Question.
Is Praxeology a science, by which I mean a methodology for the purpose of extending and testing our reason and perception by reducing that which we cannot sense or perceive to analogies to experience. Or is Praxeology a form of logic, like mathematics, or reason? And, is praxeology complete?
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-23 20:39:00 UTC
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/entire-neanderthal-genome-finally-mapped-amazing-results-001138DIFFERENCES BETWEEN US AND NEANDERTHALS:
96 Genes. Immunity and Brain (ie: more suggestion of the Dopaninergenic theory has some legs)
“Only 96 genes responsible for making proteins in cells are different between modern humans and Neanderthals. Intriguingly, some of the gene differences involve ones involved in both immune responses and the development of brain cells in people. Somewhere within these 96 genes may lay the answer to why Neanderthals and Denisovans became extinct.”
I ALREADY KNOW WHY THEY WENT EXTINCT: WE ATE THEM.
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-23 15:32:00 UTC
ADVOCACY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE
Sorry. The state has created the problem of bad science like it has created almost all other ‘bads’ in our society.
Advocacy is the job of public intellectuals.
Facts are the job of scientists.
Skepticism is the job of citizens.
Judith Curry’s blog is fascinating to read – the moral hazard of scientific advocacy is inescapable, but there are a thousand regulatory prognostications a day, none of which will make any difference. People follow incentives. And advocacy makes for bad science. Books are the only advocacy that science appears to make possible. Papers are merely property claims on intellectual products. The are IP rights for ideas among scholars, scientists, and academics.
Advocacy is advertising for grant money.
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-23 08:43:00 UTC
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100251229/passive-smoking-another-of-the-nanny-states-big-lies/OBVIOUS. UNPLEASANT. BUT THAT’S IT.
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-22 05:54:00 UTC
INTERESTING THOUGHT ON THE FUTURE
We know that the vast majority of people rebel against operational language, science, liberty, property rights, risks to their identity and status. We know, as my friend Adam Voight keeps reminding me, that meritocracy is painful for those who can’t or dont’ desire to compete in it. And that they need a way out.
Now, if property rights basically forbid free riding and rent seeking, and forbid illusions about our value to others. If propertarian and praxeological language forbid or ability to steal by political means. If Science and naturalistic philosophy forbid our ability to lie to ourselves to seek comfort. If even MORE property is transferred from material to abstract objects, thereby prohibiting theft. If governments can see into every aspect of our lives, and forbid us our vents. IF rather than just prevent the vent of violence. What if governments prevent the vent of self deception? If.. they cause us to confront reality, absent all the comforting lies we tell each other?
I can’t believe that this state of affairs is possible. I only believe that the government bureaucracy will profit from trying to MAKE it possible.
And I think I know what that means.
It is an interesting way to look at what a polity will tolerate.
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-15 10:31:00 UTC
THE POSTMODERN PERVERSION
“My own field has certainly not been immune to the postmodern perversion; and some might argue that it was actually psychiatry and psychology which unleashed the “therapeutic psychobabble” that has become the predominant vehicle of postmodern rhetoric, with its emphasis on self-esteem, feelings, multiculturalism, political correctness, and the eternal entitlement of endless victimhood.
In the postmodern world, reason, truth and reality are mere subjective constructs and nothing is absolute; what happened in the past is to be interpreted only by the standards of the moment; and morality is also relative, except when you are a member of an approved victimhood group and are automatically granted absolute moral authority (except in certain cases, apparently).”
– Victor Davis Hanson
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-08 09:08:00 UTC
“In trying to get votes for the Superconducting Super Collider, I was very much involved in lobbying members of Congress, testifying to them, bothering them, and I never heard any of them talk about postmodernism or social constructivism; you have to be VERY learned to be THAT wrong.” — Steven Weinberg
Source date (UTC): 2013-12-06 13:58:00 UTC
THE COGNITIVE BIASES OF THE EMPIRICAL FIELDS? (question) (see The Smart Fraction Theory of IQ and the Wealth of Nations at www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com) What is the difference in the the cognitive biases of the different disciplines? 1) Engineering and engineers 2) Computer science and computer scientists, 3) Economics and economists (statistics) 4) Physics and physicists 5) Mathematics and mathematicians? How would you stack-rank these five by: i) The weight given to understanding of human hubris vs human rationality? ii) The use of obscurant versus operational language iii) The use of platonist versus naturalistic language. iv) The requirement that people adapt to new knowledge, versus adapt technology to suit the needs and wants of people? v) The tendency to favor statist versus libertarian solutions? ON IQ Now, we have to understand some variations in the data. Mostly it’s a hierarchy of IQ. But Economists usually skew lower than the other disciplines because a) they are paid less, and b) the criteria for what is called an economics degree varies a lot. (It is very hard to make less than 100K as a computer scientist. It is very easy to make 150K. And not difficult to make 200K.) Given the damned rigor of the discipline I find this sort of thing interesting. DISCLAIMER I am educated as a fine artist, in Art Theory. (The philosophy of art and art history). Essentially as an art critic. Art just isn’t generally good enough to critique any more. Although the art-craft movement is still creative and beautiful. The movie business is the great sucking sound for artistic talent in America. And art has become a lower middle class occupation with an upper proletarian work force. It is not in the least bit aristocratic.
THE COGNITIVE BIASES OF THE EMPIRICAL FIELDS? (question) (see The Smart Fraction Theory of IQ and the Wealth of Nations at www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com) What is the difference in the the cognitive biases of the different disciplines? 1) Engineering and engineers 2) Computer science and computer scientists, 3) Economics and economists (statistics) 4) Physics and physicists 5) Mathematics and mathematicians? How would you stack-rank these five by: i) The weight given to understanding of human hubris vs human rationality? ii) The use of obscurant versus operational language iii) The use of platonist versus naturalistic language. iv) The requirement that people adapt to new knowledge, versus adapt technology to suit the needs and wants of people? v) The tendency to favor statist versus libertarian solutions? ON IQ Now, we have to understand some variations in the data. Mostly it’s a hierarchy of IQ. But Economists usually skew lower than the other disciplines because a) they are paid less, and b) the criteria for what is called an economics degree varies a lot. (It is very hard to make less than 100K as a computer scientist. It is very easy to make 150K. And not difficult to make 200K.) Given the damned rigor of the discipline I find this sort of thing interesting. DISCLAIMER I am educated as a fine artist, in Art Theory. (The philosophy of art and art history). Essentially as an art critic. Art just isn’t generally good enough to critique any more. Although the art-craft movement is still creative and beautiful. The movie business is the great sucking sound for artistic talent in America. And art has become a lower middle class occupation with an upper proletarian work force. It is not in the least bit aristocratic.
SLOWLY THE DARK ENLIGHTENMENT SPREADS Another social science academic concludes that there is little there there. Writing in 1942, the Oxford Professor of Metaphysics, RG Collingwood, said that dismissing academic discussion for insignificant speech is like “scolding little girls for giving dolls’ tea-parties with empty cups and little boys for playing with wooden swords.” Academic discussions, he added, “belong to the world of make-believe.” Collingwood was specifically talking about my field, political philosophy, as it is done in universities. Reflecting on his words over the last year, I’ve begun to realise how right he was. –Craig Newmark, Newmark’s Door. COMMENT ————- The fallacy of common interest. The fallacy of common ends. The necessity of common means of achieving opposing interests and ends. The enlightenment vision of man was false. It is not mysterious that deliberation over public choice is nonsense, if it is predicated on nonsensical assumptions about the nature of man. The market, noy politics, is the only mechanism for cooperating peacefully on means despite conflicting and irreconcilable ends. WELCOM BACK FROM THE MATRIX INTO THE REAL WORLD. Aristocracy.