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General Science / Re: Can open science website help science?

« on: 14/10/2016 19:44:41 »

Even if less than one in 10000 new hypotheses is worth anything, missing out on one that is correct is a disaster. That's why it is important to create a very efficient method for testing all hypotheses. That's where such an Internet platform comes in. Since many hypotheses can make somewhat different and even unique predictions on the outcomes of the same experiment, one experiment can test many hypotheses. That's where free linking comes in. If an user who knows an experiment finds a hypothesis that makes falsifiable predictions for which the experiment is relevant, he/she simply adds a link from the hypothesis page to the experiment page! Don't ask the hypothesis for credentials, don't care if you support or kill a hypothesis, just link to whatever experiments you know! Of course, such a website must demand the falsifiable predictions to be described concretely and understandable to whoever have the practical knowledge to do the experiment. A failed engineering project can be theoretical scientific progress by falsification!

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General Science / Re: Can open science website help science?

« on: 14/10/2016 19:34:18 »

I am referring to a platform for doing science, testing hypotheses. I am thinking of coding the links by whether or not the linked empirical data support the hypotheses, so that testing of hypotheses and theories can be easily gauged. So easily, in fact, I suggest a gradual scale of testedness to replace any binary distinctions between hypotheses and theories. So it will be easy to see the difference between untested or poorly tested and well-tested. Opening as of yet untested hypotheses for free addition of links to empirical data that test their falsifiable predictions is part of the creation of genuinely rigorous science, without the opportunities for bunk to hide behind discipline borders that poisons current peer review. The more hypotheses and theories that get tested and scrutinized, the better. It is certainly NOT a "corruption of the intellect"! A unified platform for maximizing the chances of a hypothesis or theory meeting its testing empirical evidence is good!

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General Science / Re: Can open science website help science?

« on: 14/10/2016 18:03:53 »

Merely using "New theories" on existing forums does not further the anti-fragmentation cause. What I am talking about is to create an united Internet platform optimized for falsificationist science without fragmentation into "fields". I imagine something more like a wiki than like a forum, though with free addition of links to empirical evidence instead of demanding the writer of the hypothesis or theory to reference.

I have tried creating wikis but never reached many readers. I do not have the money for an advertising campaign. A simple "good luck" isn't good enough, we need a joint effort!

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General Science / Can open science website help science?

« on: 12/10/2016 14:45:11 »

Would it be possible to create websites where anyone with a falsifiable hypothesis or theory can write it, the website demanding falsifiable predictions but not classification into a field? I imagine that any user should be able to add links to observations and experiment results that are relevant to said falsifiable predictions. Unlike today's peer review, which is fragmented into fields and thus allows bunk to go unfalsified merely because the empirical evidence against it is in another "field", this website would make much more efficient falsification possible.

I even imagine the possibility of requests for new experiments allowing many hypotheses that make different predictions on the outcomes of the same experiment to be tested at once, cutting costs. Also, in some cases where additional equipment for a hundred bucks or so can test a few extra hypotheses in addition to the hypotheses tested in a much more expensive suggested experiment, additions can be agreed. I imagine that this can make a shift from an "come with credentials for your hypothesis to see if it is worth testing" attitude to a "we cannot know what hypothesis is correct, so the more hypotheses we test, the better" attitude.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Temporary magnetization of Casimir effect plates?

« on: 10/10/2016 07:02:18 »

Have experiments been done on temporary magnetization of thin and very smooth plates pulled together by the Casimir effect? That is, temporary magnetization precisely when they smash together. If so, have passing laser beams or easily moved very small non-magnetic objects near the experiment set-up been studied in such experiments?

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Geek Speak / Re: How can redundant publication policies be used against themselves?

« on: 09/03/2015 15:09:37 »

That is, anyone who knows how to trick redundant publication detectors into taking everything for redundant publication? Or any other ideas on how to destroy "no redundant publication" policies in "peer review"?

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Geek Speak / How can redundant publication policies be used against themselves?

« on: 07/03/2015 09:08:03 »

There is a half-finished plan for getting rid of the no redundant publication policies of "peer review" journals at http://gettingsciencegoingagain.blogspot.se/2014/12/using-redundant-publication-policies.html Can anyone with good computer knowledge tell how to do it practically?

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General Science / Re: Ways to eliminate peer review publication embargo.

« on: 10/03/2014 10:40:40 »

Are you sure? I recently talked to a person who claimed that there is a general consensus today that new theories should only be published in peer review journals first (only later-after the discussion had been interrupted- did I find out by googling that there was indeed such a consensus five or six years ago but not anymore). He claimed that it was every scientist's responsibility to follow those rules, and that it was too late for theories that had already been published in non-peer review first. That upset me so I thought out a perfectly legal strategy to destroy that system and created my blog http://freesciencepublication.blogspot.se/

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General Science / Hoe can we eliminate peer review publication embargoes?

« on: 07/03/2014 11:17:00 »

This interesting blog post http://freesciencepublication.blogspot.se/2014/03/using-system-against-itself.html outlines a strategy for eradicating the publication embargo of peer review journals!

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General Science / Re: Are there any accessible and inexpensive peer review journals?

« on: 06/11/2013 06:23:22 »

I could wait until next year to publish (less than 2 months left and still some work left to do on my articles), but the question is: does the "free to publish" policy apply to foreign authors? I am not an UK citizen. If it indeed does apply to foreign citizens, can you please post links so that I can use the time left until next year to adapt my article writing style to said web "papers"?

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General Science / Re: Are there any accessible and inexpensive peer review journals?

« on: 04/11/2013 15:24:44 »

That is, I am asking for advice of where to publish articles.

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General Science / Are there any accessible and inexpensive peer review journals?

« on: 04/11/2013 14:16:34 »

My University Teacher have told me that less than 1 percent of scientists ever get an article published in heavily prestigious journals like Nature. He recommended me to publish in peer review journals on Springer instead, but there the terms says that it costs 3000 Euros, and I do not have that much money. Are there any peer review journals where it is both cheap to publish articles and realistic odds of publication?

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 26/05/2013 06:25:12 »

It is either absolutely objective science, or just a belief system among other belief systems. Geocentrism was also "fruitful" in that it could predict most of the motion of celestial bodies and left the anomalies on the "back burner".

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 25/05/2013 06:37:38 »

The reason for a "collective judgement" from "the scientific community" is that science has become too large a subject for any one person to master. But different branches of science often rely on the results of experiments, or the dictates of theories, from another specialization. So that atmospheric modellers, for example, are primarily applied mathematicians. But they depend on research in oceanography to obtain a boundary condition for their models, on chemists for reliable measured rates of reaction (and the underlying principles of how to measure them) in order to incorporate chemical processes  into their models, etc.

There is a system that is far from perfect, but generally very reliable, that allows this to happen. Empirically this system can be judged by its productivity in terms of technological spin-offs, predictions that are borne out in practice, etc.

It is possible to work collectively without an official viewpoint that ridicules other viewpoints. Just that all psychologism inherently ridicules its opposition and can therefore not be part of it.

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 25/05/2013 06:35:59 »

From Martin J Sallberg:

Quote from: damocles on 23/05/2013 15:37:26
My apologies Martin. It is Australian (and North American?) slang for "eccentric", with perhaps a hint of being a pejorative term and of referring to an extreme form of eccentricity.

It was not dialectal misunderstanding, it was criticism of the term.

Why, Martin? Do you imagine that journal editors do not have a flood of wacky papers coming across their desks all the time? Do you imagine that they should just shrug their shoulders and publish everything? Do you imagine that working scientists do not have a hard enough time keeping up with the literature?

My reading of it is that you have a hidden agenda -- perhaps a piece of your work that is not 'wacky' that has been rejected by an editor, and you are so focussed on that that you are blind to the fact that there are hundreds of genuinely wacky articles being submitted?

Empirically you are showing a lot of the signs of cognitive bias, e.g. dismissing Cheryl's well thought through and fairly harmless post as a "rant", and feeling obliged to have the last word and to criticize every point that is made against you.

You are completely ignoring several facts:

#The same evidence can disprove multiple theories, so there is no need to test every theory separately to test them.

#Technically speaking, the word "predictor" should replace both "theory" and "hypothesis". Quibbling about distinctions between "theory" and "hypothesis" totally ignores the fact that no matter how many apparent verifications there is, it is no guarantee against falsification, so the "hypothesis/theory" threshold is arbitrary. The term "predictor", however, properly says what it really is, something that makes predictions.

#Predictors can be tested without being published in a few elitist-select papers.

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 24/05/2013 10:55:59 »

What is the difference between bias and expectations based on past experience and learning? Over time one observes how things work in the world, sees patterns, deduces causes and effects, which results in expectations and predictions about what is likely to happen in the future.

From the stand point of scientific experiments this could be called bias, since researchers do not want any expectations affecting the outcome experiment, even if they are reasonable expectations.
From the standpoint of psychology or personality, bias may be a particular type of belief, or a unwillingness to change ones views, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Or it might be believing in a idea for reasons other than the reason one claims (or may not even be aware of). For example, do some people believe in religion because they genuinely think it is  probably or likely to be true? Or do they believe in religion because it offers relief from existential anxiety – ie, a loving father figure who will guide one through life, intervene during a catastrophic event, and promises life after death. Do some people reject science because they see it as incompatible with religion, and fear that accepting science would require abandoning the comforting ideas that religion offers. I’m not trying to start a religion vs science debate, or implying that all religious people think that way. There are lots of other examples of belief that may be motivated by emotional factors, like political correctness, concern for ones reputation or career advancement, and fear of criticism or ridicule. Another factor might also be respect for the ability or knowledge of other people who hold that belief, which might not be a legitimate reason, but may understandably tip the scales when one is undecided. I expect even physicists do this (Well, if Stephen Hawking believes it....) I also think it is more difficult to accept ideas that are depressing or predict something unpleasant, and that is probably the bias I am most prone to. I want to believe that people are basically good and capable of change. I want to believe in things like free will.

What a long rant. The point is that psychologism predicts that science should be impossible and is thus incompatible with the existence of science, and if science does not exist nothing can be supported or discredited by science.

Some research has shown that different people tend to be more flexible or less flexible in changing their opinions or beliefs. One study showed more similarity in the brains of people who identified themselves politically as ultra conservatives or die hard liberals, than between either of these groups and moderate, swing voters.

Of course thinking is interaction between material particles. If thinking was a separate soul it would have been unable to percieve or affect the physical world. That thinking has an association with brains thus does not prove fixedness any more than learning something new should require an immaterial soul.

Being flexible would seem to be the better option when it comes to learning, eliminating erroneous assumptions, and adapting to change. But as Damocles pointed also pointed out, if one constantly had to revise or start from scratch with each novel experience, it would be difficult to function, and this seems true for individuals as well as collective thinkers like “the scientific community.”

Not start from scratch with every novel experience, just change theory when an actual falsification comes.

I don’t abandon my concept of gravity the first time I let go of a helium balloon and it floats up to the ceiling. I look for an explanation that is compatible, because the other evidence for gravity is so compelling. In addition,  overwhelming uncertainty makes it difficult to make choices and act on them, so one tends to maintain certain beliefs despite a few doubts or apparent inconsistencies.

It does, in fact, falsify the claim that everything always falls down. However, the existence of boyancy makes the example poor. For that part, Newtonian gravity is falsified by the bending of light by gravity. But an actual falsification means having to abandon the theory, even if the new theory must predict the observations already made that appeared to confirm the old theory within the specific contexts those observations were made.

Ironically, some people or groups might be “biased” towards changing their views or adopting unorthodox opinions. I know individuals who become passionate about a spiritual practice or health regimen for about a year or so, and then abandon it for something else which they believe will be the answer to all their life issues.

And the relevance is?

I’ve also heard it said that grad student thesis’s are abundant with wacky ideas because one does not get as much attention or praise for a new finding that confirms conventional wisdom, as one gets from discovering/proposing something unexpected, contradictory, or revolutionary.

Are you kidding? Established dogma gets lots and lots of attention. They are regurgitated in textbooks ad infinitum.

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 24/05/2013 10:43:00 »

My apologies Martin. It is Australian (and North American?) slang for "eccentric", with perhaps a hint of being a pejorative term and of referring to an extreme form of eccentricity.

It was not dialectal misunderstanding, it was criticism of the term.

This is not necessarily the case. It can be very difficult to work out an experiment which will test a theory, and even with an alleged falsification it may not be quite clear where to lay the blame (Google Quine-Duhem problem)

It is not necessary to "know where to put the blame" in order to show that a theory is false. If there is empirical evidence for something that the theory predicts should be impossible, then the theory is false. Period.

Just admit that we do not ####ing know, until it is tested. The whole term "burden of proof" is all based on a deluded belief that there must somehow be an official viewpoint. Just collect "uncomfortable" anomalies en masse and see what it leads to, even if it means having to come up with completely new ideas after the data is collected.

This is not a practical possibility, because science is not a simple, timeless enterprise. There is no point at which we can say "we now have all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, so let us now go ahead and solve it". So at every point there has to be an "official viewpoint" corresponding to the best guess of the scientific community.

I meant collecting the results of already done experiments. It is not necessary to do a new experiment for every theory to falsify. And there is absolutely no need to pretend to know for sure when there is uncertainty.

This "best guess" will generally involve leaving a number of issues unresolved on the "back burner". For example, when Marie Curie was concentrating her solutions of radium chloride, she arrived at the point where the solutions were glowing and getting quite warm -- emitting about 30 watts of power, but with no measurable change. This was as clear a counter example to the conservation of energy as one would ever have expected to find, but it was left on the back burner because too much else hinged on the conservation of energy. The issue was resolved a few years later when radon gas was discovered in the air above radium salt solutions, and it was recognized that the loss of mass in the radium would have been unmeasurable.

Well, of course falsifications must be real falsifications, not errors of measurement, so that was an invalid example. I was talking about actual falsifications. When a theory fails during an actual falsification, it does not matter at all "how much hinges on it", but the new theory must have a close enough superficial resemblance to the old mainstream theory in all the contexts of the specific observations where it have passed the test to predict those outcomes as well.

I believe that "morality" arises from an innate sense of good and evil -- frequently described as "conscience", and described in the creation myth in terms of Adam eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. An adherent of scientism, like Dawkins, might believe that it arises from a gene selfishly trying to ensure its continuing expression. The point is that we both think in terms of "morality" and we find a lot of common ground in what we see as moral, as well as a number of points of quite serious difference. Empirically I have been quite interested recently to find that here in Australia there is a lot of public sympathy for the Government to upgrade its spending on mental health facilities. I believe that this suggests support for my notion of morality rather than Dawkins', though he would probably have the "out" that it arises from cultural factors.

The evidence for the existence of rapid evolution proves that any belief in genetically-determined morality is bound to make racist predictions, as inevitably as the theory of a lumniferous aether predicts that the speed of light should be different in different directions due to the motion of the Earth.

And the main point about morality is that there is no definition of what morality really means, and thus no way to say for sure that "science cannot give moral guidance without extra assumptions" either.

I am very familiar with this point in the atomist/anti-atomist debates in 19th century chemistry, and those who maintained that atoms were not a part of science because they would always be beyond the reach of the senses. The really interesting thing is that chemists of both persuasions were able to work together and lay out a lot of the foundations of their subject. What I do not understand is what all this has to do with religion, unless you are rather naively suggesting that at some future date scientific findings will rule out religion?

I never said that science will rule out religion. Just that it is naive to be absolutely sure that it never will. And in fact, I am not really atheist but rather ignostic. Ignosticism is the view that the question "does God exist?" cannot be answered due to the lack of a clear definition of what the word "God" really means.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Do recent findings necessitate new theories of genetics?

« on: 24/05/2013 07:43:07 »

That is actually a pretty good example that would support certain aspects your theory (see link) but it does not involve cell to cell transfer of genes.

But the principle can be combined with gene transfer between cells. If many cells need to correct the same error (as in either a genetic defect or an environmental change requiring new adaptation) the gene transfer between cells becomes very useful. As for the mechanism, I can imagine that since exosomes contain both proteins and DNA, when an exosome containing the proteins that helps the cell get the job done comes, the cell adopts the DNA content in the exosomes that happen to be within it. While that particular cell also retains many exosome DNAs that just happened to be within it, other cells will be hit by the exosomes in a different order and therefore not promote the same "freeloaders", so only the actually useful mutations are fileshared en masse. The quantity of that means that it will start leaking into other tissues including reproductive cells. Furthermore, the vast amounts of micro-RNA released when getting the production up and running floods the body, and is reverse-transcripted into DNA in reproductive cells by the vast amounts of symbiotic retroviruses that are empirically proven to be present in the reproductive organs.

And as the article points out, hyper mutability of white blood cells has a down side - like lymphoma and autoimmune diseases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_hypermutation

Any process can have downsides when used improperly. There is no reason to assume that a more proper use of the same process should not be able to solve those problems. See thread "Body's defences not immune to brain control".

Processes like these, or epigenetics, don't contradict or disprove conventional genetic processes like genetic change through recombination of genes during meiosis, sex, and natural selection. They just add to them. I still feel you are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I never claimed that there was no natural selection. I just shown that it was far to inefficient, and provided a more efficient form of evolution to do the bulk of the job. I agree that it would be theoretically possible (in mutation load terms) for conventional evolution to do the job alone on very simple bacteria, although I do not believe even them to be "stupid" enough to not use anything more efficient anyway, considering the general advantages of more efficient evolution.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Do recent findings necessitate new theories of genetics?

« on: 24/05/2013 07:26:13 »

Yes, there is "function sensitive self correction" - all sorts of physiological feedback loops that maintain homeostasis - just not the kind you are proposing.

What do you believe is the principial difference, if any?

The principal difference is that in physiological feed back loops, cells respond to changes in concentrations of specific molecules, increases in CO2, H+ concentration, increases or decreases in energy containing molecules, hormones, neurotransmitters. In your theory, you still need to identify what it is the cell is sensing, when it is sensing that "something is wrong."

Since vital functions in the cell affect everything else in the cell, the cell will inevitably "feel ill" even if it has no specific sensor for that particular error.

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General Science / Re: How does cognitive bias affect our receptivity to new theories?

« on: 23/05/2013 13:37:01 »

I think not. Modern Science has developed with a good but far from perfect system of checks and balances. It tends to have a conservative bias, but that means that most of the wacky new theories that are not likely to be productive do not immediately get incorporated into the mainstream of knowledge and belief about the way that nature works, and any worthwhile theory will eventually make people sit up and take notice because of the way that it succeeds in providing a description of uncomfortable anomalies.

What does "wacky" mean? It is, if science exists, easy to test if the predictions made by a theory pans out or not. There is no need to have an official viewpoint. Just admit that we do not ####ing know, until it is tested. The whole term "burden of proof" is all based on a deluded belief that there must somehow be an official viewpoint. Just collect "uncomfortable" anomalies en masse and see what it leads to, even if it means having to come up with completely new ideas after the data is collected.

Empirically science does exist, and it is not just "another belief system" though it can be. Scientism does not provide any moral guidance (without extra assumptions), and I find that science sits very comfortably with my (Anglo-Catholic) Christian world view -- my God is a God of truth, who has commanded us to explore and come to terms with the world around us.

To claim that "scientism does not provide any moral guidance without extra assumptions" naively assumes that there should be a reliable definition of "morality", which there is not. What if, for instance, the whole distinction between "intrinsic value" and "instrumental value" is just a delusion acquired through too much tool use?

As for religion, consider the fact that just 30 years ago, it was believed that any speculations of whether or not exoplanets existed was in the relam of faith and would never become testable. The lesson is: never ever be so sure that something will never be testable.

And the main point: any psychologistic bias claims inevitably leaves the door wide open for instinctualistic "explanations" of ideas, which renders any scientific system useless.