Peer Review – the Route to Truth or another Echo Chamber?

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In the US legal system, the accused party has the right to trial by a “jury of peers.”

Every MD I’ve spoken to about it feels cheated that the MD is always forced to face a jury of “non-peers.” That is, non-medical people who lack advanced education in physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, neuroanatomy, pathology, surgery, clinical practice, etc.

It feels grossly unfair from this side of the table.

But can you imagine how often a jury of MD’s would side with a patient claiming to have been victimized in some way by an MD? I suspect guilty verdicts would be rare. I hope I’m wrong, and I certainly could be.

Though most MDs probably see themselves as the proverbial hens with the (personal-injury) lawyers as the wolves, many, if not most non-medical US citizens would never put MD’s in charge of bringing malpractice fairness to patients.

Common sense says that such a setup would mean well-intentioned wolves guarding the hen house, a conflict of interest, or at least an echo chamber designed to keep truth and justice away from angry patients.

Like every conflict, this one has two sides, each deserving a voice. But common sense tends to win in the end, so “non-peers” judge us MD’s in court.

Hmm…

What if we carry this flavor of common sense over into the peer-review process of the scientific literature?

In that priestly realm, the professors’ former students become the gatekeepers of every scientific journal on Earth. Sounds like an echo chamber.

But it wouldn’t resemble wolves guarding the henhouse if all currently established scientific views were accurate.

Sadly, even the firmly “established” views in every field tend to eventually change. We can probably assume they always will.

Without the option of infallible knowledge, the peer-review process could avoid the reality of a systemic conflict of interest if only the journals’ gatekeepers could become, by-and-large, open to radically new ideas, concepts and technologies of the sort that render “settled science” obsolete or mistaken.

Unfortunately, history demonstrates the opposite situation.

These brilliant minds appear to be closed. Peer-reviewing gatekeepers live in a status-quo bubble, like a lay person who watches only one side of TV “news” or allows our virtual-demons, the internet AI’s, to select their reading materials, podcasts and videos.

This opaque peer-review bubble extends beyond the gatekeepers to encircle government research grant money in one-sided ignorance.

History clearly tells us that breakthrough ideas are routinely blocked. It’s old news, but not fake news.

If objective truth had no independent or transcendent power of its own, I suspect modern humanity would still be paying our priestly scientists to bring us ever-tinier details on the Earth’s cosmic centrality and its false illusion of roundness.

Since academic reality in the West is “publish or perish,” scientists must think within the established thought-boxes and paradigms of their professors, otherwise their papers will be rejected by the system’s consanguineous gatekeepers. When paper rejection happens too often, the young scientist who has devoted her life to the sacred hunt for truth suddenly falls from grace and must scramble for a new career to avoid homelessness — literally.

It’s a high-risk game.

Being a young research scientist is a bit like owning a restaurant in June, 2020, except that the scientist’s debt is an enormous education loan hanging overhead forever without the exit option of bankruptcy. The risk is high. Survival for most of them requires finding a safe route that increases the odds of publication.

The modern peer-review process is part of humanity’s ancient search for infallible literature. Too bad it’s a futile search (as far as I know, though I could be wrong).

Love it or hate it, the echo-chamber review process is all we’ve got now.

Perhaps we could improve it by allowing non-scientific people, or maybe just scientists from unrelated fields, into each journal’s review process, reflecting the way a jury of “non-peers” decides the fate an MD and her patient in a court of law. Common sense?

Sometimes the experts closest to a technical issue are the people furthest from objectivity. Trees hide the forest, if nothing else.

Cross-pollination would also improve research grant money distribution. Mixing scientists and artists in the decision making processes would help a great deal, I suspect, while excluding career politicians entirely. Can I get an amen from the back?!

And perhaps an “open-mindedness quota” should be presented to the tax-payers for a vote:

“Vote YES if you want the government to reserve 10% of the relevant part of your tax money (the grant money) for projects that virtually any tenured professor would condemn without a real thought.”

The list of such government-favored (but normally taboo) “quota” projects might include things like…

  1. building a zero-point energy device,
  2. documenting extra-sensory perception,
  3. studying physical materials believed to have come form extraterrestrial space craft,
  4. studying the evidence of intelligent design in genetics,
  5. projects that don’t equate “scientific materialism” with fact,
  6. projects seeking evidence of a fundamental element of reality that is NOT reducible to matter and energy.

Like the rest of us searching for answers that improve life rather than degrading it, peer reviewers of science journals must open themselves to the distinct possibility that reductive “scientific materialism” is not the only rational option for researchers in pursuit of scientific truth.

…

Common-sense love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

 

Intelligent Design by ET’s

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Here’s a controversial comment I left today on Richard Dolan’s website in the members section. It awaits approval there, but not here…

“The fact that [unknown] craft are flying around Earth is not a subject for science — it’s a subject for intelligence-gathering, collection and analysis. That’s because UFOs are not a natural phenomenon, and that’s what science studies.” — Dr. Eric W. Davis

Assuming this quote is accurate, you might think Dr. Davis’ definition of science excludes disciplines like archeology, paleontology and anthropology because they study artifacts and behaviors of intelligent beings (humans).

But to me, humans and our artifacts are part of the natural phenomena that science rightly explores, even if these fields of soft science are plagued by creative storytelling and various worldview biases.

Humans are a special part of nature, arising amidst multiple synergies that cannot be appreciated through reduction of the species to science’s narrow-minded list of possible common denominators: matter and energy.

As everyone probably knows, scientific materialism is the assumption that nothing exists besides matter and energy. This is an untestable assumption and therefore holding it as dogma is not in the spirit of science. And yet it’s somehow considered unquestionable truth by the vast majority of academia.

To be objective about this, it’s noteworthy that all non-materialistic worldviews, as best I know, are likewise based on untestable, unscientific assumptions. So holding them as unquestionable scientific dogma would also violate the core of science.

And yet mainstream “retail” science clings to one untestable assumption and refuses to allow exploration of the implications of the others.

If humans are part of nature, why wouldn’t ET’s also be? As a non-materialist, I would include here all possible and seemingly impossible forms of ET’s — the material, “interdimensional,” the “spiritual,” and those inconceivable forms that no human has the capacity to imagine as yet.

It seems clear to me that science should study all ET’s, as best it can, roughly the way it now struggles to objectively study ancient human history and human origins.

So I’d have to respectfully disagree with Dr. Davis on his idea that UFO’s should be the sole domain of the intelligence community, though I value this man’s well-informed opinions and admit that my views could be wrong. I often am wrong. I suspect we all are.

The problem seems to be that the scientific community denies any possibility of ET contact with Earth. The distances are too great. (Yawn.)

Science no longer denies the probable existence of ET’s “out there somewhere.” They’re just not here yet.

“There is no evidence of alien intelligence coming to Earth,” they assure us, as if they missed the DOD’s UFO disclosure. Sure, there’s no proof the UFOs are associated with ET’s, but there’s plenty of evidence for it. The very existence of UFOs is evidence of ET’s. Not proof, but evidence. Maybe some people don’t see a distinction between evidence and proof.

Science has a documented history of knee-jerk rejection and denial when it comes to new ideas, big and small. Most, if not all, scientific breakthroughs were met with denial and ridicule initially. The greater the eventual sea-change needed to absorb the new idea or technology, the greater the initial political and monetary roadblocks thrown up against the new item.

Nowhere is this emotional pathology clearer today than in the food fight between the “real” scientists of neo-Darwinian evolution and the so-called “pseudoscientists” who want to explore the genetic evidence of evolution by intelligent design. (These people are not pseudoscientists, by the way.)

Outrage reduces this discussion to name calling, ridicule and dismissal without addressing the logic of the issues. This is because those on the ID side often use the evidence of intelligent design to support a spiritual worldview, typically a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Materialistic science seems to viscerally hate all “spiritual” worldviews, especially the ones attached to the Crusades, the Salem Witch Hunts, ancient book burnings, the persecution and murder of great Western scientists, and so on. Perhaps materialistic science also fears spirituality because it might “drag humanity back into the dark ages.” I’ve heard this concern and nowadays I share it in view of the college crowds apparently abandoning logic by turning objective truth and reality into a subjective matter along with a cancellation of two-sided discussions. “My truth, your truth, so shut up and don’t trigger me or I’ll cancel you.”

Meanwhile, objective ufologists interested more in reality than in winning arguments also ignore the powerful ET evidence hidden in the literature of intelligent design.

We should read this work. I recommend, “Signature in the Cell,” by Stephen Meyer, PhD. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qpAXEicJVsu1JkzuVsnu4pvGA4kN8LUyUOzlxV7JybA/edit

Yes, brilliant, vociferous, self-confident ID critics abound. All the more reason to read the ID scientists’ work for ourselves, I would suggest.

Once enough of us wade through a bit of the ID literature and math, some of us may come to realize that intelligent design is a respectable scientific theory that would be mainstream science in an unbiased scientific world.

Moreover, the UFO community might become able to articulate exactly why the human genome is far too complex, irreducibly woven into the complex nano-machines that the code generates, and far too teleologically information-based to have arisen by random mutation, genetic drift and natural selection in a universe that’s only 13.8 billion years old.

On the other hand, I think any thoughtful person would admit that IF the universe is infinitely old, infinitely vast, or accompanied by an infinite number of randomly-tuned parallel universes, then neo-Darwinian macroevolution, (ignoring the “irreducible complexity” issues) could account for at least some carbon-based life forms. (Not that “irreducible complexity” can be rationally ignored. See Michael Behe, “Darwin’s Black Box” for a discussion of irreducible biological complexity.) https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0743290313

But currently mainstream science insists that the universe is finite in size and merely 13.8 billion years old. So until they change their minds…

Let’s assume these concepts are accurate for now and point out that given these mainstream “facts,” science is almost certainly mistaken about the notion that Earth’s DNA came into existence through random forces without intelligent interference or guidance.

Because it’s relevant to Ufology.

In perfect analogy to mainstream science’s dismissal of UFOs as unworthy of study, anyone wishing to determine if intelligent design is worthy of scientific study must READ the ID literature before rejecting it. This sounds simple, but it is hard to do objectively when every scientific article we read attaches some aspect of the neo-Darwinian myth to the interpretation of new data, assuming the random origins story is unquestionable fact, when it’s not.

Darwin’s origins story is a myth based upon interpreting observations through the untestable lens of scientific materialism. It assumes mindless forces acting randomly on a planet that intelligent ETs have never touched. This lens of denial has kept the mainstream’s random origins story circulating long after it should be obsolete.

While religious people jump on intelligent design science to support the existence of God, the UFO community seems to be ignoring the ID literature’s relevance to ETs. Without mentioning God, the isolated theory of intelligent design quite logically and powerfully implicates ET’s in at least some of the coding of Earth’s DNA.

ID science is young, but it’s alive and well. We who are open to UFO science would be wise to educate ourselves in this hidden branch of scientific knowledge. It could widen the scientific foundation of objective ufology, and perhaps broaden the scientific horizons of the true believers in “scientific” materialism.

Full disclosure: Although I have a science background (a retired MD, with AP/CP pathology boards and cytopathology subspecialty boards) I believe in the scientifically Untestable assumption of a benevolent personal Supreme Being (or Beings), and I find myself praying a lot for the people I love. Just as the Untestable assumption of “scientific” materialism (a huge misnomer) dominates and colors the worldview of most scientists today, once a person like me goes down the path of the Untestable non-materialistic assumptions I have taken to heart, the loving and personal Supreme Being (or Beings, perhaps?) dominates your worldview. Nevertheless, I strive to be objective and don’t belong to any church, synagogue, mosque or CE-5 group. I know of no spiritual group that would accept me into their fold without a radical revision of my beliefs, except perhaps in some exceedingly generous way within the spirit of transcendent love, the spirit of objective Ufology, I’d like to believe.

…

Beaming you love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD

 

Nasty Data on COVID Origins

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Ivor Cummins is the genius engineer who uses his expertise in complex systems analysis to save lives by advocating coronary artery calcium scans while he educates the brain-dead portion of mainstream medicine on the science of type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction (heart attack), and obesity.

Here is Ivor’s YouTube channel and here is his podcast. This man is well worth your time if the mainstream “news” emanating from the outlets on both sides of the political spectrum ever begins to sound dubious to you.

In the video below, Ivor Cummins and Gabor Erdosi go over the scientific data surrounding the question of whether the virus behind COVID-19 came from a laboratory rather than from nature.

Of course, focusing on this data is taboo at Google/YouTube and FaRcebook, so the video below may be deleted before you watch it. If so, you’ll find the audio here on Ivor’s podcast, episode # 110 (Ep110).

Quoting the video’s comment section…

“Fortunately the Truth checkers at Gutube can’t understand [what] these chaps are saying.”

Yes, the discussion is, at times, obscured by technical language, but please hang in for the best part, the evidence that the COVID-19 virus has spent significant time inside a specific lineage of laboratory mouse. (All other lab mice, we’re told, are invulnerable to COVID-19 and cannot be infected by it.)

I found limited information on Gabor Erdosi. He apparently has a Master of Molecular Biology degree, a background in genetics, and is touted as “King of Root-Cause investigation” in the context of genetics. I wish I knew more about him.

 

  1. Although these data indicate conclusively (to me) that the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) was produced in a laboratory, one cannot be sure that the virus was made in China. There are other possibilities. For instance, the Wuhan lab in China might have been “framed,” set up by a foreign country to look guilty and take the blame for the pandemic. Who knows? You and I don’t. If one accepts the currently untestable assumption that the virus did come from China, then there would still be uncertainty as to whether the bug escaped the lab accidentally or deliberately. (Of course, why any morally sane individual(s) would concoct this virus in the first place is beyond me.)
  2. The math applied in this video to cast colossal doubt on the possibility that all these rare mutations came from random processes (outside of a lab) can also be used to show the flaw in thinking that random mutations in nature can conceivably generate complex biological systems, that is in a Universe that’s only 13.8 billion years old. (Don’t get angry now. Relax, read Stephen Meyer’s, Signature in the Cell, enjoy the math and draw your own private conclusions. Maybe the Universe is infinitely old, unlimited in volume, or accompanied by an infinite number of “parallel universes.” Any of these options would allow all seemingly impossible chains of interacting natural random coincidence to become reality… but not just neo-Darwinian evolution, also we would have to include the existence of a benevolent being or beings whom we might logically deem worthy of the title, God(s).
  3. Even if everyone decides that the Chinese Communist Party is behind the pandemic, we would be foolish to allow ourselves to hate China or to seek revenge. Without hating anyone, humanity must stop following leaders with limited conscience (sociopaths).  We must rise above hatred and violence or we’ll soon conspire together to bring our species down into the fossil record with countless other extinct species. With all the WMD technology today, including pandemics, our options have shrunken: love each other or die fighting. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It’s too late for hate.

Geek Love,

Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD