Dilbert nails it again today – the same day I started reading Dick Tavern’s “March of Unreason” – warning against the politics of science undervaluing the “irrational” values of art, sport, etc. (amongst other things).
Month: June 2015
Boots on the ground. We owe it to Charlie.
ISIS are a barbarous abomination. They need taking out independent of any wider peace-making and state-building “security” considerations.
Scarily on @BBCR4Today this morning Humphrys suggested ISIS and the idea of their caliphate were no longer to be derided, but an entity to be taken seriously in the tri-partite break-up of Iraq/Syria. No way Jose, they are inhuman criminals.
Fortunately the (?) interviewee confirmed that “Boots on the Ground” were certainly very much “ruled-in” to the anti-ISIS coalition considerations – no commitment as part of current talks, sure, but NOT ruled-out. This is absolutely the kind of action that should be taken within proper international / UN arrangements involving cooperative Mid-East states. Absolutely as Charles Kennedy called-for in opposing the US /UK “WMD” debacle that led us into Iraq by the wrong route, with the wrong mission-creep objectives.
We owe it to Charlie (RIP) to get it right this time.
Obsession with Metrics Corrupting Science
More later, but an interesting piece. http://phys.org/news/2015-06-obsession-metrics-corrupting-science.html (HT to Sabine Hossenfelder @skdh )
The problem with measuring things is (a) you need to choose an object (thing) to measure, and (b) you need to choose another object (measurement) to quantify. Both those things are prejudiced by the model you started with. If your model is a hypothesis you’re attempting to falsify, that’s OK. But contrary to popular belief that’s only a small (albeit crucial) part of science – most of science is creative exploration, and objectification is (literally) the last thing you need.
Stop measuring and start listening, experiencing unmediated by your chosen measuring device or measures, with an open mind, without prejudice. You might learn something.
In fact the article concerns meta-science, about measuring academic inputs to and outputs from science resources, not about scientific measurements themselves, but the same considerations apply. Values are more important than measures. The topic arose in this blogging project from the perspective of “scientific management” – governance of any human system, whether the content is science or widget-making. Perversely science suffers disproportionately from scientific management. Science is (should be) scientific enough without it.