Metaphor, Analogy, Simile / Tragic Sci-Tech Examples

Let’s begin with an immediately comprehensible comparison. 

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Below: A standard “analogy” in basic physics courses: Does this really make “electricity-magnetism” accessible to the average student?

The problem is, that even basic physics courses assume that the student has “hung out” at the local water plant or was raised by a plumber. If not, the added water system analogy means that the student now must understand the water system in addition to struggling with the electrical system.

Water wheels, grindstones? A bit archaic, no? 

Okay – so the water system analogy isn’t terrible, but here is where the use of analogy drives me bonkers: number, quantity, volume, weight, density, forces …. Comparisons to strange objects are believed to make extremes of number and scale “comprehensible” to the human brain. Again – the assumption is that “equivalents” such as the earth covered in marbles or peas to some “impressive” depth is: 1. meaningful 2. has a possibility of occurring outside of a supernatural “miracle” 3.  will ever be observed by one or more human beings. 4. will reduce the problem of incomprehensible quantity, number, etc in comparison to “human” scale. 

But, “1/18th of the surface area of the sun” makes “Avogadro’s Number” perfectly clear! What was it we were trying to explain? I’ve forgotten, and I have a headache.

Another terrific assumption is that Olympic swimming pools and football fields are perfectly reasonable examples of “intuitive” volumes and areas because everyone has watched the Olympics on TV or has been to a football game.

And a more problematic question: Why are we presenting students with ridiculous   analogies for actual measurable physical phenomenon, when the function of teaching science and technology is to impart awareness and knowledge of  “How the universe works” ? What we’re telling them is that physical properties, relationships and behaviors are baffling; that physical reality measurements are fantastical and incomprehensible. And why must we understand measurements in “relatable ways” at all? Isn’t that a function of mathematics – to make the humanly “ungraspable” available and easier to work with? 

While science education is making physical reality (that we occupy and depend on) “obscure and incomprehensible” religions and politicians are doing the opposite:

Is it any mystery as to why millions of Americans believe that climate change, global warming and other major systemic problems are “government conspiracies?”

And in case one might imagine that biology and other areas are any less idiotic:

 

 

 

 

 

50 Inaccurate PSYCH Words Exposed / Frontiers in Psychology

AT LAST! Honest talk about sloppy, self-serving and misleading claims.  Of particular significance to anyone diagnosed with Autism or Asperger’s.

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Frontiers in Psychology / 03 August 2015

The rest of the 50 terms can be read here: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01100/full/

Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases

Scott O. Lilienfeld^1*, Katheryn C. Sauvigné², Steven Jay Lynn³, Robin L. Cautin⁴, Robert D. Latzman² and Irwin D. Waldman¹

• ¹Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
• ²Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
• ³Binghamton University – State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, USA
• ⁴Department of Psychology, Sacred Heart College, Fairfield, CT, USA

“The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science by curbing terminological misinformation and confusion. To this end, we present a provisional list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats. We provide corrective information for students, instructors, and researchers regarding these terms, which we organize for expository purposes into five categories: inaccurate or misleading terms, frequently misused terms, ambiguous terms, oxymorons, and pleonasms. For each term, we (a) explain why it is problematic, (b) delineate one or more examples of its misuse, and (c) when pertinent, offer recommendations for preferable terms. By being more judicious in their use of terminology, psychologists and psychiatrists can foster clearer thinking in their students and the field at large regarding mental phenomena.”

“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.” (Confucius, The Analects)

(3) Autism epidemic. Enormous effort has been expended to uncover the sources of the “autism epidemic” (e.g., King, 2011), the supposed massive increase in the incidence and prevalence of autism, now termed autism spectrum disorder, over the past 25 years. The causal factors posited to be implicated in this “epidemic” have included vaccines, television viewing, dietary allergies, antibiotics, and viruses.

Nevertheless, there is meager evidence that this purported epidemic reflects a genuine increase in the rates of autism per se as opposed to an increase in autism diagnoses stemming from several biases and artifacts, including heightened societal awareness of the features of autism (“detection bias”), growing incentives for school districts to report autism diagnoses, and a lowering of the diagnostic thresholds for autism across successive editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Gernsbacher et al., 2005; Lilienfeld and Arkowitz, 2007). Indeed, data indicate when the diagnostic criteria for autism were held constant, the rates of this disorder remained essentially constant between 1990 and 2010 (Baxter et al., 2015). If the rates of autism are increasing, the increase would appear to be slight at best, hardly justifying the widespread claim of an “epidemic.”

(4) Brain region X lights up. Many authors in the popular and academic literatures use such phrases as “brain area X lit up following manipulation Y” (e.g., Morin, 2011). This phrase is unfortunate for several reasons. First, the bright red and orange colors seen on functional brain imaging scans are superimposed by researchers to reflect regions of higher brain activation.

They are NOT a product of the scan, but ADDED as graphic emphasis. (ie, technically “fake”)

Nevertheless, they may engender a perception of “illumination” in viewers. Second, the activations represented by these colors do not reflect neural activity per se; they reflect oxygen uptake by neurons and are at best indirect proxies of brain activity. Even then, this linkage may sometimes be unclear or perhaps absent (Ekstrom, 2010). Third, in almost all cases, the activations observed on brain scans are the products of subtraction of one experimental condition from another. Hence, they typically do not reflect the raw levels of neural activation in response to an experimental manipulation. For this reason, referring to a brain region that displays little or no activation in response to an experimental manipulation as a “dead zone” (e.g., Lamont, 2008) is similarly misleading. Fourth, depending on the neurotransmitters released and the brain areas in which they are released, the regions that are “activated” in a brain scan may actually be being inhibited rather than excited (Satel and Lilienfeld, 2013). Hence, from a functional perspective, these areas may be being “lit down” rather than “lit up.”

(7) Chemical imbalance. Thanks in part to the success of direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns by drug companies, the notion that major depression and allied disorders are caused by a “chemical imbalance” of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, has become a virtual truism in the eyes of the public (France et al., 2007; Deacon and Baird, 2009). This phrase even crops up in some academic sources; for example, one author wrote that one overarching framework for conceptualizing mental illness is a “biophysical model that posits a chemical imbalance” (Wheeler, 2011, p. 151). Nevertheless, the evidence for the chemical imbalance model is at best slim (Lacasse and Leo, 2005; Leo and Lacasse, 2008). One prominent psychiatrist even dubbed it an urban legend (Pies, 2011). There is no known “optimal” level of neurotransmitters in the brain, so it is unclear what would constitute an “imbalance.” Nor is there evidence for an optimal ratio among different neurotransmitter levels. Moreover, although serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft), appear to alleviate the symptoms of severe depression, there is evidence that at least one serotonin reuptake enhancer, namely tianepine (Stablon), is also efficacious for depression (Akiki, 2014). The fact that two efficacious classes of medications exert opposing effects on serotonin levels raises questions concerning a simplistic chemical imbalance model.

(23) Psychiatric control group. NOT a true control group! This phrase and similar phrases (e.g., “normal control group,” “psychopathological control group”) connote erroneously that (a) groups of ostensibly normal individuals or mixed psychiatric patients who are being compared with (b) groups of individuals with a disorder of interest (e.g., schizophrenia, major depression) are true “control” groups. They are not. They are “comparison groups” and should be referred to accordingly. The phrase “control group” in this context may leave readers with the unwarranted impression that the design of the study is experimental when it is actually quasi-experimental. Just as important, this term may imply that the only difference between the two groups (e.g., a group of patients with anxiety disorder and a group of ostensibly normal individuals) is the presence or absence of the disorder of interest. In fact, these two groups almost surely differ on any number of “nuisance” variables, such as personality traits, co-occurring disorders, and family background, rendering the interpretation of most group differences open to multiple interpretations (Meehl, 1969).

Just So Stories / Bad, Bad Science

 Study reveals why our ancestors switched to bipedal power

 

Oh no it doesn’t! The study reveals that modern chimpanzees behave in pre-conceived ways, in a contrived setting, in which food and its availability is controlled by humans. Nothing about how / why our ancestors became bipedal can be concluded from this study. 

(FROM: PhysOrg.com) _ Our earliest ancestors may have started walking on two limbs instead of four in a bid to monopolise resources and to carry as much food as possible in one go, researchers have found. A study published in the journal Current Biology this week, investigated the behaviour of modern-day chimpanzees as they competed for food resources, in an effort to understand why our “hominin”, or human-like ancestors became bipedal.

Objections:

1. Chimpanzees are not Bipedal; Birds, and their particular Dinosaur ancestors, are bipedal. Choosing Chimpanzees is Lazy; why not study other bipedal species?  

2. Chimpanzees are not our Ancestors, and yet we insist on using  them as analogs for study comparisons.

3. Our ancestors did not “Start Walking on Two limbs” one day because they “realized” that it would Make them more competitive.

4. The vast majority of species are not bipedal, and yet all have strategies for acquiring food resources.

5. One must then ask, Why didn’t chimpanzees become bipedal if doing so presented such an advantage?

Are chimpanzees the best animal to study for information about bipedal evolution? Anthropology seems “hung up” on a fascination with chimpanzees, as if chimps are human children who didn’t grow up, but if they had, would be just like us.

The joint University of Cambridge and Kyoto University team of biological anthropologists, led by PhD student Susana Carvalho and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa, conclude that our earliest hominin ancestors may have lived in shifting environmental conditions in which certain resources were not always easy to come by. (Wow! Brilliant!) Over time, intense bursts of bipedal activity may have led to anatomical changes (OMG! The “Just So” version of how evolution works) that in turn became the subject of natural selection where competition for food or other resources was strong. (Amazing how evolutionary processes are “skipped over” by the meaningless weasel words “led to” – neurotypical speak for “the magic part happened here”!)

Storytelling is a widespread human attribute, but it is not reliable science.

Professor William McGrew, from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, said: Bipedality as the key human adaptation may be an evolutionary product of this strategy persisting over time. (What strategy? Running on two legs now and then in order to force “evolution” to drastically alter anatomy? And then  convincing one’s offspring to do the same – generation after generation until “the magic” happens?) Ultimately, it set our ancestors on a separate evolutionary path.”

Lack of evidence in the fossil record (there is no evidence for our conclusions, which means we can pursue lavish speculation) means that researchers remain divided over when these ancestors became bipedal. It is widely believed that they did so because of climatic changes, which reduced forested areas and forced them to move longer distances across open terrain more often. (Invoke long-term nebulous environmental conditions as a last resort) 

More storytelling.

The new research digs deeper, however, by attempting to explain what particular pressures within that context forced those hominins to modify their posture and resort to moving on their legs. (Bipedalism is an act of desperation?) Two surveys were carried out. The first was in Kyoto University’s “outdoor laboratory” (Outdoor does not mean wild, or that these are wild chimps uncontaminated by human interference) of a natural clearing in Bossou Forest, Guinea. Here, the researchers allowed the chimpanzees access to different combinations of two different types of nut – the oil palm nut, which is naturally widely available, and the coula nut, which is not, so the latter is an “unpredictable” resource. (Unpredictable meaning controlled by the humans doing the “study”. (Do Chimpanzees think in these conscious human terms?)

Their behavior was monitored in three different situations: (a) when only oil palm nuts were available, (b) when a small number of coula nuts was available, and (c) when coula nuts were the majority available resource.

When the rare coula nuts were available only in small numbers, the chimpanzees transported far more in one go. Similarly, when coula nuts were the majority resource, the chimpanzees ignored the oil palm nuts altogether. Clearly, the chimpanzees regarded the coula nuts as a more highly-prized resource and competed for them more intensely. (This is a human economic word-concept being projected onto an animal that may simply prefer the taste, or other physical attributes of the coula nut, or appreciates novelty in a boring diet).

In such high-competition settings, (manipulated by humans) the frequency of cases in which the chimpanzees started moving on two legs increased by a factor of four. (And this “two-leg frequency” is attributable solely to the “coula conspiracy”. No other stimulus to “two-legged” behavior occurred  – or was it all behavior simply “recorded” as fitting the expectations of the study?) Not only was it obvious that bipedal movement allowed them to carry more of this precious resource (brilliant observation), but also that they were actively trying to move as much as they could in one go by using everything available, even their mouths. (This does not add to “bipedal” advantage; mouths are available when walking on all four feet)

Would any of this stand up in a court of “evolutionary law” as evidence for  anatomical change by “choice or force”? No. This argument is compatible with Creationism!

Many species “hoard” food stuffs as they become available – in fact, it’s a prime behavior in  Nature. 

The second survey was a 14-month study of Bossou chimpanzees crop-raiding, a situation in which they have to compete for rare and unpredictable resources. Here, 35% of their activity involved some sort of bipedal movement, and once again, this behavior appeared to be linked to a clear attempt to carry as much as possible in one go. The study concludes that unpredictable resources, like the coula nut in the field survey, are seen by as more valuable. When these resources are scarce and access to them is on a first-come, first-served” basis, (chimps have no “social” status structure for determining access to resources?) they are more prone to switch to bipedal movement, because it allows them to carry more of the resource at once. (Conflating details from two separate “surveys” in order to increase the importance of each one is not scientifically valid. Each must stand on its own. Note abundant and vague “weasel words”)

Isn’t this activity simply an example of chimpanzees (and many, many species across the animal spectrum) taking advantage of an opportunity? It has no direct connection or explanatory value concerning bipedalism. We identify chimps as “cute little humans.” 

Here we go again!

Totally unsupported conclusions:

For our early ancestors, unpredictable access to vital resources may have been a frequent occurrence because of climatic shifts and rapid environmental change. Those who resorted to bipedal movement may have had an advantage, and gradually, anatomical change may have taken place as they used this strategy again and again. Once that happened, ability to move more easily on two legs may have become a selection pressure, so that over many generations, it became the norm.

Of course! This is how the giraffe got its long neck; by stretching and stretching to reach leaves higher and higher on the tree until one giraffe’s neck got “stuck” being longer and magically, ALL GIRAFFES got this “long neck” because the stretching somehow “became permanent” in their DNA. 

Wow! Giraffes certainly didn’t think ahead to the unintended consequences of “stretching their necks”, did they? And couldn’t our ancestors have known how much back and joint pain their bipedal behavior would cause? 

I can’t believe the magical thinking at work (and I’m being charitable) in this type of academic biological anthropology study! Drastic anatomical changes in early apes is attributed (retroactively) to behavior in modern captive chimpanzees, in situations contrived to confirm pre-conceived results, which attribute “conscious modern thinking” to “mysterious ancestral apes”. 

What’s missing from so much scientific activity today is CONCRETE THINKING.

More information: The full report, Chimpanzee carrying behavior and the origins of human bipedality, is available in the March 20 issue of Current Biology: www.cell.com/current-biology/

 

 

Questioning Autism Research / NatGeo blog Virginia Hughes

A post published by the Nat-Geo blog, PHENOMENA, and written by Virginia Hughes, provides vindication of my ongoing opposition to misguided Autism and Asperger research. Someday we must confront the truth: that Asperger’s is a social diagnosis based on the neurotypical prejudice that there is only one human brain type. It is impossible for 7 billion Homo sapiens to be identical; to repeat a stiflingly narrow set of culturally-determined behaviors based on Euro-American models of psychological social correctness. Our strength as a species is that we do not all think and behave in lockstep; diversity of thought and perception has produced innovation – by individuals, not societies, which do their best to hamper healthy human development.

Category Fail, Virginia Hughes

(click title to access blog)

I’ve written a lot of stories about autism research, and I’d say one of the biggest scientific developments in the past few years was the creation of ‘autistic’ mice. Researchers first found many, many genes associated with (translation – no provable connection) autism in people, and then created dozens of mouse models that carry one or more of those same genetic glitches. In the fall of 2011, for example, one team debuted mice with extra copies of a gene called UBE3A. Approximately 1 to 3 percent of children with autism carry extra copies of the same gene.  (Can this tiny percentage be claimed as significant? No.)  These mutant mice show little interest in social interactions, compared with controls. They also emit fewer vocalizations and repetitively groom themselves. (Dear reader, you do realize that autistic people are perceived to be “big autistic rats” by people who torture animals for a living?) This was heralded as something of an autism trifecta, as the animals mimicked the three ‘core’ symptoms of people with the disorder: deficits in social behaviors and in communication, as well as repetitive behaviors. (How great and ridiculous a leap, equating mice grooming themselves to repetitive behavior in humans.)

The same goes for mouse models based on environmental, rather than genetic triggers. Mice whose mothers got an infection while pregnant end up with abnormal social interactions and vocalizations, and they repetitively bury marbles. Well – that certainly proves something! If you are an Asperger reading this, you have the right to feel insulted.

Once again, the animals show all three “core deficits,” (deficits that are invented symptoms of an invented disorder) and are thus considered to be a valid model of autism. (A truly pathetic conclusion – what’s next? They sacrifice the rats; drink the blood and chant “funding, funding, funding”) There’s a nice and tidy logic to this approach, understandably appealing to neuroscientists. If a mouse model mimics the three behaviors used to define autism,  then studying the cells and circuits of those mice could lead us to a better understanding of the human disorder. (This is not logic, this is magical thinking; Save the poor rats, make autistic “voo-doo dolls” and stick pins in them) 

But there’s a big hole in that logic,

according to a provocative commentary published by Eric London in this month’s issue of Trends in Neurosciences. The problem is that the symptoms of autism — like those of all psychiatric disorders — vary widely from one person to the next. So using the fuzzy diagnostic category of ‘autism’ to guide research, he writes, “is fraught with so many problems that the validity of research conclusions is suspect.” London begins with a short history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the book that since 1980 has dictated what collections of symptoms define one disorder or another. There’s nothing wrong with a categorical diagnosis, per se. It can have enormous explanatory power. If a doctor diagnoses you with strep throat, for example, you have a good idea of what that is (a bacterial infection) and how you might treat it (antibiotics).

“A psychiatric diagnosis, by contrast, is rarely as informative,” London writes. People diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, or autism often don’t know what caused the trouble, and they struggle with unpredictable symptoms, ineffective treatments, and unpredictable responses to those treatments. What’s more, most people who fall into the bucket of one psychiatric disorder also meet criteria for others.

London cites some fascinating numbers: Some 90 percent of people with schizophrenia, for example, have another diagnosis as well. More than 60 percent of people with autism have another diagnosis, and one-quarter have two or more. “Autism is comorbidly present in over 50 specific diagnoses comprising other genetic and medical conditions,” London writes.The three supposedly core behaviors of autism don’t correlate well with each other, he adds. In other words, many kids just have one or two of the three. Francesca Happe has conducted many studies suggesting that each of these symptoms is inherited independently, suggesting that each has its own, separate biological cause.The danger of focusing on these three behaviors is that it might cause clinicians and researchers to overlook other symptoms that are common in people with autism. Many kids with autism have gastrointestinal issues, for example, and many show a range of motor problems, such as head lag, trouble sitting up, or a wobbly gait. And more than 80 percent of people with autism have anxiety, London notes. (Gee whiz; I wonder why, when social typicals are so darn nice to us?)

Mouse models of the disorder may have some of these problems, too, but researchers don’t usually test for them.The DSM has tried to address some of these problems. Its latest version,  released last year, defines autism with two criteria: social and communication deficits, and repetitive behaviors. But London doesn’t think that goes nearly far enough, for all the reasons outlined above. He proposes an even broader category of “neurodevelopmental disorder,” which would include more than 20 different DSM categories, including autism and schizophrenia. Just as they do today, clinicians could still focus on specific symptoms — whether sensory sensitivities, anxiety, psychosis, attentional problems, etc. — when deciding how to treat each person. London’s commentary is only the latest in an old debate about diagnoses: Is it better to lump, or to split? Some scientists agree with him, others don’t, and I see merit in the scientific arguments on both sides. One point I think sometimes doesn’t get enough attention, though, is the social power of a diagnosis.

These labels carry meaning, for better or worse. For people with mysterious illness, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, a label can make them feel acknowledged and validated, or completely marginalized. Diagnoses for brain disorders, such as Asperger’s syndrome, can unite people under a common identity, or create dangerous societal stigma. Rational diagnostic categories are crucial for scientific progress, as London argues.

But scientists would do well to remember that their labels also have lasting consequences outside of the lab.

(But that would require empathy)

 

ArchaeoAnthro Novel Writing / Update China / Rant Warning!

Nature | News Feature

How China is rewriting the book on human origins

Fossil finds in China are challenging ideas about the evolution of modern humans and our closest relatives.

Jane Qiu¹ July 2016

On the outskirts of Beijing, a small limestone mountain named Dragon Bone Hill rises above the surrounding sprawl. It was here, in 1929, that researchers discovered a nearly complete ancient skull that they determined was roughly half a million years old. Dubbed Peking Man, it was among the earliest human remains ever uncovered, and it helped to convince many researchers that humanity first evolved in Asia.

Since then, the central importance of Peking Man has faded. Although modern dating methods put the fossil even earlier — at up to 780,000 years old — the specimen has been eclipsed by discoveries in Africa that have yielded much older remains of ancient human relatives. Such finds have cemented Africa’s status as the cradle of humanity — the place from which modern humans and their predecessors spread around the globe — and relegated Asia to a kind of evolutionary cul-de-sac.

The Neanderthal in the family

But the tale of Peking Man has haunted generations of Chinese researchers, who have struggled to understand its relationship to modern humans. “It’s a story without an ending,” says Wu Xinzhi, a palaeontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing. They wonder whether the descendants of Peking Man and fellow members of the species Homo erectus died out or evolved into a more modern species, and whether they contributed to the gene pool of China today.

Keen to get to the bottom of its people’s ancestry, China has in the past decade stepped up its efforts to uncover evidence of early humans across the country. It is reanalyzing old fossil finds and pouring tens of millions of dollars a year into excavations. And the government is setting up a US$1.1-million laboratory at the IVPP to extract and sequence ancient DNA.

Finds in China and other parts of Asia have made it clear that a dazzling variety of Homo species once roamed the continent. And they are challenging conventional ideas about the evolutionary history of humanity.

(Polite neurotypical social-speak) “Many Western scientists tend to see Asian fossils and artefacts through the prism of what was happening in Africa and Europe,” says Wu. “But it’s increasingly clear that many Asian materials cannot fit into the traditional narrative of human evolution.”

Human migrations: Eastern odyssey

Aye, yai, yai! Neurotypical nuttiness in a nutshell!

Obviously, there are MANY possible routes given the vast expanse that ‘humanlike animals” have traveled and occupied and the time-frames involved. These diagrams are very simplistic and rely heavily on the “notion” that H. erectus, et al, had “destinations” that match our concept of intent, planning and “destiny or fate” – leading to Homo sapiens.

Evolving story

In its typical form, the story of Homo sapiens starts in Africa. The exact details vary from one telling to another (an understatement), but the key characters and events generally remain the same. And the title is always ‘Out of Africa’.

In this standard (western) view of human evolution, H. erectus first evolved (in Africa) more than 2 million years ago (see ‘Two routes for human evolution’). Then, some time before 600,000 years ago, it gave rise to a new species: Homo heidelbergensis, the oldest remains of which have been found in Ethiopia. About 400,000 years ago, some members of H. heidelbergensis left Africa and split into two branches: one ventured into the Middle East and Europe, where it evolved into Neanderthals; the other went east, where members became Denisovans — a group first discovered in Siberia in 2010. The remaining population of H. heidelbergensis in Africa eventually evolved into our own species, H. sapiens, about 200,000 years ago. (Is H. heidelbergensis a distinct species from H. erectus, or late H.e.? And what happened to H. heidelbergensis in the Middle East and Europe from 400k.y.a. – 60,000k.y.a.?) Then these early humans (African H. sapiens) expanded their range to Eurasia 60,000 years ago, where they replaced local hominins with a minuscule amount of interbreeding. (What is a “miniscule” amount of interbreeding? Two actual living beings of possibly different species, or closely related species, must have sex to interbreed; how many “couples” engaged in this is an odd question. Got drunk at the prom, and shagged a Neanderthal? OOPS! Sorry for that alien bit of “nDNA” in your genome.)

For a relatively straightforward presentation of this particular paleoanthropological monstrosity, go to: http://australianmuseum.net.au/homo-heidelbergensis

I have to stop here and rant: this is where my Asperger brain goes absolutely BERSERK:

I feel like I’m watching an episode of “Hoarders” – in which some unfortunate person’s brain is simply “stuck” – and unable to evaluate the difference between the actual function of an object, “it’s reality” and the supernatural-emotional-belief system that imparts fantastic meaning and importance to an empty Kleenex box. 

The total obsession with the “structure” relied upon to evaluate human evolutionary history, that is, the archaic “museum drawer” catalog of “What species is it?” and it’s fixation on a linear timeline from past to present, is absurd, when no one is capable of defining “species” as it applies to the human animal and it’s history. Nor is this “structure” questioned as a “match” to the new evidence that continues to be accumulated.

And – making it all worse – The projection of neurotypical narcissists that “ancient people” were just as socially screwed up as they are!

This stubborn obsession demonstrates the “neurotypical” profound lack of imagination. 

Imagination? Pink elephants, unicorns, psychedelic color schemes? No: REALITY – specifically, how Nature works, requires a negation of human prejudice, a loss of affection for supernatural explanations, and a rejection of inelegant forms of understanding: if your only “tool” is Legos, everything you construct will be Lego – reality. If your only tool is “What species is it?” you end up with a garage full of cardboard boxes (labeled species x, or species y) stuffed with plastic bags, old clothing, broken tools and moldy food – and whatever else you have dragged home. “Cleaning house” does not mean moving a pile of old magazines and worn out shoes from one box to another.

Lego species.

Anthropologists are arguing over which yarn “belongs” in each cubby, when the fossil, DNA, genetic and geologic-geographical as well as spatio-temporal evidence look nothing like this.   

What’s the point? The inability to let go of no-longer useful explanations requires setting aside the mental structures that inhibit radical, imaginative thinking, which the history of scientific breakthroughs clearly demonstrates as necessary to the process of “imagining reality”.

Remainder of “China” article: Jane Qiu¹

 

 

 

Guide to Spotting Bad Science/ Crisis in Social Sciences

“Neurotypical” science: can results be trusted when social scientists are using research to climb the social pyramid?

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Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says

By BENEDICT CAREY AUG. 27, 2015 NEW YORK TIMES

Brian Nosek: Reproducibility Project at the Center for Open Science. Dr. Nosek and his team led an attempt to replicate the findings of 100 social science studies. More than 60 of the studies did not hold up.

The past several years have been bruising ones for the credibility of the social sciences.

Now, a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested. The analysis was done by research psychologists, many of whom volunteered their time to double-check what they considered important work. Their conclusions, reported Thursday in the journal Science, have confirmed the worst fears of scientists who have long worried that the field needed a strong correction.

___________Remember: These are the people defining and diagnosing (inventing) Autism, Asperger’s and other “social disorders.”

The vetted studies were considered part of the core knowledge by which scientists understand the dynamics of personality, relationships, learning and memory. Therapists and educators rely on such findings to help guide decisions, and the fact that so many of the studies were called into question could sow doubt in the scientific underpinnings of their work.

Dr. John Ioannidis, a director of Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center, who once estimated that about half of published results across medicine were inflated or wrong, noted the proportion in psychology was even larger than he had thought. He said the problem could be even worse in other fields, including cell biology, economics, neuroscience, clinical medicine, and animal research.

The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.

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http://www.compoundchem.com