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1. Research, or, Truth ?
2. Science IS Research.
An article is elsewhere on earthtym.net on this subject.
Here is a SUMMARY:
... A value system which is based upon the worship of unquestioned findings, which may also be referred to as facts or laws, or truths, we often refer to as a religion. Yet such a value system is also parallel to that of myths, magic, superstitions, spurious findings, and co-incidences ... because its faith is based on trust in minimal experience and a rush to conclusion. There is very little connection between the founding spiritual ideals with their individually relevant expression and encouragement, and, the generalized, demanding, inflexible, and often individually irrelevant political (power of mass sanction) ritualization.
A more direct and constructive faith is based on experience that is questioned and extensive. That, takes motivation, commitment, courage, and openness. It demands a self-confidence that allows one to look beyond themselves with neither fear, dependency, nor paranoia. Is what we commonly call science a structure of belief based on some super-personal deity that answers our fears, enhances our social acceptance, and provides us with a sense of crowd power?
The term "objective reasoning" is often utilized by would-be scientists as the god of their beliefs. Yet such persons are careful never to define what such objectivity arises from. When we examine it more closely we find that it refers to generally accepted and taught concepts that represent the status quo --- an authoritarian system of political authority which sanctions honors, certificates, and grants jobs to those who pledge subservience to it. If you do and say what is expected by that group authority, you receive its blessing ... usually including social acceptance and financial security ... did someone say, power. What greater need does the personally insecure person have than power?
Science, as it was originally proposed, not so very long ago, has little to share with low self-esteem persons or with culturally organized value systems. I will refer to this alternate perspective here as Direct Science. A scientist never takes the position of an expert who knows all there is to know about anything. A scientist assumes that there are always other factors or features or interrelatedness aspects about everything which can be discovered and appreciated. Anything less would be a closed mind. Anything less would be to assume the position of a deity. A scientist is humbled by the continual revelation of his or her discoveries and finds joy in the miracle of complexity and interrelatedness, rather than anxiety, confusion, and insecurity. ....
If you are simply building and extending your reputation using the statements of others as your foundation, you may be replicating ignorance. How relevant is the information you have assumed to be correct? It has been researched and reported for over 15 years, increasingly, that more and more of the so-called scientific papers written in every segment of the scientific industry quote as fact other studies. In some cases, reports that have been printed as much as decades previous have been quoted as supporting evidence in thousands of other papers -- only to be eventually credited with evidence tampering, critically poor design, and other aspects of fraud. And so, for the sake of social and academic acceptance how much time and effort and money has been wasted revering the lies?
Very often, a person of low self-esteem and the pride of authoritarian dependency, will deceptively express their conclusions with total confidence, inflexibility, and ownership. They make it appear that either they KNOW the answer because of WHO they are, or, that the answer they are expressing they have gleaned from some EXPERT.
The person of positive self esteem, an assertive person, would acknowledge their sources, acknowledge their confidence in a possibly incorrect or misinterpreted source, and acknowledge their own use or non use of the information together with the outcome. Of course, they would acknowledge their own experience and contribution, taking both the credit and the responsibility for it. ...
AWARENESS RELEVANCY.
Personal Experience can build awareness, skill, intuition, confidence, humility.
Yet such experience is time and resource intensive ... potentially expensive in terms of risk, failure, and the inconsistencies of challenge coping through creativity and innovativeness. Mass cultures want, and demand, mass performance with a minimum of risk and a maximum of efficiency. They often obtain their goal through the institutionalization of knowledge: ritual.
How can you teach something to many other people, if what you are teaching is constantly changing. To maintain this degree of current enlightenment, a teacher would continually have to be sending out updates, revisions, and additions to past and present students. Given the nature of Authority and the nature of Dependency, the latter is made increasingly fragile by the inconsistency of the former. Mass performance can usually only be achieved through mass persuasion ... mass confidence.
The more structured and authority based the culture, the more often are the teachers and mentors simply mirroring what has been taught to them. ...
Everyone could THINK that certain statements of experience would be true, yet no one might have actually had the experience that is believed. ... The failing is that as long as a generalized truth is accepted, without test or criticism, it stifles confirmation and the personal commitment which comes from openness and sharing. Authority becomes primary while content sinks to increasing irrelevancy. Effectiveness is sacrificed for apparent efficiency. ...
Scientists don't bully and dislike being bullied.
Scientists are strong enough within themselves to appreciate their own efforts and make the self-judgement of whether their choices are best for them or not. Constructive criticism they love as a means to extend and improve their discoveries and the truths that have been revealed to them. They have little tolerance for childlike intellectual temper tantrums voiced by insecure persons trying to defend their ignorance. ...
SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY.
There are at least annual examples of scientific theories and laws being overturned, even reversed. ...
The creativity and innovativeness of most individuals whose concepts and ideas eventually advanced the understanding of society with revolutionary advances in every field of experience and experiment were originally considered insane and ostracised. ... to break the bonds of convention and release truths that have always been available: truths that work.
Society and the individual are both hugely exploited by perceptions of science as authoritative, definitive, unchanging, all-powerful, inflexible ... god-like. ...
The PERILS of being a Scientist.
Whether the following are Perils, Challenges, Benefits, or merely social reality is simply a matter of perspective. Direct Scientists have a high tendency of sharing the following:
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Encountering many failures, accidents, disappointments.
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Being socially separate from the Public.
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Being manipulated and deceived by others.
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Experiencing Success as a constant Joy.
They understand that most learning and awareness comes from failure, so, they take joy from many of their failures. It signifies to them that they are closer to ultimate success.
Direct scientists do not run from problems.
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Facing Reality as constantly changing, unpredictable, yet manageable.
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But then there is a challenge!
If they can do it, why not us? Will we seek for the reasons why we cannot and others should not, or will we seek for the reasons of how we can also and why and if others can hope for the same?
3. Objectivity, or, Authority ?
4. Effective, or, Efficient ?
5. How to Lie with Statistics.
- "Correlation does not imply causation"
correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship. The fallacy is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this") and false cause.
In a widely-studied example, numerous epidemiological studies showed that women who were taking combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) also had a lower-than-average incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), leading doctors to propose that HRT was protective against CHD. But controlled trials showed that HRT caused a small and significant increase in risk of CHD. Re-analysis of the data showed that women undertaking HRT were more likely to be from higher socio-economic groups (ABC1), with better than average diet and exercise regimes. The two were coincident effects of a common cause, rather than cause and effect as had been supposed.[2]
- "Using Random Sampling"
How is the population to be considered defined
(age, symptoms, location, gender, date, method of diagnosis, quality of tests, number of tests, total numbers involved, selection of controls and subjects, interpretation variability of test results, and symptom severity, ...) ?
- How statistical graphs can be used to distort reality?
for example by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart, so that differences seem larger than they are, or by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes, so that the reader forgets that the images don't scale the same way the quantities do.
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6. Probable, or, Possible ?
7. Practical, or, Extravagent ?
- Does it acknowledge, minimize, or dispute CFS-ME?
- Does it seek to exclude and compartmentalize?
- Does it suggest only ONE form and ONE factor?
- Does it slander, excuse, deny, or confuse symptoms?
- Does it try and confirm a select protocol for everyone?
8. One Means to an End.
- Focused problem definition.
- Responding to the culture & learning abilities.
- Context-specific learning tasks are relevant.
- Encouraging healthy respect for peers.
- Adapt options & protocol to respond to diverse patient realities.
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