Mitt Romney is actually a pretty good example. He made his money basically as a corporate raider: buying healthy or slightly struggling corporations, firing everybody, and selling off their assets for a profit.
Short-term profits for a few versus long-term profits for many is both societally and economically dysfunctional; there is extremely good justification for calling it "evil". And it was certainly purposeful.
" There is no purposeful evil behind it; it has made a few people very, very wealthy. That's all."
Of course there's purposeful evil behind it. Some people like money. Others like power. Others like both. And many of them will do a great deal of evil to get it.
But encouraging someone is not always appropriate. In those cases, negative feedback can be perfectly justified. (E.g., "With all due respect, sir, if you allow your dog to defecate in my flower bed again, you will cease to own a dog.")
That might not have been a great example, even though it does illustrate the point.
I will put it a different way.
Let's say you're a professor, who has come to realize that his student's papers closely follow Sturgeon's Law (that is: 90% of them are crap).
So when a new semester rolls around, and his new students are turning in their first assignments, he scarcely bothers to look at them. Because he knows that they're all 90% crap. (I pulled a subtle switch on you here, in case you didn't notice.)
But later he realizes that a couple of the papers are real feats of genius, that might actually transform the field. (Maybe not likely, but possible.)
Because, see, although it is true that 90% of them were crap, you cannot judge them individually by that statistic. 90% of them in bulk may be worthless, but that says nothing about THIS paper you have in your hand. The statistic is worthless for judging it. The only way you will know for sure how good THAT paper is -- even if it is by someone you are familiar with and despise -- is to actually read the contents of the paper. Trying to assign the bulk statistic to the individual instance beforehand is simply not valid procedure. It doesn't work. Ask any statistician.
"However claims that mainstream science is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress some bit of research makes it more likely to be pseudo-science, because (far) more often than not the claims are false."
You are confusing raw probability with evidence. They are two very different things.
This is precisely why racial profiling doesn't work. Let's just say hypothetically (without going into details of demographics which are irrelevant to the argument): 30% of the crime in Neighborhood A is committed by black people.
That statistic says NOTHING about THIS particular black person whom you just met in Neighborhood A.
Without much more information, you cannot attribute mass probabilities to specific events. It is invalid to do so.
His "priority" happened to be restrictions on abortion, which I have already stated I do not support.
But I was not discussing his priorities; I felt it was pretty clear that you were implying he was a hypocrite, by attaching riders while at the same time introducing bills that would eliminate riders.
But there is in fact nothing hypocritical about it. He was given a set of rules (the Senate rules, that is), and he is trying to change them for the better. In the meantime, he plays by the existing rules, which he did not make. There is nothing contradictory about that.
" And "skeptic" theories tend to hit in the 30-50ish% range, depending on the extent to which they allege conspiracy."
Alleging conspiracy is not a valid measure of pseudoscience. While it is true that popular culture derides those who they perceive to be "conspiracy theorists", alleging conspiracy has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying science. Nor, for that matter, is a bald allegation any evidence either for or against any actual conspiracy.
While it is fun to laugh at such theories, it is important to remember that the actual historical record contains a huge number of documented and proven conspiracies, many small, but also many great.
"Would this be the same Senator Paul who insists on tacking abortion riders onto flood insurance bills?"
While I don't support his position on abortion, you can hardly blame him for playing by the existing rules, while he is in the process of trying to change them for the better.
Otherwise, he might as well just quit and go home, and you will never see those rules get better.
I tend to believe rather like Thomas Jefferson, I think, on this matter.
"I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged." -- Thomas Jefferson
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
(But of course we have the objection that certain "religions" have done those very things, even today. In which case we might rightly oppose them.)
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
"Politeness" does not mean no negative feedback... and never has.
One can be polite, and even friendly, while still giving negative feedback. This "no negative feedback" bullshit is a result of those defunct social theories that we had to bolster kids' self-esteem at the cost of truth.
As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been a significant problem. As polite as societies have been in the past, negative feedback has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a problem.
"My guess, current measures of intelligence seem to attempt to measure more knowledge than problem solving and cognitive association strategies."
Actually, they don't.
Achievement tests, such as the SAT for example are exactly as you say. But they are not "intelligence tests". They are, just as they are labeled, "achievement tests". They are two very different things.
Good intelligence tests, on the other hand (and there are some that are recognized as good correlators that improve over time, like the Stanford-Binet and a number of others) do their best to try to measure "pure" problem-solving skills.
Naturally, even these have to assume some kind of language knowledge and cultural background. There is no avoiding it. But that isn't what they primarily measure for. On the contrary: they try to eliminate those factors as much as they possibly can.
"Well if that is true they are already more accurate than IQ tests."
Not really. Modern IQ tests are very consistent, and obviously measure SOMETHING. The only question is exactly what they measure.
Good IQ tests do correlate quite well (FAR better than 20-some percent; closer to 80 or 90) with certain abilities. However, those abilities do not them always correlate with other things you might expect. (Past a couple of standard deviations, for example, IQ continues to correlate very well with certain problem-solving abilities, but ceases to correlate with overall success in life, as measured by things such as income or happiness.)
But here you have exactly the same problem. They are claiming to measure "intelligence", but the best measure of intelligence we have so far is IQ. So presumably these correlate too. But since they only claim to have found 21.7% of the cause, this isn't anywhere near as good as a decent IQ test.
Seems like a pretty big gap... they're saying they've identified 3 factors that together make up (if they can be believed) about 21.7% of the "variation in intelligence". So where's the other 78.3%?
I'm not criticizing their results. Maybe they are correct. But it still isn't saying a hell of a lot.
" it is tiny, scared writing, appealing to easy fears."
Please give me an example of a horror story that has not been.
But aside from the fact that these are essentially HORROR STORIES, INTENDED TO SCARE -- which is what horror stories do, if they're any good -- Crichton is not anti-science. It is easy to believe he is... if you never read his forewords or afterwords.
"Even the future potential return could be done just as easily in the future when it can readily exploited rather than now when nobody has a clue what fusion technologies will actually work out."
This is patent (no pun intended) nonsense.
Um... excuse me... but you have to DO THE RESEARCH first, to find out which fusion technologies will work, before you can put money into the winner(s).
While Crichton may have put it in terms of profit motive, the themes in his book actually tend to be centered around greed, which is not the same thing.
However, whether Crichton mentions it or not, a theme that is just as common in his books (though not universal), and goes all the way back to The Andromeda Strain, is: "Be careful when you mess with Mother Nature, because living things have a knack for escaping their cages."
And I think that is one of his more prophetic themes, because we have actually SEEN it happen, again and again, from invasive species to biology lab breaches to GMO crops.
Don't let anybody try to tell you otherwise: those recent virulent-flu experiments were dangerous beyond the capabilities of the containment facilities in which they occurred. They should never have been allowed... but of course, authorities didn't hear about them until they were a fait accompli.
"Not that I don't think that ethically, that's great, but it's also utterly unenforceable. How is someone going to prove he or she was denied employment because a hiring manager or HR checked out content on Myfacetwiitter?"
That's exactly the same kind of problem faced by victims of racial or other discrimination. How does one prove it? It isn't always an easy thing. Nevertheless, it's probably better to have the law, than not.
One thing it DOES do, though, that can be easily enforced: it prevents employers from demanding access credentials to your accounts. They can't ask. It's illegal.
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Mitt Romney is actually a pretty good example. He made his money basically as a corporate raider: buying healthy or slightly struggling corporations, firing everybody, and selling off their assets for a profit.
Short-term profits for a few versus long-term profits for many is both societally and economically dysfunctional; there is extremely good justification for calling it "evil". And it was certainly purposeful.
" There is no purposeful evil behind it; it has made a few people very, very wealthy. That's all."
Of course there's purposeful evil behind it. Some people like money. Others like power. Others like both. And many of them will do a great deal of evil to get it.
I would explain that we all have our talents, it just sometimes takes time to find the right one. Then encourage her to find one.
But encouraging someone is not always appropriate. In those cases, negative feedback can be perfectly justified. (E.g., "With all due respect, sir, if you allow your dog to defecate in my flower bed again, you will cease to own a dog.")
That might not have been a great example, even though it does illustrate the point.
I will put it a different way.
Let's say you're a professor, who has come to realize that his student's papers closely follow Sturgeon's Law (that is: 90% of them are crap).
So when a new semester rolls around, and his new students are turning in their first assignments, he scarcely bothers to look at them. Because he knows that they're all 90% crap. (I pulled a subtle switch on you here, in case you didn't notice.)
But later he realizes that a couple of the papers are real feats of genius, that might actually transform the field. (Maybe not likely, but possible.)
Because, see, although it is true that 90% of them were crap, you cannot judge them individually by that statistic. 90% of them in bulk may be worthless, but that says nothing about THIS paper you have in your hand. The statistic is worthless for judging it. The only way you will know for sure how good THAT paper is -- even if it is by someone you are familiar with and despise -- is to actually read the contents of the paper. Trying to assign the bulk statistic to the individual instance beforehand is simply not valid procedure. It doesn't work. Ask any statistician.
"However claims that mainstream science is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress some bit of research makes it more likely to be pseudo-science, because (far) more often than not the claims are false."
You are confusing raw probability with evidence. They are two very different things.
This is precisely why racial profiling doesn't work. Let's just say hypothetically (without going into details of demographics which are irrelevant to the argument): 30% of the crime in Neighborhood A is committed by black people.
That statistic says NOTHING about THIS particular black person whom you just met in Neighborhood A.
Without much more information, you cannot attribute mass probabilities to specific events. It is invalid to do so.
Because you can't combine them. Votes to change the rules of the Senate itself require a different percentage majority than "regular" bills.
The existing rules make it easier to filibuster any bill that proposes to change the Senate rules.
His "priority" happened to be restrictions on abortion, which I have already stated I do not support.
But I was not discussing his priorities; I felt it was pretty clear that you were implying he was a hypocrite, by attaching riders while at the same time introducing bills that would eliminate riders.
But there is in fact nothing hypocritical about it. He was given a set of rules (the Senate rules, that is), and he is trying to change them for the better. In the meantime, he plays by the existing rules, which he did not make. There is nothing contradictory about that.
" And "skeptic" theories tend to hit in the 30-50ish% range, depending on the extent to which they allege conspiracy."
Alleging conspiracy is not a valid measure of pseudoscience. While it is true that popular culture derides those who they perceive to be "conspiracy theorists", alleging conspiracy has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying science. Nor, for that matter, is a bald allegation any evidence either for or against any actual conspiracy.
While it is fun to laugh at such theories, it is important to remember that the actual historical record contains a huge number of documented and proven conspiracies, many small, but also many great.
"Would this be the same Senator Paul who insists on tacking abortion riders onto flood insurance bills?"
While I don't support his position on abortion, you can hardly blame him for playing by the existing rules, while he is in the process of trying to change them for the better.
Otherwise, he might as well just quit and go home, and you will never see those rules get better.
"I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged." -- Thomas Jefferson
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
(But of course we have the objection that certain "religions" have done those very things, even today. In which case we might rightly oppose them.)
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
"Politeness" does not mean no negative feedback... and never has.
One can be polite, and even friendly, while still giving negative feedback. This "no negative feedback" bullshit is a result of those defunct social theories that we had to bolster kids' self-esteem at the cost of truth.
As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been a significant problem. As polite as societies have been in the past, negative feedback has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a problem.
"My guess, current measures of intelligence seem to attempt to measure more knowledge than problem solving and cognitive association strategies."
Actually, they don't.
Achievement tests, such as the SAT for example are exactly as you say. But they are not "intelligence tests". They are, just as they are labeled, "achievement tests". They are two very different things.
Good intelligence tests, on the other hand (and there are some that are recognized as good correlators that improve over time, like the Stanford-Binet and a number of others) do their best to try to measure "pure" problem-solving skills.
Naturally, even these have to assume some kind of language knowledge and cultural background. There is no avoiding it. But that isn't what they primarily measure for. On the contrary: they try to eliminate those factors as much as they possibly can.
Since the only halfway reliable means we have today of measuring intelligence is with IQ tests, they are, for this purpose, the same things.
If their tests do not correlate well with IQ scores, then they are probably worthless.
"Well if that is true they are already more accurate than IQ tests."
Not really. Modern IQ tests are very consistent, and obviously measure SOMETHING. The only question is exactly what they measure.
Good IQ tests do correlate quite well (FAR better than 20-some percent; closer to 80 or 90) with certain abilities. However, those abilities do not them always correlate with other things you might expect. (Past a couple of standard deviations, for example, IQ continues to correlate very well with certain problem-solving abilities, but ceases to correlate with overall success in life, as measured by things such as income or happiness.)
But here you have exactly the same problem. They are claiming to measure "intelligence", but the best measure of intelligence we have so far is IQ. So presumably these correlate too. But since they only claim to have found 21.7% of the cause, this isn't anywhere near as good as a decent IQ test.
"Intelligence would be testing the effect of fire on something less critical than your finger in order to discover its nature."
Yes, exactly. Like watching carefully when someone ELSE puts their finger in the fire.
Seems like a pretty big gap... they're saying they've identified 3 factors that together make up (if they can be believed) about 21.7% of the "variation in intelligence". So where's the other 78.3%?
I'm not criticizing their results. Maybe they are correct. But it still isn't saying a hell of a lot.
" it is tiny, scared writing, appealing to easy fears."
Please give me an example of a horror story that has not been.
But aside from the fact that these are essentially HORROR STORIES, INTENDED TO SCARE -- which is what horror stories do, if they're any good -- Crichton is not anti-science. It is easy to believe he is... if you never read his forewords or afterwords.
"Even the future potential return could be done just as easily in the future when it can readily exploited rather than now when nobody has a clue what fusion technologies will actually work out."
This is patent (no pun intended) nonsense.
Um... excuse me... but you have to DO THE RESEARCH first, to find out which fusion technologies will work, before you can put money into the winner(s).
It just doesn't work the other way around.
While Crichton may have put it in terms of profit motive, the themes in his book actually tend to be centered around greed, which is not the same thing.
However, whether Crichton mentions it or not, a theme that is just as common in his books (though not universal), and goes all the way back to The Andromeda Strain, is: "Be careful when you mess with Mother Nature, because living things have a knack for escaping their cages."
And I think that is one of his more prophetic themes, because we have actually SEEN it happen, again and again, from invasive species to biology lab breaches to GMO crops.
Don't let anybody try to tell you otherwise: those recent virulent-flu experiments were dangerous beyond the capabilities of the containment facilities in which they occurred. They should never have been allowed... but of course, authorities didn't hear about them until they were a fait accompli.
Crichton was trying to make a point with his Jurassic Park novels. It was a cautionary tale about "the law of unintended consequences".
Or maybe a bit closer to Jethro Tull.
"This is all (broadly) folk metal, and unfortunately isn't very popular outside Germany and Scandinavia"
That's because it's just Led Zepplin warmed over.
"Pachelbel's Canon has eight notes..."
Try doing a 4-voice canon with more, and making it listenable by anyone who isn't tone-deaf. Good luck.
Plus, it must be said that those notes are played in different octaves, at different times, by different instruments.
Most modern music can't even stretch high enough to kiss its ass.
"Not that I don't think that ethically, that's great, but it's also utterly unenforceable. How is someone going to prove he or she was denied employment because a hiring manager or HR checked out content on Myfacetwiitter?"
That's exactly the same kind of problem faced by victims of racial or other discrimination. How does one prove it? It isn't always an easy thing. Nevertheless, it's probably better to have the law, than not.
One thing it DOES do, though, that can be easily enforced: it prevents employers from demanding access credentials to your accounts. They can't ask. It's illegal.