G'day all,

Steve has started something here, that is intended in part to be a search for a new model of science communication, to replace the peer-review copyrighted-journal system, that has just failed humanity so dismally in the present climate change debate. I asked him to do it, and to adjudicate, as he is so damn good at this.

His reply was, he had been thinking about it anyway, and that there must be something better than emails. The peer review system started as private letters between folk interested in science, and really got rolling about when the penny post got going. So now, we have emails and blogs, but folk still cling to the old peer review system. What for? It has degenerated into anonymous censors peering at your work to detect political in-correctness. I have never used it and never intend to.

Here in contrast is a trivial incident from the real world of ideas interchange, as it now is. I got a graph disastrously wrong on Wattsupwiththat once. It was ripped to pieces in about 3 days, by folk who would very much have liked it to be true, but did not trust it. An analysis came in' that exactly identified my problem (being a beginner with Excel's graphs) I thanked all, admitted the blunder, nothing new for a geologist, and apologised. The debate then used some of the wreckage and roared on without me. That was very impressive, though it was not peer review, as those were not my peers re graphing - they were my betters, but it was a very impressive minor interlude, for me at least. That lot would have taken months, in the print media.

So, we no longer need paper to communicate ideas about reality to many people. It is now possible to publish your ideas about as rapidly as you can half-sort them out in your head, and bounce them off all sorts of other folk. And then to modify and correct them. It used to be important to check and recheck all your "facts," as once the thing was printed, you could not change it. Now being "correct" on the first kick of the football is about as irrelevant as the typos. When you kick off you do not expect to score the winning goal with that single first kick. What counts is the diligence to shepherd your idea, taking in all the inputs from the side, and from yourself, till the thing is either clearly nonsense or useful.

I used to design drilling programs. The desk jockeys always wanted to know, how many holes, how deep, and how much money? I would say, just one hole, then we will see where to put the next one. As they wanted neat pre-planned grids, we never really got on. But we did find a bit. You start, see what happens, then redesign the entire project. At every step. So, also here, maybe.

Open blog debates degenerate into slanging matches and as I go for sarcasm myself, I have been as guilty as anyone. So I will probably be the first get chucked out, if Steve is a harsh editor here, which he will have to be. What I suggest is a guest status, you get three goes, and if the Ed think you can think, you get to be a Cognitist, (if that term is accepted) and can keep posting, Until you start to drivel, or froth at the mouth, then you promptly get turfed out.

Cognience (can't any longer say "science," as that is just claiming some mystic "rightness" or your views or your scam)is hence about launching experimental thought kites to see if they fly. And then watching very carefully, and admitting honestly that either it did, it disappeared and you don't know where it went, or that it crashed. And where and why, as far as you can tell.

Exit science as disguised shamanism? I have a ramble on that lot here.
here.

If you have nothing better too do with your time.

Some new research into how "science" actually works, with the most successful teams, shows that most of the creativity sparks at the tea-break, or at the pub after work, and even more importantly, when trying to explain to baffled outsiders, in plain English, what it is you are actually mumbling in jargon about.

So, my suggestion is, we need a new category of insider here. Maybe we try for the word Cognitist, as being someone who thinks, from the Latin for same, "cogito". Scientist is from scio, which means I know, which is a daft thing to think. how in hell do you "know." It implies you are right. How do you also know that?

So, as a motto I propose, "Cogito ergo sum"

"I think ...., er, will someone go do the sums?

There is an analysis of science that Steve came up with in a quote; "Second-rate myth" may be a better term, as the philosopher Paul Feyerabend called science in his 1975 polemic, Against Method"

Steve posted the list below on another forum on his blog, but I think it is worth having right here, at the start of this one. It is not possible to see what will be the problems of the future, but we have to hazard the best guesses we can. So, in deepest ignorance, I second this lot. We have become totally bogged down over a minute possible change in global temperature, to the exclusion of much else. That one needs resolving, by part of the community, but we also need a large part of those interested in the species surviving, to break away and debate new issues.

Steve's List

.
"Issues we face

I think there are a number of issues we face. I think each needs serious scientific unbiased consideration.

1. Resources. eg Peak Oil, Rare Earth Metals, Water etc

2. Population.

3. Demographics. The effects of a birth rate variations.

4. Pollution, which may include "climate change".

5. How these issues affect our economic system.

Anyone who has not watched the Prof Albert Bartlett videos, I HIGHLY recommend them:

The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See by Prof Albert Bartlett
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/45

Also this, which covers all of the above points brilliantly:

Crash Course by Chris Martenson
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/44

I post a lot about economics on here because I see a conflict between our currenhttp://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/50 economic system, which relies on constant growth, and the other issues listed above.

I do think we need to be prepared to think outside the box.
The writings of Bernard Lietaer have greatly impressed me:

Bernard Lietaer Author of The Future of Moneyhttp://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/50
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/50

I think the most important thing is to keep an open mind. Not be be closed to ideas due to political or ideological views. I think both get in the way of open free thought."

That ended Steve's piece.

This is your invite to be a guest "Cognitist." Whoever you are. We are not overly interested in tickets, just in, if you are interested, can you think in this field?

I am for all the open debate being in the public domain. Copyright is in my view some absurd medieval suing licence, that survives because some folk still have the quaint delusion, when there are a billion keyboards in operation every night, that you can make an income from writing. If an income is your aim, hire yourself out as a reader who offers thoughtful comments. They are what is now as rare as bunyip feathers.

And that ends mine.

Peter.

Well, as a total change from climate change.....

.... I saw an article in the Daily Telegraph today, which said that some people in America had been studying chromosomes and had discovered that the X (male) chromosome had been mutating much more rapidly than the Y (female) chromosome over about the last 6 million years, which I believe is about the time that humans and chimps divided from their common ancestor.
Therefore, although the genome as a whole is about 98% the same as that of a chimpanzee, the X chromosome is much more different.

This leads me to wonder:
a) where I put my copy of "Y: The Descent of Men" by Steve Jones
b) more importantly, is the mutation rate linked to the branch away from the chimp line? (And has anyone compared humans with not only chimpanzees but with pygmy chimpanzees aka bonobos?)
Is the mutation just a degradation, as Steve Jones implies, or is it a change that has any positive or neutral connotations? (Steve Jones' version of the science is that with the Y chromosome shrinking in size, ultimately the human race is doomed not to have males). Of course this means that either the human race needs to do some genetic engineering of the Y chromosome, or start asexual procreation, otherwise it will die out!

As I am an 'arts' graduate, I have no specialist knowledge of the detail of genetics, so if there are any geneticists out there, can they please comment on this article (Is the article's content true and accurate or simply misleading; why does the mutation rate change when we branched away from chimps; is it to do with the nucleus v. the mitochondria or am I getting confused between X versus Y on the one hand, and nucleus v. mitochondria on the other?)

===========

Edited by Steve:

The article concerned:

Male chromosome evolving fastest, study shows
By Ben Leach
Published: 9:37AM GMT 14 Jan 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6986911/Male-chromosome-...

Which leads to this:

http://www.wi.mit.edu/news/archives/2010/dp_0113.html

Thanks for the additional link - it's obviously still a work in progress!
But it suggests that Steve Jones' view of a disappearing Y chromosome is not quite the whole story.