Beyond the fact that many baseball fans LOVE to disagree with the ump, part of the game includes pitcher, catcher, and batsman working out where the ump is seeing the strike zone that day. Meanwhile, the pitcher tries to slowly expand the ump's strike zone, the catcher tries to frame the pitch as a strike and the batsman tries to crowd the plate and shrink the strike zone. The pitcher then tries to brush the batsman back. All of that gameplay is lost is a computer and cameras call the balls and strikes.
Where does batsman find the time to play baseball? I'm pretty sure Commissioner Gordon doesn't moonlight as a place kicker.
As someone who introduced my ex to Trek a few years back, and who's still in largely into it despite not being together anymore, I took the simple approach of "show the good, skip the crap".
This is good advice; even hard-core nerds would give up their left d20 rather than sit through the dregs of the Trek franchise. Except you left off the Family Guy episode where Stewie kidnaps the cast of TNG. That is mandatory viewing for anyone who has seen more than one episode of TNG.
With my wife, the osmosis approach has worked best. When we can't decide on a movie, I queue up Khan. When it's raining out and we're bored--hey, an excuse to watch the new TNG blu-ray. By the time we saw Star Trek 2009 she was able to figure out that Vulcans must have green blood. On a side note, I was this close to convincing her to let me name our son Jean-Luc (she's French), but my plan backfired when she said "wait a minute, do you really just like that name, or are you seriously trying to name our son after a Star Trek captain?" I said "how do you feel about Tiberius?" She was not amused.
By the same token, there are two types of communism - a pure type where all resources are shared by the people for the good of the people. The other is what we end up with, and is closer to fascism.
Except that no one is arguing for "pure corporatism." Instead, capitalism breeds corporatism which converges on fascist corporatism as corruption takes root. The fallacy of pure communism is that it expects everyone to follow the rules without enforcement. When that fails, government steps in to enforce the rules and eventually becomes corrupt as no one can effectively enforce the rules on the government. The fallacy of pure capitalism is that it expects everyone to follow the lack of rules (i.e., allow market forces to exert themselves completely) without enforcement. When that fails, government steps in to enforce contracts, the concept of ownership, and to underwrite capital itself. The corporate form, which should be the most efficient vehicle for capitalism, then becomes entwined with the government as the distinction between capital and power is erased and the government becomes completely corrupt. This metamorphosis was demonstrated handily by the recent Senate hearings in which the Banking Committee performed public falacio on Jamie Dimon for the better part of the day. Talk about propping up a failed business model with government intervention.
I do work professionally as a scientist and in my experience reasoning skills are not a prerequisite to a successful career. The downside of peer review is that, when implemented poorly, it reinforces group-think. In order to get money for research, you have to convince a group of peers that your proposal is worth funding, which means that they have to be able to follow your reasoning. If the gap between the authors ability to reason and that of the (entire) committee cannot be overcome by the writing skills of the author, the research does not get funded. If, however, the author proposes to water plants with Brondo because "it has what plants crave," then it has a good chance of being funded because we all know that Brondo has electrolytes. These scientists can procure funding but are generally marginalized by the scientific community because they don't contribute a lot of interesting, new science. Fortunately writing skills often scale with the ability to reason--though not always in someone's second language.
Add to that Reel Big Fish. They downplay it on their official bio--so as not to seem too bitter--but they cannot even perform some of their own songs any more because, somehow, a record label owns the rights.
95% of their money goes into investment and the rest is effectively given away to avoid tax. How is that any different from any other corporation other than it obvious makes people think better of them compared to G.E. for example? And on top of it the bulk is going into some pretty awful companies causing all sorts of problems for poor nations.
Would you prefer that they gave away 100% of their assets and then ceased existing? Or should they give 30% away each year and cease existing in a few years? Or maybe it is more sensible to grow their assets by 6% and give 5% away so that ever year 5% comprises a larger absolute amount of money that might even beat inflation? And they certainly could invest in "nicer" companies that make a smaller return, but this way they take money from awful companies and give it to people that need it. Would it be better if that money went into the pockets of a private investor that would use it to lobby congress for more tax loopholes?
Also why do Gates and Buffet largely give away their money to family foundations rather than giving to existing foundations and charities? It's all a con, imo, that makes people think they're awesome.
Maybe because they want a say in how their billions of dollars are spent? I could imagine that Gates and Buffet might be bored of making money and want something productive to do with their wealth and therefore want to be involved. For example, I know first-hand that Gates will come by to "inspect" some of the initiatives that they invest in. I'm not sure that would be possible if he had just dumped a few billion into a random charity.
Instead of investing money in companies which have a low return (and will continue abusing the earth one way or another) he makes the pragmatic decision to put his money into at least capturing the profits of these companies and using their own profits to work against their interests.
Yah, why does everyone here seem to have their underwear in a knot over how the foundation manages its assets? A foundation is just a big pile of cash that can't be used for profit. It certainly would be nice if the Gates Foundation could invest in puppy dogs and ice cream cones, but that isn't the way the world works. Would the readers of Slashdot prefer that the foundation dumped a bunch of money into the Facebook IPO? Oil companies make money. The Gates Foundation takes a piece of that money so it can fund philanthropic work. And the way it is run now, it will exist for a very long time.
I am a chemist, and for 90+% of chemistry (especially at that level), you don't need any math beyond fractions and the ability to count to eight.
What, you have something against transition metals? Seriously though, I too am a chemist and the chemistry sets that were available when I was a kid were great. Even the crystal-growing sets were fun (and making rock candy.) From those I moved on to digging up recipes for smoke bombs and various, uh, combustibles, etc. We lived in a very remote area where you could make a lot of noise without anyone noticing. And that was in the late 80's/early 90's--those sorts of recipes and "fun experiments you can do at home" must be trivial to find now. The great thing was that they explained the actual chemistry that was taking place, so I learned about redox reactions, combustion, colloids, etc. by accident. I would write up bizarre shopping lists and ask my mom to drop by the drug store while we were out getting groceries. While I would never, ever let my son do this, I used to make flammable gels and light my hands/feet on fire and them jump in the creek when it got too hot. I made homemade fireworks, hydrogen-filled balloons--all kinds of fun stuff that I would later get paid to do in a fume hood.
If you break the educational results down by state, you will see that yes, yes there are.
As long as you don't make the mistake of living outside one of the civilized zones, you can actually see results pretty similar to the wealthy bits of Europe and even parts of Asia. Certain other states, by consistently achieving results that make you wonder if they are actually telecommuting from some hellish African warzone, really drag us down...
In my experience this disparity is spot-on and frighteningly so. I was educated in a cow pasture of a public high school where about a quarter of my graduating class was already at boot camp by graduation and art, music, and science funding were cut before even considering touching football or wrestling. Years later, as a graduate student in Los Angeles, I was involved in various mentoring programs for high school students and teachers. The students from public schools in Santa Monica and the Palisades (i.e., very wealthy areas) were just polishing their resumes before starting at Stanford or Harvard in the Fall. Most of their teachers had PhDs. The teachers that we mentored came instead from the other parts of LA Unified where graduation rates were below 50% and schools spent money on metal detectors and fences. We even had to supply them with the teaching materials for the workshops because it would otherwise have come from their own pockets. Their students' ambitions included staying out of jail and learning to read. And that was just the difference in one county.
It is a lost fight, especially in a world in which the future looks increasingly likely to be much bleaker than the past, for everybody.
My middle school science teacher was fired after showing the movie version of Roald Dahl's The Witches because "it promoted satanism." It was just a free day in which they showed a movie--not even during science class--and she happened to have picked out the movie. Of course, she was new, and had made the mistake of not letting the fundies skip the parts of science class that they objected to, insisting that religion had nothing to do with science and that they didn't have to believe what she was teaching, but they did have to write it down on the test to get a good grade. That was more than 20 years ago. Things have, apparently, gotten worse. We're doomed.
If they don't agree when you show them the evidence, you're probably just wrong.
You mean like continental drift theory, quasicrystals, evolution, and bacterial peptic ulcers? I'm not disagreeing that consensus is necessary to lend validity to a scientific theory, but science is incredibly skeptical, conservative, and resistant to new ideas; the whole point of science, really, is to keep presenting evidence in the face of doubt. Eventually, if no one can refute your hypothesis with their own evidence, they will grudgingly accept it. The next generation of scientists will then grow up accepting it as fact and doubting an whole new generation of correct ideas.
Another thing to consider with people who lack social skills, is that it could be the lack of social skills that leads them to focus on, say, science, as a compensation or a way to pass the time, rather, than their concentration on science leading to underdeveloped social skills. I'm not saying that's the way it is, just that when seeing a correlation, to be careful about which is the cart and which is the horse.
As a scientist and a person who has worked, for years, around incredibly gifted and incredibly successful people, my observation is that there are two flavors of gifted scientist; one that lacks social skills and one that does not. It has been my experience that the most gifted scientists often lack social skills. Some are assholes, some are recluses, and some are just weird. But they all approach research as a solitary activity for them to focus on--often on a borderline nocturnal schedule--to the exclusion of normal human interaction. Tragically, many of these people fight a constant uphill battle in their careers (particularly the weird recluses) despite publishing creative and insightful Science. The second flavor are, in my opinion, not quite as gifted as the first, but have the social skills to network, land good academic positions, and--most importantly--find funding. They produce a larger volume of publications and do excellent research, but generally focusing on open questions, staying more in the main stream of thought in a particular topic. They also inhabit ivy league departments, make it into panels and boards, win awards, and are generally recognized as incredibly successful. Meanwhile the socially inept scientists pushing boundaries and posing new questions bifurcate between moderate success and winning a Nobel Prize. I think Dan Shechtman is an example of the latter. He also is illustrative of the difference between a crazy person on the fringes of science who is marginalized by consensus thought and a ground-breaking, tenacious scientist--i.e., a Noble Prize.
Are you a gazillionaire? Because the US government doesn't seem to care at all that I have bank accounts in a foreign country
Serious question? If you have any account that it worth more than $10,000 at any point in the year, you are required to report this to the Treasury Department on Form 90-22.1. Unless you are a broke student, you surely have some account (perhaps your retirement savings?) that exceeds this amount. You didn't want to know that, because now you'd better file it. You're welcome...
My father and uncle, who also live abroad (all three of us on different continents though) have run into this problem, bu they have way more money and complex assets and whatnot that I. I was under the impression that the FBAR was for US citizens residing in the US--i.e., to prevent gazillionaires from hiding money in Swiss bank accounts--but reading the IRS website I see now that there is no mention of where you live and it is even worse than you say because it is $10,000 in aggregate. In my case, I keep the bulk of my savings in the US, and between new house and new baby I'm broke as a joke (though I have most certainly failed to file an FBAR when I did have more than $10,000... oops. Let's hope the EU continues to deny the US government access to banking records.) Still, I haven't faced any problems from banks except when trying to secure a mortgage. Since the US and EU banks can't/won't talk to each other, they were worried that I might be hiding the fact that I had been foreclosed on several times and had massive debts in the US... Actually I know an American who did bail on a mortgage when he moved to Europe, and he still got a mortgage, but in my case they put in all kinds of clauses and stipulations despite myself and my wife holding EU citizenship in addition to my American citizenship.
If I were a gazillionaire, the banks might be willing to take a risk; it's precisely the normal folk that get nailed by this stuff. Maybe banks in South America haven't come under fire yet. If not, just wait, I'm sure the IRS will get around to you in a couple of years...
Regarding your assertion that other countries also tax their citizens abroad, look at the Wikipedia article on this topic. You will find a reference to a 1995 Congressional study that showed only the US, the Philippines and Eritrea do this. The Philippines stopped in 1997. Remember: I am referring here to taxing people who live and word abroad long-term. If you are just out of the country temporarily, you are not really a foreign resident.
No, good old South America is still living in the 20th Century in that respect; the governments are still more powerful than the banks. But not for long. I think I see the confusion though; I have been working at universities for the past decade, thus almost all of the foreign nationals in and from various countries are there temporarily. They are still "residents" in the legal sense, but have temporary visas (when required), but you were talking about actual "residents" as in people who have moved permanently. I agree, it is "uniquely American" to tax its citizens even though they've chosen not to reside within its borders.
The US, far from fixing the situation for Americans living abroad, has doubled down. In 2008, Congress passed a law that taxes people when they renounce their citizenship. The goal of this law is "to extract from the expatriate taxes that would have been paid had he remained a citizen" (quote taken from the Wikipedia article referenced above).
You conclusion is right, if a bit cold-blooded: if someone has no intention of returning, why remain a citizen? The thing is: citizenship is tied up with lots of emotions. You grow up somewhere, have family there, etc, etc... More: who knows what the future may bring? In the end, I feel like I am being driven away by idiotic politicians pract
Here's a reference [renunciationguide.com]. Only the US and Eritrea are this dumb.
I've lived abroad for more that 20 years, and I am very tired of filing an ever-increasing number of forms with the US authorities. It's not only the IRS, you also have to file separate forms with a separate agency detailing your foreign bank accounts - which, frankly, is none of their business.
I've lived all over the US, my family is spread around the world (with various nationalities), and I too currently reside outside the US, but my experience has been quite different. I have worked with people from all over the world both in the US and abroad and I can tell you that, at least as of 2004, Israel had the same tax policy is the US; they allowed deductions for foreign income, but citizens living abroad still had to file taxes back home each year. South American countries have similarly aggressive policies. Chile goes as far as to tax foreign residents on their assets and income in their country of origin. In other words, an American seeking residence in Chile must pay "back taxes" on US assets and then pay the Chilean government on future income made outside of Chile. Argentina has similar policies.
And I don't know what you're talking about with banks. Are you a gazillionaire? Because the US government doesn't seem to care at all that I have bank accounts in a foreign country, nor do the banks here care that I have accounts in the US. I get taxed on the income I make in the country in which I live and, since I make less than the foreign exemption (plus exceptions for buying a house abroad, etc.) I pay zero taxes in the US on my foreign income. Plus, the IRS doesn't ask for proof of my foreign income--I suppose I could get audited, but so far they have taken my word for it. I still pay US taxes on assets in the US that make money in the US, but those earnings are not taxed in my country of residence. Thus, as crazy as it sounds to tax people for the "privilege" of being an American, I am not double-taxed and the taxes I do pay go to the country in which the money is earned.
There is also a special rule for US citizens returning from living abroad for less than ~five years in which you can skip filing a US tax return while you live abroad and then do it all-at-once when you return, without paying penalties. But if you've been out of the US for 20 years, I really don't see the point of retaining US citizenship if you never plan to return--what benefits do you get out of it? If a person moves to a foreign country and naturalizes, why should they get to retain citizenship in their country of origin? In fact, naturalizing in a foreign country used to automatically forfeit US citizenship (and I think it still can in some cases.)
The USA is actually the only first world country that even taxes their people while they are living overseas. For example in my country you don't need to pay any taxes back home if you live in another country for more than 6 months.
That is just not true. Israel (at least as of 2004) has essentially the exact same policy. Chile as well, and there are many others. (In fact, Chile even taxes foreign residents on income in their country of origin.) Europe is the big exception to that rule, which was in fact one of Sarkozy's arguments against Hollande's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy. He said that Hollande would cause French "job creators" to move to Switzerland and Germany, which would cost France jobs and hurt the middle class. Hmm, where have I heard that before?
And let's be clear about how the US taxes its citizens abroad. If you are a regular Joe Schmo and you move to a foreign country for work, the US allows you to exempt the first ~$100,000 of your foreign income from your US taxes. You can even increase that deduction if you purchase a home with a mortgage in your country of residence. What the US does not allow you to exempt are capital gains and certain types of income that are generated in the US while your are living abroad that are not taxed by your country of residence. For instance, if you earn money on commercial real estate in California while living in Luxembourg, California and the IRS will tax you on that income, but Luxembourg will not. The system is basically set up to prevent wealthy people from moving out of the US to avoid paying taxes on investments and other rich-people earnings that depend on the US and hiding it in Swiss bank accounts. In other words, ordinary wage-earners who are, for example, relocated by their employer to a foreign company will not pay US taxes on their foreign income, but zillionaires can't escape paying (already ridiculously low) taxes on their capital gains just by moving to the Virgin Islands.
Having said that, US citizenship is really only useful if you plan on living in the US. If I recall correctly, Saverin is Brazilian, so if he wants to live in Singapore then there is no reason to keep US citizenship.
Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up.
I grew up poor with a single mother than worked full time. We moved constantly between cheap rentals--I went to four different elementary schools. She eventually got her nursing degree and we moved up the socioeconomic ladder a bit (this was 30 years ago, when that was still possible). However, my grandparents were homemakers, an electrician, and an orchard worker (an immigrant with a fourth-grade education). One day our heroin-addict neighbors broke into the local high school and stole a microscope. They knew I was a smart, curious kid, and gave one of the microscopes to me. The combination of that microscope, plus the supplies my mom could get from her lab classes at community college--e.g., cover slips and slides--arguably set me on a course to get a PhD in Chemistry. But until I got to college, I didn't even know what a PhD was, really, let alone that there were "science competitions" and "science camps" for more privileged kids. Years later I spent some time at a fancy East Coast university, rubbing elbows with my fellow STEM PhDs only to find out that half of them had known each other for decades via these science fairs and camps and competitions. I felt like a white trash scientist surrounded by fancy people talking about their private schools and secret clubs. (It was inconceivable to them that I had never participated in a science competition.)
What strikes me, though, is how easy I had it compared to kids from even poorer households, with parents that didn't go to nursing school and without loving, supportive grandparents. I don't care how smart you are, if you come from a lower-class, uneducated family and attend public schools in poor districts, you simply won't even be exposed to 90% of the fancy rich-kid stuff that gets them into fancy schools--it is a huge disadvantage in STEM in particular. What really blew my mind, though, was how my colleagues at the fancy East Coast university constantly talked about how disadvantaged they felt and how having a heart surgeon for a father wasn't really an advantage, or how having science profs for parents didn't help them win all those science competitions that I had never heard of. And sure, most of them were super-smart, talented, and hard-working, but it sure seemed to me that I had to be twice as smart to get there without the huge assist from well-educated, upper-class parents.
The bigger problem is that they were given free reign to make this sort of bet (and it was a prop bet, whatever Dimon claims) in the name of hedging. Yes, hedging needs to be possible, but no, we don't need to let (government insured) banks take whatever positions they want to do so. Hedging should always be extremely conservative, and that clearly wasn't the case here. Dimon said it himself when he said the position were put on to make money (and had been in years past).
The biggest problem, IMO, is that they are making these bets with people's savings accounts and pension funds since we let investment and commercial banks merge. I don't care what hedge funds do with rich people's money, but why should the FDIC insure JPM against losses while they get to keep all the profits? The lack of a punitive downside has taken the risk out of risk for these banks.
I can't really understand why you're saying that share price going down on IPO is a troubling signal. During normal operation, sure, but on IPO? It just means that the company didn't undervalue themselves and sell their shares at too low prices.
If I were a shareholder before the IPO and the per share price would had doubled, that would mean half of my potential profit and ownership lost. It's not rocket science. Remember that Facebook fixed their shares price like 8 times to get it to correct level - I'm sure there was tons of people at Facebook trying to evaluate the right price during the last months.
So all in all, it's better for shareholders and Facebook that the price went down instead of up. Otherwise it doesn't really matter. Especially since they already raised that $16 billion on Friday.
I'm sure that what you say makes sense, but as I know little-to-nothing about stocks, can you elaborate for the layman? I understand what you're saying about a falling price meaning that they didn't undervalue the company and therefore maximized the money raised at the IPO; this is good for FB, the company. But It would seem that if an investor buys a stock at X during the IPO, and it is worth 0.06*X now, they've lost X-(X*0.06)+fees. Likewise, if someone owned stock before the IPO and then the price doubled, why does that mean that potential profit is halved, and not doubled? Can they not sell their shares at twice their value and therefore make twice the money? I was under the impression that people with boatloads of stock borrowed against the market value to dodge taxes, so isn't it always better that the stock be worth more in the sense that one can borrow more money against it?
I live in Europe, where we get a grab-bag of American TV shows at various offsets from their original air dates. For example, Dexter just started here a year or two ago, but The Big Bang Theory seems to be almost real time. HBO just started being offered in our market this year, and it seems to run basically the same stuff as in the US, but on a delay. I follow a few TV shows--Game of Thrones Included--but I can't be bothered to figure out when the next episode that I haven't seen is airing in my living room, so I just download everything. Typically shows sit around for days or weeks--less often months or years--before I get around to watching them because I have to travel for work, my schedule fluctuates, and I have an ever-expanding family to entertain me.
So I am technically paying for the right to watch these shows on my TV through the coax cable that comes into my house, just not via the cable modem, and not on-demand (and not without hard-coded subs and commercials for products I will never use). But I am a relentless pirate because TV is a PITA and DVRs are a kludge for something that works incredibly well with a low-power Linux box and some python scripts. With my current setup, I can also stream to my laptop/tablet from just about any hotel WiFi (region blocking prevents me from streaming "legally.") But I don't subscribe to cable because I like handing money over for a service that I don't use; they bundle it with my Internet access which to me feels a bit like an admission that downloading is more facile than watching TV.
I think everyone--even those holding patents for two lifetimes--thinks that current system is nuts. But we have repeatedly seen how monied interests can water down reform efforts that undercut their bottom line and intellectual property makes a lot of money for a lot of people. Our best bet at this point seems to be tech companies getting sick of collecting patents so they can throw lawyers at each other every time they try to release a new product, which certainly stifles innovation.
But maybe patent reformers should use the tactic that has served right-wing politicians so well; push for something so over the top that the watered down version is actually pretty close to what you want. You know, start with a hard five-year limit, no exceptions, and then let them negotiate you down to something more workable, like the gradual reduction that you suggested.
How about we just focus on getting rid of bad patents that don't bring knowledge or insight to society?
...because this is a thought experiment about enacting a hard limit on the protection of intellectual property.
If the five-year clock started ticking when the product was brought to market--i.e., after development and clinical trials--it would circumvent the long lead-time for drugs. The most common argument against reducing the lifetime of drug patents is that the cost would go up and/or that no one would make drugs anymore because the profit margins would be too low and/or innovation would be stifled as "talent" (used to describe MBAs, not PhDs) migrated to more lucrative businesses. I find the latter arguments absurd, much like their cousin, the argument in favor of ridiculously high executive compensation.
Personally I think that five years of the exclusive right to sell is plenty if the composition of matter and other broad drug patents don't change. They allow a company to make minor structural changes, perhaps even something as simple as the counter ion of the protonated form that is packaged for sale, and then re-brand as a new "gotta have it" drug while simultaneously preventing others from selling less-closely related structural analogs. If the patents timed out five years after the drugs went to market, then drug companies would have to rely on marketing and quality assurance instead of lawsuits. It would also allow competitors to start exploring derivatives of a break-through drug much sooner, which would in principle lead to better drugs over all in the same way that the free sharing of results rapidly accelerated semiconductor technology in the early part of the Cold War.
When faced with any disruptive technology or shift in public policy, the arguments pretty much go the same way. Con: time-tested business models will become obsolete, storied corporations will go out of business, the lack of competition will drive prices up, innovation will be stifled--things will be much different than they are now and that is bad. Pro: time-tested business models will have to be re-thought, storied corporations will give way to fast-growing newcomers, competition will drive prices down, innovation will abound--things will be much different than they are now and that is good. Current examples include the film, financial, and health insurance industries. Past examples include the telephone, automobile, and airline industries. I think that you can take any of those as examples supporting either the pro or con position, depending on whether or not you like change.
I spent some time in the Chemistry department at a fancy ivy leave school that seemed designed to crush the spirits of biologists. While we were off drinking beer and playing volleyball against the Physics department, they were toiling night and day on multi-year projects that may or may not generate publishable results. The sick thing is that the outcome was totally decoupled from the abilities of the researchers--it was more like a test of stamina and luck. I saw talented, brilliant people turn into bitter husks. Some gave up on research and wound up teaching at private colleges, others left science completely--and not into fields that used any of their expertise. It seems like a lottery where those that get lucky (or stab the most backs) go on to academic positions at top-tens and the rest end up in rocking back and forth in the corner mumbling to themselves all day.
There are "studies", and then there is observation, modelling, prediction, model testing which is this thing called science. "Studies" are bullshit. Scientific research functions as it should. I believe the OP's article is just a chunck of sensationalist BS, or utterly ignorant of what science is (and is not).
That is not really what TFA is talking about. Daniel Sarewitz is re-phrasing a long-known problem with "studies," as you call them, which is that complex systems are--by definition--too complex to study as a whole. I am a physical scientist, which means that I typically make or measure something in a well-controlled experiment and then change variables in order to test a hypothesis. I can basically publish a paper that says "we tried really, really hard to find it, but it wasn't there." In the life sciences, they are trying to answer vague cause-effect questions like "does this drug affect a particular type of tumor more than a placebo." Thus researchers in those fields have to create models in which they can control variables. He gives the example of mouse models, which are obviously imperfect models for human physiology. How imperfect is the question. The creeping phenomenon that he is addressing is the tendency to relax the standards for what counts as positive evidence--and I'm grossly oversimplifying--by waving your hands around about how mouse models are imperfect, but that there is definitely "a statistically significant trend." The root cause is simply the ridiculous amount of pressure that life science researchers are under to publish, which requires results, because their methodology is standardized. Those poor bastards can spend eight years on a PhD project that goes nowhere or burn four years of their tenure clock figuring out that their experimental design was flawed. *Poof* no funding, no tenure, no degree, time to consider a new career. That sort of potential downside creates the sort of forced-optimism that TFA describes.
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Beyond the fact that many baseball fans LOVE to disagree with the ump, part of the game includes pitcher, catcher, and batsman working out where the ump is seeing the strike zone that day. Meanwhile, the pitcher tries to slowly expand the ump's strike zone, the catcher tries to frame the pitch as a strike and the batsman tries to crowd the plate and shrink the strike zone. The pitcher then tries to brush the batsman back. All of that gameplay is lost is a computer and cameras call the balls and strikes.
Where does batsman find the time to play baseball? I'm pretty sure Commissioner Gordon doesn't moonlight as a place kicker.
As someone who introduced my ex to Trek a few years back, and who's still in largely into it despite not being together anymore, I took the simple approach of "show the good, skip the crap".
This is good advice; even hard-core nerds would give up their left d20 rather than sit through the dregs of the Trek franchise. Except you left off the Family Guy episode where Stewie kidnaps the cast of TNG. That is mandatory viewing for anyone who has seen more than one episode of TNG.
With my wife, the osmosis approach has worked best. When we can't decide on a movie, I queue up Khan. When it's raining out and we're bored--hey, an excuse to watch the new TNG blu-ray. By the time we saw Star Trek 2009 she was able to figure out that Vulcans must have green blood. On a side note, I was this close to convincing her to let me name our son Jean-Luc (she's French), but my plan backfired when she said "wait a minute, do you really just like that name, or are you seriously trying to name our son after a Star Trek captain?" I said "how do you feel about Tiberius?" She was not amused.
Yup. But I brew my own, so hopefully I will still be drunk when the shit hits the fan.
By the same token, there are two types of communism - a pure type where all resources are shared by the people for the good of the people. The other is what we end up with, and is closer to fascism.
Except that no one is arguing for "pure corporatism." Instead, capitalism breeds corporatism which converges on fascist corporatism as corruption takes root. The fallacy of pure communism is that it expects everyone to follow the rules without enforcement. When that fails, government steps in to enforce the rules and eventually becomes corrupt as no one can effectively enforce the rules on the government. The fallacy of pure capitalism is that it expects everyone to follow the lack of rules (i.e., allow market forces to exert themselves completely) without enforcement. When that fails, government steps in to enforce contracts, the concept of ownership, and to underwrite capital itself. The corporate form, which should be the most efficient vehicle for capitalism, then becomes entwined with the government as the distinction between capital and power is erased and the government becomes completely corrupt. This metamorphosis was demonstrated handily by the recent Senate hearings in which the Banking Committee performed public falacio on Jamie Dimon for the better part of the day. Talk about propping up a failed business model with government intervention.
I do work professionally as a scientist and in my experience reasoning skills are not a prerequisite to a successful career. The downside of peer review is that, when implemented poorly, it reinforces group-think. In order to get money for research, you have to convince a group of peers that your proposal is worth funding, which means that they have to be able to follow your reasoning. If the gap between the authors ability to reason and that of the (entire) committee cannot be overcome by the writing skills of the author, the research does not get funded. If, however, the author proposes to water plants with Brondo because "it has what plants crave," then it has a good chance of being funded because we all know that Brondo has electrolytes. These scientists can procure funding but are generally marginalized by the scientific community because they don't contribute a lot of interesting, new science. Fortunately writing skills often scale with the ability to reason--though not always in someone's second language.
Add to that Reel Big Fish. They downplay it on their official bio--so as not to seem too bitter--but they cannot even perform some of their own songs any more because, somehow, a record label owns the rights.
95% of their money goes into investment and the rest is effectively given away to avoid tax. How is that any different from any other corporation other than it obvious makes people think better of them compared to G.E. for example? And on top of it the bulk is going into some pretty awful companies causing all sorts of problems for poor nations.
Would you prefer that they gave away 100% of their assets and then ceased existing? Or should they give 30% away each year and cease existing in a few years? Or maybe it is more sensible to grow their assets by 6% and give 5% away so that ever year 5% comprises a larger absolute amount of money that might even beat inflation? And they certainly could invest in "nicer" companies that make a smaller return, but this way they take money from awful companies and give it to people that need it. Would it be better if that money went into the pockets of a private investor that would use it to lobby congress for more tax loopholes?
Also why do Gates and Buffet largely give away their money to family foundations rather than giving to existing foundations and charities? It's all a con, imo, that makes people think they're awesome.
Maybe because they want a say in how their billions of dollars are spent? I could imagine that Gates and Buffet might be bored of making money and want something productive to do with their wealth and therefore want to be involved. For example, I know first-hand that Gates will come by to "inspect" some of the initiatives that they invest in. I'm not sure that would be possible if he had just dumped a few billion into a random charity.
Instead of investing money in companies which have a low return (and will continue abusing the earth one way or another) he makes the pragmatic decision to put his money into at least capturing the profits of these companies and using their own profits to work against their interests.
Yah, why does everyone here seem to have their underwear in a knot over how the foundation manages its assets? A foundation is just a big pile of cash that can't be used for profit. It certainly would be nice if the Gates Foundation could invest in puppy dogs and ice cream cones, but that isn't the way the world works. Would the readers of Slashdot prefer that the foundation dumped a bunch of money into the Facebook IPO? Oil companies make money. The Gates Foundation takes a piece of that money so it can fund philanthropic work. And the way it is run now, it will exist for a very long time.
I am a chemist, and for 90+% of chemistry (especially at that level), you don't need any math beyond fractions and the ability to count to eight.
What, you have something against transition metals? Seriously though, I too am a chemist and the chemistry sets that were available when I was a kid were great. Even the crystal-growing sets were fun (and making rock candy.) From those I moved on to digging up recipes for smoke bombs and various, uh, combustibles, etc. We lived in a very remote area where you could make a lot of noise without anyone noticing. And that was in the late 80's/early 90's--those sorts of recipes and "fun experiments you can do at home" must be trivial to find now. The great thing was that they explained the actual chemistry that was taking place, so I learned about redox reactions, combustion, colloids, etc. by accident. I would write up bizarre shopping lists and ask my mom to drop by the drug store while we were out getting groceries. While I would never, ever let my son do this, I used to make flammable gels and light my hands/feet on fire and them jump in the creek when it got too hot. I made homemade fireworks, hydrogen-filled balloons--all kinds of fun stuff that I would later get paid to do in a fume hood.
If you break the educational results down by state, you will see that yes, yes there are. As long as you don't make the mistake of living outside one of the civilized zones, you can actually see results pretty similar to the wealthy bits of Europe and even parts of Asia. Certain other states, by consistently achieving results that make you wonder if they are actually telecommuting from some hellish African warzone, really drag us down...
In my experience this disparity is spot-on and frighteningly so. I was educated in a cow pasture of a public high school where about a quarter of my graduating class was already at boot camp by graduation and art, music, and science funding were cut before even considering touching football or wrestling. Years later, as a graduate student in Los Angeles, I was involved in various mentoring programs for high school students and teachers. The students from public schools in Santa Monica and the Palisades (i.e., very wealthy areas) were just polishing their resumes before starting at Stanford or Harvard in the Fall. Most of their teachers had PhDs. The teachers that we mentored came instead from the other parts of LA Unified where graduation rates were below 50% and schools spent money on metal detectors and fences. We even had to supply them with the teaching materials for the workshops because it would otherwise have come from their own pockets. Their students' ambitions included staying out of jail and learning to read. And that was just the difference in one county.
You might want to take a few science classes.
I have a PhD in Chemistry and have been working for over ten years as a researcher. And I teach science classes.
It is a lost fight, especially in a world in which the future looks increasingly likely to be much bleaker than the past, for everybody.
My middle school science teacher was fired after showing the movie version of Roald Dahl's The Witches because "it promoted satanism." It was just a free day in which they showed a movie--not even during science class--and she happened to have picked out the movie. Of course, she was new, and had made the mistake of not letting the fundies skip the parts of science class that they objected to, insisting that religion had nothing to do with science and that they didn't have to believe what she was teaching, but they did have to write it down on the test to get a good grade. That was more than 20 years ago. Things have, apparently, gotten worse. We're doomed.
If they don't agree when you show them the evidence, you're probably just wrong.
You mean like continental drift theory, quasicrystals, evolution, and bacterial peptic ulcers? I'm not disagreeing that consensus is necessary to lend validity to a scientific theory, but science is incredibly skeptical, conservative, and resistant to new ideas; the whole point of science, really, is to keep presenting evidence in the face of doubt. Eventually, if no one can refute your hypothesis with their own evidence, they will grudgingly accept it. The next generation of scientists will then grow up accepting it as fact and doubting an whole new generation of correct ideas.
Another thing to consider with people who lack social skills, is that it could be the lack of social skills that leads them to focus on, say, science, as a compensation or a way to pass the time, rather, than their concentration on science leading to underdeveloped social skills. I'm not saying that's the way it is, just that when seeing a correlation, to be careful about which is the cart and which is the horse.
As a scientist and a person who has worked, for years, around incredibly gifted and incredibly successful people, my observation is that there are two flavors of gifted scientist; one that lacks social skills and one that does not. It has been my experience that the most gifted scientists often lack social skills. Some are assholes, some are recluses, and some are just weird. But they all approach research as a solitary activity for them to focus on--often on a borderline nocturnal schedule--to the exclusion of normal human interaction. Tragically, many of these people fight a constant uphill battle in their careers (particularly the weird recluses) despite publishing creative and insightful Science. The second flavor are, in my opinion, not quite as gifted as the first, but have the social skills to network, land good academic positions, and--most importantly--find funding. They produce a larger volume of publications and do excellent research, but generally focusing on open questions, staying more in the main stream of thought in a particular topic. They also inhabit ivy league departments, make it into panels and boards, win awards, and are generally recognized as incredibly successful. Meanwhile the socially inept scientists pushing boundaries and posing new questions bifurcate between moderate success and winning a Nobel Prize. I think Dan Shechtman is an example of the latter. He also is illustrative of the difference between a crazy person on the fringes of science who is marginalized by consensus thought and a ground-breaking, tenacious scientist--i.e., a Noble Prize.
Are you a gazillionaire? Because the US government doesn't seem to care at all that I have bank accounts in a foreign country
Serious question? If you have any account that it worth more than $10,000 at any point in the year, you are required to report this to the Treasury Department on Form 90-22.1. Unless you are a broke student, you surely have some account (perhaps your retirement savings?) that exceeds this amount. You didn't want to know that, because now you'd better file it. You're welcome...
My father and uncle, who also live abroad (all three of us on different continents though) have run into this problem, bu they have way more money and complex assets and whatnot that I. I was under the impression that the FBAR was for US citizens residing in the US--i.e., to prevent gazillionaires from hiding money in Swiss bank accounts--but reading the IRS website I see now that there is no mention of where you live and it is even worse than you say because it is $10,000 in aggregate. In my case, I keep the bulk of my savings in the US, and between new house and new baby I'm broke as a joke (though I have most certainly failed to file an FBAR when I did have more than $10,000... oops. Let's hope the EU continues to deny the US government access to banking records.) Still, I haven't faced any problems from banks except when trying to secure a mortgage. Since the US and EU banks can't/won't talk to each other, they were worried that I might be hiding the fact that I had been foreclosed on several times and had massive debts in the US... Actually I know an American who did bail on a mortgage when he moved to Europe, and he still got a mortgage, but in my case they put in all kinds of clauses and stipulations despite myself and my wife holding EU citizenship in addition to my American citizenship.
If I were a gazillionaire, the banks might be willing to take a risk; it's precisely the normal folk that get nailed by this stuff. Maybe banks in South America haven't come under fire yet. If not, just wait, I'm sure the IRS will get around to you in a couple of years...
Regarding your assertion that other countries also tax their citizens abroad, look at the Wikipedia article on this topic. You will find a reference to a 1995 Congressional study that showed only the US, the Philippines and Eritrea do this. The Philippines stopped in 1997. Remember: I am referring here to taxing people who live and word abroad long-term. If you are just out of the country temporarily, you are not really a foreign resident.
No, good old South America is still living in the 20th Century in that respect; the governments are still more powerful than the banks. But not for long. I think I see the confusion though; I have been working at universities for the past decade, thus almost all of the foreign nationals in and from various countries are there temporarily. They are still "residents" in the legal sense, but have temporary visas (when required), but you were talking about actual "residents" as in people who have moved permanently. I agree, it is "uniquely American" to tax its citizens even though they've chosen not to reside within its borders.
The US, far from fixing the situation for Americans living abroad, has doubled down. In 2008, Congress passed a law that taxes people when they renounce their citizenship. The goal of this law is "to extract from the expatriate taxes that would have been paid had he remained a citizen" (quote taken from the Wikipedia article referenced above).
You conclusion is right, if a bit cold-blooded: if someone has no intention of returning, why remain a citizen? The thing is: citizenship is tied up with lots of emotions. You grow up somewhere, have family there, etc, etc... More: who knows what the future may bring? In the end, I feel like I am being driven away by idiotic politicians pract
Here's a reference [renunciationguide.com]. Only the US and Eritrea are this dumb. I've lived abroad for more that 20 years, and I am very tired of filing an ever-increasing number of forms with the US authorities. It's not only the IRS, you also have to file separate forms with a separate agency detailing your foreign bank accounts - which, frankly, is none of their business.
I've lived all over the US, my family is spread around the world (with various nationalities), and I too currently reside outside the US, but my experience has been quite different. I have worked with people from all over the world both in the US and abroad and I can tell you that, at least as of 2004, Israel had the same tax policy is the US; they allowed deductions for foreign income, but citizens living abroad still had to file taxes back home each year. South American countries have similarly aggressive policies. Chile goes as far as to tax foreign residents on their assets and income in their country of origin. In other words, an American seeking residence in Chile must pay "back taxes" on US assets and then pay the Chilean government on future income made outside of Chile. Argentina has similar policies.
And I don't know what you're talking about with banks. Are you a gazillionaire? Because the US government doesn't seem to care at all that I have bank accounts in a foreign country, nor do the banks here care that I have accounts in the US. I get taxed on the income I make in the country in which I live and, since I make less than the foreign exemption (plus exceptions for buying a house abroad, etc.) I pay zero taxes in the US on my foreign income. Plus, the IRS doesn't ask for proof of my foreign income--I suppose I could get audited, but so far they have taken my word for it. I still pay US taxes on assets in the US that make money in the US, but those earnings are not taxed in my country of residence. Thus, as crazy as it sounds to tax people for the "privilege" of being an American, I am not double-taxed and the taxes I do pay go to the country in which the money is earned.
There is also a special rule for US citizens returning from living abroad for less than ~five years in which you can skip filing a US tax return while you live abroad and then do it all-at-once when you return, without paying penalties. But if you've been out of the US for 20 years, I really don't see the point of retaining US citizenship if you never plan to return--what benefits do you get out of it? If a person moves to a foreign country and naturalizes, why should they get to retain citizenship in their country of origin? In fact, naturalizing in a foreign country used to automatically forfeit US citizenship (and I think it still can in some cases.)
The USA is actually the only first world country that even taxes their people while they are living overseas. For example in my country you don't need to pay any taxes back home if you live in another country for more than 6 months.
That is just not true. Israel (at least as of 2004) has essentially the exact same policy. Chile as well, and there are many others. (In fact, Chile even taxes foreign residents on income in their country of origin.) Europe is the big exception to that rule, which was in fact one of Sarkozy's arguments against Hollande's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy. He said that Hollande would cause French "job creators" to move to Switzerland and Germany, which would cost France jobs and hurt the middle class. Hmm, where have I heard that before?
And let's be clear about how the US taxes its citizens abroad. If you are a regular Joe Schmo and you move to a foreign country for work, the US allows you to exempt the first ~$100,000 of your foreign income from your US taxes. You can even increase that deduction if you purchase a home with a mortgage in your country of residence. What the US does not allow you to exempt are capital gains and certain types of income that are generated in the US while your are living abroad that are not taxed by your country of residence. For instance, if you earn money on commercial real estate in California while living in Luxembourg, California and the IRS will tax you on that income, but Luxembourg will not. The system is basically set up to prevent wealthy people from moving out of the US to avoid paying taxes on investments and other rich-people earnings that depend on the US and hiding it in Swiss bank accounts. In other words, ordinary wage-earners who are, for example, relocated by their employer to a foreign company will not pay US taxes on their foreign income, but zillionaires can't escape paying (already ridiculously low) taxes on their capital gains just by moving to the Virgin Islands.
Having said that, US citizenship is really only useful if you plan on living in the US. If I recall correctly, Saverin is Brazilian, so if he wants to live in Singapore then there is no reason to keep US citizenship.
Equity in education is a huge, huge issue, especially in STEM, and the theme that consistently shows up is that having parents who are educated, who are in the upper middle class, and/or who are in a professional field gives you a huge leg up.
I grew up poor with a single mother than worked full time. We moved constantly between cheap rentals--I went to four different elementary schools. She eventually got her nursing degree and we moved up the socioeconomic ladder a bit (this was 30 years ago, when that was still possible). However, my grandparents were homemakers, an electrician, and an orchard worker (an immigrant with a fourth-grade education). One day our heroin-addict neighbors broke into the local high school and stole a microscope. They knew I was a smart, curious kid, and gave one of the microscopes to me. The combination of that microscope, plus the supplies my mom could get from her lab classes at community college--e.g., cover slips and slides--arguably set me on a course to get a PhD in Chemistry. But until I got to college, I didn't even know what a PhD was, really, let alone that there were "science competitions" and "science camps" for more privileged kids. Years later I spent some time at a fancy East Coast university, rubbing elbows with my fellow STEM PhDs only to find out that half of them had known each other for decades via these science fairs and camps and competitions. I felt like a white trash scientist surrounded by fancy people talking about their private schools and secret clubs. (It was inconceivable to them that I had never participated in a science competition.)
What strikes me, though, is how easy I had it compared to kids from even poorer households, with parents that didn't go to nursing school and without loving, supportive grandparents. I don't care how smart you are, if you come from a lower-class, uneducated family and attend public schools in poor districts, you simply won't even be exposed to 90% of the fancy rich-kid stuff that gets them into fancy schools--it is a huge disadvantage in STEM in particular. What really blew my mind, though, was how my colleagues at the fancy East Coast university constantly talked about how disadvantaged they felt and how having a heart surgeon for a father wasn't really an advantage, or how having science profs for parents didn't help them win all those science competitions that I had never heard of. And sure, most of them were super-smart, talented, and hard-working, but it sure seemed to me that I had to be twice as smart to get there without the huge assist from well-educated, upper-class parents.
The bigger problem is that they were given free reign to make this sort of bet (and it was a prop bet, whatever Dimon claims) in the name of hedging. Yes, hedging needs to be possible, but no, we don't need to let (government insured) banks take whatever positions they want to do so. Hedging should always be extremely conservative, and that clearly wasn't the case here. Dimon said it himself when he said the position were put on to make money (and had been in years past).
The biggest problem, IMO, is that they are making these bets with people's savings accounts and pension funds since we let investment and commercial banks merge. I don't care what hedge funds do with rich people's money, but why should the FDIC insure JPM against losses while they get to keep all the profits? The lack of a punitive downside has taken the risk out of risk for these banks.
I can't really understand why you're saying that share price going down on IPO is a troubling signal. During normal operation, sure, but on IPO? It just means that the company didn't undervalue themselves and sell their shares at too low prices. If I were a shareholder before the IPO and the per share price would had doubled, that would mean half of my potential profit and ownership lost. It's not rocket science. Remember that Facebook fixed their shares price like 8 times to get it to correct level - I'm sure there was tons of people at Facebook trying to evaluate the right price during the last months. So all in all, it's better for shareholders and Facebook that the price went down instead of up. Otherwise it doesn't really matter. Especially since they already raised that $16 billion on Friday.
I'm sure that what you say makes sense, but as I know little-to-nothing about stocks, can you elaborate for the layman? I understand what you're saying about a falling price meaning that they didn't undervalue the company and therefore maximized the money raised at the IPO; this is good for FB, the company. But It would seem that if an investor buys a stock at X during the IPO, and it is worth 0.06*X now, they've lost X-(X*0.06)+fees. Likewise, if someone owned stock before the IPO and then the price doubled, why does that mean that potential profit is halved, and not doubled? Can they not sell their shares at twice their value and therefore make twice the money? I was under the impression that people with boatloads of stock borrowed against the market value to dodge taxes, so isn't it always better that the stock be worth more in the sense that one can borrow more money against it?
I live in Europe, where we get a grab-bag of American TV shows at various offsets from their original air dates. For example, Dexter just started here a year or two ago, but The Big Bang Theory seems to be almost real time. HBO just started being offered in our market this year, and it seems to run basically the same stuff as in the US, but on a delay. I follow a few TV shows--Game of Thrones Included--but I can't be bothered to figure out when the next episode that I haven't seen is airing in my living room, so I just download everything. Typically shows sit around for days or weeks--less often months or years--before I get around to watching them because I have to travel for work, my schedule fluctuates, and I have an ever-expanding family to entertain me.
So I am technically paying for the right to watch these shows on my TV through the coax cable that comes into my house, just not via the cable modem, and not on-demand (and not without hard-coded subs and commercials for products I will never use). But I am a relentless pirate because TV is a PITA and DVRs are a kludge for something that works incredibly well with a low-power Linux box and some python scripts. With my current setup, I can also stream to my laptop/tablet from just about any hotel WiFi (region blocking prevents me from streaming "legally.") But I don't subscribe to cable because I like handing money over for a service that I don't use; they bundle it with my Internet access which to me feels a bit like an admission that downloading is more facile than watching TV.
I think everyone--even those holding patents for two lifetimes--thinks that current system is nuts. But we have repeatedly seen how monied interests can water down reform efforts that undercut their bottom line and intellectual property makes a lot of money for a lot of people. Our best bet at this point seems to be tech companies getting sick of collecting patents so they can throw lawyers at each other every time they try to release a new product, which certainly stifles innovation.
But maybe patent reformers should use the tactic that has served right-wing politicians so well; push for something so over the top that the watered down version is actually pretty close to what you want. You know, start with a hard five-year limit, no exceptions, and then let them negotiate you down to something more workable, like the gradual reduction that you suggested.
How about we just focus on getting rid of bad patents that don't bring knowledge or insight to society?
...because this is a thought experiment about enacting a hard limit on the protection of intellectual property.
If the five-year clock started ticking when the product was brought to market--i.e., after development and clinical trials--it would circumvent the long lead-time for drugs. The most common argument against reducing the lifetime of drug patents is that the cost would go up and/or that no one would make drugs anymore because the profit margins would be too low and/or innovation would be stifled as "talent" (used to describe MBAs, not PhDs) migrated to more lucrative businesses. I find the latter arguments absurd, much like their cousin, the argument in favor of ridiculously high executive compensation.
Personally I think that five years of the exclusive right to sell is plenty if the composition of matter and other broad drug patents don't change. They allow a company to make minor structural changes, perhaps even something as simple as the counter ion of the protonated form that is packaged for sale, and then re-brand as a new "gotta have it" drug while simultaneously preventing others from selling less-closely related structural analogs. If the patents timed out five years after the drugs went to market, then drug companies would have to rely on marketing and quality assurance instead of lawsuits. It would also allow competitors to start exploring derivatives of a break-through drug much sooner, which would in principle lead to better drugs over all in the same way that the free sharing of results rapidly accelerated semiconductor technology in the early part of the Cold War.
When faced with any disruptive technology or shift in public policy, the arguments pretty much go the same way. Con: time-tested business models will become obsolete, storied corporations will go out of business, the lack of competition will drive prices up, innovation will be stifled--things will be much different than they are now and that is bad. Pro: time-tested business models will have to be re-thought, storied corporations will give way to fast-growing newcomers, competition will drive prices down, innovation will abound--things will be much different than they are now and that is good. Current examples include the film, financial, and health insurance industries. Past examples include the telephone, automobile, and airline industries. I think that you can take any of those as examples supporting either the pro or con position, depending on whether or not you like change.
I spent some time in the Chemistry department at a fancy ivy leave school that seemed designed to crush the spirits of biologists. While we were off drinking beer and playing volleyball against the Physics department, they were toiling night and day on multi-year projects that may or may not generate publishable results. The sick thing is that the outcome was totally decoupled from the abilities of the researchers--it was more like a test of stamina and luck. I saw talented, brilliant people turn into bitter husks. Some gave up on research and wound up teaching at private colleges, others left science completely--and not into fields that used any of their expertise. It seems like a lottery where those that get lucky (or stab the most backs) go on to academic positions at top-tens and the rest end up in rocking back and forth in the corner mumbling to themselves all day.
There are "studies", and then there is observation, modelling, prediction, model testing which is this thing called science. "Studies" are bullshit. Scientific research functions as it should. I believe the OP's article is just a chunck of sensationalist BS, or utterly ignorant of what science is (and is not).
That is not really what TFA is talking about. Daniel Sarewitz is re-phrasing a long-known problem with "studies," as you call them, which is that complex systems are--by definition--too complex to study as a whole. I am a physical scientist, which means that I typically make or measure something in a well-controlled experiment and then change variables in order to test a hypothesis. I can basically publish a paper that says "we tried really, really hard to find it, but it wasn't there." In the life sciences, they are trying to answer vague cause-effect questions like "does this drug affect a particular type of tumor more than a placebo." Thus researchers in those fields have to create models in which they can control variables. He gives the example of mouse models, which are obviously imperfect models for human physiology. How imperfect is the question. The creeping phenomenon that he is addressing is the tendency to relax the standards for what counts as positive evidence--and I'm grossly oversimplifying--by waving your hands around about how mouse models are imperfect, but that there is definitely "a statistically significant trend." The root cause is simply the ridiculous amount of pressure that life science researchers are under to publish, which requires results, because their methodology is standardized. Those poor bastards can spend eight years on a PhD project that goes nowhere or burn four years of their tenure clock figuring out that their experimental design was flawed. *Poof* no funding, no tenure, no degree, time to consider a new career. That sort of potential downside creates the sort of forced-optimism that TFA describes.