iullyan

Steroizii anabolizanți pot fi descriși ca testosteron sintetic, care de regulă e asociat cu atleții profesioniști. Aceștia îi folosesc pentru a-și îmbunătăți performanțele sportive și pentru a dezvolta o masă musculară sporită. Cercetătorii au observat însă o creștere a tendinței de utilizare a steroizilor și la restul populației active. Unele studii recente arată faptul că 

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One of the “holy grails” of neuroscience is the ability to scan a brain and create a complete detailed map, including all networks and connections. Scientists use several techniques, all with their own drawbacks, and the process is very slow – it can take a year to completely scan a single fly brain. A collaboration of scientists, however, report in Science that they have developed a new technique that can accomplish a detailed scan of an entire fly brain (or a section of mouse cortex) in 2-3 days.

The team has been described as an “Avengers” type collaboration, and it is impressive. Specialists provided the prepared fly brains. Two different types of microscopy were combined (that’s really the new bit), along with a third imaging technique. Finally, computer specialists had to figure out how to combine all the data like puzzle pieces into an image. The result was a complete map of a fly brain in three days, which is an impressive leap forward.

The core innovation of the new technique is to use a combination of expansion microscopy and lattice light-sheet microscopy. Expansion microscopy is pretty much what it sounds like – the brain sample is expanded, retaining the relative positions of neurons and connections, but creating more space to facilitate imaging. Expansion is done chemically, similar to injecting an expanding gel into a specimen. The researchers expanded their samples four-times to provide optimal results. The potential problem with this technique is that it may introduce artifacts giving spurious results, so anyone using it has to be careful and validate their techniques (by reproducing known outcomes, for example).

This expansion technique was combined with the lattice light-sheet microscopy. This is a complicated setup that illuminates the specimen with high energy thin sheet of light, only that part of the specimen that is in focus to the microscope, keeping all the out-of-focus parts dark. Finally, this is all combined with fluorescence microscopy, which tags specific biological structures (such as certain amino acids) with fluorescent molecules. This way only certain cell types or certain connections or structures can be imaged and mapped. Specifically they used confocal microscopy, which provides better resolution and contrast.

The result of all these techniques combined is that they were able to produce high resolution images of all the neurons with their dendrites and connections of the entire Drosophila brain and a section of mouse brain. What comes next? The researchers will want to refine their techniques, and they plan to build microscopes specifically for this task. Computer technology is only going to get better as well. It is reasonable to predict that this new technique will benefit from some incremental advance the more it is used.

This brings us a pretty large step closer to the time when we can image an entire human brain with all of its connections. There are some obvious benefits to this for research – understanding not only the connectome but the function of all the various circuits and networks in the brain, how they interact, and how variations in these networks contribute to neurological and mental illness.

Theoretically, we could also duplicate such a detailed map in a virtual model – one that will not only record a map of the brain but possibly function as a virtual brain. It is quite possible that the first “self aware” AGI (artificial general intelligence) will be such a virtual model of a biological brain. This will also create incredible possibilities for research – if we want to know what the effect is of altering a network in the brain, we just change it and see the result. With virtual models we can have thousands of copies, and run millions of simulations (or some suitably large number, I am just winging the orders of magnitude here).

If the AGI is truly self-aware this brings up some thorny ethical issues, but let’s say we can get around them somehow. Perhaps we can study limited networks that are insufficient to be “awake” but can still model function. This will get complicated, but in a very interesting and educational way.

This also brings up an interesting thought-experiment about resolution. How much resolution and fidelity will it take to create not only a virtual human brain, but a virtual brain of a specific person – John Smith’s brain? What would that even mean? At what point of fidelity is the virtual brain John Smith? Perhaps at certain levels personality traits will be preserved, overall abilities, etc., but nothing else. What about John Smith’s memories? At what level of resolution are those contained?

Beyond reproducing a specific person, there is reproducing that specific person’s current mental state. This is definitely the stuff of science-fiction (at least for the foreseeable future). The transporter in Star Trek, for example, not only scans the patterns of a person, but their instant mental state. This requires such a high level of fidelity that they invented “Heisenberg Compensators” to deal with the limits of quantum mechanics. This is not limited to Star Trek, and is now a staple of science fiction.

For now neuroscientists would be thrilled to be able to create a virtual human brain, forgetting about reproducing an individual. Although understanding better how memory works would certainly be a priority of such research. This new technique doesn’t get us there, but it does get us a lot closer. At the very least, it should prove to be a fantastic tool of neuroscience research.

Mă uit la PSD, cum încearcă să se spele pe mâini de eliberarea a 14 mii de infractori și observ că, cu cât se zbate mai mult, cu atât se afundă mai mult.

Avem abordarea cinic-doctă: “Efectele cred că ar fi fost aceleași și dacă (deținuții) ar fi stat un an în plus în închisoare”, zice Oana Florea, deputat PSD. Sigur, doamnă, oferiți-vă dv. în locul adolescentei date cu capul de ciment în holul blocului de un recidivist, ca să evaluați mai bine “aceleași efecte”.

Avem abordarea teoretic-găunoasă: “În niciun caz (nu simt vreo responsabilitate – n.m.)”, spune deputatul PSD Florin Iordache, șeful Comisiei Speciale de masacrare modificare a legilor Justiției, care adaugă: “legea e făcută ca să fie respectată”. De acord, dle Iordache, țineți-i lecția asta recidivistului care a snopit în bătaie un bătrân din Galați, ca să-i fure pensia.

Avem abordarea vomitiv-mioritică: “Până la urmă, ne-a obligat CEDO să facem acestă lege. Dacă nu, ar trebui să plătim!”, declamă deputatul PSD Nicușor Halici, președinte al Comisiei Juridice din Camera Deputaților. Păi da, dle Halici, că ăsta e planul PSD, să evalueze – la propriu! – viețile românilor și să decidă că mai bine se economisesc banii de sentințe decât să fie salvați cetățenii, nu?

Când s-a prăbușit, Ceaușescu s-a prăbușit sub greutatea urii întregului popor. Ura aceasta s-a acumulat ani la rând, din diferite motive. Lumea invocă falimentul economiei, foamea și frigul ca principale motive. Da, e posibil, dar foamea, frigul și sărăcia întăreau paradoxul românesc: nu găseai nimic de mâncare în magazine, dar toată lumea avea frigiderele pline. Nu disconfortul vieții de zi cu zi a dus ura românilor la paroxism, ci frica și nesiguranța, iar acestea au crescut peste orice cotă de suportabilitate în 1988, când Ceaușescu a deschis porție pușcăriilor cu o amnistie care a îngrozit societatea. Au fost eliberați atunci toți cei condamnați la pedepse cu închisoarea de până la 10 ani (cam ce plănuiește și partidul azi). S-au strigat urale în cinstea Tovarășului, în închisori, când a venit vestea. În restul țării, oamenii s-au baricadat în case de spaimă. Mii de tâlhari, violatori, hoți și criminali au ieșit pe străzi iar violența a devenit întâmplătoare – nu știai niciodată dacă mai ajungi acasă teafăr, neînjunghiat pentru o cartelă de pâine sau un kil de banane. Într-o Românie în care informația era cenzurată total, atmosfera de coșmar s-a intensificat imediat. În întunericul informațional, orice zvon căpăta proporții de coșmar. Românii nu i-au iertat lui Ceaușescu eliberarea criminalilor din închisori – și nu vor ierta PSD același gest, oricât ar încerca partidul să scape acum de răspundere.

The post Amnistiile lui Ceaușescu sau eliberările în masă hotărâte de PSD: ura victimelor rămâne aceeași appeared first on Petreanu.ro.

For something as dominant as the four digits that we use to tell time, it’s disappointing that there’s no manual, and not surprising that we do it wrong so often.

I’m not talking about the big hand/little hand part of announcing what time it is. I’m focused on how we use our awareness of time to screw up our narrative about life.

Here are some examples:

We focus on the days, making short-term decisions, instead of being cognizant of the years. We ignore the benefits that short-term pain can have in earning us long-term satisfaction. Which means that we often fail to invest, embracing a shortcut instead.

We rehearse the past, obsessing about sunk costs, instead of freeing ourselves up to make new decisions based on new information.

We put a stopwatch on our best experiences, ticktocking the moments instead of living in them.

But we fail to be honest about the time when we’re in a dip, or unhappy, imagining instead that it is lasting forever.

We confuse the thrill of fast-paced media with the magic of doing work that matters, even though they each take just as long.

We might have a fancy watch, but that doesn’t mean we’re good at telling time.

Magicians play a significant role in the skeptical movement. They have, as Liam Neeson famously said, a particular set of skills. They are very adept at deception, using techniques that have been honed through trial and error over centuries. It is a great example of cultural knowledge. Having the ability to deceive others, purely for entertainment and with informed consent, also makes them adept at detecting the use of the same techniques for nefarious purposes. This, essentially, has been James Randi’s entire career.

But at the same time some stage magicians make skeptics uncomfortable by not being entirely upfront with their audience. Now, I am not suggesting that all magicians tell their audience how the tricks are done, and I completely understand the need to create a mystique as part of the performance. However, I have seen skilled magicians (like Randi or Banachek) perform amazing tricks with complete candor about the nature of those tricks, without diminishing the entertainment value.

Magicians typically create a narrative by which they “explain” their tricks to the audience. A magician, for example, could say, “I am using sleight of hand.” Or they could say (or strongly imply), “I have true psychic ability.” The Amazing Kreskin falls into this latter category. There are also those like Uri Geller who (sort of) pretend they are not doing magic at all, but have special powers.

In the gray zone are those like Derren Brown. Their narrative is not that they are psychic but that they are using psychological manipulation on their audience – reading microexpressions, influencing their decision-making, or reading body-language. This narrative is as much BS as the psychic one, used as part of the magic experience and for misdirection. You can read and influence people to some degree, but these techniques are not reliable enough to support a performance. Typically mentalists use standard sleight of hand and then pretend to use psychological techniques.

The question is – is there any harm in deceiving an audience about the true nature of such magic tricks? Interestingly, there is actually research on this question, including a recent study focusing specifically on the psychological narrative. The study authors summarize prior research, which showed:

Empirical studies, indeed, show that the experience of a magic performance can impact our cognitive and affective functioning. For example, Subbotsky showed children at and below 9 years of age a magic trick in which a magic spell caused a stamp to be burned and scratched. Prior to seeing the trick, most of the older children denied the existence of real magic, but after witnessing the trick, the majority endorsed this magical belief. The older children regained their sceptical view once they were told how the trick was done, but the younger children continued to believe in magic, even though they knew it was a trick. These results suggest that anomalous experiences can change children’s beliefs.

What about adults? Adults do not change their paranormal beliefs after seeing magic tricks, even those with a paranormal narrative. I will say, however, that from personal experience those with paranormal beliefs will often support them with reference to magic tricks sold with the paranormal narrative. I did not see, nor did the authors mention, any research on this question. It only shows that seeing a magic trick did not make adults believe in the paranormal if they didn’t already.

There is a big “however” here, though. If the magic trick were given a pseudoscientific explanation, then even adults were much more likely to accept it. All many adults need, apparently, is a plausible-sounding sciencey explanation, and they’re good. They will accept that the “magic” happened. For example, if you demonstrate psychic ability, then mumble something about quantum entanglement, some adults will find that compelling.

What this means is that many adults are not willing to say they believe in magic, but are willing to accept that fantastical things can happen if there is at least an attempt at a physical explanation (even if that explanation is total nonsense).

But what about the pseudo-psychological narrative? This is the focus of the current study. This is what they did:

The first aim tested whether a magic demonstration using “psychological skills” changes people’s belief in the performer’s pseudo-psychological skills and the principles more generally. The second aim tested whether the performer alters people’s interpretation of the phenomena as a function of whether the performer was introduced as a magician or a psychologist. We targeted the first aim by having participants watch a demonstration in which the performer claimed to use psychological skills to read a volunteer’s thoughts. The volunteer was asked to secretly conceal a coin in his right or left hand. The performer claimed to use psychological skills to identify the coin’s location. Whilst it is possible to read aspects of a person’s mind by observing behaviour, these techniques are generally unreliable. Our performer, indeed, used a conjuring device to accurately deduce the coin’s physical location.

What they found is that combining the trick with a pseudopsychological explanation did increase belief that the ability is possible, and in the underlying psychological principles. However, it did not matter if the performer was presented as a psychologist or a magician.

What all this means is that when Derren Brown claims that he psychologically manipulated his subject into making the choice he wanted, the audience generally believes him, and therefore believes that such manipulation is possible (when it isn’t – at least not reliably). The authors concluded:

This paper tested the impact of a pseudo-psychological demonstration on people’s beliefs in implausible psychological principles. Our findings are clear and somewhat unnerving. Witnessing pseudo-psychological demonstrations significantly increased people’s beliefs that it was possible to 1) read a person’s mind by observing micro expressions, psychological profiles or muscle-reading, and 2) effectively prime a person’s decisions through subtle suggestions. Before the demonstration, the average observer was relatively uncertain as to whether these skills can be effectively used to determine which hand a person is holding a coin in. After seeing the demonstration, there was a significant increase in their beliefs, and the average observer now agreed more strongly that it was possible. Witnessing the demonstration also increased their beliefs in whether these principles can be used more generally to read a person’s thoughts in different situations.

For skeptics this is also “unnerving.” The deeper implication is that pseudoscience works. If you give a science-sounding patina to your BS claims, it dramatically increases acceptance of those claims.

This reinforces the emerging skeptical belief that promoting science must include the promotion of critical thinking skills. But it also supports that promoting critical thinking must involve the promotion of scientific literacy. The two go hand-in-hand.

Scientific literacy is a protection (I guess in proportion to that literacy) against pseudoscientific explanations. If someone justified their ESP claims by referencing quantum entanglement, it helps to know about decoherence, for example. If they say homeopathy works because of transient structures in the water molecules, it helps to know that such transient structures last less than microseconds, and could not possibly encode the necessary information, or survive digestion and distribution throughout the body.  If lunar effects are justified by saying it works through tidal forces on the brain, it helps to know that such tidal forces over such a short distance are negligible, and could not possibly influence behavior.

It also helps to know when you are out of your depth, and to withhold judgement until you can consult a scientist or get more information. When I see something I cannot explain, I am not content to accept whatever explanation is handed to me. I am comfortable saying – I don’t know what I don’t know, so I will reserve judgement until I can look into it.

What about magicians? I do think that responsible magicians should think carefully about their entertainment narrative. I respect those like Banachek who (without revealing their tricks) are clear about the fact that they are tricks. Those operating in the gray zone should rethink their strategy and come clean. They are promoting pseudoscience, especially when it comes to psychology.

Scriu zilnic doua posturi pe Cronica.ro, voi incerca sa reiau si activitatea pe blog.

1. Putin istoric: ultima miscare geniala a lui Adrian Sarbu, la conducerea CME, a fost iesirea din must carry a televiziunilor Pro, in 2013. A doua miscare incercata de el, in 2013, cresterea preturilor la publicitate, in Cehia, l-a costat pozitia de CEO.

2. In ultimii ani, Pro-ul a trait bine din veniturile platite de cablisti, anul trecut castigand, din Romania, aproape 47 milioane de dolari.

3. Orice operator de cablu trebuie sa plateasca un tarif per abonat pentru a putea retransmite televiziunile Pro.

4. Tariful cerut de ProTV a fost marit, de la 1 Feb 2018, la 0,914 euro per abonat. Plus TVA.

5. In fiecare an, la 1 Feb, pretul creste automat cu inca 3%.

6. Telekom are un contract cu ProTV care expira saptamana viitoare, pe 28 Feb.

7. Cel mai probabil, ProTV incearca sa impuna Telekom, in noul contract, tariful nou, valabil de la 1 Feb 2018, plus cresterea de 3% care se aplica de la 1 Feb anul acesta.

8. Telekom, probabil, incearca sa mentina tariful vechi, pentru a nu creste pretul abonamentelor. In ultimul an, atat televiziunile Intactului, Antenele, cat si KanalD, au iesit din must carry si au devenit canale ce nu pot fi retransmise decat cu plata unui pret per abonat, pe modelul ProTV. Ceea ce inseamna un cost mai mare de operare pentru Telekom.

9. Cresterea pretului ceruta de Pro vine intr-un moment in care piata telecom “fierbe”, ca urmare a ordonantei guvernului, ce contine “taxa pe lacomie”, care prevede si o taxa de 3% pe cifra de afaceri a operatorilor telecom din piata.

10. Pro-ul nu mai este unde era acum 6 ani, un lider autoritar al pietei tv din Romania. Pe rand, Antena1 si KanalD i-au atacat pozitia de lider, in special in prime time, acolo unde audienta este cea mai mare.

11. Pro-ul incearca sa-si vanda canalele la pachet desi unele din ele nu genereaza audienta.

12. Vineri seara ProTV a pus un mesaj, in timpul emisiunii “Romanii au talent”, care anunta ca de la 1 Martie canalele Pro s-ar putea sa nu mai fie disponibile pe retelele Telekom si NextGen. A fost tripla lovitura sub centura, o data prin presiunea pusa pe un partener comercial, prin intermediul publicului, a doua oara prin folosirea continutului pentru a-si rezolva problemele comerciale, a treia oara prin transmiterea mesajului intr-un program sponsorizat 9 ani de Telekom.

13. Telekom a reactionat, denuntand gestul si anuntand ca Pro-ul vrea mai multi bani, care ar afecta pretul abonamentului la client. Pentru prima oara, in multi ani, am vazut un comunicat de presa, adresat CNA si publicului, care contine termeni extremi de duri ca “suntem socati” sau “ProTV a folosit o tactică brutală de denigrare şi calomniere a grupului Telekom Romania”.

14. ProTV a replicat cu un comunicat in care reia anuntul ca televiziunile sale nu se vor vedea pe retelele Telekom de la 1 Martie, daca nu se semneaza noul contract.

15. Ca o concluzie, daca Pro-ul ar fi inceput cu acel comunicat de la punctul 13, dar pe 28 Feb, in ultima zi de contract, dupa ce era clar ca nu se va semna noua intelegere, totul ar fi fost in regula. Era o informare a pietei si a publicului, justificata. Faptul ca au ales sa-si foloseasca programele pentru a forta negocierile comerciale poate fi clasificat ca “derapaj”, cum a facut-o Pagina de Media, sau chiar santaj, cum au spus-o multi.

Articolul 15 despre despre conflictul comercial dintre Telekom si ProTV a apărut prima oară pe Orlando Nicoară.

Am făcut-o și pe asta, am reușit la finalul anului trecut să scoatem primul număr din revista Starea nației. Vorbim despre asta de ceva timp și sigur că de fiecare dată am găsit motive să nu dăm drumul la treabă. Știți cum se întâmplă, nu? Se adună oamenii care ar vrea să facă o chestie […]

Post-ul Despre fericire. Acum, în revista Starea nației. Și un sfat, despre cum să începi un proiect apare prima dată în Pătraru.ro.

1. Premierul finlandez Juha Sipilä a exprimat aseară disponibilitatea ţării sale de a prelua preşedinţia Consiliului UE având în vedere tensiunile de la Bucureşti. Finlanda ar urma să preia preşedinţia Consiliului de la România, din iulie 2019 (News.ro) Premierul Viorica Dăncilă a declarat aseară că România este pregătită să preia preşedinţia rotativă a Consiliului Uniunii Europene, fiind făcute chiar pregăririle pentru Summit-ul care va avea loc în 2019 la Sibiu. Comentând declaraţiile preşedintelui Klaus Iohannis potrivit cărora nu suntem pregătiţi, iar Guvernul ar trebui înlocuit, Dăncilă a spus: ”Domnul preşedinte, prin îndemnurile de a răsturna Guvernul, deserveşte profund interesele României”. (News.ro)

2. Cinci mesaje transmise ieri de guvernatorul BNR, Mugur Isărescu: 1. Încetinește creditarea, 2. Economia încetinește, 3. Pe partea politicii fiscale am putea avea o problemă, 4. Europa va trece prin turbulențe, 5. Scad investițiile. (Hotnews)

3. Amazon a ales nu unul ci două orașe, New York City și Arlington, Virginia, pentru cel de-a doilea sediu, după Seattle, din Statele Unite. Investiția totală în cele două noi locații va fi de $5 miliarde, din care Amazon va primi, de la autoritățile locale, subvenții de peste $2 miliarde pentru cele 50.000 locuri de muncă create. (Link)

4. Waymo, divizia de mașini autonome a celor de la Google/Alphabet, ar putea lansa luna viitoare un serviciu comercial, sub un nume nou, care va intra în concurență directă cu Uber și Lyft. (Bloomberg)

5. Economia Japoniei a scăzut cu 1,2% în trimestrul trei, analiștii punând scăderea pe seama dezastrelor naturale care au lovit țara. (Reuters)

6. Huawei a anunțat că are în plan lansarea unor ochelari pentru augmented reality (AR) în următorii doi ani. Apple și Facebook lucrează la proiecte similare. (CNBC)

7. Enel are în plan instalarea a circa 2.500 de puncte de încărcare a mașinilor electrice în toate regiunile României, în perioada 2019-2023, în urma unor investiții totale de 15 până la 20 de milioane de euro. Anul viitor urmează să fie instalate aproximativ 300 astfel de puncte. (Profit.ro)

8. În August 1972, o furtună solară ar fi declanșat explozia mai multor mine marine amplasate de marina americană în apele Vietnamului de Nord arată documente recent declasificate. (Gizmodo)

9. Premier League, cel mai puternic campionat de fotbal din lume, va fi condus, în premieră, începând de anul viitor, de o femeie, Susanna Dinnage, actuala presedinta a canalului Animal Planet. Dinnage a fost votată în unanimitate de cele 20 de cluburi. (TheGuardian

10. Procesul lui Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán a început la New York, procurorii americani acuzându-l că a condus cel mai puternic cartel ce se ocupa cu traficul de droguri, introducând în Statele Unite, între 1989 și 2014, cocaină în valoare de $10 milioane pe zi. (TheGuardian)

Cronica diminetii este sustinuta de 2Performant.com.

În timpul procesului, cu câteva luni înainte de sentință, judecătorul Andrei Aurel Păun a cerut și a studiat dosarul penal pe baza căruia au scris jurnaliștii, ca să vadă exact unde apar înregistrările, planșele fotografice și celelalte probe care-l privesc pe [...]

Articolul Presa câștigă primul proces cu ofițerii recunoscuți de victimele minore abuzate sexual în ”Dosarul Shanghai”! apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

O țară în care așteptăm.

Nichita Stănescu observa, în anii ’80, că românii și-au introdus în limbajul comun expresia ”Se dă leafa”. Ca și cum salariul nu ar fi muncit și meritat, ci dăruit. Învățasem în comunism că salariul nu [...]

Articolul Observație a doctorului în științe politice Aurelian Giugăl: ”În anii ’80 voiam să plece Ceaușescu, în anii ’90 voiam să plece Iliescu, în anii 2000 voiam să plece Năstase și Băsescu, acum vrem să plece Dragnea”! apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

Până la urmă, ceva bun tot a ieșit din această revărsare de bube, mucegaiuri și noroi care a fost Referendumul Urii. Apele s-au separat și, Slavă Cerului, murdăria e mai puțină decât ne temeam.

Acum vedem limpede unde și cine sunt antinaționalii, cei care asmut români împotriva românilor, politicienii cu credință calpă și preoții în sutană politică. Acum am înțeles cine-i coloana a 5-a, lupul antinațional și antieuropean împachetat în blana grijii față de familie, gazda și purtătorul unei ideologii cvasi-naziste pe care a plănuit s-o inoculeze în societate.

Pentru prima dată, în România avem partide noi – noi, în sensul că nu sunt așchii sărite din marele trunchi securistico-comunist al Loviluției…

Acum știm că România s-a schimbat și s-a maturizat, că nu mai cade pradă fricii și că nu se mai lasă autodevorată de ură, ca în anii ’90. Oamenii văd minciuna, identifică precis corupții și înțeleg ce se ascunde în spatele propagandei. Românii manifestează în stradă, în curând de aproape doi ani, împotriva abuzului puterii asupra legii, asupra statului de drept, asupra însăși ideii de justiție și dreptate, dar puterea și lătrăii ei continuă să-i ignore și să-i ridiculizeze atunci când nu trimit jandarmii să-i bată și să-i gazeze în centrul orașului. De ce ar fi răspuns atunci cetățenii la chemarea puterii?

În decembrie ’89, România a fost luată în stăpânire de Partidul Jepcarilor. De 28 de ani, aceiași politicieni se-nvârt pe la câteva partide ce diferă doar cu numele, dar care sunt unite în singurul lor interes: căpușarea statului, a fondurilor publice adunate din munca, taxele și impozitele oamenilor cinstiți din această țară. Vremea acestui partid de hoți a trecut demult, dar va mai dura până țara va scăpa de tot de paraziții din el – însă procesul a început. Pentru prima dată, în România avem partide noi – noi, în sensul că nu sunt așchii sărite din marele trunchi securistico-comunist al Loviluției – iar societatea este interconectată și mult mai informată.

O scenă petrecută duminică, în București, descrie perfect decuplarea dramatică a clasei politice și a Bisericii Ortodoxe față de problemele reale ale societății românești. “La referendumul pentru familie bate vântul, în schimb mii de familii de liceeni au stat la coadă, la Sala Palatului, la un târg dedicat celor care vor să plece la studii în străinătate”, titrează site-ul Republica. Românii fug pe capete din țara lor sărăcită de o șleahtă de hoți încăpățânați, iar guvernarea, împreună cu Biserica Ortodoxă, aruncă asupra țării ceață și otravă. Pe cine mai reprezintă acești politicieni și acești preoți?

Poate că a venit momentul să discutăm serios despre statutul adevărat al BOR în România…

Că veni vorba: cu această campanie, BOR s-a transformat într-un actor politic de o violență propagandistică năucitoare. Biserica noastră strămoșească este, iată, lacomă de și mai multă influență politică, și a alergat după mai multă putere până s-a-mpiedicat în sutană și a căzut în nas. Finanțată generos de stat, tratată preferențial de Fisc, respectată, fie și cu jumătate de gură, de (încă) majoritatea populației, BOR a organizat adunări politice în biserici, și-a pus preoții să amenințe enoriașii care nu voiau să voteze, a scos popii pe străzi, în marșuri pentru schimbarea Constituției României, a susținut activ și dezgustător de medieval toate minciunile îngrozitoare, jignirile și ofensele aruncate asupra unor cetățeni ai Românie care n-au nicio vină decât că sunt diferiți de majoritate. BOR are o problemă reală și profundă de adecvare la așteptările societății românești.

Dacă aceasta este cartea pe care vor s-o joace sfinții părinți – a obscurantismului, urii și izolării – atunci cred că viitorul ei nu arată prea bine. Poate că a venit momentul să discutăm serios despre statutul adevărat al BOR în România, în condițiile în care această instituție și-a abandonat neutralitatea și s-a transformat într-o rețea națională de propagandă și influență politică.

O altă victimă a propriei capcane este PNL, care a ratat ultima ocazie semnificativă de a se desprinde de PSD înaintea alegerilor din anii viitori. Liberalii sunt în vrie și în confuzie de ani de zile, dar acum picajul mi se pare că a devenit imposibil de redresat. Suspectat (și pe bună dreptate) de complicitate cu PSD în atacul la Justiție, PNL a irosit acum singura carte importantă pe care o mai avea de jucat: atașamentul față de valorile europene. Nu mai ai de ce să-i crezi când spun că-s diferiți de PSD și nici nu au ce să ofere în plus față de PSD. De ce i-ai mai vota?

Dragnea va continua să-și conducă neabătut jalnica adunătură de slugi spre fundătura de moralitate și relevanță politică pe care o merită…

Într-un partid adevărat, eșecul referendumului ar trebui să-i fie fatal dpdv politic lui Liviu Dragnea, dar el e stăpân peste un PSD care nu mai seamănă deloc cu cel de pe vremea lui Năstase, când mai existau încă în partid lideri cu greutate și inteligență cât să organizeze măcar o execuție eficientă, după bunele reguli bolșevice de înjunghiere a tovarășilor deviaționiști. Acum, PSD e inundat de nulități, agramați, gângavi cu gura mare, hoți neîndemânateci sau imbecili de-a dreptul, care vor da din cap la orice le spune liderul precum cățeii cu arc ce se puneau în spatele Daciilor, pe vremuri. Dragnea va continua să-și conducă neabătut jalnica adunătură de slugi spre fundătura de moralitate și relevanță politică pe care o merită, de altfel, cu toții. Mai am o singură curiozitate: cine – și, mai ales, de ce – va prelua epava când căpitanul va intra, în cele din urmă, la pușcărie. Tic-tac, tic-tac.

The post Referendumul urii și sfârșitul ipocriziei appeared first on Petreanu.ro.

În urmă cu şase ani şi jumătate scriam cum şi mai ales când ar trebui ca cineva să îşi facă asigurare de viaţă cu exemplu personal. Fiind în vacanţă în această vară am uitat să îmi plătesc prima de asigurare de viaţă, iar asigurătorul meu a uitat să mă notifice că sunt în întârziere şi ...Citeşte mai departe

Pe scurt: dupa aproape 20 de ani si zeci de mii de ore de coaching si advising, mi se pare ca marea majoritate a problemelor de performanta sunt direct (si nemijlocit) legate de lipsa unui scop suficient de motivant pentru cel/cea care ”sufera” de probleme cu performanta. Recunosc, aceasta aproape-concuzie mi-a venit lucrand cu manageri seniori si de top. Insa ea se extinde, identic, si la echipele de management pe care le-am antrenat.

Imi poti spune ca am dobandit o idee fixa. Sunt ok cu asta. As vrea din tot sufletul meu entuziast despre dezvoltarea oamenilor sa fie asa. Imi mai poti spune ca acesta concluzie este prea simplista. Exista mai multi factori care, in corelatie, creaza neperformanta. Plus, contextul. Cultura organizationala. Etc. Sunt ok si cu genul asta de judecati. Permite-mi doar inca o vorba…

Daca vorbim de lideri, intrebarea devine simpla: daca organizatia si-a stabilit scopul (de cele mai multe ori financiar si raportat la piata in care functioneaza) si managerii organizatiei si-au asumat indeplinirea acestui scop, care este combustibilul care ii duce pe acestia la performanta?

Frica?

Rusinea?

Recunoasterea statutului?

Familiaritatea cu piata?

Realizarea profesionala?

Puterea?

Toate acestea sunt, de cele mai multe ori, raspunsurile celor care de la un moment dat incolo, devin incapabili sa mai atinga o performanta de nivel superior.

Ei bine, singurul raspuns sincer si autentic pe care il aud ca explicatie a lipsei de rezultate sau performanta este: lipsa unui scop inspirational. Mai pe romaneste, liderii fac ce trebuie sa faca…fara sa fie parte din ceva atractiv, dintr-un sens mai larg, care ii atinge in cea mai sensibila zona a sufletului.

Atentie, deci! Daca ai lideri buni in organizatie, lideri care nu livreaza rezultatele asteptate, verifica ”combustibilul” lor. Cantitatea si in special calitatea acestuia. Iar daca ai intrebari despre asta, te invit sa imi scrii.

Inca ceva: facem saptamana asta un workshop despre motivarea echipei. S-ar putea sa te intereseze. Detalii AICI.

 

Succes!

Articolul Motivatia – combustibilul succesului? apare prima dată în Mihai Stanescu.

UPDATE: BOR are o reacție măsurată, în care mulțumește votanților și, în același timp, susține că opinia cetățenilor, oferită ”prin participare la vot sau prin neprezentare la vot, trebuie respectată şi analizată”

 

Clopotele au bătut a primejdie, dar românii [...]

Articolul Biserica a întrebat, creștinii au răspuns! Rezultatul referendumului, o lecție de toleranță pe care credincioșii o oferă preoților apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

de Mirela Neag, Răzvan Luțac și Cătălin Tolontan

Cum arăta viața angajaților de la Spitalul Malaxa?

Au povestit azi martorele Laura Niţu şi Nicoleta Ciobanu, angajate ale spitalului, în fața judecătorului Vlad Andriescu.

Începe un nou termen al dosarului de [...]

Articolul Mărturii la tribunal în procesul Secureanu: „Eram sclavi pe plantaţie! O doctoriţă a fost înjurată de morţi după ce îi murise mama” apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

Chris Simion – Mercurian, regizor și autor, una dintre prezențele valului tânăr de artiști români care evoluează exclusiv în zona privată, reacționează după ce numele ei apare pe lista de susținători ai Gabrielei Firea.

Câteva zeci de oameni de sport [...]

Articolul Reacția unui regizor tânăr, indignat că numele său e folosit politic: „Nu am semnat scrisoarea de sprijin pentru Gabriela Firea, scoateți-mă de pe listă! Nu primarul, ci Primăria finanțează cultura, din bani publici!” apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

“It’s dressed-up quackery isn’t it?” magistrate Daniel Reiss said.

“That’s one view, your honour,” the prosecutor replied.

That is a good summary of pretty much all alternative medicine. Practitioners have gotten very good at dressing it up, enough to even fool academics who aren’t paying close attention. But in the end, it’s all quackery.

The quote above refers to a recent case of a Sydney Chinese herbalist, Yun Sen Luo, who was arrested and charged with manslaughter in the death of 56 year old client he was treating. He advised the diabetic woman to go off her diabetes medication, ultimately resulting in her death. The charge is gross negligence.

The success of alternative medicine over the last few decades has been in convincing the world that what they offer is a genuine alternative to real medicine. They have rebranded it as complementary, and the integrative, but it’s all the same – using unproven, fanciful, or even disproven treatments instead of real medicine. They justify the substitution by appealing to nature, distracting with hand-waving pseudoscientific jargon, appealing to antiquity, or straight-up lying. In the extreme they weave complex conspiracy theories about the medical establishment to scare people away from real medicine.

This case is just one example, but it’s not atypical. The core problem is that we have a practitioner who is practicing medicine without a license, and without the requisite medical knowledge, training, and experience. The con is that if you simply call what you do “alternative” you can get away with it (until you kill someone – and even then, sometimes).

Herbalism is an interesting example because herbs are drugs. They are drugs that have been poorly studied, they are not purified or quantified, they often contain multiple active ingredients, have variable doses, bioavailability, interactions with other drugs, and effects on the body. They are frequently contaminated, substituted, and counterfeited.

Imagine if a doctor said to you, “I am going to prescribe you this concoction of drugs. I am not sure whats in it or at what doses, but it’s natural, so what the heck.”

The appeal to antiquity is perhaps the most pernicious deception. Often, uses of specific herbs are not as old as claimed. Echinacea, for example, was not used by Native Americans to treat the flu or other infections. That was a claim made up in the 19th century by a snake oil salesman for marketing purposes.

In any case, a long history of use without scientific investigation is no guarantee of safety or effectiveness. Blood letting survived for a couple thousand years based on common experience.

Throwing out your real medicine is also not the only risk. Some Chinese herbs are toxic to the kidneys, for example. Unlisted ingredients can cause allergies, heavy metal contamination can cause toxicity, and the herbs themselves can interfere with prescription drugs or be toxic to the kidneys or liver.

Remember, the only difference between an effect of a drug and a side effect is the desirability. All effects are pharmacological, and we try to purify drugs, tweak them, and study them to find a specific dose range in which there is a desirable effect with tolerable side effects. This does not happen by accident. The probability of getting this sweet spot effect from herbs, with all their variability, is negligible.

One common response to this point is that, “Well, drugs are dangerous and cause side effects too.” Of course they do – that’s my premise. And herbs are drugs. That’s why they have to be used carefully. Often cases like Vioxx are brought up, a drug that increase the risk of heart attacks in at-risk patients and had to be taken off the market. This effect of Vioxx would not have been discovered without study, however. An herb can have the same or worse effect but fly under the radar, because no one is doing large rigorous clinical trials to track possible negative effects.

The risk of direct harm from herbs is probably (but not entirely) mostly small, but that is only because dosing is on the low side and bioavailability (how much drug actually gets into your body) can be very low. This is not a defense, however, because (as I stated above) effects and side effects track with each other. If there are few side effects because of low bioavailability, then there is likely low effects too. You can’t have it both ways. If you increase the dose or absorption in order to get a beneficial effect, then the risks scale up too.

Herbalism is based mainly on magical thinking and ignorance of pharmacology. Those herbs with useful chemicals that can be exploited pharmacologically become actual drugs. At the very least they are studied in purified and standardized forms, and occasionally may have some modest benefit. But because the industry is so poorly regulated, you cannot apply these studies to the real world. You essentially have no idea what you are really buying when you purchase an herbal product.

This case of alleged manslaughter also is a reminder of a major risk that goes beyond the herbs themselves – the herbal and supplement industry is all about self-empowerment. They want you to be your own doctor by using their products. Obviously for minor self-limiting symptoms, over-the-counter treatments are fine. But we need to carefully study the effect of making drugs available OTC, how they will be used, and carefully regulate their marketing.

I find that the marketing of herbs and supplements often go over the line, and encourage a level of self-treatment that is risky. (Just search on “herbs” and “diabetes” or “cancer” and see what results you get.” But further, when someone hangs up a shingle and proclaims themselves to be a health expert, we are in a different realm. They may be using worthless homeopathic potions, or dubious herbs, or some other “alternative” treatment, but this is all just “dressed up quackery.” They may be able to call themselves “doctor” and will have the trappings of professionalism, but there is nothing behind it.

Unless there is a science-based standard of care and a mechanism of enforcement, these are just fake doctors exploiting a public who falsely believes they would be protected by the law and regulations. Not any more. The snake oil salesmen have won.

We’re doing it wrong. We are definitely making an effort to regulate the practice of medicine and sale of health-care products and services to protect the public from fraud and abuse, as we should. But we are doing it wrong, or at least not well enough.

Just one of the many examples is stem-cell quackery, which I have discussed before. Stem cells are an exciting area of research, and the basic technology is advancing significantly. Clinical applications, however, take time, and with a few exceptions we are simply not there yet. We are currently, therefore, in the sweet spot for abuse.

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, called The Merchants of Hope, highlights the problem. The article should have been called The Merchants of False Hope, but otherwise it did a good job of exposing dubious stem cell clinics that have made their way to the US. A decade ago stem cell clinics were popping up in China, India, and other countries with lax regulation, leading to an industry of stem-cell tourism. But now you can find dubious stem cell clinics right here in the US.

Stem cells, for a quick review, are cells that can turn into other types of cells. There are pluripotent stem cells that can turn into several other kinds of cells, such as the cells in your bone marrow that can make different kinds of blood cells. There are also totipotent stem cells that can turn into any kind of cell. Researchers have gotten good at making totipotent stem cells, even out of mature skin cells. This technology holds the promise of treating a long list of conditions by replacing diseased or damaged cells with new ones.

Where the technology is having problems is in controlling what the stem cells do. We have to coax them into turning into the desired type of cell, in surviving in the correct location and functioning properly. Further, we need to keep them from growing out of control, essentially causing a tumor. This is proving challenging.

What current dubious stem cell clinics generally do is inject some type of stem cells into the problem tissue, as if it were a magic potion, and then hope for the best. That’s really it. They have not leap-frogged the technology by 20 years, they have not worked out all the technical problems, and they have not tested their treatments to prove that they actually work. Clinics (especially in China and similar locations) often do not even disclose what they are injecting, or carefully track outcomes. Unsurprisingly, “alternative medicine” practitioners are taking the lead in providing these dubious treatments. American researchers who have tried to track the outcomes retrospectively find a trail of devastation and trashed hopes. They conclude:

Collected evidence indicates substantial patient exploitation using the “power of hope,” and risks using unproven SCIs (Stem Cell Interventions). 

The main problem (other than practitioners with questionable ethics) is that the regulatory infrastructure does not have adequate resources to implement the current strategy for protecting the public, and they are too slow to respond to changes in the health care market.

In the case of stem cells, the FDA has the power to regulate the cells themselves as a biological product, but the FDA lacks the resources and often the regulatory teeth to effectively shut down such fraudulent practices. They set their sites on the worst offenders, but 10 more pop up in their place.

States have the power to regulate the practice of medicine, but they generally lack the resources and political will to do an effective job. Some states have instituted laws requiring stem cells clinics to post notices that their treatments are unproven – an entirely ineffective measure that gives them the illusion they are addressing the problem.

There are also many loop holes to exploit, such as research. Unethical practitioners have learned that they can easily pretend to be doing clinical research, although they still charge their “subjects” for the treatment, and never publish any results.

Whenever I write about such topics there are those who comment that people should be free to offer and to use whatever service they want, and the free market will sort it out. This position is both ethically dubious and factually challenged. First, we can say from history that the free market does not “sort it out.” Dubious treatments persist, even when they are harmful and/or worthless. The problem is made clear by reading the many comments by the victims of such clinics.

If someone with all the trappings of legitimacy (white coat, letters after their name, state licensure) tells you they can fix your serious health problem with some fancy new medical technology, why would the average person doubt them? A non-expert would lack the knowledge necessary to judge the claims for themselves. They are also in a compromised position, because they may be desperate from their illness or that of their loved-one.

In short, offering dubious treatments obscured with technical jargon to desperate patients is predatory and arguably fraudulent behavior. We don’t let the market sort out fraud and abuse – we make fraud and abuse illegal. Market forces are excellent at working out issues of quality, service, convenience, and cost that are perceptible to the consumer. Medical services generally are not – it is often impossible to tell how a specific treatment affected an individual patient. We need statistical data to know what the risks and benefits are.

There is also a huge knowledge and experience gap between practitioner and patient (or at least a perceived one).

Finally, if you buy a bad product that breaks, you won’t buy that product again. If you opt for a medical treatment that is dubious, you may die or suffer horrible morbidity. You may have had to get a second mortgage on the house to pay the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a treatment based entirely on desperation and false hope. Saying the market will “sort it out” is cruel.

Transparency is a first step, but it is not sufficient. The FDA needs the resources and the legal ability to much more quickly and effectively shut down clinics that are exploiting desperate patients with unproven therapies. States need to step up also and do their job of regulating the standard of care – otherwise there is effectively no standard.

I don’t think that is what the public wants, or thinks that they currently have. The public believes they have more protections than they actually have, which makes them more vulnerable. Desperate patients tell themselves that the treatments must be legit, or otherwise they would not be allowed. Inadequate regulations just serve as a false sense of security, playing into the hands of charlatans and quacks.

The rise of dubious stem cell clinics is yet another sign that we are doing it wrong, and need to make some serious changes to how we protect patients (i.e., all of us) from health care predators.

 

”Dincolo de Mondial” este titlul de primă pagină al Gazetei Sporturilor de azi.

Colegul nostru Theodor Jumătate, corespondentul ziarului la Campionatul Mondial de Fotbal, a vizitat cimitirul militar de la Rossoșka, situat la 40 de kilometri de Volgograd.

Mai [...]

Articolul Cele două steaguri ale României care flutură la căpătâiul celor 150.000 de soldați români morți la Stalingrad sunt cît o batistă! apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

A trecut linia roșie.

Primarul Bucureștiului e huiduit de o tribună întreagă și se uită, nedumerit, neînțelegând ce se petrece.

A trecut linia roșie, asta a făcut!

E soarta politicienilor ori de câte ori încearcă să-și ia creditul pentru munca [...]

Articolul Gabi Firea a pățit azi, la sărbătoarea Simonei Halep, ce a pățit Elena Udrea la Gala lui Lucian Bute apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

“…but it might be for you.”

That’s a home run.

The stuff that’s for everyone, that’s easy to click, sniff, share, produce and learn–that stuff ends up having no character. It’s not memorable. Tater tots are for everyone.

But would you miss them if they were gone?

The goal isn’t to serve everyone. The goal is to serve the right people.

 

BIG PS: Today’s the first official post on my new blog, the first new blog platform for me in this century, give or take. If you’re getting this by email, click the title of the post to take a peek, or visit https://seths.blog if you’re curious.

Delighted that we’re now powered by WordPress. Special thanks to Alex Peck and Noah Grubb for tireless, thoughtful, careful work on this transition.

Do we currently have the technology to create an energy infrastructure that is based 100% on renewable energy? That is a legitimate and very useful debate to have, and one that is playing out in the published literature.

Two recent systematic reviews in particular take opposite sides of this question. In one Heard et al argue that the burden of proof for feasibility and viability have not been met. In the same journal, Brown et al respond, saying that 100% renewable is both feasible and viable.

Both articles get fairly wonky, but they are reasonably easy to follow for the main points.

Heard argues that studies looking at plans for total renewable energy fail to consider critical factors, such as the feasibility of grid storage, of load balancing, and the necessary ancillary services required to maintain such a grid. They conclude that we would have to reinvent the electrical grid and infrastructure if we wish to go to 100% renewable.

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Brown responds by arguing that only incremental advances to evolve our energy infrastructure are needed, and that 100% renewable are feasible with current technology, and economically viable.

From reading both papers, which if you are interested in this topic I suggest you do, I came down somewhere in the middle. I give the edge to Brown, but I think he and his coauthors made a bit of a biased case for renewables. Meanwhile Heard, I think, overemphasized current limitations. I got the sense that both were making a lawyer’s case for their side.

Here is what I get from these articles: First, it seems clear that we are capable of making sufficient energy from renewable sources to meet world demand. Further, renewable energy is cost effective, and the price is continuing to drop. So energy production is simply not the problem.

Further, renewables (mostly wind and solar) have some strong advantages. The first is that they are renewable – they do not depend on a limited resource that will eventually run out. The second is that they do not directly release carbon into the environment. There is a carbon footprint associated with the production of solar panels and wind turbines, but this is a small fraction of other energy sources.

Also, if you consider the externalized costs of the environmental and health effects of fossil fuels, non-polluting energy sources are massively cost effective.

So where are the problems? Renewable energy’s main downside is that they are intermittent, not on-demand. This creates challenges for grid stability, balancing supply and demand, grid storage, and reserve capacity for occasional dry spells (sustained periods of low light or low wind).

Both authors agree that right now we do not have the infrastructure to deal with significant renewable penetration. They differ about how radically and quickly we would have to change or infrastructure – but we have to change it.

Grid storage is clearly needed, and this is the main area where I disagree with Brown. He suggested that existing grid storage options are adequate, and even gave a positive nod to lithium ion batteries.

However, while he gave us calculations on the finite amount of uranium in the world, there was no mention of the finite amount of lithium and rare earths. We may find more reserves of lithium, but we may also find more reserves of uranium. We may find substitutes for lithium and the rare earths, but we also may develop thorium reactors (thorium is much more abundant than uranium).

In any case, I simply don’t think we are there yet with battery technology. We are making steady incremental advances, and I think we will get there, but we may be 10-20 years away from a viable widely distributed system of grid storage based on battery technology.

There are other options, which I review here, but none of them great. Pumped hydro is the best, but is limited by terrain. We may need to develop hydrogen fuel cells, use renewables to make hydrogen, and use the hydrogen to store the energy. But this will require a massive change to our energy infrastructure.

This is where I think Brown skirted some real issues. He essentially argued that there are options that do not require any new technology or massive upgrade to the system, and there are options that can meet all our demands. But these are not the same options – there are no options that meet all the criteria he detailed at the same time.

Another alternative to grid storage to level off supply and demand is simply demand capacity – creating electricity on demand as needed. Brown acknowledges that worst case we may need to keep some fossil fuel plants on hand to meet demand needs.

He also points out that nuclear is not a good option for demand power generation. Nuclear plants operate most effectively when they are always on a peak production. But there is a recent analysis that indicates that nuclear power plants can produce variable power to meet demand, and that this would improve the economics of nuclear power.

I also think he does not consistently apply his criterion of viability of not requiring any new technology. I agree that we should not count on any technological breakthroughs, like fusion reactors. But I do think we can count of incremental advances that are already in the pipeline. This should apply equally to nuclear as to battery and solar technology.

I do agree with the bottom line conclusion of all the authors that we need to have a healthy evidence-based debate about how to move forward. We cannot make plans without a detailed analysis of technological feasibility and economic and political viability.

We need to chart a course forward that will get us to a sustainable minimal carbon energy infrastructure as soon as possible and in the most cost-effective way.

But at this time I do not think there is on clear option, because every options has serious limitations that will require some technological advances and significant upgrades to our infrastructure.

I think we still need to explore all our options. Clearly we will benefit from continued incremental advances in solar, wind, and battery technology. But I also think there is tremendous potential for advances in nuclear technology, and that we should not ignore this option.

We need to explore all our grid storage options, and will likely need a system that uses many components, optimized to location and other considerations.

The good news is that I think we will get there. The economics is on the side of renewables, and that will ultimately drive the development. The big  variable right now is time – how much carbon will we release and with what consequences before we move to mostly low-carbon energy?

This is where political will comes into play. And here, I think all we may need is to properly consider the externalized costs of fossil fuel. If fossil fuel use has to pay for the health and environmental effects, all other forms of energy become a no-brainer.

 

Verdictul definitiv de azi face lumină în afacerea pentru care DNA, inculpații și avocații s-au înfruntat vreme de trei ani în fața judecătorilor. Patru dintre cei acuzați și-au recunoscut vinovăția, ceilalți patru s-au luptat pentru nevinovăția lor. Mizele au fost [...]

Articolul Udrea- 6 ani de închisoare! Sentința din „Gala Bute” crește la 10 milioane de euro suma recuperată de bugetul de stat ca urmare a investigațiilor GSP despre corupție! apare prima dată în Cătălin Tolontan.

Psychologist Jeremy Shapiro has an interesting article on RawStory in which he argues that one of the pillars of science denial is the false dichotomy. I agree, and this point is worth exploring further. He also points out that the same fallacy in thinking is common in several mental disorders he treats.

The latter point may be true, but I don’t see how that adds much to our understanding of science denial, and may be perceived as inflammatory. For example, he says that borderline personality disorder clients often split the people in their world into all bad or all good. If you do one thing wrong, then you are a bad person. Likewise, perfectionists often perceive that any outcome or performance that is less than perfect gets lumped into one category of unsatisfactory.

I do think these can be useful examples to show how dichotomous thinking can lead to or at least support a mental disorder. Part of the goal of therapy for people with these disorders is cognitive therapy, to help them break out of their pattern of approaching the world as a simple dichotomy. But we have to be careful not to imply that science denial itself is a mental illness or disorder.

Denialism and False Dichotomy

A false dichotomy is a common logical fallacy in which many possibilities, or a continuum of possibilities, is rhetorically collapsed into only two choices. People are either tall or short, there is no other option. There are just Democrats and Republicans.

While some physical properties may in fact be truly dichotomous (electric charge is either positive or negative), people and the world itself usually display much more complex features. Most traits exist along a continuum. Yet our minds like simplicity, and we like to categorize and pigeon-hole things in order to mentally grapple with them. Using schematics and categories is fine, but we have to recognize they are not reality, which is often more messy.

These principles are especially true when dealing with very complex systems, like people. People are rarely if ever all good or all bad, for example. People generally are a complex combination of traits that range from vice to virtue, are often context dependent, and exist along a continuum.

Likewise, scientific understanding also cannot be understand as any simple dichotomy. I have written previously about the demarcation problem between science and pseudoscience, for example. We cannot divide all claims to science into two clean categories – with pristine science on one end and pure pseudoscience at the other. There is a continuum with no clear dividing line between the two.

However, we can identify methods and features that are scientifically valid and others that are flawed. The more valid features any scientific endeavor has, the more of a legitimate science it is, while the more dubious features it has makes it more pseudoscientific. So while there is no sharp demarcation line, there are two recognizable ends of the spectrum. Denying this reality is also a logical fallacy – the false continuum.

Scientific knowledge also falls along a continuum. No fact is established to 100% metaphysical certitude, nor can we assign a 0% probability to any claim. This is because human knowledge is limited, is dependent on our perspective, frame of reference, and perhaps unknown assumptions.

Still this does not mean that we cannot be 99.99% certain that some basic fact about the universe is probably true. The world is roughly a sphere. We can be absolutely certain of that (despite the delusions of flat-earthers) to such a high degree that we can treat it as 100%. Similarly we can say that homeopathy has as close to 0% a chance of having a real medical effect as we can get in medicine. You can place every scientific claim along this spectrum, based on existing evidence, competing theories, known unknowns, and other factors. The more well-established independent lines of evidence point to one conclusion, the more confident we can be in that conclusion.

So while there is a continuum of confidence in scientific facts and theories, we can divide that continuum up into practical categories. There are well-established facts that we can use as a solid foundation. There are theories that are sufficiently well-established that we can act upon them, even if there remains some small uncertainty or room for doubt. Other claims are possibly true but we should treat with caution. Some claims in the middle are a toss up, we really cannot say with any confidence one way or the other. Then there are claims that are probably not true but there is room for a minority opinion and we shouldn’t write them off just yet. And finally there are claims and theories that have been sufficiently disproved that we can move on and stop wasting any further resources on pursuing them.

We can quibble about where exactly to draw the lines, and about exactly where any one scientific claim exists on this spectrum, and that debate is healthy. It is part of the scientific process. Designations are also moving targets, revised as new evidence and new ideas are brought to bear.

Shapiro I think is correct in pointing out that science denialism, as one of its strategies, collapsing this continuum into the false dichotomy of – scientific conclusions are either rock solid, or they are suspect and controversial at best and bogus at worst. They ignore the huge part of the spectrum where we can treat theories as probably true, even if minor uncertainty remains. The purpose of this strategy is so that all they have to do is point to unknowns, apparent anomalies, apparent contradictions, or any dissent among scientists (no matter how minor) as evidence that the theory is not 100% rock solid. Therefore the theory is controversial and suspect.

So evolution deniers will point to “gaps” in the fossil record as if that calls the entire theory into question. Or they will point to disagreements among scientists about some of the details of evolution to claim that the entire theory is controversial and there is no consensus. Any chink, any flaw, and the whole theory collapses, in their view.

Scientists often inadvertently feed this strategy, because they are operating in the real world where scientific knowledge is a continuum. They will sometimes make statements about how disruptive their new discovery is, or how little we understood prior to their breakthrough, without realizing how such statements can easily be misused to attack the science itself. This is an important principle of effective science communication – to give an accurate portrayal of how science progresses. This means resisting the urge to overhype your own research.

Scientists are operating within a scientific paradigm, so when they make casual statements like, “We have no idea how this works,” they unconsciously are assuming that people will put such statements into the same scientific context in which it was meant. But that is often not the case. Usually such absolute statement are not literally true – we often have lots of ideas, and lots of evidence, but there may still be competing theories, or we lack solid confirming evidence.

Science needs to be understood as the messy, flawed, but at its best rigorous, thorough, and careful endeavor that it is. We don’t know everything, and we don’t necessarily know anything 100%. But that does not mean we know nothing, or that you can casually dismiss any scientific conclusion you don’t like. We do know stuff, and some stuff we know to such a high degree of confidence that we can treat it as a fact. Other things we can say with sufficient confidence to base important decisions on those conclusions. I practice medicine, so this is my daily life.

Climate change is a perfect example. There are significant uncertainties in exactly what is happening and will happen with the climate, all the feedback mechanisms at play, and what the net results will be. But we do have a fairly high degree of confidence that releasing large amounts of previously sequestered carbon into the atmosphere is forcing rising average global temperatures, with potentially inconvenient effects. The consensus on the evidence is strong enough to act, even with the lingering uncertainty.

Waiting for 100% certainty is rarely practical. If you approached health care this way, you would be paralyzed into inaction with very bad outcomes. If we were only 95% confident that an asteroid was going to wipe out all life on Earth, I think we should act on that 95%, and not quibble about the 5%.

Toată lumea are trac de scenă. Chiar și cei mai talentați și buni oratori de pe planetă se emoționează înainte de a vorbi unei audiențe. Pentru a trece peste acest lucru, ei știu că cea mai importantă regulă care se aplică este că publicul este acolo ca să-i asculte. De aici, pornesc celelalte reguli. În 

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In the excellent series, Rick and Morty, the scientist Rick Sanchez invented a portal gun that allows him to jump into any of the infinite number of universes. This is a great plot device that allows for many funny and absurd scenarios. There are also parts of this idea that are not implausible, according to cosmologists.

Stephen Hawking, with coauthor Thomas Hertog, had something to say about the multi-universe theory in his final paper published 10 days prior to his death. The paper, 20 years in the making, reverses some of Hawking’s earlier positions and also, if ultimately viable, still leaves much work to be done.

This is one of those scientific arguments that is incomprehensible in its language and math outside of a small group of experts. I have no hope of reading and understanding the original paper. But I will do my best to pull together translations of the basic concepts.

In this paper Hawking and Hertog are reversing one idea introduced by Hawking many years ago, that the universe is finite but unbound in time. This is literally impossible to imagine, but his analogy is to think of how being unbound but finite in space works. Imagine the surface of a ball. You can walk around the surface and never reach an end, but that surface is finite because it is curved back in on itself. What if time worked the same way? The life of our universe is a finite time loop, with no edge.

This appeared to solve one problem for cosmology – where did the universe come from? Hawking essentially used quantum mechanics to argue that the Big Bang represented the universe emerging from a quantum state to the semiclassical state it is in now – it emerged from quantum nothingness (which is not really nothing, but this is a potentially long side discussion).

This model implied the finite but unbound universe. It also implied an infinite number of universes, because if one universe can emerge from the quantum foam, then there is nothing to stop an infinite number of universes from doing so and a cartoon scientist from hopping among them. But this model also created what Hawking considered a problem – there was also nothing to constrain the physical laws of those universes. Other universes might have completely different laws of physics.

Why is this a “problem”? Because if any laws of physics could exist, than any theory about why the laws of physics are the way they are could be compatible with this multi-universe model. Some universe out there could potentially have the laws of physics that emerge out of any such cosmological theory. When a theory is compatible with any possible outcome, scientists get cranky because that means the theory is not testable. You can’t ever prove it wrong by finding an outcome that is incompatible with the theory. If the theory is not testable, than scientists have nothing to do.

As Live Science reports:

“Hawking was not satisfied with this state of affairs,” Hertog told Live Science in March. “‘Let’s try to tame the multiverse,’ he told me a year ago. So, we set out to develop a method to transform the idea of a multiverse into a coherent, testable scientific framework.”

The result is the current paper. In it Hawking and Hertog rework their theory with several effects. First, the Big Bang becomes a boundary for the time of the universe. The universe is no longer unbound in the temporal dimension, it has one boundary at the beginning, but remains unbound into the future.

Second, this reduces the infinite universes to a finite number, and also constrains the range of the laws of physics that might be present in those universes. Here is one of the more understandable paragraphs in the paper (really, most are complete jargon):

Our conjecture strengthens the intuition that holographic cosmology implies a significant reduction of the multiverse to a much more limited set of possible universes. This has important implications for anthropic reasoning. In a significantly constrained multiverse discrete parameters are determined by the theory. Anthropic arguments apply only to a subset of continuously varying parameters, such as the amount of slow roll inflation.

By anthropic arguments I assume they mean – why does our universe have laws of physics compatible with the existence of life and humans? In their new model, the laws of physics are constrained. They have to be what they are, or at least very similar. This at least creates the potential of further exploring why the laws of physics are the way they are.

The holographic universe idea is that all of the information that makes up our three-dimensional universe can be represented on a two-dimensional surface at the boundary of the universe.

One point on which I am still not clear – does their model imply a finite number of universes, or only a finite range of types of universes? Perhaps there are an infinite number of universes, but all with the same or similar laws of physics.

In any case, in order to progress their work further a number of fundamental issues in cosmology need to be worked out. This includes developing a working theory of quantum gravity – unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity. This is one of the Holy Grails of theoretical physics. We also have no real idea how close we are to any solution – whether string theory, loop quantum gravity, or something else not yet proposed.

Most intriguing in Hawking and Hertog’s new ideas is that we may be able to investigate other universes by their effect on the cosmic background radiation. That was the whole idea of their new approach – assume the multiverse can be understood and tested, and then develop a testable model. Hertog, however, does not think we will ever be able to hop from our universe to another, Rick and Morty style (although, honestly, how can we say anything like this with any confidence at this point?).

One final point on Rick and Morty – I never liked the logic that because there are an infinite number of universes then everything exists. Anything you can possibly imagine must exist in some universe somewhere. Again – this is a great and humorous plot device, and I know that is as far as it goes on the show, but as a thought experiment, does the logic hold? I don’t think so.

If there are an infinite number of possibilities, then even with an infinite number of universes there would be an infinite number of unrealized possibilities. For example, you can have an infinite series of integers. But between every two integers there are an infinite number of non-integers that are excluded from the infinite series. It seems to me that even with infinite universes, only plausible things will occur, and there is an infinite number of implausible outcomes that are excluded.

So there probably isn’t a universe out there in which sentient corn has duplicated Earth culture in every detail, just in corn.

 

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