Ok, now that I can agree with. I have also seen some astonishing claims by scientists - usually archaeologists operating outside of their subdomain. And, yes, I also get tired of misleading claims (regardless of who by).

Yes, the dynamics will be complex, because in a feedback loop you can't distinguish cause and effect. It's a loop. There are also many, many variables at play and we simply don't have the data to do a multi-way analysis of variance capable of proving what variables were significant. (And because slash-and-burn, agriculture and high population densities alter climate, which impacts all the different elements humanity depended on, there's multi-step loops involved and we can't be sure we know all of them or all of the other factors that are enmeshed.)

Absolutely right that correlation is not causation. If there's a strong correlation, then you can be confident of a relationship via a common system, but that's it.

The correct approach is to always try to prove a model wrong. So, in this case, the place to start would be to look at the genomes of H. Denisovia and H. Neandertal. We've evidence Neandertals were the first to paint caves, and possible evidence of sophisticated rituals and music. So if the testosterone model is correct, we aught to see testosterone levels drop in human populations that are hybrids, relative to non-hybrid humans. Otherwise, you need additional models, which violates the rule of not multiplying entities unnecessarily.

Doesn't work. Humans started having more time on their hands 1.8 million years ago, but this DECLINED as religion (50k years ago) and agriculture (20k years ago) arose. With the advent of full-time farming (7k years ago) free time almost entirely vanished.

Nomadic peoples had more free time than any sedentary society prior to the middle of the 20th century, and even then only for the gentry and the middle classes, where said middle classes have since almost entirely suffered extermination at the hands of the rich.

This is settled science. Archaeology, genetics and anthropology have actually been in agreement on some things. The theories being propounded attempt to fit a new observation into said settled science. There is nothing naive about building on an existing foundation.

If you don't like said foundation, do the leg work, write up a paper and make yourself famous. Otherwise, stick to merely disagreeing with it rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

I can believe that. But this was too good of an opportunity to recycle the meme. :)

(Seriously, I have Linux and one of the BSDs in a computer at all times. Which BSD depends on my mood.)

It needs to be funded the same way as the British BBC, by license fee, or the same was as for public utilities, tax.

It needs to have a charter guaranteeing payment in advance for the requested service and guaranteeing immunity for any actions provided within the terms of the charter. (If it's not chartered, you'll have every drug company and its brother suing you for publishing the suppressed papers Ben Goldacre keeps talking about.)

If it's not free, it won't have readers. Negative results aren't as desirable and readers will spend their time at PlosONE unless you've something compelling. If it doesn't pay for submission, researchers have greater financial incentive to keep shtum. That narrows your list of options.

Because research is expensive and governments are cheap. If a researcher has been humiliated a couple of times, publicly, their papers become worthless to the big names financing the work. The corporations cut funding, so the universities cut funding. The researcher has a job, technically, but no office, no lab, no work. Further, the job isn't guaranteed. Tenure can be withdrawn for gross malpractice. Being exposed as a fraud probably qualifies. So, no job either.

Tenure is poorly understood. It does not mean a job for life, or even for a fixed period. Tenure merely means that you can't be fired for political reasons. That's all. It guarantees that producing results that conflict with the views of management cannot lead to you facing consequences. You actually have to do something genuinely wrong.

Besides, mist of academia has disposed of tenure. Damn fools. If you want to reach new shores of discovery, you have to know that nobody with a vested interest in dragon beliefs can blow you out of the water. That guarantee no longer exists, which is why timidity and fraud have increased in recent years.

Fixed typo.

Agreed on study size, which is why social scientists look at meta-studies of hundreds of studies performed over as much as a decade, to eliminate the noise and other transient junk.

What they really need to do, though, is examine more hypotheses. You need 7-10 additional hypotheses, not including the null hypothesis, that are orthogonal to each other and to the hypothesis being tested. This would allow you to binary subdivide the problem space, not only showing what something isn't but also showing if the models being examined are founded on sound principles.

Have a journal, call it Debunker's Weekly if you want, that is divided evenly between papers on replication and papers showing negative correlation at the start. Pay authors a nominal amount, according to the thoroughness of the work as judged by referees. Provide the journal free to University libraries. Submit summaries of major stories to Slashdot, The Guardian, various Skeptical societies and other places likely to raise the extreme ire of dodgy researchers. In fact, the more ire, the better.

The journal doesn't have to last long. Just long enough to force bad researchers to improve or quit, force regular journals to publish a wider range of findings to avoid humiliation, and to correct dangerously erroneous beliefs. Since there must be a stockpile of unpublished papers of this sort, you should probably be able to get six or seven bumper editions out before anyone notices the dates, and maybe another two before the journal is sued into oblivion for defamation.

That would be plenty to make some major course corrections and to "out" a few frauds.

If X can do it, then Y will believe they do/should have the tight to do it.

In this case, the "it" is to file, index and retrieve aspects of your private life.

If a company, without authorization, can do so, then so can a government. If necessary, by outsourcing to said company.

If a government, without authorization, can do so, it is inevitable companies will contend the same.

Since organizations are increasingly interchangeable with governments (similar powers, similar immunities, similar thirst for conquest), this can only get worse.

What we need is a clear set of universal rules that apply to EVERYONE. And, no, I don't mean everyone except Blogger Joe, Multinational Monolith Inc, or the government of the right honourable Sir Twiddlethumbs III. And I believe, absolutely, that well-defined boundaries encapsulating privacy will be a cornerstone of any such rules, even if that smudges some of the paintwork around various definitions of freedom. Freedom is zero-sum, the Tragedy of the Commons is a real issue, and damnit I am NOT a lab rat! Now where's that cheese...

Ooops, sorry, wrong OS.

Microsoft is dead, Netcraft confirms it!

Schools will be paid in casino chips and their first task will be to find the correct casino.

Very small.

But, actually, it's not mm, it's MM. Since inverting the case usually means inverting the sense, that would be 400 million meters. Which would make it the largest unit of currency ever circulated in the US, and smaller only than the Ningi and Pu.

Since CS can only be taught in America on the removal of Microsoft, a 400 million meter long piece of paper makes sense. It should be plenty to completely wrap the key buildings. It will not be sufficient to wrap the ego of Bill Gates, who still "advises" the company.

Findings by researchers:

Bad news/opinions spread faster than good.
Bad news/opinions stay in the mind longer.
Critical thinking is absent from the overwhelming majority.
People don't think chronologically.
Everyone is guilty of cognitive dissonance.
People are less likely to hold good opinions of people they don't know.
People will cling onto false beliefs even when shown their falseness.

Conclusion: The average will always be against you. By a spectacularly large margin.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...

Nobody has to decide what anything "means". The EU issued a very simple instruction - personal names cannot be used to search for outdated/false information. People who run businesses know part of the cost of business is that they'll be attacked. So long as they stick to the law, the attacks will fail. People complain and, in free countries, complain loudly on the Internet, TV and talk radio.

I don't like irrational complaints, but as there's nowhere rational to go, I have to deal with it. Google is bigger than me, and a good deal richer. (Rich megacorps with a reputation for evil getting defended on Slashdot for doing evil... Gone way downhill.) Why should I pity Google when they've the resources to deal with a few insignificant little gnat bites of complaints?

Ok, let's take an example that Americans might understand better, the No Fly List.

We know bad data is on the list. We know the list is searched by name and not by identity. We know this results in false positives.

That is, nonetheless, a database of opinions. It is the opinion of the person adding the name that it belongs there. It is the opinion of the airport or airline security that some individual is the individual named.

It is MY opinion that the moment some Joe Average Innocent gets hurt by this, that the right of others to hold opinions suddenly gets forgotten, that the right to fair and honest treatment suddenly emerges as more important.

There were actual cases, in the 70s and 80s of US banks declaring customers dead. The bank, as a legal person, is entitled to opinions, according to the Supreme Court (Hobby Lobby case).

It is MY opinion that had this affected someone you knew, had they lost their home, job, money, credit, insurance and licenses because of an opinion of a non-corporeal being, that that someone would hold some very strong opinions on opinions.

There have been cases in the US of people dying in hospitals (particularly the ER room) because staff held the opinion they should be ignored, duty of care be damned. Others died from neglect, because the hospital was of the opinion that the room was empty.

It is MY opinion that had this affected someone close to you, you'd be telling a cop, a lawyer, a reporter or all three precisely where the hospital could stick its opinions.

In other words, many Americans only believe in the right of opinions that don't affect them. As soon as an opinion actually matters, as soon as a view is of consequence to that person, truth takes precedence.

To me, that's bullshit. If something's broken, it's broken. You can't sensibly argue it's only broken when you're around. That's not freedom, that's ego.

This isn't about opinions, though. NOTHING the EU said dealt with opinions, save that it was LAWFUL to publish them. What the EU prohibited was OUTDATED opinions and FALSE data being searchable under a person's name. If you search for it any other way, you're legally entitled to the link and content. That is completely protected.

How Americans choose to resolve that is their business. But computers in the EU are under EU law, not American law, just at computers in America are under American law. You've no sovereignty in the EU and computers aren't embassies (although America has tried to argue that.) Which is why the recent ruling against Microsoft is wrong. Ownership of the physical machine is NOT, under EU law, ownership of the data.

If, however, you side with Google on who has control, then US judges are entitled to demand any data in the EU on any computers owned by Americans. Even if those Americans have no American presence, since the judge did NOT argue point of presence was what mattered, only nationality.

I do not, and will not, tolerate arguments based on simultaneously held opposing beliefs. Not from you, not even from me. Look at the nightmare scenarios, all of which have happened to real, innocent people. Look at Snowden's publications. Think about all the things that matter to you that rely on privacy. Then tell me, flat-out, that you cannot think of a single situation where the right to associate (not publish, there's no issue about publication, just explicit association) might possibly be trumped by your right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (as I believe someone once referred to it).

Hell, what was the American Revolution about? Not the right of King George to his madness, but the right of Americans not to be linked to it, surely.