Annoyingly neurotypical. Lives off spinal reflexes. Questions authority respectfully. Recommends trust with verification. Of uncertain habitus and is frequently guilty
of conversational implicature. Has worked in government, industry, and academia. Decidedly sceptical about the value of shared governance in academia. Frowns on science tourism- the mechanism by which researchers
indulge and subsidize their food, travel, and social interests through attending scientific conferences. Present interests are (in no particular order) research funding, research evaluation, scientometrics, peer
review, accountability in taxpayer-funded research, research integrity, and graph analytics. Call signs: KD9NEU and WRVI594
On America's Loneliest Highway- Highway 50 in NV- is gorgeous. Ride it before hordes of simpering selfie-takers ruin it forever.
The photograph on the left shows my 2016 R1200RS taken on on Highway 50 as I returned from a ride to Lafayette, CA a few years ago. I replaced it after a low speed spill
on a cold wet morning in Champaign.
Below are quotes from two of four members of a "rogues gallery" (Popper, Feyerabend, Kuhn, and Lakatos' per a review by Hacking (1994) of Kitcher 1993 "The Advancement of Science").
From Karl Popper...It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory-if we look for confirmations. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory--an event which would have refuted the theory. Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of 'corroborating evidence'.) Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers--for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a 'conventionalist twist' or a 'conventionalist stratagem'.) One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
From Paul Feyerabend (1970)...The idea that science can and should be run according to some fixed rules, and that its rationality consists in agreement with such rules, is both unrealistic and vicious. It is unrealistic, since it takes too simple a view of the talents of men and of the circumstances which encourage, or cause, their development. And it is vicious, since the attempt to enforce the rules will undoubtedly erect barriers to what men might have been, and will reduce our humanity by increasing our professional qualifications.
From Peter Hall's 2011 IMS Presidential Address. "Robert Adler, John Ewing and Peter Taylor, expressed concern about the use of citation data for assessing research performance. Their report, published in Statistical Science in 2009, noted that: There is a belief that citation statistics are inherently more accurate because they substitute simple numbers for complex judgments, and hence overcome the possible subjectivity of peer review."From Henry Metzger (~1991/1992) "That new discoveries not only generate answers to previous questions but simultaneously reveal new levels of ignorance is a well-known phenomenon in scientific research. For those who drink only occasionally from this brew, it is intoxicating; for those who are not discouraged to imbibe repeatedly, it brings great joy–indeed it is the elixir of youth."
My friend Rick Lathrop who passed away in Sept 2023 Rick has moved to his forever homes at Anza-Borrego,
Joshua Tree, Mojave Desert, Marine Corps Base Pendleton, and Irvine CA.
Noé Reine playing Sweet Georgia Brown
A wonderful essay by Aaron Timms
Statistics Notes in the British Medical Journal
The syllabus for Kevin Zollman's Course in Social
Epistemology
Lewis Branscomb essay
If you must search for the meaning of life try looking through the audtitory window of Troublant Bolero played by Angelo DeBarre (Live in Paris) or Jimmy Rosenberg, Bireli Lagrène,
and Angelo DeBarre (The One and Only)