Science & Society

Putin’s Information War: Winning or Losing? Remarks for World Talent Economy Forum, March 21,2022 Fred Phillips   There are three aspects to be considered here: Social media; cyber-warfare; and world leaders’ exchanges of verbal and action signals, the kinds that are dealt with by game theorists. Eugene Robinson, in his March 10 Washington Post column, says Putin is winning. Not the shooting war, but the information war, by controlling Russian news media, shutting down apps that carry independent news, and persuading China to do the same, regarding Ukraine war news. Yet Russians are…

If you watched film and television from an alien spacecraft, you'd wonder how the same government that created a CDC which needs 6 weeks to tell the public that lettuce has E. coli on it can also create "Mission Impossible" plots and shows where FBI agents win every time. The first part is real, the last is certainly fiction. A new study finds that not only is a government database wrong, it is wrong to an extent that is worrisome when we want people to have more trust in law enforcement agencies.  The analysis of the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System for crime reporting in…

There is little good resulting from the pandemic, except for the fantastic innovation behind the vaccines. A few months ago politicians told companies to stop being greedy and pay more money to people who stopped working when government paid people not to work, so companies paid more, and resulting inflation is causing equity to decrease between the poor and the middle class. San Francisco is telling people they need to get a 4th shot or they'll be called Republicans(1) while the governor of California and the mayors of both Frisco and LA frolicked at events in crowds of 50,000 and took…

Today we celebrate women in STEM. Meaning adult human females or anyone who identifies as a woman and lives as a woman who against so many stereotypes is a STEM professional. I am most proud to work as a member of the LISA consortium as a small part of the Fundamental Physics Working Group. I contribute my little bit to working out what physics will be tested by the Laster Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). This is a space probe which will do the same thing as LIGO but at a much grander scale and looking at a different part of the gravitational wave spectrum. Work we do will inform…

The whole observable universe cannot be a simulation by some future version of humans or by computers using humans as a source of converting biomass into energy and providing a richer simulation. The Matrix movies were convinced as a transgender allegory and as a critique of capitalism. A critique which would apply to any hierarchical system from religion to the operation of any real socialist state ever. A question to ask is could something like the matrix ever really exist? Could some future human society simulate the whole universe, would they even need to? Transgender First things first…

Last year, when CNN journalist Chris Cuomo was recovering from COVID-19, he endorsed all sorts of homeopathy and alternatives to medicine. It's no surprise, he is married to an influencer who just happens to sell those placebos to other wealthy, white elites. He's not alone. A surprising number of celebrities have spouses that promote nonsense.(1) For decades, the woo market has been mostly wealthy, white Baby Boomers who believe that science, from biotech to medicine, is a vast corporate conspiracy.(2) Their alternative-medicine-practitioner-in chief, President Bill Clinton, not only signed…

Jordan B Peterson denying that climate exist because climate scientist model it with a finite set of variables is simply wrong. Hard sciences use a finite set of variables and an infinite set of mathematical operations to model, approximate, and describe the world then comparing that to data from experiment or direct observation. Jordan B Psychologist like Jordan B Peterson cannot do this for a variety of reasons usually relating to ethics. The brain is fundamentally a complex system, but we can describe how neurons work, chemistry, and physics. Everything else emerges from those basic…

The Thirty Meter Telescope is moving forward as the state of Hawaii seeks to address real injustices done to the Native Hawaiians, issues brought to wider attention by the protest building TMT. When astronomers say that having a Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea will unlock discoveries, we can only dream of what do we really mean? What good reasons did a minority of Native Hawaiians have to oppose this construction? What has happened since the wonderful time when a protest on top of a beautiful mountain that seemed to have a carnival like atmosphere was the worst thing happening? At a…

Disease is caused by microbes, viruses, and bacteria. In the case of cancer, it is an overgrowth of your own human cells in a disorderly way. Microbiology is even more indisputable than any astronomical fact. In fact, it is so solid that the best reference to give is a free and open-source textbook. 1 People who take a holistic approach to disease, who are also often anti vaxx are not generally anti-germ theory. It is a fact the healthier the body the better it can fight off disease causing microbes. COVID-19 the current pandemic is enflamed in the United States due to the virus replicating…

Prior to 2021, if you found an anti-vaxxer, it was also going to be someone who bought organic food and thought cell phones cause cancer. While some kooky Republicans have taken over for some of the wacky left-wing people that deny vaccines, organic food and 5G conspiracy theories are thankfully still only one party and thus don't get much media attention from their political tribe in corporate journalism. The claims are getting even weirder. Chief anti-science loon Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., with his astroturf-public-health-sounding Children's Health Defense, and equally suspect Environmental…