Sunday, June 19, 2016

Modern Age of Medievals

Bias
Modern Age of Medievals
Complicit Agents
By Stephen L. Wilmeth


            Wouldn’t it be something if the rumor was true that Russia was going to release email messages intercepted from U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private email server when she was U.S. Secretary of State? The release would, or course, prove that Clinton had exposed secrets in violation of our laws and it would justify the concern that many have had in regard to the roughshod antics of the Clinton cabal.
            It would also elevate the complicity of the press on major agenda issues that relate not only to science, but, ultimately, policy issues that are … destroying America.
            Bias
            Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry and Terence Corcoran have recently joined others in eviscerating the hallways of science that are becoming more akin to the archives of Saturday Circus nonsense than laboratories. Gobry takes his shot at the folks at The American Journal of Political Science when it was found representations they made that science has proven that conservative beliefs are associated with psychotic traits such as authoritarianism while liberals are aligned with social desirability. The problem with their science based representation came when the study that set forth coding of political attitude issues was reviewed. Somebody wanting to find the answer that fit the theme misread the Excel spread sheet. The data was reversed. It was the liberal mindset that was splattered across the end of the psychosis spectrum.
            Corcoran chronicles similar observations. His conclusions point not just to a minor issue of fudging outcomes, but the idea that “most published research results are false”. He joins many who believe that funded science is, in fact, quite Medieval in its relevance to present realities. It is possible that whole fields of scientific pursuits have been misdirected for decades. Factoids like bacon causes heart diseases and cell phones cause brain cancer have been bunk from the get go. So have the sugar myths, the fraud of social cost of carbon, killer lipsticks, and the Roundup threat.
We have been led around like a band of sheep following a Judas goat.
            If this is true, too much of what we have taken for granted on science based representations is now suspect on the basis of implicit, predetermined conclusions. The bigger problem that emerges is it isn’t just science. The complicit agent of fraud is the press. The article that Gobry references wasn’t just a one time exposé that sits now on the lap of the red faced editor of The American Journal of Political Science. The conclusions of the cooked science have been found in at least 45 direct citings of the article spread around the world for evidence proving that conservatives are intrinsically stupid. It has been used as a weapon in the cultural war on the basis of science. The press has willingly participated and expanded the message, and what isn’t true is now a contrived tool of smear.
            The combination is driving the regulatory impact on our way of life. Land stewards are at the mercy of scientists with a range of ideological goals that are enmeshed in the business of providing evidence for policy making. Like a jackass in a hail storm, we seem only to stand and suffer the assault.
            Complicit Agents
            Has there ever been an unbiased press?
I had a recent call from a reporter of a major, regional newspaper. I have known this reporter for several years having had exchanges in the run up to the declaration of the Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument that impacts 40 ranches and 90 families in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. In the course of the conversation, I was asked why lands managed by conservationists “look” better than the lands of Dona Ana County managed by ranchers. The specific example was the Gray Ranch in New Mexico’s Bootheel and Hidalgo County and its comparison to the ranches now impacted by the monument in a county 125 miles to the east.
The explanation included a discussion of rainfall and elevation. It could have included other features and conditions, but the implication was supremely troubling. A parallel question could have been why does northern New Mexico look different than southern New Mexico? Why doesn’t Florida look like Montana? Why doesn’t the ocean look like the air?
What can be deducted is that common sense isn’t taught in journalism schools. In its place is a syndrome of behavior that can only be compared to immaturity. What we now know is that it isn’t isolated. It permeates the news gathering and distribution process. It is institutional and it demonstrates breakdown in the same pattern as science.
The culture of science and the press has recycled agenda conclusions to the point they are assumed truth. It is a monumental deterioration of not just trust, but the stability of our society. The crisis runs through everything we have taken for granted and it has fostered abuse and corruption.
A best example is the New York Times editorial this week that blamed Republicans for the Florida shootings. Remember, the science suggesting such proof was in the journal article as noted herein above. Conservatives are psychotic not by the real data, but by the fabrication and presentation of the liberal machine.
Modern Medievals
In the context of what we are realizing, science is the “magic” that forms the basis of policy and the creation of regulations on targeted individuals and groups. The press is the societal proxy for substantiating the outcome.
Magic, witchcraft, and the occult shaped society in the Medieval Times. Demonic power existed side by side with sorcery and its miraculous tales of deeds of saints, alchemy research, and Arthurian romance and magic. Magic with sorcery was the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures, and language all aimed at marginalizing particular, vulnerable individuals and social groups.
With the combination of science and the press … has anything really changed?


Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

No comments: