tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post2660435342494195138..comments2024-03-28T21:32:26.550+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: What is the justification for the leadership of the PC technocracy?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-46747344906944674312010-12-15T23:37:37.974+00:002010-12-15T23:37:37.974+00:00"large amounts of data (the quality of which ..."large amounts of data (the quality of which is irrelevant)" did you see the telly prog on Statistics by a Swedish cove recently? The first half was quite good, but what struck me was that he paid no attention at all to the quality of the data - it was merely accepted as data and plotted. (Even though two bits of economic data were drivel - the comparison of a stock with a flow. But it was, to be fair, a PC comparison.)<br /><br /><br />But the later part of the show was potty - he explained that now "we" have so much data that Science can give up crude, old experiments and advance onto the higher plane of number-crunching. Delusional and decadent.deariemenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-10081496707568102522010-12-15T17:38:10.925+00:002010-12-15T17:38:10.925+00:00Interesting observations.
You will notice that t...Interesting observations. <br /><br />You will notice that the increased discussion of conflicts of interest has made precisely no difference at all to anything among the scientific leadership - except that there is now a new conflicts of interest expertise, and new bureaucratic procedures to go through, and another way of 'getting' weak or marginal opponents. <br /><br />Indeed the increased focus on conflicts of interest is itself a marker of the death of science; because 'real' science, working properly, is immune to conflicts of interest (they are dealt with mostly at the level of the 'invisible college' - anyone suspected of this kind of dishonesty is excluded). <br /><br />I wrote a bit about this back when I was deciding that Medical Hypotheses would NOT have a policy asking authors to declare their conflicts of interest. <br /><br />http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2007/07/conflicts-of-interest-in-medical.htmlBruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-76676442839316003702010-12-15T16:56:19.376+00:002010-12-15T16:56:19.376+00:00PC ethics are progressive, continually changing ov...<i>PC ethics are progressive, continually changing over time. Therefore understanding and expertise in ethics is continually becoming obsolete, continually needing to be updated, continually inverting (bad becoming good and vice versa) and thereby maintaining a rarity value for those who are competent in this discourse.</i><br /><br />This particular aspect of PC is endlessly fascinating. It is fun, for example, to say (confidently) things which are not quite consonant with the current iteration of PC "morality" and watch the drones get worried that they have missed some subtlety in the current iteration. Also, it is fun to watch the acute embarrassment generated in more intellectually adroit PC-ites when less intellectually adroit PC-ites say things from the previous iteration. Extra bonus fun occurs when the less adroit are members of mascot groups. I mean, what are they to do? It just doesn't sound right to say "No, no, yesterday we were always allied with Eastasia, today we were always at war with Eastasia." Especially if they are "talking down" to their alleged betters.<br /><br /><i>It is not claimed that the bureacrats are necessarily good as individuals - rather the implicit claim is that bureaucrats do not matter as individuals - because systems are better than individuals.</i><br /><br />This is true, but it lives in a strange tension with the belief that the bureaucratic process is itself corruptible. For example, the US Food and Drug Administration assembles expert panels to evaluate the evidence for new drugs' safety and efficacy (this is the apex of the new drug approval bureaucratic process). It is considered a big problem if members of these panels have "conflicts of interest." Of course, at this point in the process, approximately everyone with actual experience with the drug has a conflict of interest, because the only way to have experience is to be involved in a drug-company sponsored trial.Billnoreply@blogger.com