science philanthropists. Religion priests. Non religion.

Charles T. Munger has been known for many things over his decades-long career, including longtime business partner of Warren E. Buffett; successful investor and lawyer; and plain-spoken commentator with a wide following.

Now Mr. Munger, 90, can add another title to that list: deep-pocketed benefactor to the field of theoretical physics.

He has donated $65 million to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The gift — the largest in the school’s history — will go toward building a 61-bed residence for visitors to the institute, which brings together physicists for weeks at a time to exchange ideas. (1)

Another “philanthropist”.

Giving money to something he does not understand.
For some other people to do things he does not understand.
For analyzing models, building machines and theorizing about nothingness and it’s powers…

Just because it is called “science”.

There was a time when religion ruled the world.
People gave money to priests.
For things they did not understand either…
Too bad people believed because they just had to believe.
Just because it was called “religion”.

Then came a Man who just spoke.
Not for religion or science.
Just for love and forgiveness.
This Man did not require money.
This Man just… died.

Between religions, choose wisely.
Non-religion is the quintessence and the most powerful of them all…

“Philanthropists”, science funding, love, care…

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…

Unitarity axiom, research funding & Science as the new religion!

Unitarity axiom.

In quantum physics, unitarity is a restriction on the allowed evolution of quantum systems that ensures the sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of any event is always 1.

More precisely, the operator which describes the progress of a physical system in time must be a unitary operator. When the Hamiltonian is time-independent the unitary operator is e^{-i \hat{H} t}.

Similarly, the S-matrix that describes how the physical system changes in a scattering process must be a unitary operator as well; this implies the optical theorem.

In quantum field theory one usually uses a mathematical description which includes unphysical fundamental particles, such as longitudinal photons. These particles must not appear as the end-states of a scattering process. Unitarity of the S-matrix and the optical theorem in particular implies that such unphysical particles must not appear as virtual particles in intermediate states. The mathematical machinery which is used to ensure this includes gauge symmetry and sometimes also Faddeev–Popov ghosts. (Sources: 1, 2 / Greek: Μοναδιστικό αξίωμα. Greek sources: 3, 4, 5)

And what are Faddeev–Popov ghosts?

In physics, Faddeev–Popov ghosts (also called ghost fields) are additional fields which are introduced into gauge quantum field theories to maintain the consistency of the path integral formulation. They are named after Ludvig Faddeev and Victor Popov. (6)

Quantum mechanics.

Full of axioms and meaningless notions!
Full of things that we KNOW they cannot exist and yet they are used in order to make the axioms work!

But do not dare to judge the scientists involved in this field!
You do NOT know! They DO!

Period.

The Faddeev–Popov ghosts are watching you, you ignorant tax-paying-research-funding citizen…

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