A list of all our free eBooks.

Podcasts for Every Subject: Science

Action research also distinguishes itself from other research in that its purpose is to create change on an individual and community level. Kristin Esterberg puts it quite eloquently when she says, “At heart, all action researchers are concerned that research not simply contribute to knowledge but also lead to positive changes in people’s lives” (2002, p. 137).

A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments that they make.

In 1945, against the advice of investigators who had studied the pharmacology of the compound and found it dangerous for all forms of life, DDT (chlorophenoethane, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) was released in the United States and other countries for general use by the public as an insecticide. . . .

In his book, Dr. Łobaczewski used the term pathocracy to describe sick totalitarian societies.

Defined as excess death, meaning “the number of persons who have died from all causes, in excess of the expected number of deaths for a given place and time,” the CDC said an estimated 299,028 excess deaths have occurred in the United States from late January through October 3, 2020, with two thirds of these attributed to COVID-19. (As of October 15, 216,025 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, according to the CDC)

Sociopathy is chiefly characterized as something severely wrong with one's conscience; psychopathy is characterized as a complete lack of conscience regarding others.

About 3 percent of men and about 1 percent of women have antisocial personality disorder.

The medical community took the primary responsibility for disease mitigation, as one might expect. It was widely assumed that diseases require medical not political responses. 

The 1% — the same people who can easily work from home, who are not harmed by lockdowns, who consider themselves so smart that their decision as to “what should be scary” must hold for every single person on the planet.

So I respond by saying that I will credit their claims if they can show evidence of the following: that in leading their lives today they have stood up for the rights of unpopular victims of injustice whose very humanity is denied, and where they have done so knowing: (1) that it would make them unpopular with their peers, (2) that they would be loathed and ridiculed by powerful, influential individuals and institutions in our society; (3) that they would be abandoned by many of their friends, (4) that they would be called nasty names, and (5) that they would risk being denied valuable professional opportunities as a result of their moral witness. In short, my challenge is to show where they have at risk to themselves and their futures stood up for a cause that is unpopular in elite sectors of our culture today.”

In the COVID debate, there is a mainstream, “popular” narrative, and a competing, “unpopular” narrative — a “fringe.” The former exploits the common, mediocre desire to be “popular.”

The narrative supports blaming others for “infecting you” with diseases, rather than encouraging personal responsibility for immune and general health.

such as Elon Musk and the scientists who drafted the Great Barrington Declaration — are giants in their fields. They risk everything, weathering exhausting personal attacks from all sides, in order to battle the crowd.

Princeton professor Robert P. George, a specialist in moral and political philosophy and the theory of conscience, uses the example of slavery to demonstrate that every serious moral dilemma reveals two categories of people: the majority, who go along with the popular zeitgeist no matter how atrocious it is; and the minority, who risk their very existence to fight it.

Remember, children are our future, and the majority of them are B students. If that doesn't scare you, it probably should.

I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes?

The response of the science settlers to the serious questions that have been raised about their unscientific advocacy has been to demand a more closed system, to hide more data, to urge newspapers to stop printing letters from anyone who questions Global Warming and to even propose the imprisonment of Warming critics.

The science of the "Science is settled" crowd isn't an open system of skeptical inquiry, but a closed system of centralized authority funded and controlled by special interests, beholden to political agendas and intolerant of dissent. It has the same relationship to science that the various People's Democracies had to democracy.

But this vision of science as an absolute, a post-modern abstract oracle, is less true than it ever was. Science is a state of uncertainty.

An authority that answers to itself, that derives its power not from an open system, but from a closed system is a tyranny and prone to a failure-denial cycle in which each failure is then covered up by greater abuses of power until the resulting disaster can no longer be covered up.

It isn't science that gives a thing legitimacy, but the processes of thinking and testing that do.

The worship of the expert class is no more credible for PhD's than it is for witch doctors.

A scientist who does not utilize the scientific method is as much use as a carpenter who cannot make chairs or a plumber who cannot fix toilets. A science that exists as a fixed absolute, whose premises are not to be questioned, whose data is not to be examined and whose conclusions are not to be debated, is a pile of wood or a leaky toilet. Not the conclusion of a process, but its absence.

To help us at these crucial moments we may find it useful to devise a ritual which symbolizes and facilitates our transformation into our second self. Todd Herman, author of the Alter Ego Effect and a peak performance coach, cautions that this technique will only work if the ritualized actions we select are performed exclusively when we need to activate the transition into our second self.

When our memories become incapacitated we soon find ourselves mired in what might be called the non-binding normativity of now, a condition where the beliefs we dignify as true today place no constraints on what we believe tomorrow.

Evidence and experience suggest that in pandemic phase 6 (increased and sustained transmission in the general population), aggressive interventions to isolate patients and quarantine contacts, even if they are the first patients detected in a community, would probably be ineffective, not a good use of limited health resources, and socially disruptive.

Field studies coordinated by WHO will be needed to assess virus transmission characteristics, amplifying groups (e.g., children vs. adults), and attack and death rates. Information on these factors will be needed urgently at the onset of a pandemic because the pandemic subtype may behave differently than previous pandemic or seasonal strains. Such studies will also be needed throughout the pandemic period to determine if these factors are changing and, if so, to make informed decisions regarding public health response measures, especially those that are more costly or disruptive.

Patient isolation and tracing and quarantine of contacts should cease, as such measures will no longer be feasible or useful.

Most rRT-PCRs are qualitative (i.e. target is detectedor not detected with no target copy number reported), not quantitative (target copy number per unit volume of specimen matrix or per reaction is reported).

In some commercial assays, the cut-off is determined individually for each run based on the amplification curve and Ct value of the positive control.

The risk of false positive results increases as the pretest probability of COVID-19 decreases, such as in instances of low prevalence

We're born feeling. It's simple response to a stimulus. But it takes years of effort and discipline to subjugate our emotions to our reason, to be more than a dog salivating at the sound of a bell, to become worthy of the tag homo sapiens.

Ontario 84.4 0.0 80.4 0.0

86 years

The 20-page report also indicates that Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death, although the drugs are not listed as the cause.

Medical Examiner's Autopsy Reveals George Floyd Had Positive Test For Coronavirus

The nation's coronavirus shaman, Dr. Anthony Fauci,

Through this process, the prisoner would find that he had become a collaborator and the author of anti-American propaganda. And once they had accepted that about himself, the prisoner would be more pliable to the Chinese to elicit stronger propaganda, confessions, self-criticism, and even a genuine disdain for his own country.

He then mentions the methods used by the Chinese during the Korean war. Whereas the North Koreans treated prisoners harshly and submitted them to beatings and torture to extract information, the Chinese used a different technique. Their technique was to start small and build. Over a period of interviews with prisoners, they would first ask them to agree with statements that were only mildly critical, such as "The United States is not perfect." Later, they would ask them to make a list of problems with the American way of life. Later, they would ask them to write an essay on some of the social problems and discuss then in greater detail. Then, the essay would be published in a pamphlet that was distributed in that camp and others.

magnanimous

There appears to be a circle of mutual support between political correctness, technocratic administration, and the bloated educational machinery.

If it were to improve, denunciation of “society” would be awkward to maintain and, crucially, my own conscience would lose its self-certifying independence from the community.

The moral authority of the black person, as victim, gave the bourgeoisie permission to withdraw its allegiance from the social order, just as black people were gaining fuller admittance to it.

a house once lived in by Rosa Parks was relocated from Detroit to Berlin, the financial seat of the European Union.

In this we sometimes see the use of American historical references that have been weirdly transposed,

black Americans serve a crucial function for the white bourgeoisie. As the emblem and proof of America’s illegitimacy, they anchor a politics of repudiation in which the idea of a common good has little purchase.

the moral sensitivity to see victimisation where it may not be apparent, and who make this capacity a touchstone of their identity.

The permission structure is built around grievance politics. Very simply: if the nation is fundamentally racist, sexist and homophobic, I owe it nothing. More than that, conscience demands that I repudiate it.

The decision-making class has discovered that it enjoys the mandate of heaven, and with this comes certain permissions; certain exemptions from democratic scruple.

The idea of a common good has given way to a partition of citizens along the lines of a moral hierarchy – one that just happens to mirror their material fortunes

Calvinism

In particular, they have broken free of the claims of allegiance made upon them by the particular communities they emerge from.

All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.

This is known as multilevel selection, which “recognises that fitness benefits can sometimes accrue to individuals through group-level effects, rather than always being the direct product of the individual’s own actions”, as Dunbar defines it.

As Bellah points out, religion is as a way of being. We might also view it as a way of feeling, as a way of feeling together.

Any human phenomenon that exists is a human phenomenon that became what it is.

A cunning mixture of science, paganism, eastern mysticism, and feminism have made this pagan cult a growing threat to the Christian Church. Gaia worship is at the very heart of today's environmental policy.

Transfection commonly refers to the introduction of nucleic acids into eukaryotic cells, or more specifically, into animal cells. Classically, the term transfection was used to denote the uptake of viral nucleic acid from a prokaryote‑infecting virus or bacteriophage, resulting in an infection and the production of mature virus particles. However, the term has acquired its present meaning to include any artificial introduction of foreign nucleic acid into a cell.

The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details from the ADRs’ reaction text are missed.

Essentially, a t-test allows us to compare the average values of the two data sets and determine if they came from the same population.

what is meant involves some assertion or hypothesis about the model – that it correctly or incorrectly represents some phenomenon in some respect or to some degree.

What can it mean to attribute a truth value to a model?

evidence

The legal term amicus curiae is a Latin phrase that literally means “friend of the court.” The term is used to refer to a legal brief, called an amicus brief that may be filed with an appellate court, including a supreme court, by a party not involved with a current case, but in support of one side or another on the legal issue at hand.

What our silenced population was not thinking about during the fearful spring of 2020 was the fact that alleged insidious, non-disprovable “abilities to harm” have been used as political tools for centuries.

the government made a bald, difficult-to-disprove assertion — “Together, we can stop death” — and built-in a dissent-silencing mechanism: “We are trying to save lives, so anyone who disagrees with us is a killer.”

Some suggestions:   -Interrogate your life           Who are your heroes?           Who are your villains?           Where did you come from?           Who are your people? - Contemplate your own life story and those concerning your family. - Write down your life story.   - Identify your family rituals (birthdays, marriage, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.). - Write down your dreams and the impact they’ve had on your life.   - Religious beliefs and how they have affected your life. - Identify how your family recognizes the changes in life status, e.g., the passage from adolescence to adult, "coming of age". Note any differences between the way women and men are treated. - Identify any conflict resulting from the change in life status and its resolution. - How does religion or philosophy of life fit into your personal myth? - What major events have influenced your life? In what way have these events been the hinges whereby the story of your life swings? - Think about the story elements in your own life, then look for the meaning beneath the surface. - How does your interpretation of events differ from that of others who witnessed them?

In its true sense, myth pertains and is limited to the gods while legend applies to humanity, the heroes.

The wise possum had never read Alexis de Tocqueville’s master work Democracy in America (1835). But whoever wants to understand what is afflicting Western postmodernity—with the U.S. going first and Europe following—should read the two chapters on the tyranny imposed not by an oppressive regime, but by a free society. 200 years ago, the young Frenchman praised America’s “extreme liberties” only to warn of a deadly downside: Nowhere else, he wrote, was there “less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America.”

Under this induced state of psychosis, all manner of tricks can be perpetrated on mankind – and that is precisely what we are witnessing at this time.

However, what has become all too clear is the fact that large numbers of people are being herded – and are not resisting.

Most of humanity has undergone a process of education which depends for its effectiveness on the perceived power of some ‘authority’ to exert an unquestioned controlling influence over the general direction of life. A source of influence that depends for its continuing effectiveness on never being subjected to rational scrutiny, or genuine examination of any kind. Such is the beguiling power of full-on indoctrination.

In statistics, a population parameter is a number that describes something about an entire group or population.

Inferential statistics are the statistical procedures that are used to reach conclusions aboutassociations between variables. They differ from descriptive statistics in that they are explicitly designed to test hypotheses.

Instrument is the general term that researchers use for a measurement device (survey, test, questionnaire, etc.). To help distinguish between instrument and instrumentation, consider that the instrument is the device and instrumentation is the course of action (the process of developing, testing, and using the device).

When you mean “for example,” use e.g. It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase exempli gratia.

But what about the deaths from opioid overdoses and fentanyl that’s been brought into this nation from China?”

Although most symbiosis research has focused on the role of the microbiome, the viruses tucked into our DNA can play a similar role in splitting apart two populations, turning one species into two. The first wedge scientists discovered was a protein called syncytin

Commentators have also proposed new economic measures that echo or draw directly from the principles of planetary health

Explicitly using the planetary health concept, Oni argued that a wholesale transformation of society is needed.

Using the intersection of ecological, feminist, and Marxist economics, I develop an analysis of neoliberal capitalism as a specific historical form of the economy.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said there were "phrases that serve as an excuse for not thinking." One of these phrases that substitute for thought today is one that depicts the current problems of blacks in America as "a legacy of slavery."

A new study that found traces of coronavirus in US blood samples from December last year is adding to the growing evidence that the virus was circulating for months before China announced its existence, casting more shadows over the truth about the pandemic and fuelling suspicions of a cover-up by Beijing. 

In trying to capture the essence of a system through a minimum of unambiguous symbols, scientists and artists are driven by a similar concern for beauty and symmetry, a similar thirst for light. What makes mathematics special is its promise of prophecy, the promise that it will help us understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

Used injudiciously in these circumstances, mathematics – and especially mathematical modelling – can serve to obfuscate rather than clarify, or at best add nothing at all to the situation other than the illusion of control.

But something about the comforting rigidity of the process, its seductive notation, but perhaps mostly its connotations of intellectual privilege, has drawn a diverse selection of disciplines to the altar of mathematical reasoning. Indeed, the widespread misappropriation of the language of mathematics in the social and biological sciences has to be one of the great tragedies of our time.

the language of mathematics- which has proved to be an indispensable tool in scientific inquiry- distinguishes itself by the lack of ambiguity in its terms.

Further: “No phoenix is likely to arise out of the ashes of a misguided mathematical model.”

“Although we now have at our disposal some fairly sophisticated methods of characterizing uncertainty,” she warned, “these do not actually enable us to control or even predict the extent of the disaster.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e.  the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity. 

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19.

Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.