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Priest says Hell is an invention of the church to control people with fear

Retired Bishop, John Shelby Spong gives his views on how the church controls people with fear.


Gear

Lies, Damn Lies and Corruption: Retractions of Scientific Research Papers Going Up

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Ed Silverman over at Pharmalot reports on the media coverage of a new study published by the Journal of Medical Ethics which shows a disturbing trend - more and more journals are retracting journal articles they previously published.

Worse yet, nearly 32 percent of the retracted papers are not noted as retracted. "Retracted" in scientific language means that the paper has been withdrawn and should be ignored - as though it never existed in the scientific literature. Retractions generally occur because of sloppy research and errors in the data calculations, collection or statistics, or because of fraud.

Is this a trend pointing to lower quality research and sloppier methods being employed? Or perhaps that because more people than ever can read the scientific research, more mistakes are being found after publication?

Comment: If you are appalled and shocked by the situation in the scientific community, it's important to understand that lies, deceit and corruption has been plaguing science for years. In fact, we are doubtful that any real and honest science is still going on within official circles. To learn more about the gravity of the situation, check out the latest issue of The Dot Connector Magazine, dedicated to the topic of the corruption of science.


Arrow Up

Corruption of Science: Fraud and Errors in Scientific Studies Skyrocket

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© Reuters / Lucas Jackson
Devices used to take blood pressure, temperature, and examine eyes and ears rest on a wall inside of a doctor's office in New York in this March 22, 2010 file photo
A rise in the number of studies published in scientific journals has been accompanied by a surge in retraction notices, casting into doubt findings that influence everything from government grants to prescriptions written for patients, a Wall Street Journal analysis found.

Citing data compiled by Thomson Reuters, the Journal found a steep rise in retraction notices in peer-reviewed research journals, from just 22 in 2001 to 339 last year. The number of papers published in such journals rose 44 percent in the same time frame. The article pointed to other studies finding that fraud and misconduct were becoming increasingly prevalent.

The article noted that new scientific studies look to past research for guidance, so that a flawed study can cause a cascade of faulty or fruitless research: for example, when the renowned Mayo Clinic had Mayo Clinic found that data about using the immune system to fight cancer had been fabricated, seventeen scholarly papers published in nine research journals had to be retracted.

Comment: Personal integrity, love of truth, fairness, conscience, no conflict of interest, taking responsibility, unbiased scientific research, etc. These are pretty words that we have come to associate with members of the scientific and medical community. And why not? After all, they are supposed to be the brightest of us all; the ones that help to create a better future.

The problem with such associations is that they are no more than an illusions, and dangerous ones at that, especially when we provide scientists and whoever funds their research with silent consent to shape, control and influence our lives in any way they see fit.

To better understand the depth of moral depravity and criminal negligence at all levels in the scientific community and how their actions keep us in the dark and often put our lives in harm's way, read this month's issue of The Dot Connector Magazine, dedicated to the issue of the corruption of science.

Also, take a look at the following quotes to get a glimpse of what is really going on behind the closed lab doors:
Choosing research problems can be likened to an investment process (Bourdieu 1975, 1988). Scientists have available a certain amount of "capital" - knowledge, experience, time and effort - that they can invest in different ways. A conservative investment strategy is to pursue small, incremental innovations, with a high likelihood of success and a modest return of investment.[...] A risky strategy is to pursue a speculative idea: the likelihood of success may be low but the returns, if the idea pans out, can be huge.[...]

A different investment calculation comes into play, though, when it comes to someone else's ideas. To examine or even promote someone else's challenge to orthodoxy requires significant time and energy, yet the major returns go to another person, if they are recognized as the innovator. If the idea is a promising one, the temptation is to grab credit, for example by domesticating the radical idea and publishing in orthodox journals. It is no surprise that many innovators are afraid of having their ideas stolen. (Challenging Dominant physics paradigms by J.M Campanario and B.Martin)
In 1951, the U.S Congress established the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide financial support for post-World War II scientific research. Soon thereafter, someone at NSF or on the National Science Board, which is charged with oversight of NSF, had an idea, a really corrosive idea, the implementation of which would lead to the perversion and corruption of American science for decades ahead. The idea was that reviewers of scientific proposals to NSF for government research grant money should be anonymous; the crux of the idea being that anonymity would encourage honesty in evaluation even when those reviewers might be competitors or might have vested interests. Thus the concept of anonymous peer review was birthed.[...]

For decades, the use of anonymity within NSF, NASA, and elsewhere has been gradually corrupting American science. Unethical reviewers - secure, camouflaged, masked and hidden through anonymity - all too often make untrue and/or pejorative statements to eliminate their professional competitors. Nowadays, it is a pervasive, corrupt system that encourages and rewards the darkest elements of human nature. (Basic Cause of Current Corruption in American Science, Herndon, J. Marvin, 2008)
The most common view about how science works is that new ideas are judged on the basis of evidence and logic: if a new idea explains more data or provides more precise agreement with experiment, this counts strongly in its favor.

Karl Popper claimed that science advances by falsification (Popper 1963). In his view, it is the duty of scientists to attempt to disprove theories, confronting them with experimental data and rejecting them if they do not explain the data. Theories that cannot be falsified are, according to Popper, not scientific. Many scientists believe in falsificationism.

These conventional views were challenged by Thomas Kuhn (1970). Kuhn argued that scientists - and physicists in particular, since most of his historical examples were from physics - adhere to a paradigm, which is a set of assumptions and standard practices for undertaking research. If an experiment gives results contradictory to theory, then instead of rejecting the theory all together, alternative responses include rejecting the experiment as untrustworthy and modifying the theory to account for the new results (Chia 1998; Chinn and Brewer 1993).

When anomalies accumulate, the paradigm can enter a state of crisis and be ripe for overthrow by a new paradigm. This process of scientific revolution does not proceed solely according to a rational procedure but involves social factors such as belief systems and political arrangements. [...]

In any case, the idea of paradigms puts a different spin on the problem of new ideas in science. Rather than being dealt with according to logic and evidence, challenging ideas may be ignored or rejected out of hand because they conflict with current models. In effect, the logic and evidence used to establish the paradigm are treated as definitive and are unquestioningly preferred over any new logic and evidence offered that challenge the paradigm. During periods of "normal science", the ideas developed by mainstream scientists originate from current paradigms: they add more and more pieces to standard puzzles. Given that the paradigm is the source of ideas, it is not surprising that challenges to the paradigm - the framework that allowed mainstream scientists to contribute to the development of science - are seldom greeted with open arms. If a theory is not considered physically plausible, it may be rejected even though it makes successful predictions. (Challenging dominant physics paradigms, J.M Campanario and B.Martin, 2004)
In 2007 Professor Richard Lindzen described in the Wall Street Journal the tremendous pressure upon scientists to conform to the manufactured consensus of Global Warming:
Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.



Display

Norway: Hackers claim to have cracked Norway mass-murderer's email

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© Unknown
Breivik's rantings handed to journo, cops, says 'Noria' crew

A hacking group claims to have broken into two email accounts maintained by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who killed more than 70 people in attacks that shocked the world last month.

The hacking crew, who call themselves Noria, reportedly hacked into Breivik's email accounts after earlier taking over a Twitter profile maintained by the domestic terrorist.

The group is said to have handed over information from the hacked email accounts to a freelance journalist Kjetil Stormark, with the request that he pass on the material to police investigating the mass killings.

Display

UK: Anonymous Might Act Against UK Web Shutdowns

Opposes Government social network shutdown threats

The Hacktivist Group Anonymous has issued a rather thinly veiled threat to the Government about its proposed plans to shut down social networking during times of social unrest.

Fresh from his holidays, UK Prime Minister David Cameron set about making himself look like a powerful and reassuring leader. He failed, and perhaps while scrabbling towards credibility he decided that perhaps the best thing to do would be to tackle social networking, since he thought that caused the riots and looting that have recently beset cities and towns all across the UK.

"Everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill," he said. "Police were facing a new circumstance where rioters were using the Blackberry Messenger service, a closed network, to organise riots."

Laptop

China: Chinese government under cyber siege

'We're the victims not the perps'

The Chinese government claims it came under almost 500,000 cyberattacks last year, most of which it said originated outside the country.

Most of the attacks involved Trojan horse malware, according to a report by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China. A report by the cyber-monitoring agency, published on Tuesday, said that 14.7 per cent of the attacks came from the United States with a further 8 per cent originating in India, according to Kaspersky Labs security blog Threatpost.

Display

Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN promise songs but no Facebook hack

Factions forming within hack group

Politically motivated hacking crew TeaMp0isoN has teamed up with Anonymous in an attempt to storm the music charts.

The hacktivists fancy themselves as music moguls with plans to release a song by an unspecified artist that they are nonetheless convinced is bound to storm the charts. Proceeds of the unknown song - due to released via iTunes and YouTube - will go to charity.

Only the music industry can thwart this digital activism, the groups suggest, adding that if the entertainment industry gets in the way the the hackers will return to more traditional hacking tactics, according to a manifesto for the project.
Long have activists and revolutionaries turned to a song to get their message out. Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN have collaborated together to continue this tradition. We are going to take youtube and iTunes by storm and flood the song into the world around us, with proceeds going to charities that are actively striving to change it. Once this hits the charts, radio stations will by law, have to play it. Will they thwart the law to continue making sheep out of the people?

If they censor the song we will attack the music industry and censor them instead.

Vader

Revealed: How U.S. would deal with UK-style riots... by sending the Army to areas with 'large numbers of minority groups'

rioters great britain
© Mercury Press Agency
Up in flames: Rioters have wreaked havoc on the streets of Great Britain
Authority to send troops onto the streets stems from constitutional provision for 'Militia' to 'repel invasions'
Controversial list of 'indicators of potential violence' focuses exclusively on areas with high numbers of minority groups


As thugs have wreaked havoc with riots throughout the UK, many have speculated about what authorities should have done to put the violence to a swift end.

And it appears the U.S. has already got detailed plans in place should similar uprisings sweep across the Atlantic.

Experts have revealed that the military would immediately be drafted in - patrolling the streets with police officers and securing important buildings, landmarks and bridges.

The operational plans, named CONPLAN 3501 and 3502, are said to have been drafted to combat mass outbreaks of disruption.

The operations would be backed by Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution, an historic concept which gives Congress the power to direct the 'Militia', or in modern terms the Armed Forces - to assert authority on the streets.

Laptop

Anonymous Has Better Things to Do Than 'Kill' Facebook


Comment: The content of this article was removed at the request of the copyright owner.

Subject: Copyright Infringement Notice from Deathby1000Papercuts.com
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:32:43 -0500
From: Ginn A Veve
To: sott@sott.net

Subject: Notice of Copyright Infringement

This notice is to Sott.net, the next notice will be sent to your server.
This is the second notice I've sent your website which was ignored. Your
website has pilfered more than one of our posts at
Deathby1000Papercuts.com.

I've read the claptrap posted at your site on how you obtain your
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your website uses to obtain 'free' material without authorization, a
violation of copyright infringement. Our posts, far less 'esoteric' than
the psychobabble dribble found in your 'About Sott.net" section.

The current copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on
http://www.sott.net/article/240673-Hawaii-Earthquake-Swarm-Precursor-to-Larger-Quake-in-Japan-Baja-Mexico-****

The URLs where our copyrighted material is located include
http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2012/01/hawaii-earthquake-swarm-precursor-to-larger-quake-in-japan-baja-mexico/****

You can reach me at ginnavive@gmail.com
for further information or clarification. My phone number is
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WV 26041.

**I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials
described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the
copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the
notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am
authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is
allegedly infringed.

Elaine Marlowe, Deathby1000Papercuts.com

Stormtrooper

US, Massachusetts: TSA Receiving Fingerprint System

fingerprint
© unknown
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is receiving a fingerprint system from Aware Inc. to supply employee prints to the FBI for background checks.

Aware, a global provider of imaging and biometrics software, said that under the contract it is supplying a commercial off-the-shelf system and associated installation support, training, and maintenance.

The solution will utilize Aware's Biometric Services Platform, a COTS, service-oriented biometric application server, to submit standard-compliant "EFTS" fingerprint records to the FBI for employee background checks and provide a user interface to view results and generate reports.

EFTS stands for FBI's Electronic Fingerprint Transmission Specification.