#and i do mean peer-reviewing i went and verified the claims | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yuri-puppies · 6 months ago

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#again this only scratches the surface #you gotta get into how alienated from men specifically she feels #how she feels like a predator towards women just for being alive near them but also only feels comfortable really comfortable with girls #and how the only Man she really can relate to and look up to is senshi #the dwarf with no iron in his veins a complete outcast who is very feminine for a male dwarf #and the way she seems to envy falins ability to be Seen As A Victim while also believing herself incapable of such victimhood #bc of the way ppl treat her like a threat instead of a person #its the way she is rejected from and runs from masculine institutions #its the way she never felt like she could do magic (feminine coded for tallmen #like name a male tallman who does magic on panel except laios) but when she learns she learns it well and fast #specifically shes an excellent healer. my gd the dragon fight. healing her own broken ribs as she sneaks #that was hot btw #like to compare kabru never does a spell despite us being told in the guidebook he knowd how. hed rather rub a strangers feet than do spells #theres an in-universe trope of casters fucking fighters. and its a presumed heterosexual one too. magic is feminine here #its the way men treat her with violence so frequently while she tries to just submiss #its the way her body seems to fold in out of armor like she wishes she were smaller #its how confident and happy she feels initially as a dwarf when um. well she could pass for a woman so easily there with just a shave #its the way she hates looking like her father #Its how uncomfortable she looks when marcille is hoing on and on about how she doesnt look like falin #and ill just stop or ill recount the whole manga

peer reviewing @malewifesband

modern au laios

#and i do mean peer-reviewing i went and verified the claims #bc i was so sure that kabru casts waterwalk but you're right it doesn't happen on panel #we get told he's rusty (so i'd also agree he avoids doing magic even tho he knows it) then he meets up with Namari Toshiro and the orcs #next thing we know Namari Toshiro the orcs and wargs are jumping into the fray with waterwalk as does Kabru later on #therefore Kabru must have cast waterwalk on all of them; he's the only person who could have #but yes everyone needs to listen to prev he's a tfem laios scholar #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #dm hall of fame #good meta op #< my meta tag and i regret it every day. i know the original is art it sounds so nonsensical...

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atlasleadershipresearch · 4 years ago

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How to Evaluate Collegiality

by Jeffrey L. Buller

This article first appeared in Academic Leader, vol. 28, num. 8, August 2012. Reprinted with permission. For more information about Academic Leader, click here.

Two concerns are often raised when department chairs attempt to address breaches of collegiality through the faculty evaluation process. The first is whether they’re permitted to do so at all, since very few faculty handbooks list collegialityas a criterion for reviews. The second is whether evaluation is an effective means of dealing with these challenges, since collegiality is often regarded as something highly subjective and not measurable or verifiable in any consistent way. The first of these concerns can be dealt with rather quickly, while the second will require a much more extended discussion.

In the United States, courts have ruled consistently that it is appropriate to consider collegiality in personnel decisions, even when an institution’s policies do not specifically list it as a criterion. See, for example, Cipriano (2011) 153–163. So deans and chairs are at liberty to take collegiality into account whenever they regard its presence as a positive factor in a faculty member’s performance or its absence as a detriment. But since it’s relatively uncommon for colleges and universities to describe collegiality in their policies and procedures, the second concern can actually become more difficult. After all, how do you evaluate something that is undefined, apparently nebulous in nature, and not even referred to on most forms used as part of a faculty evaluation?

Identify specific behaviors, not opinions or personality traits

Perhaps the best way of dealing with this challenge is to identify the specific behaviors that, in the professional setting where you work, may be regarded as contributing to or diminishing collegiality. In other words, it’s not enough to say that a person is irritable or argumentative. People are entitled to their own personalities, even when those personalities annoy us or are far different from our own. However, people are not entitled to engage in behavior that makes the work of your program more difficult. Everyone can be in a bad mood occasionally; they can even be in a bad mood every single day. But if their mood causes them to engage in activities that affect the quality of your program, you not only have the right, you have the duty to address it. What you’re trying to change is not the person’s mood, attitude, or personality itself, but rather specific behaviors that are resulting from that mood, attitude, or personality.

If you’re in doubt about how to tell the difference, ask yourself the following three questions:

1. What is the specific problem that I am observing?

2. What are the specific actions or behaviors of the faculty member that are causing those problems?

3. What are the specific steps I need the faculty member to take in order to eliminate or reduce those problems?

Let’s explore how these questions might function in an actual situation. Imagine that you’re responsible for evaluating faculty members in a programthat includes Dr. Curmudgeon, a professor who always seems to be irritable and treats colleagues and students with contempt. You’ve received a lot ofcomplaints about Dr. Curmudgeon, and you yourself have been on the receiving endof this faculty member’s foul temper. So you decide to do something about it the next time you’re evaluating Dr. Curmudgeon. Near the end of your written review, you include the following paragraph:

Finally, I feel that I must address the issue of your frequent irritability. It’s getting to the point where I dread your presence at meetings, and a number of your colleagues have mentioned that they feel they must “walk on eggshells” whenever you’re around. If you continue in this manner, it seems unlikely that many of those in your department will vote in your favor the next time you undergo post-tenure review, and I find myself reluctant to assign you junior faculty members to mentor because your temperament is so consistently unpleasant.

You dispatch this evaluation to Dr. Curmudgeon, a grievance is filed against you, and you’re shocked to find that the appeals committee rules that your evaluation was completely inappropriate. What you did wrong was to base your evaluation, not on any specific actions that caused adocumented harm to your program, but on Dr. Curmudgeon’s personality and how it made you and others in the department feel. Your feelings ofannoyance matter neither more nor less than do Dr. Curmudgeon’s feelings of irritability. What you’ve done is confuse a pet peeve with a valid indication of a faculty member’s performance, and that mistake could invalidate your entire evaluation.

What you should have done instead is to focus on those three questions raised earlier.

1. What is the specific problem that I am observing? Are students dropping Dr. Curmudgeon’s courses at a significantly higher rate than those of his peers and indicating to you that the professor’s behavior is the cause? Has the advising load of other members of the department increased disproportionately because Dr. Curmudgeon does not believe that any student is good enough to work with him? Have committees failed to meet deadlines because they can’t obtain a quorum when they know that Dr. Curmudgeon is likely to attend?

2. What are the specific actions or behaviors of the faculty member that are causing those problems? Do students report when they drop the class that Dr. Curmudgeon called their questions “stupid” and made demeaning remarks to them? Have advisees reported that Dr. Curmudgeon belittled them because of the way they dressed or the books they read in their own time? Do members of Dr. Curmudgeon’s department say that there has been a chilling effect on discussions because no one is willing to be the next person publicly ridiculed?

3. What are the specific steps I need the faculty member to take in order to eliminate or reduce those problems? Can you establish guidelines for what Dr. Curmudgeon needs to do as a result of the problems you’ve documented? You may need to say something like, “Look. It doesn’t matter to me at all how you feel about me, your colleagues, and your students. But it does matter to me how you treat us. In order for our program to grow and receive increased funding, I need every member of the department to treat every other member with professionalism and respect. From now on, when you disagree with someone, I’ll expect you to direct at your students like the future colleagues that some of them will develop to be, not as objects of your scorn and humiliation. Those actions are hindering your pedagogical effectiveness.”

Use the evaluation process to begin a continued dialogue on the type of behaviors that are acceptable in your professional setting

In order to make the evaluation process more constructive and forward-looking, reviewers should spend more time talking about what the faculty member should do than about what he or she should not do. Even in the caseof Dr. Curmudgeon, it’s not particularly effective to end the conversation by talking only about what went wrong. But it’s far easier to accentuate the positive if you’ve already held a unit-wide conversation about what collegiality is and come to a consensus about the type of behavior you expect of one another. See Buller (2012) 218–219, 237–238. For instance, if your discussions have led to the creation of a conduct code or statement of departmental values, you’ll have a context in which to offer positive advice. “Remember what we said when we discussed collegiality and professionalism at our retreat last August,” you might say. “Working together constructively means acting on the assumption that we all care about our program equally. So, when you badger the newer faculty as ‘self-centered and lazy,’ you’re stifling the sort of debate we need in order to make our discipline successful.”

Of course, the danger with setting behavioral guidelines that are too specific is that passive-aggressive faculty members may attempt to use those statements against us. “Our departmental code says we have to restrict our disagreements to the issues instead of the person,” someone might claim. “Show me where it says that we can’t roll our eyes when we do so.” In these cases, you may find it valuable review with the faculty member what the intent of the code was and how benefits accrue from a collegial work environment. It’s impossible to develop a statement of principles so comprehensive that it addresses every possible contingency, so it may be necessary at times to discuss what the principles are designed to achieve, rather than the specific phrasing of the principles themselves.

While matters of collegiality can never be addressed solely through the process of faculty evaluation, periodic reviews do provide administrators with an opportunity to deal with clear breaches of professional conduct, recommend alternative behaviors for the future, and underscore the significance of treating one another with respect and mutual support. Since the fundamental mission of a program is to provide a high level of instruction, scholarship, and service, it becomes difficult or impossible to achieve that goal when faculty members indulge in non-collegial behavior. It’s for that reason that unprofessional actions may appropriately be addressed as part of a faculty evaluation.

References

Buller, J. L. The Essential Department Chair: A Comprehensive Desk Reference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012.

Cipriano, R. E. Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Jeffrey L. Buller is one of the senior partners in ATLAS, a firm providing academic leadership training and assessment worldwide. His book, Best Practices in Faculty Evaluation: A Practical Guide for Academic Leaders, is available from Jossey-Bass, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers. ▼

#collegiality #faculty evaluation #academic leadership

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oppelyannis90 · 4 years ago

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Reiki Healing And Intuition Omaha Fabulous Ideas

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Can Reiki Cure Psoriasis

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Reiki And Energy Healing

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#Reiki Healing And Intuition Omaha Fabulous Ideas #Reiki Energy Youtube

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sirfrogsworth · 2 years ago

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Ad hominem means I just attack you as a person rather than specifically addressing your arguments. However, I went through, one by one, and addressed your claims.

So either you don't actually understand what ad hominem means, or you think you can just throw out random debate fallacies, claim victory, and not actually engage with the substance of what I said.

You said it wasn't a vaccine. Unless you can prove, with evidence, that mRNA vaccines do not stimulate an immune response, then they are by definition... a vaccine. I assume you can look up the definition of a vaccine to verify this, right?

You said it was a gene therapy. I explained what a gene therapy was and I explained how the vaccines work and showed they could not be identified as gene therapy under the medically understood definition. If you can provide evidence that mRNA vaccines replace defective or missing genes, then I will retract my statement.

I could inundate you with COVID vaccine safety studies, as there are many, but I honestly do not believe you are a serious enough person to dedicate that amount of time and effort. But here is a link to a meta-analysis of 87 safety studies showing that these vaccines are generally safe. Is 87 enough? How many studies are required to satisfy you?

And please explain to me how actual cheese gets into veins. What kind of cheese? Gouda? Swiss? I'm going to need more specifics on this vein cheese.

Put your money where your mouth is. Let's see some actual evidence. Peer reviewed by credible sources is preferred.

"In the American civil war, two- thirds of the estimated 660 000 deaths of soldiers were caused by pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria."

There is a reason modern soldiers are injected with almost every vaccine known to man. Which makes this military aversion to the COVID vaccination even more ridiculous.

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goldira01 · 5 years ago

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Decentralized finance, or DeFi for short, became a buzzword in 2019 following the valuations of MakerDao and Compound after both companies raised sizable rounds from the elite Silicon Valley-based Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

2020 has been a difficult year for the crypto DeFi sector — it’s been going through the wringer. Over the weekend, the dForce ecosystem protocol Lendf.me lost 99.95% of its funds from a hacking exploit. Just days later, the hacker leaked information about his identity that resulted in him returning most of the stolen funds. This news comes following DeFi’s greatest test on March 12, when the Ether (ETH) price sharply fell, causing systems to become overly stressed and fail. The big loser that day was MakerDao, whose poor architecture and infrastructure was exposed due to the limitations of the Ethereum network.

The leading decentralized finance platform MakerDao accrued debt that had to be bailed out by its venture capital firm’s money. A month later, DAI’s dollar peg was experiencing stability issues and a $28.3 million class-action lawsuit was filed against the Maker Foundation in the Northern District Court of California for negligence. Users want their money back.

Back on April 18, $25 million in Ether and Bitcoin (BTC) was stolen from users of the lending protocol Lendf.me. Lendf is a protocol with security issues and is part of the dForce Foundation’s ecosystem. Surprisingly, it was actually able to collect almost all funds back from the attacker who exploited the reentry loophole in its protocol, as he eventually returned almost all of the money he had stolen. After draining $25 million, the hacker returned $24 million of it, keeping $1 million for himself for… you know, gas fees and these difficult COVID-19 times, maybe.

Ironically, the hacker didn’t return the same mix of assets that was stolen, instead returning the $24 million in a different combination of cryptocurrency tokens. This comes immediately following the news that the dForce Foundation closed a $1.5 million round led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Huobi Capital and CMB International last week. We can assume these funds are going to cover the losses from the hack.

I spoke with two DeFi CEOs of Compound Finance and Kava Labs to ask them about their experience with dForce and what key takeaways the hack can teach the DeFi community.

Brian Kerr, the CEO of DeFi lending platform Kava Labs, spoke to Cointelegraph about what went wrong with dForce that allowed this hack to transpire. In mid-2019, Kava announced its stablecoin USDX. Shortly after, dForce released its own stablecoin ticker name as USDx. The use of Kava’s USDX ticker displays the limited creativity at dForce, which is likely extended to its code and technical talent as well. Robert Leshner, CEO of DeFi lending company Compound Finance, personally spoke with Cointelegraph in an interview, following his tweet about the $25 million hack and claiming that the company stole code that is recognizable as Compound’s.

During the phone interview with Cointelegraph, Leshner explained:

“Building on-chain is merciless; security requires a team’s full attention. When teams redeploy code they haven’t written, it makes it impossible to know how, or why, the code works, or what the risks are… anything less is an injustice to users. And users should demand better.”

Sadly, dForce has become an example of what DeFi shouldn’t be.

So, what do you need to know?

In the case of both MakerDao and dForce, what started as a disaster is now in the process of being resolved. Though a significant sum of the funds are still unaccounted for, the experience has left users seeking alternative DeFi lending platforms that they can actually trust. Many users have lost funds, and many others feel wary simply from reading DeFi news these days, even if their money hasn’t been compromised by either MakerDao or dForce. As a subfield within the crypto space, DeFi is still very young.

Was it really dForce’s responsibility?

Leshner said that the dForce firm “copy/pasted Compound v1 without changes.” According to Leshner, the company alleges that the Compound v1 code “was not flawed,” but that the group was cautious about the asset it listed, according to his tweets. The dForce team copied code it did not fully understand from Compound and illegally deployed it as its own while changing a few parts without realizing the security issues involved, according to Leshner.

Also weighing in was Kerr. Kava Labs — a DeFi lending platform similar to MakerDao, but while MakerDao only accepts ETH tokens, the Kava platform accepts any asset including Bitcoin, Ripple (XRP), Binance Coin (BNB) and Cosmos (ATOM), which can be used to mint USDX, the platform’s stablecoin. These milestones of the platform’s development came prior to dForce knocking off the ticker name USDX for their own stablecoin. Kerr shared that Kava aims for USDX to become a major player in the global financial system.

Based on Kerr’s account to Cointelegraph and stated in his reply to Leshner on Twitter, dForce heavily marketed Lendf.me to the world without first running very basic audits: “A basic audit from any reputable firm would have caught this — reentrancy is a known issue and easily checked for. Outside of stealing Compound’s code, DForce also stole Kava’s USDX token name and ticker — despite us announcing our token many months before they even had a platform.” Kerr admitted, “It’s a terrible example of what DeFi should not be.”

As trust is the most central and important foundation for a relationship between a person and their money, Kerr believes the responsibility was with “both the dForce team and the application’s users.” He continued:

“dForce didn’t understand what they were doing and marketed an unsafe product. The users didn’t do their own due diligence on the team or the codebase to determine if the product is safe for use.”

DeFi shouldn’t be brazen

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, dForce’s hacker used the imBTC token as a “trojan horse” of the attack — as an Ethereum wrapper for Bitcoin. Leshner explained that the security error came from a known reentrancy attack: “This is a followup attack to the imBTC Uniswap attack yesterday.” He went on to say, “imBTC is an ERC-777 token and not a normal Ethereum asset. Smart contracts that include imBTC have to be extra cautious and write additional code to protect against reentrancy attacks.”

This is considered to be a well-known vulnerability of the common ERC-20 standard, especially when used in the DeFi context.

DeFi shouldn’t be on Ethereum

The Ethereum network’s architecture doesn’t meet the scaling and security needs of the DeFi sector, as the level of testing required to achieve all outcomes is infinite in the Solidity programming language, according to Kerr. “For these reasons and many others, leading projects including Binance, Cosmos, and Kava have chosen to leave the Ethereum ecosystem for greener pastures,” he said.

“Building any financial service on the Ethereum Network is problematic for security. Testing the possible outcomes and bugs of Solidity is near impossible as it can do virtually anything as a Turing Complete Language. While powerful, it’s probably the worst environment to build financial infrastructure,” stated Kerr, who sees one of Kava’s value propositions is that it is rooted in security standards as a purpose-built platform for all assets requiring safe DeFi services as a top priority.

DeFi should be safe and secure

Lendf calls itself, “By far the largest fiat-backed stablecoin DeFi lending protocol.” What’s problematic is that Lendf was too focused on raising capital, growth and expansion to maintain its biggest, best and “largest fiat backed stablecoin” claim to fame. Instead of focusing on improving code for security, understanding its codebase, fixing bugs and releasing secure products, the firm was overly focused on profit and perceived status.

Basic audits, for example, were missing completely and hurdles were being jumped too quickly by the team, resulting in a security vulnerability that is yet to be resolved.

The event could have been prevented and users should have seen this coming, according to Leshner, who tweeted details about how the company had stolen Compound’s code: “If a project doesn’t have the expertise to develop its own smart contracts, and instead steals and redeploys somebody else’s copyrighted code, it’s a sign that they don’t have the capacity or intention to consider security.” He later encouraged developers and users to learn a valuable lesson: Don’t give your money to a company you can’t trust.

Kava Labs’ Kerr proceeded to quote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s motto of “move fast and break things,” elaborating:

“It’s a great saying to live by for basic software and start-ups, but definitely the worst advice when building financial infrastructure as this past weekend has shown.”

DeFi should focus on users

Kerr also shared, “At Kava, all our code is built from the ground up, in Golang, in very discreet modules that are scoped to very specific actions that we can audit and verify. This means that we can fully test the code to a very high confidence for its accuracy and security.” He continued:

“We value the safety of user funds and put it at the forefront of everything we do. We run testnets, conduct 3rd party audits, and have a substantial peer review prior to any code going live on the Kava platform. Furthermore, all new code must be reviewed and voted for by the validator group securing and staking $KAVA which includes technically savvy operators like Binance, OKEx, Huobi, Bitmax, Hashkey, Lemniscap, SNZ, Dokia Capital and Framework Ventures.”

DeFi should verify to trust

It’s not enough to trust a company because they have big-name investors, as we have seen is the case with dForce and MakerDao. However, we often hear “trust and verify” when we should probably hear “verify and trust” from the DeFi community.

While Leshner is the CEO of Compound, he’s also a personal investor for Kava Labs along with other top backers like Arrington XRP Capital. Kava’s excellent technical team and strict adherence to security measures is what has auditors talking about their code. Prior to Kava Labs’ launch, the lending platform ran a professional audit by CertiK — the leading formal verification and audit firm. In a blogpost on the audit’s results, CertiK stated, “Kava is one of the best codebases Certik has seen from a project to date, especially in the Decentralized Finance sector.”

Finally, Kerr took the high ground in concluding, “I highly encourage anyone thinking of using a DeFi protocol to first check the team for technical competence, check for technically diligent investors, and check that audits and peer reviews have been done. Even then, assume there will always be some technical risk and market risk when it comes to DeFi protocols. It’s a young space and there will be more painful learnings like this to come.”

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Andrew Rossow is a millennial attorney, law professor, entrepreneur, writer and speaker on privacy, cybersecurity, AI, AR/VR, blockchain and digital currencies. He has written for many outlets and contributed to cybersecurity and technology publications. Utilizing his millennial background to its fullest potential, Rossow provides a well-rounded perspective on social media crime, technology and privacy implications.

#Timor Invest

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preciousmetals0 · 5 years ago

Text

The DeFi Hack: What Decentralized Finance Should and Shouldn’t Be

The DeFi Hack: What Decentralized Finance Should and Shouldn’t Be:

I spoke with two DeFi CEOs of Compound Finance and Kava Labs to ask them about their experience with dForce and what key takeaways the hack can teach the DeFi community.

During the phone interview with Cointelegraph, Leshner explained:

Sadly, dForce has become an example of what DeFi shouldn’t be.

So, what do you need to know?

Was it really dForce’s responsibility?

DeFi shouldn’t be brazen

This is considered to be a well-known vulnerability of the common ERC-20 standard, especially when used in the DeFi context.

DeFi shouldn’t be on Ethereum

DeFi should be safe and secure

Basic audits, for example, were missing completely and hurdles were being jumped too quickly by the team, resulting in a security vulnerability that is yet to be resolved.

Kava Labs’ Kerr proceeded to quote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s motto of “move fast and break things,” elaborating:

“It’s a great saying to live by for basic software and start-ups, but definitely the worst advice when building financial infrastructure as this past weekend has shown.”

DeFi should focus on users

DeFi should verify to trust

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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thewebofslime · 5 years ago

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Some will defend anything Allison Mack did as just the result of Keith Raniere’s manipulations, in much the same way as conspiracy theorists will deflect any point of criticism as just further evidence of what they believe in. Getting away from details that can be nitpicked, in the big picture Mack remained while even other former insiders like Kristen Keeffe and Daniela resisted and got out. Others started to eat and rest and come to their senses when they had to travel away from Albany, but Mack did not. There is something unique about her case that made her particularly suited to being Raniere’s henchwoman in carrying out the abuses of DOS. We actually learned more about Mack’s unusual, pivotal role, from Edmondson’s new book ‘Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life’. * Edmondson thought Allison Mack “now replaced Pam as Keith’s number one” * Vicente said she appeared to be “at the top” (of “an alternative stripe path”) Mack was also brought into DOS before Lauren Salzman, even though Salzman was a much longer-standing member and on NXIVM’s board; and in DOS, Mack apparently ranked above Salzman. Again, Mack was Raniere’s lieutenant and henchwoman – or at least his madam, enforcer, and procurer – in a role unlike any other, particularly compared to the pod slaves like India Oxenberg. Lauren Salzman was higher ranking in Nxivm than Allison Mack – but seemed to be lower ranking than Allison in DOS – the women’s slave group. And, yes, Lauren Salzman did testify that she took a group of slaves to Mack’s house to be branded after a “candle-lighting ceremony,”; it was reported by Diane and another media source, but Frank has just not published that specific portion of the transcript. Also, Frank reported that branding took place at both of Mack’s properties in Knox Woods, and at her place in Brooklyn as well. Sarah Edmondson has said she was branded at Mack’s residence. Mack owned a home in Clifton Park since 2011, and so always had a place for the brandings to be performed when the Vicentes weren’t living there. I think there are some who would consider Mack a victim even if Raniere had told her to get a gun, point it in someone’s face and pull the trigger – and she did it. That’s essentially the role she was in, looking people in the face and doing harm to them, from deception and extortion to branding. Edmondson Found Good in Nxivm Too Sarah Edmondson initially found good in Nxivm. Sarah Edmondson said in an interview, “The initial [Nxivm] seminars help with a lot of the issues actors struggle with in terms of having confidence and needing to be validated. I can say from my own experience that after those early ESP seminars [Nxivm lingo that stands for Executive Success Program], I felt like things were going really well for me. I went to more auditions, I got off my sleeping pills, I felt like I was a causing agent in my life rather than just being at the whim of the world.” Edmondson’s perspective and report are typical. High control groups typically sort of bait their traps with something that can actually have a bit of value – everything from a bit of self-help to motivational training, plus providing a sort of support group or even social structure. Those may be substitutes for things people are lacking as old fashioned constructs like organized religion and extended families decline. Research shows that belonging to a group has significant mental and even physical health benefits. It’s important not to be entirely dismissive, and instead understand what gets people into groups, and the power of the mechanisms that are exploited. Kreuk Fixation The fixation with Kristin Kreuk [as a villain of Nxivm] diverts attention from other key or even more important – figures like Kendra Voth, Mark Hildreth (who unquestionably remained a loyal, active member), and so on – and not to mention Sarah Edmondson, who ran the whole Vancouver scene and apparently still has yet to fully come clean about what went on. And Grace Park – yet another player of some import who it is easy to forget with the constant Kreuk drumbeat. Is it just a jilted fanboy fixation with Kreuk, or a deliberate attempt to keep her in the spotlight so others can scuttle away into the dark night? Mack Hildreth and Kristin Kreuk [above] in 2010 at Necker Island at a Nxivm gathering Hildreth stayed active long after others either quit or started backing away. He was an Orange Sash, while Kreuk was Yellow, which means he was a level more deeply involved and almost certainly recruited more people. Since it seems to be an ongoing point of contention, I started putting together a list of the major players in Vancouver and their ranks to get some factual perspective. Kreuk ended up surprisingly far down the pecking order, compared to people who rarely or almost never get mentioned here. One thing that should separate me from many of the commenters here, for anyone paying attention, is that I frequently cite verifiable facts, provide links to articles and sources, and even reference scholarly research and peer-reviewed scientific studies. This bullet list is meant to put things in perspective, in this case for the NXIVM Vancouver nexus; and, hopefully, it will put a damper on anyone posting about Kreuk in order to try to draw fire from others. This is an initial draft in rough order of role and importance –- and I welcome any additions or corrections; * Sarah Edmondson – Established and ran Vancouver Center, recruited actors and celebrities. Claims/reported recruited 2,000. * Mark Vicente – Ran Center in California and co-founded Vancouver * Mark Hildreth – Orange Sash by 2011. Jness senior trainer/mentor. Co-leader of The Source. Recruited Nicole. Stayed in? * Lucas Roberts – Orange sash 2 stripes. Stayed in. * Leah Lim Mottishaw – Orange sash 1 stripe. Stayed in. * Allison Mack – Orange sash 1 stripe. Recruited by Kreuk. Co-leader of The Source. Stayed in. * Nicki Cline – Orange sash 1 stripe. Recruited by Edmondson. Stayed in. * Diane Lim – Yellow sash 3 stripes. Stayed in. * Kristen Kreuk – Yellow Sash 2 Stripes. Recruited by Hildreth. Co-founded GBD abortive recruiting effort.. “Left”/distanced 2012/3 * Kendra Voth – “Coach” (Yellow sash?). Recruited by Kreuk. Co-founded GBD abortive recruiting effort. Reported/claimed left 2009 * Grace Park – Yellow Sash. Recruited by Edmondson. [left 2017]. * Chad Krowchuk – Recruited by Mack. Leah Lim believes in and supports her Vanguard no matter how many women claim he destroyed them. When others were running away from Vanguard, she rushed to the fore to support him.

#TheWebOfSlime

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doesitreallywork · 6 years ago

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Is “Demolisher” Baseball Betting System right for you? Can it help you with what you’re going through? Read this review to find out exactly that – click and learn now!

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Visit Official Website »

Demolisher Baseball Betting System Review – Does It Really Work?

Baseball is venerated as one of the most significant sporting activities in the United States as well as it absolutely has hundreds of strong followers that enjoy it, bank on it, obtain psychological over it as well as do every little thing however praise the gods of baseball.

It is played anywhere from little organizations, the yards as well as institution areas. In the expert organizations, baseball gamers that are outstanding, have a high standing amongst their peers. In this testimonial, we are mosting likely to consider exactly how you can bank on this video game and also earn money.

I have actually seen the evaluations that have actually been uploaded by the individuals that have actually purchased right into this as well as they all claim that this is the most effective that they have actually seen. It is not a rip-off which is why you will certainly require to get it however prior to you do, allow’s be familiar with it much better.

What is Demolisher Baseball Betting System Everything About?

Baseball is something that many people adore, it is not just interesting however it is additionally an income for some. There are individuals that make their revenue from baseball by simply banking on the video games.

Therefore most individuals that bank on baseball often tend to count on baseball tipping solutions in a proposal to boost their probabilities of winning. Exactly how do you understand if you have chosen the finest informant solution? For all you recognize it could simply be a phony solution after your loan.

In this evaluation, we are going to chat concerning the demolisher baseball betting system. If you have actually been searching for the finest informant solution after that today you are in good luck. I will certainly speak about the program briefly, exactly how it functions, if it is legitimate or it is a fraud, its benefits and drawbacks and also evaluations.

Exactly How Does Demolisher Baseball Betting System Job?

You will certainly discover that they are commonly diverse which the clients that are seeking to register will certainly appreciate this. The testimonials that stream in from the customers of this item will certainly inform you that the range the system offers is really welcome specifically if you intend to make wagers throughout the organizations.

When you are registering for the solution, you will certainly make some repayments that will certainly obtain you with either a month-to-month registration or with the whole period.

You can really feel secure making the registration as you can finish the registration in instance you feel it is not functioning for you to obtain all the loan that you spent in subscribing for it. This need to make it a threat worth taking.

What Will certainly You Obtain From Demolisher Baseball Betting System

When you are obtaining a program similar to this one, you will certainly require to see to it that you understand all that you can prior to you obtain it. Betting is just one of those points that you require to take seriously. That is why you require to recognize that the item you are obtaining is trustworthy.

This is a listing of the important things that the majority of the evaluations were spurting around as well as they are why you will certainly require to take this program seriously.

Precision

Demolisher Baseball Betting System is incredibly exact. You can trust this program since it forecasts the winning groups with incredible precision. When you begin utilizing this item you will certainly experience extremely marginal dissatisfactions otherwise none when it pertains to understanding of revenues.

One of the most outstanding point concerning Demolisher Baseball Betting System is that it provides you the capacity to obtain significant revenues, due to the fact that the program is assured to make even more cash. The entire point will certainly allow you recognize that will certainly cover the spread as well as all that with incredible precision.

This is the one that you require to place your loan on and also you will certainly be great since that is just how you will certainly have the ability to obtain even more cash.

PDF Guidebooks With Extra Info

When you make use of the informant solutions, they get rid of the truth that you will certainly need to evaluate whatever to make sure that you can recognize exactly how to make wagers which is why they will certainly offer you greater than ideas. They will certainly provide you methods of recognizing when you wish to bank on something as well as why.

These PDF e-book guidebooks will certainly have whatever that you will certainly require when you intend to make wagers as well as just how to make the very best selections. They do not simply provide you suggestions yet they really reveal you exactly how they do it which is something that you will certainly locate them to be actually proficient at what they are doing.

After you recognize what remains in right here, you will certainly understand just how to wager in your very own on tiny wagers that will certainly not make you inadequate or anything like that.

Betting Is Easy, No Experience Required

When you intend to begin banking on anything, you will certainly require to see to it that you have actually done whatever that you can to see to it that you recognize what you are doing which you have it very easy. When you have actually spent for this, all you will certainly need to do is await the referral.

They will certainly provide you the most effective wager that you require to put and afterwards all you will certainly need to do is wait. You will certainly have a simple time simply waiting on this to be a win or another thing. Primarily wins is what you obtain yet lengthy tale short, this is simple.

What you require to recognize is that this set is created by doing this to ensure that you do not need to do anything to win other than wager. Say goodbye to shedding for you currently. Baseball betting simply obtained much easier.

Final Verdict

We have actually come to the end of this one and also what can I state, it is the most effective point that I have actually seen in the informant betting globe. You will certainly be making constant revenues that will certainly make you the returns that you require. There is very little to be done right here other than wager.

Demolisher baseball betting system is the one that will certainly assist you knock down the shedding strike that you might be having.

This is it. There is no much better means to state this than, there have actually been numerous evaluations that have actually discussed this and also they claim that when you acquire this registration, you will certainly be obtaining the entire point which is what well desire.

Pros

– The Possibilities of Success- When you are attempting to obtain the most effective wagers, you will certainly require to have accessibility to this set as it will certainly supply you success price that is high.

– The Cash Back Warranty- when you subscribe for this, you can constantly obtain your refund if it does not function, you will certainly have the ability to obtain the cash back.

– The Component- the program is easy as all you will certainly be called for to do is simply ensure that you obtain the suggestions that will certainly be supplied to your phone or computer system.

– It is verified to Function- that implies you will certainly have not a problem with its legitimacy. Individuals that have actually utilized this have actually stated that it is the most effective point that they have actually seen.

– You Will Just Required This Program and also Absolutely Nothing Else- that is things that you will certainly require. The website reveals things that you will certainly require to do and also what he is doing.

– Really High Strike Price- I took a look at the data as well as what I saw went over, you will certainly discover that there is a whole lot that can be gotten from this set which is why I am eager to advertise it.

– Really Budget-friendly- when you wish to obtain something that is actual, you will certainly require to ensure that the costs you are obtaining are actual as well as reasonable. That is not something that you will certainly simply obtain.

Cons

– It does not look like the large loan sort of solution and also numerous might prevent you from it. This testimonial claims it’s secure as well as sluggish.

Summary

Baseball is venerated as one of the most significant sporting activities in the United States and also it definitely has hundreds of strong followers that see it, bank on it, obtain psychological over it as well as do whatever however prayer the gods of baseball. Baseball is something that lots of people love, it is not just interesting yet it is likewise an income for some

Get The Lowest Price Now

Visit Official Website »

The post Demolisher Baseball Betting System Review – Does It Really Work? appeared first on Does It Really Work?.

#DoesItReallyWork, #review #reviews

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hodldrgn-blog · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://www.cryptomoonity.com/7-myths-of-self-sovereign-identity-2/

7 Myths of Self-Sovereign Identity

Dispelling misunderstandings around SSI (Part 1 of 2)

Image by David Travis on Unsplash

Here are seven myths of SSI that I repeatedly hear and will address across two posts. Myths 1–3 will be discussed here, myths 4–7 here.

Self-sovereign means self-attested.

SSI attempts to reduce government’s power over an identity owner.

SSI creates a national or “universal ID” credential.

SSI gives absolute control over identity.

There’s a “main” issuer of credentials.

There’s a built-in method of authenticating.

User-centric identity is the same as SSI.

Note: readers should have a basic understanding of how SSI works before reading this. For a primer, review the third and final section of The Three Models of Digital Identity Relationships.

The self-sovereign identity model.

Background

I recently attended the ID2020 event in New York, where some of the biggest players in identity were on hand, working toward fulfilling the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16.9: Identity for all by 2030. It was an excellent event, lots of energy, very professional, and serious about moving the needle on this BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal).

We heard first-hand examples of the pains caused by broken identity systems around the world, some of which were truly heartbreaking. Most of us take for granted that we can prove things about ourselves, unaware that over a billion people cannot, leaving them unable to obtain desirable work or advanced education, open a bank account, hold title to property, or even travel. As noted by the World Bank’s ID4D, identity is a prerequisite to financial inclusion, and financial inclusion is a big part of solving poverty.

That means improving identity will reduce poverty, not to mention what it could do for human trafficking. Refugees bring another troubling identity dilemma where the need is critical, and where we are commencing efforts through our partnership with iRespond.

The Culprit

Several times throughout the event, SSI was discussed as a new and potentially big part of the solution. While there was clearly hope, there was also skepticism that, in my opinion, stems from misperceptions about what SSI really is and is not.

If SSI really was what these skeptics thought, I wouldn’t favor it either. And if they knew what SSI really is, I think they’d embrace it wholeheartedly.

The perception problem begins with the very term, “self-sovereign.”

At one point on the main stage, the venerable Kim Cameron, Microsoft’s Principal Identity Architect and author of the seminal 7 Laws of Identity, quipped:

“The term ‘self-sovereign’ identity makes me think of hillbillies on a survivalist kick.”

Kim went on to clarify that he is strongly in favor of SSI, he just dislikes the term and the negative perceptions it conjures up.

Me, too.

Self-sovereign identity is not a great term — for lots of reasons — but until we have a better one, (“decentralized identity” is a serious candidate) let’s clarify the one we’ve got.

Myth 1: Self-sovereign means self-attested.

Third-Party Credentials

In meatspace (real life, compared with cyberspace), to prove something about yourself you must present what others say about you in the form of credentials or other evidence; without this, what you claim about yourself isn’t strongly reliable.

I can claim I went to Harvard, but when a prospective employer needs to know for sure, my claim is no longer sufficient. Saying my credit is great won’t get me a loan, and claiming I’m a pilot won’t get me into the cockpit. I need proof, and it must come from a source that the relying party will trust.

SSI is no different. You can make all the claims you want about yourself, but when a relying party needs to know for sure, you need to show them credentials provably issued by a source the relying party trusts.

Self-Attested Credentials

Self-attested verifiable credentials — what you say about yourself — still have their place: they are how you provide your opinion, preference, and most important, consent¹. Opinion, preference, and consent can only reliably come from the identity owner and not from third parties, whereas proof of identity or other attributes are exactly the opposite: they must come from third parties and not the identity owner.

So, to prove Timothy Ruff has given his consent — which only Timothy can give — you must be confident that you’re dealing with the real Timothy Ruff, which is only provable with third-party attestations.

This means that self-attested credentials, including consent, still rely indirectly on third-party credentials. (Unless it’s something like pizza preferences, where who you are doesn’t matter much.)

Bottom line: the foundation of SSI, as with any strong identity system, is third-party issued credentials, not self-attested credentials. SSI supports both, and each type can add value to the other.

Myth 2: SSI attempts to reduce government’s power over an identity owner.

This myth hearkens back to Kim’s comment, where the term “self-sovereign” could literally be interpreted to mean an individual might somehow become less subject to government. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, SSI can actually build a stronger and richer relationship between governments and citizens.

SSI makes possible a private, encrypted, peer-to-peer connection between government and citizens that can, with mutual consent, be used for powerful mutual authentication (preventing phishing), communication, data sharing, and more. This connection wouldn’t be affected by changes in email address, postal address, phone numbers, and so on. And since both sides of the link would be self-sovereign, either side could terminate it, too.

From the perspective of government, the initial function of SSI is straightforward: take existing credentials, whether physical or digital, and begin issuing them cryptographically secure in the form of digital, verifiable credentials. These credentials then can be held independently by the individual, and verified instantly by anyone, anywhere, including government, when presented.

The secondary function of SSI is even more interesting: use the encrypted connection that was created during credential issuance for direct, private, ongoing interaction with the constituent.

From the perspective of the individual, we’ve actually had some central features of SSI for hundreds of years, using the global standard known as paper. Today, government gives you a passport which you carry and present anywhere you wish, with broad acceptance. SSI simply makes the same thing possible digitally, and with significant advantages (zero-knowledge proofs/selective disclosure, revocation, mutual authentication, etc.).

This digital transformation of credentials simply hasn’t been possible until now, at least interoperably and on a global scale.

Myth 3: SSI creates a national or “universal ID” credential.

There exists no intention (or delusion) that I am aware of that somehow SSI can, once it is broadly adopted, supplant a national ID system. On the contrary, as mentioned above, government should get excited about how SSI can complement and improve existing identity systems, whether national, regional, or otherwise.

SSI actually does not replace the trust of government or any other organization; it is simply a means for connecting and exchanging instantly authenticatable data. SSI is set of protocols, not an actor, and it has no inherent basis for trust other than the cryptographic properties that ensure the privacy and integrity of the data exchanged and the connection used to exchange it. What parties exchange over that connection, and whether to trust what was exchanged, is up to them.

Some governments already understand SSI and are leading out on its implementation. My prediction: all governments will eventually use SSI to issue credentials digitally, to better communicate with and interact with constituents, to streamline internal processes where slow verification bogs things down, to more strongly authenticate the people, organizations, and things they deal with, and to reduce the printing of paper and plastic.

SSI in the Developing World

Now that’s all fine and dandy for the developed world… but what about the billion-plus “invisibles” living without credentials, often in situations where a government is somehow struggling to issue them… can SSI help?

Quite possibly.

In some parts of the world, trust within a community is established by obtaining from a trusted individual a signed attestation that you’re worthy of obtaining a loan, for example. With SSI this could be done digitally rather than on paper, it could involve biometrics that strongly attach the attestation to the attestee and attestor, and it could include attestations and other potential credit scoring data from multiple sources.

I can imagine a baby born in a remote village and receiving her first “credentials” from her family and friends, who each give her attestations about her birth and their recollections of it. Pictures, videos, songs, and other precious memories could be added to her brand new digital wallet — which is now so much more than a wallet — and with guardianship of it tied to her parents. Who knows how such a set of credentials issued by loved ones might later be used, but my sense is that it could be vitally important some day.

I love the fact that SSI is powerful for both developed and developing worlds. I can’t wait to explore this topic more in the future.

Part 2, Myths 4–7, can be read here.

Footnotes:

¹ Consent is a rich topic that will be covered in greater detail in the future. See here for an eye-opening perspective about how elusive, and practically impossible in many cases, consent can be.

Founded in 2013, Evernym helps organizations implement self-sovereign identity, and individuals to manage and utilize their self-sovereign identity. Learn more at evernym.com.

7 Myths of Self-Sovereign Identity was originally published in Evernym on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

#Blockchain #Decentralized Identity #digital-identity #evernym #self-sovereign identity

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ntrending · 7 years ago

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The EPA is jeopardizing scientific research and privacy in the name of ‘transparency’

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/the-epa-is-jeopardizing-scientific-research-and-privacy-in-the-name-of-transparency/

The EPA is jeopardizing scientific research and privacy in the name of ‘transparency’

“The science that we use is going to be transparent, it’s going to be reproducible,” Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told the audience assembled at the agency on Tuesday.

He was describing a newly proposed rule for the EPA, which would limit the kinds of research the agency could take into consideration when making policy decisions by requiring all data be “publicly available.” Those two keywords—transparent and reproducible—came up again and again in the following days, a kind of verbal talisman for Pruitt and supporters of the proposed rule.

On their face, transparency and reproducibility are hard to argue against; they are fundamental principles of the scientific method. But in practice, calls for greater transparency have almost always been part of industry efforts to cast doubt on unfavorable research. In particular, the mandate for public data access that Pruitt proposes would disbar most if not all public health studies that rely on participants sharing sensitive health data, which is protected under confidentiality agreements. These massive, long-running epidemiological studies form the basis of the science of public health—without them, policy makers will have little to no ability to link environmental exposure to human health risks.

“It’s a tactic that has to do with impugning science by saying there’s a lack of transparency or certainty,” says Joel Kaufman, a public health researcher at the University of Washington who studies the link between air pollution and heart disease. Big Tobacco invoked the same arguments for transparency and access to discredit cancer findings, and oil companies casting uncertainty on the science of climate change do the same.

“These are phony issues that weaponize ‘transparency’ to facilitate political interference in science-based decision making, rather than genuinely address either,” wrote the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy group, in an open letter to Pruitt. “The result will be policies and practices that will ignore significant risks to the health of every American.”

Six Cities

“This goes back 40 years, since we started that study,” says Douglas Dockery, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s School of Public Health. Starting in the late ’70s, Dockery led a team of researchers who collected health data from residents in six U.S. cities. For 16 years, the scientists tracked more than 8,000 individuals, recording their lifestyle and environmental risks and collecting death certificates when participants died.

In 1993, they published the study in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing a 26 percent increase in mortality rate in the most-polluted city compared to the least-polluted city. “Mortality was most strongly associated with air pollution with fine particulates,” the authors wrote, in one of the first definite findings linking fine particulate matter—PM2.5, which includes things like soot from coal-burning power plants—to serious health risks for humans.

The study was peer reviewed, but its raw data (including birthdates, social security numbers, and other sensitive information from participants) was confidential. “We had both ethical and legal restrictions,” Dockery said. The researchers had signed agreements with each participant ensuring their privacy, as well as various confidentiality agreements with the states that released death certificates to them.

When the EPA reviewed its air standards, after the publication of the Six Cities study, Dockery was called to testify about his work. “I went up to Capitol Hill at that time,” he remembers, 25 years later, “and they had people dressed up in lab coats saying, ‘give us the data.’”

Privacy vs. Transparency

“The best studies follow individuals over time, so that you can control all the factors except for the ones you’re measuring,” former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy told the Washington Post. “But it means following people’s personal history, their medical history. And nobody would want somebody to expose all of their private information.”

Despite the fact that we live in a world of ever-dwindling privacy, health data is a rare exception. When epidemiologists collect data about mortality rates, they also collect information about individuals’ lifestyles, how much they exercise, whether they drink or smoke, what their diets are like, whether they suffer from other diseases or occupational hazards that might affect their health. The result is an intimate portrait of an individual that might contain details not known to their closest friends and family.

As Joel Kaufman explained, “the devil’s in the details about what they decide is ‘data’.” While there are ways to redact and anonymize personal health data, there are limits to how much an individual’s identity can be protected, especially in small communities where basic identifiers like age and gender may be enough to recognize a neighbor or a family member. And advocates for “transparency” can always say that is not good enough, and demand the original forms and questionnaires participants filled out, Kaufman says.

Pruitt has said that the proposed rule is necessary to give the public more information to consider during public comment periods on proposed policies, as though private citizens are clamoring to comb through multi-decadal data sets to double-check the work of scientists. But there are ways to verify data without making it accessible to the public at large: for example, by scientific peer review, independent verification, or confirmation by other studies. In other words, scientists from disparate institutions and research groups should (and do) check one another’s work.

The Six Cities study was ultimately confirmed by all three of these methods. An independent organization called the Health Effects Institute got access to the original data (subject to the same confidentiality agreements as the original researchers) and attempted to reproduce the findings—which they did. And in the time since the original study came out, many other researchers in many other places have come up with the same connection between fine particulate air pollution and cardiopulmonary disease and death.

“These were important studies at the time, 25 years ago,” Dockery says now of his work on the Six Cities project, as well as the accompanying American Cancer Study. “But they’ve been replicated and validated and shown to be true scores of times by many other studies, and much better studies. To go back and suggest that somehow you could remove the study from the record is kind of irrelevant now—there’s massive evidence that these studies have shown to be true.”

Sowing uncertainty

This week, Trump transition team member—and advisor to the conservative policy think tank Heartland Institute—Steven Milloy told The Atlantic that the Six Cities Study is “the biggest science fraud that has gone on in this country’s history” before making the claim that “China, for the last few years, has had these huge episodes of PM2.5. No one’s died.” (Millions of people have died because of China’s polluted air.)

Milloy’s comments may be a particularly blatant example, but they’re part of a long-running attempt to cast doubt on the integrity of science that turns up results unfavorable to industry.

In 1999, Richard Shelby, a Republican representative from Alabama, introduced a two-line amendment to an omnibus spending bill, stipulating that any federally funded science be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The amendment was eventually interpreted to include protections for individual privacy and intellectual property, but at the time science advocated viewed it as an asymmetrical attack that left industry-funded science free from scrutiny.

In recent years, Texas representative Lamar Smith championed the argument that data should be publicly available, through the introduction of the Secret Science Reform Act in 2015 (which became 2017’s HONEST Act). Neither bill was ever able to pass both chambers of the House, and Smith has announced he will not seek reelection in 2018. According to emails acquired by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Smith met with Pruitt in January and made a “pitch” that the agency implement the basic principle of his HONEST Act in the EPA.

“The basis of science is that if you do something, and come to a conclusion, I ought to be able to look at how it was done and be able to come up with the same conclusion,” said Idaho representative Mike Simpson at Pruitt’s appearance before the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. “Right now, nobody knows how the EPA comes up with a lot of the information that they come up with.”

But reproducibility—the second buzzword linked to the proposed rule—isn’t really a problem in epidemiology, Kaufman says. Any discussion of a “replication crisis” in public health science is likely linked to confusion sown by industry scientists who perform their own studies and analyses of data. Kaufman fears this is one possible outcome of the transparency rule: If industry gets a hold of original datasets, they may be able to slice the statistics in a way that looks more favorable to them.

“If you analyze data over and over again, you can often come up with different answers,” says Kaufman. “Torture the data until it confesses, as we sometimes say.”

He points out that this has been done with the science of climate change. “If you were to say, OK, we’re only going to look at the last six months” of global temperature data, he says, “you might be able to come up with an answer that says the earth’s not getting warmer.” But that would be only part of the picture—a scientifically valid analysis would require you to study the complete range of the data, using tools and approaches in line with the original purposes of data collection. If you start fudging those principles, Kaufman says, “You can often arrange the data to get an answer that you want to find.”

Risky business

“This was clearly an attempt to limit the science that’s available to policy making, and especially an attack on epidemiology,” says Dockery. In the United States, unlike Europe and other marketplaces, industry doesn’t bear the burden of proving a chemical or pollutant is safe for humans—substances can only be proven to be harmful after the public has been exposed to them. That means massive, real-time studies like Six Cities are fundamental for understanding the risks of any given regulation or policy.

“Basically, we’re using the American public as guinea pigs for testing these new products that are out there,” Dockery says. “It’s not that you’re hurting the scientist,” he explained of the proposed rule. “This is not preventing research. What it’s doing is preventing science from contributing to discussions about policy.”

If those studies become inadmissible when setting policy at the EPA, the health consequences could be grave. “We’ve made enormous strides in the U.S. in improving air quality, and that has spelled an enormous improvement in health,” says Joel Kaufman. But those improvements have been driven by the scientific evidence that there are health consequences. “If you don’t permit to enter into evidence the literature that show there are risks of air pollution, you risk turning back the clock.”

“The purpose of this rule is not to increase transparency,” Kaufman said. “It’s to make it harder to regulate.”

One thing everyone can agree on can be summed up in a statement from Joseph Bast, director of the Heartland Institute: This proposed rule “may be the most consequential decision made by EPA since the election of Donald Trump.”

Written By Amelia Urry

#Environment

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maritachick9616-blog · 7 years ago

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Why Would Rob Use Bitcoin As a substitute Of Normal Foreign money?

Cashaa - https://cashaa.com;

We’re using cryptocurrency, bitcoin and this blockchain tech to help individuals setup their very own web businesses, fund their causes by way of cryptocurrency peer2peer non-public crowdfunding platforms and different apps. There is a particular need for a product like this in the revolutionary world of blockchain expertise. You'll be able to see Steemit as Reddit on the blockchain. It's not arduous to see why in such instances the government can be uneasy with Bitcoin. We see Cryptocurrency succeeded in profitable the hearts of many good traders from the decrease lessons to the top. Retail Sector (XRT starts at forty five.47) Increased or Lower in 2018? As a result of the characteristic shall be added to ATMs as a software upgrade, bitcoin compatibility should be rolled out quickly. The privacy feature is a unique bonus. To really perceive the Bitcoin crash that is coming, let's take a better have a look at financial institution runs. A cryptocurrency is definitely nothing however just a digital foreign money that use the encryption applied sciences to generate the items of forex and do a correct verification of the transfer of funds whereas operating whereas being impartial of a central bank. The press reviews, speaking basically phrases of "unfettered access to billions of cellphones across the globe", counsel that everybody's cell phone may now be liable to being intercepted by NSA or GCHQ.

It gives speedy transactions, high stability, and follows some threat administration practices. Due to the relative success of bitcoins, shortly after their creation, other forms of Cryptocurrency began to emerge based mostly on the essential concept of Bitcoin. Additionally, the internet is riddled with stories of Bitcoin holders who have misplaced access to their Bitcoin property on account of hacked computer systems, compromised email accounts, or simply dropping an associated pin quantity. Cryptocurrency exchanges have develop into an important onramp and offramp to the cryptocurrency world. Some coins will declare to cure world hunger within a yr and others will claim to revolutionize the web with Net 10.Zero where you may fly a unicorn through completely different dimensions, you get the idea - read the whitepaper! Information just isn't some nebulous ether; it's the resource building the new world. Some persons are way more married to sure ideologies than others. Future price of EOS will definitely improve because of big capital and robust interest of people. View price & volume historical past graphs and evaluate prices throughout exchanges. The upgrade for one of the world’s largest digital asset exchanges was imagined to last for less than two hours, but the website remained down for nicely over 24 hours.

Personally, I use three exchanges, and each one has a unique protocol for investing. Unlike different currencies however it is decentralized, which means there isn't any one central financial institution, country or authorities accountable for it. In African nation the notion of victimization Bitcoins hasn't developed. Dogecoin belongs to a clownish cult of cryptocurrencies like Coinye - which was named in honor of Kanye West, imprinted along with his face, and quickly shut down in a trademark infringement lawsuit. I'd like to hear your thoughts or comments. Literally, nothing stops progress. Take PayPal, for example: if the corporate decides for some motive that your account has been misused, it has the power to freeze the entire property held in the account, with out consulting you. The attackers most likely invested a lot of mining power before that, in order that the difficulty went up. Nvidia's GTX 1070 isn't just an incredible graphics card for gaming, it's also a wonderful mining GPU. You can ship an Ethereum transaction to somebody in Japan from the US and the transaction could be completed in 20 seconds.

The transactions made by means of Ethereum stands much higher firms to Bitcoin’s block chain. It mainly allows completely anonymous transactions. Are there any crypto foreign money advisory companies or newsletters that might help a person discover the brand new ones? In the current years there has been an inordinate increase in the amount of cryptocurrencies, but you must bear in mind of which currencies to invest in. These currencies also often fluctuate tremendously when an enormous order is ready. In circumstances of very massive orders it is possible to only pay a taker price for a portion of your order that will get partially filled. I pay you in Bitgold (GoldMoney) -- electronically. These latest developments definitely don’t justify increases of 400 % in 60 days. Where to purchase Cryptocurrency? To be sincere, it is not that I'm selfish to not share with them on my journey in cryptocurrency this far. Verify if the change has been around for a superb amount of time and has built a solid repute. The answers to those queries shall turn out to be clear solely with time. You'd never buy a stock or a bit of real property with out realizing the solutions. Buy from a peer.

You then use them to buy these software providers. The forthcoming UBS announcement appears to be a extra market-ready version of each ideas, reducing settlement occasions and improving redemption circulation for quite a lot of monetary products. Croatia has deployed police models to prevent anybody from entering Liberland. It has limitless transaction charge with zero charges and no miners. Examples are identification administration, documenting provenance, transaction processing, or food traceability. They think credit score playing cards are cumbersome. Proportion fees and fixed charges are often used together in various tiers. A examine of the funding habits of Filipinos show that majority of them are non-buyers. What is the difference between a cryptocurrency, a digital foreign money, and a digital currency? The one distinction is that it is not simply cash, it's the internet of cash. Nonetheless, wisdom demands that you realize your companion effectively before you have interaction in that. What's the Definition of ICO? Points off, I suppose, for the hypothetical march of Martin Luther King. This appeared to be the initial catalyst for the sell-off. Because the work they do is just too essential to entrust to anybody but the perfect.

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zipgrowth · 7 years ago

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This Company Wants to Help You Hire for Skills, Not Credentials

The CEO of Degreed thinks answering the question “tell me about your education” with “I went to Wesleyan in 1997” is as absurd as answering the question “tell me about your health” with “I ran a marathon in 1997.”

“It’s not because marathons are bad, and it’s not because college is bad,” David Blake says. “It just simply reflects the fact that we are stuck in this paradigm that is incapable of answering with what we know and our lifelong education.”

That’s why Blake’s company, Degreed, started a service aimed at giving people a different way to show employers what they know. It’s called Degreed Skills Certification, and it scores people’s existing skills in various categories, including writing, sales, coaching, c# programming, photography and leadership. Blake calls it a “verifiable way” for people to certify their skills, regardless of how or where they developed them. Getting one skill certified will cost $99, and an unlimited membership will cost $399.

Blake says companies don’t know how to value, understand or contextualize work people do at their jobs. “At Degreed, we’ve kept all of that standard,” Blake says, explaining that being a level 4 in a particular skill at Intel would be the same thing as being a level 4 in that skill at eBay.

According to Blake, the process behind the scoring “is one of anonymous peer and expert review” based on “adaptive comparative judgement.” He says the method gets rid of many forms of bias, such as gender and age discrimination. Blake says people will be peer reviewed several times and will be reviewed by a panel of multiple experts. Machine learning and inter-rater reliability will “ensure consistency” and “confidence” in the reviews.

Any time that complex factors are boiled down to a single number, there’s always a chance for abuse if people try to game the system. Blake says that to counteract such concerns, Degreed will check people’s claims with coworkers or colleagues who will have to “sign their own name publicly to the claims made by the candidate.” This, he says, is to “ensure people are honest in the representations and evidence of their skills.” He says Degreed is also working with partners to bring plagiarism checks into the process.

The company says it is working with several employers and professional organizations who have agreed to consider the certification when filling jobs.

Blake contends he’s not making an argument “for or against” college degrees, but notes that higher education is facing rising tuition costs and demographic gaps in who completes degrees. “We are increasingly knowledge workers in a knowledge economy,” he explains. “And yet, historically you haven’t been able to tell me what you know.”

Sean Gallagher researches the future of university credentials at Northeastern University. He says degrees are still “the gold standard” in educational qualifications that employers seek.

Gallagher says there’s a narrative out there, “particularly from Silicon Valley and various startups,” to say that credentials don’t matter and that they have a way to disrupt hiring. Even so, Gallagher says, “there’s very little evidence that worldview is true.”

But Gallagher sees some movement toward skilled-based hiring versus “roughly or loosely” looking at a person’s educational credentials.

The degree is still highly valued, Gallagher believes, but in a world where you can document, measure and share information on competency online at scale, “that’s going to change ultimately the options that employers have and how they think about their hiring needs and their job specifications.”

Gallagher thinks that credentialing options like Degreed’s might someday complement the bachelor’s degree, and in certain fields and segments of the market, even replace it.

And Gallagher thinks the world of corporate learning and development is changing—employees are “kind of charged with owning their own development rather than the central corporate training offering.” That, he says, creates a need to capture and measure what people know regardless of how they learned it. Plus, these days there’s greater demand for employees with graduate level education, or some type of post-baccalaureate learning or credential.

Consider the master’s degree. Blake, the CEO of Degreed, says some people enroll in a master’s program to learn a new skill in order to enter a new field. But a lot of people also use that particular degree program to “reflect” their skills back to the market. He thinks his company’s new feature gives people who fall into the second category a way to show their skills without having to quit their job to enroll in a program and spend thousands of dollars.

Gallagher thinks Degreed is aiming for employers to hire people who are, for example, “Degreed Level 7” in a particular area based on actual measure of competency, rather than a person who says “‘I have completed a program so that means I’m a ‘Master of Business Administration.’”

When asked about the benefit of having a Degreed skill certification in photography as opposed to saying that you do and providing work samples of actual photos you’ve taken, Blake responded there is a “right scenario” for bringing forward work samples. He thinks portfolios play a “powerful role” but in a “very small spectrum of the process.” He says hiring managers can only “engage around a portfolio on a very limited number of people because it takes a lot of time.”

Juli Weber is the organizational development manager at Purch, which bills itself as a “digital platform that is driving the future of publishing and performance marketing.” Purch has been a client of Degreed for two years, and plans on “implementing and utilizing” the skills certification feature. She believes Degreed’s new feature will prove that skills exist, but says a certification from Degreed or a similar company won’t eliminate the need for job candidates to show work samples.

“We have that today,” she says. “I mean, the proof is in the pudding. We want to see the work.”

She says relying on a certification over a degree would be “a pretty big societal shift,” but adds that parts of the workforce are trending that way, like coding bootcamps for developers.

Degreed is the only company Gallagher has personally come across that is “positioning” its technology as a score. But he thinks the market space Degreed is operating will grow to other players—and a big question is what the role of larger technology firms like LinkedIn will be.

“Many of those technology firms also have an interest in this space,” Gallagher says. “Perhaps they'll develop competing products, maybe they'll acquire a company like Degreed. It's, I guess, impossible to predict, but it's an area that many people are watching."

This Company Wants to Help You Hire for Skills, Not Credentials published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

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consciousowl · 7 years ago

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Shift From Belief System To Experiential Knowing

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If you experience it, it’s the truth. The same thing believed is a lie. In life, understanding is the booby prize.

~Werner Erhard

As human beings, we inhabit an ocean of symbols that represent our living experience. As language, they were derived from that experience, but began to assume a life of their own. Everything becomes reducible to words and numbers. If the experience can’t be represented by one of these forms of communication, it is too often discounted.

We all have belief systems, whether examined or not, stemming from childhood. This is how we put the world together, brick by brick. They may be political, religious or even scientific. They might best be considered as models of reality. As the great semanticist, Alfred Korzybski, put it, “The map is not the territory.” Models may be evaluated by how useful they are in making predictions, so that we can have a better sense of control, even power. If they prove useless, then they are best thrown out. Otherwise, we will soon find ourselves enslaved. Once we become aware that any of our belief systems is just that, a belief system, we can find our path to freedom.

Outer Belief Systems

What we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell are all in someway measurable, and susceptible to the scientific method. Here, we take something to be real if it is quantifiable, if you can put it into numerical form. It must be verifiable by other people, and subject to the critical analysis of peer review, published in scientific journals. Outer belief systems can be valid or invalid.

The Ptolemaic theory of the solar system put the earth at the center, with the sun circling around it. That is the way it appears to us with the naked eye. However, this approach had many inconsistencies, which were rationalized by the convoluted orbits of the planets. The theory became increasingly cumbersome, awaiting a simpler explanation. Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei overturned this intuitive impression of the solar system through the invention of the telescope. Through careful study and measurement, they developed a much simpler and more elegant theory of the planets and gravity, which we now take for granted. Of course the earth moves around the sun!

Inner Belief Systems

Most of us grew up with the ultimate questions: Who am I? Who made me? Where am I going? Many of these are answered for us by subscribing to a given religious or philosophical belief system. Although you can’t see Him with your eyes, there is a personal God who spoke the universe into being. This is not directly subject to scientific explanation, but it might be necessary as an inference. For many people, without the belief in a personal God, the universe would make no sense. Inner belief systems are not measurable, or subject to the scientific method as we most often think of it. This does not mean that we can’t have an inner science, just as we have an outer science. The Dalai Lama urged prominent scientists to consider developing this. We can build an inner belief system based upon our own intuition and inner processes. What is called Cosmic Consciousness can occur to anyone at any time, whether or not they are religious. It provides a direct experience that you are one with everything you see. Two people might gaze at the Grand Canyon. One experiences unity with it; the other simply delights in the glorious pastel rock formations.

Outer Experiential Knowing

When scientists approach their subject matter with a sense of awe, as did Albert Einstein and even Carl Sagan, they have an experiential approach. They let the universe speak for itself, and then listen carefully to what it has to say. Many of the early quantum physicists were mystics, including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger. They deeply resonated with the insights of Hinduism and Buddhism. Charles Darwin was a meticulous observer who went around the tropical islands creating intricate drawings of plants and animals. He started out building collections of natural plant and animal specimens. In the process, Darwin grew a gradual conviction that the differences in life forms were a result of an evolutionary process, a gradual complexification of life. True scientists test and retest their hypotheses. They take nothing for granted, and are totally willing to look at any evidence that disproves their ideas. If an idea doesn’t survive this careful scrutiny, they throw it out. Many of the greatest scientists have an extraordinary modesty. Sir Isaac Newton commented that he was throwing pebbles at the sea when he looked at his work in comparison with the majesty of creation.

Inner Experiential Knowing

Carl Jung claimed that we have four distinct and complementary psychic functions, four ways of knowing: Thinking, Sensing, Feeling and Intuiting. Because of cultural developments in Western Europe and America, the Modern Age put a premium on Thinking and Sensing over against Feeling and Intuiting. You might see it as masculine over feminine, or left-brain over right brain.

Yet Feeling and Intuiting are valid ways of knowing, and often far more efficient than Thinking and Sensing. When you meet someone, you often pick up things about him or her that you can’t easily put in words. Is someone truthful or dishonest, reliable or a flake? Often we can pick these things up in seconds, without knowing why. This is a major reason most jobs require a personal interview. When you fall in love with a woman or man, how do you know it? How do you know he or she loves you? Is love something you can put under a microscope? Do you experience love when you are around him / her? Does someone else need to verify that for you? Of course not!

Darwinism as a Belief System

If you have ever watched any debates around the Theory of Evolution, you soon realize just how futile they can be. Neither side listens to the other. The evolutionists know they are right, and the creationists are wrong. Of course, the creationists know they are right and the evolutionists are wrong. Since the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming, why don’t we just throw the Bible out? The universe just happened. Darwin showed us how. Evolution is a most brilliant theory with mountains of evidence. Yet, is it really a fact? Does it even need to be a fact? If it helps us understand how life on earth came into being, it is most certainly useful. However, what good does it do to elevate it into a sacrosanct belief? This goes 100% against the best of the scientific tradition. Jules Verne had one of his characters in Journey to the Center of the Earth, maintain, “Our job is not to prove, but to disprove.” Contemporary evolutionary theory has now been dramatically refined. With Darwin, all features of plants and animals were merely an adaptive survival mechanism. It was all survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle. This, of course, was used by Western Europeans to justify colonial exploitation. Recent research has focused on the ecological nature of life; how systems work together to collectively survive. This is a completely different emphasis than that of Darwin.

Creationism as a Belief System

I started out as child with distaste for evolutionary theory. It seemed to be based on accidental mutations that worked to further life, when I heard that actual mutations under scientific investigation are usually destructive. I further came under the influence of Christian Fundamentalists with their doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture. God directly inspired every word in the Bible. It took me a long time to appreciate the poetry of the Bible, that metaphor can convey truths otherwise impossible to grasp. The Six Days of Creation in Genesis 1 can be taken metaphorically, rather than literally. The order of creation in the Bible exactly matches that of evolutionary theory. So what is the problem? Even more to the point, quantum physics makes possible the idea that God actually spoke the universe into being, as speech is vibration, and vibration seems to be the very basis for the dance of life. Furthermore, the Big Bang Theory portrays everything in the known universe emerged from an infinitesimally small point, from nothing. Creationists simply need a Bigger God.

Knowing Is Being

To truly know anything, we must become it. Just like peeling an orange, we thankfully devour every slice of it, assimilating it into our system. As we become the orange, the orange becomes us. On a much deeper sense, to know God is to experience God directly. Jesus Christ, before His passion, used the metaphor of bread and wine to represent His body and blood. Yet the deeper meaning of communion follows. To know Christ, we must become Christ. To know God, we must become God.

To truly know anything, we must become it.

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Truth is not limited to any one religious, philosophical or scientific tradition. If you press any system to its limits, it will lead you to the place where you become what you investigate. We eventually come to the True, the Good and the Beautiful, to Unity, Love and Perfection. We then come to realize THAT which experiences the Universe created the Universe. We ultimately see that we are THAT, both Creator and Created.

What do you think?

Shift From Belief System To Experiential Knowing appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.

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avalancheofresistance · 8 years ago

Audio

https://soundcloud.com/user-655316564/podcast-episode-9-21317

Believe it or Not: Science in the Post-Truth Era

Earlier this week, I heard about a poll that indicated less than a third of people believe in science. I would be interested to know if the person who wrote the questions for that poll had a working knowledge of what science is or what it does, and perhaps, more importantly, if there were any follow-up questions to explain that one, discouraging answer.

Neil DeGrass Tyson reminds us often that “Science doesn’t care what you believe,” which is an abbreviated way of saying that belief and science are different things. Absent from Dr. Tyson’s qualification, however, is a definition of the two words.

Dictionary.com defines belief as: 1) “something believed, an opinion, a conviction; 2) confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof; 3) confidence, faith, trust; and 4) a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith.”

Science is defined as: 1) “a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws; 2) systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation; 3) any of the branches of natural or physical science; 4) systematized knowledge in general; 5) knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study; 6) a particular branch of knowledge; and 7) skill, especially reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency.”

In summary, belief is what we know without having proof. Science is what we know because of it’s been proven repeatedly. There’s certainly no conflict for the thousands of people who practice science and religion simultaneously.

In honor of the coming science march, we’re launching a new segment, “Ask Dr. Starbuck,” to help familiarize our listeners with how important science is and why scientists have taken the unprecedented step of political activism.

…

Jack Snow: Good day, Dr. Starbuck & welcome to our podcast.

Dr. Starbuck: Hello Jack, and thank you for having me.

JS: You’re a physicist. What are some everyday things that people rely on that are the result of the scientific process?

DS: In the broadest sense, we all use the scientific process nearly every day, for example why doesnt your coffee pot work: is it plugged in? Was there a power outage? Does it have water? That is forming explanations and testing them. That's the main part of the scientific process. If the explanation doesn't match your observation, you adjust the explanation or keep testing different explanations until the question is answered.

It might be easier to say what science is not. The scientific method is just one way of thinking. Other ways of thinking that do not involve the scientific method are artistic, philosophical, or spiritual: what is beautiful, what is moral, what is meaningful.

JS: Science has a history of butting heads with religious institutions. What are some key differences between science and religion?

DS: Religion can give meaning to life. It can help a person who's trying to figure out what is important, what they value, how they want to spend their time, how they want to treat others. It deals with subjects that aren't suited for the scientific process of testing and verifying. Religion sometimes asks people to believe based on feelings and sometimes in spite of what is seen. On the other hand, a scientific explanation is shown to be wrong, science drops that explanation and seeks one that matches what is seen.

JS: Why should religious people believe scientists? Or anyone, for that matter?

DS: The public sometimes view changing scientific opinion as a reason to not trust it. I think it makes it more trustworthy. When it is found to be wrong, it changes. ... Scientists are only human, but the process weeds out wrong explanations and only keeps good explanations over time.

JS:Science appears to be on a collision course with politics. This could affect how research grants are allocated. How much of the science employed by private companies was the result of public funding?

DS: The iPod is a beautiful example that the American Physican Society has used. Also medical imaging technology like MRI machines, and the GPS systems that help,so,many of us find our way to the airport, all trace their roots to basic research fund d by the federal government.

(See: battery technology, memory chips, nuclear resonance imaging, etc. See https://www.aps.org/publications/capital hill quarterly/200805/sciencefunding.cfm and other publications on www.aps.org)

JS: What is the difference between science and pseudoscience, and why does it matter?

DS: Pseudoscience, or fake science, is like a wolf in sheep's clothing. It pretends to be science, it might even claim to be backed by studies that sound legitimate. But if reports by unbiased scientists and the majority of scientists disagrees, then true science will accept that. When someone keeps claiming something that has been disproven, they are indulging in pseudoscience. For example, creationism and climate denial are in disagreement with scientific facts and observations. This is important because it wastes money, time, and effort. But Also, it can cost lives. A good example is the anti-vaccine lobby. We are seeing increased cases of mumps, measles, rubella, whooping cough, and other diseases that sometimes have serious complications like sepsis, encephalitis (chicken pox), meningitis, deafness (measles), miscarriage, birth defects (rubella), paralysis (polio), or even death.

JS: Does pseudoscience compete with science for research funding?

DS: Yes, undoubtedly. The peer review process helps with accountability, especially with federally funded projects. But money is wasted disproving something over and over again. Plus, sometimes things slip through the cracks, especially with defense. A book was written by Sharon Weinberger called "Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld" discusses an infamous and controversial example of throwing money after a project that multiple scientists identified as a hoax.

An example not of research funding but of military funding and lives risked-I went to a wonderful talk by Michael Shermer, the author of several books debunking pseudoscience and the founder of The Skeptics Society. He described a device that was originally sold to find golf balls, used sort of like how some people hold sticks and claim to find water based on how the sticks move. This device would locate golf balls if you walked around holding it and watching for it to move. The only problem was it didn't work. In fact if I remember correctly, it was mostly an empty box with "antennas" attached. The sale was stopped in the U.S. but it kept coming back with different names, claiming to detect different things. Eventually it was sold to the Iraq government* as bomb detectors, also in Afghanistan, to the U.K.

(*”The Iraqi government is reported to have spent over USD $85 million in ADE-651 detectors. ... The New York Times reported how in one car-bomb blast that killed 155 people, the vehicle had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE-651 was being used for certain." Expertise Side-lined: Science, Fraud and Bogus Molecular Detectors in the Mexican 'War on Drugs', Luis Reyes-Galindo, paper sub,titled to the SEESHOP6 Workshop Yearbook, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256039948_Expertise_Side-Lined_Science_Fraud_and_Bogus_Molecular_Detectors_in_the_Mexican_'War_on_Drugs')

JS: Why is it important that scientific research continue to be publicly funded?

DS: Basic research drives innovation and technological advances. Some say the U.S is losing its leadership role in science and technology. Publicly funded projects are important to national security and public health. They help create manufacturing jobs when the "next big thing" is invented. They help us stay at the forefront of cyber security. They find new solutions for energy that could grow our economy while helping deal with the challenges of a changing climate. And last but certainly not least, they support the training, of the next generation of scientists, engineers, inventors and innovators.

JS: Dr. Starbuck, thank you for you time and expertise.

…

At this moment in history, we need science more than ever. The Executive and all of his staff make demonstrably false statements without conscience. The questionable nature of his and his staff’s relationship with Russia have led the Intelligence community to dilute security briefings with assumption that the Kremlin has eyes in the White House. This imminent threat to our national security is due, wholly to efforts by powerful corporations, religious lobbies and their champions, the Republicans, engaging in a full-frontal assault on science and evidence-based information. But it also came about because of assumptions by those of us who’ve long championed facts over opinions: that science would always win the argument by putting the facts on display, and we could simply sit back as spectators and wait for our team to win. It’s not enough to root for science from the sidelines anymore. The wasteful practice of indulging pseudoscience over peer-reviewed research has heaped high toll in blood and treasure upon our nation's current and future taxpayers.

Part of what makes the Resistance such a powerful force against the uncompromising nature of the Executive, but also the House & Senate GOP, is that we are a movement informed by carefully vetted information. Given the demonstrably false claims made by the Executive, it has been the standard of the Resistance to eschew his admonition that we “believe” him. We reject the Republicans’ baseless allegations that protesters have been paid to appear at town hall meetings. We demand that they support their claim with evidence, because that’s what journalists and scientists, and all whom they seek to discredit, must continuously do in the face of flawed supposition, foreign & domestic state-sponsored fake news and politically-motivated slander. We are the Avalanche of Resistance and those who doubt our authenticity are free believe whatever they wish: the facts will bury them soon enough.

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