Da big bang

[cmacq]

Oh, and cmacq, I noticed it sometimes could seem a bit like I'm attacking you, but that's not the case, I must assure you. Internet isn't very suitable for having such difficult argument.

Indeed, not to worry as I never take offense. I understand the nature of this media.

It's not the UC Berkeley's Chess And Science Club on weed that makes those theories.

No, but there have been some very important changes in how research funding is awarded in the last 30 yrs. Unfortunately, in far too many cases this has impacted on academic staffing based on personal attributes rather that merit. Often many perceive the need to make a big splash, or to draw attention, no matter what their data may actually indicate. Of course, as always this is overlaid by academic natural selection whereby survival is far more often based on theoretical conformity than objective analysis. Overall, this has significantly altered the direction and narrowed the scope of research in many fields.

Personally, within my particular field I along with others, continue to work to correct interpretations of research conducted in the early 1990s. It was somewhat understood that there were significant problems with these interpretations at the time they were reviewed. Nonetheless, these interpretations have become somewhat imbedded in the literature. I addressed what I considered the most important aspect, the basic chronology, several years ago (I may add an endeavor that won me no new friends). However, if one were to check the current literature today, they will still find much of the corpus of the 1990s synthesis relatively intact (strangely with the inclusion of my chronology which on close inspection make the 1990 interpretations completely untenable). The real problem is that once something has been reviewed and gets into the literature it takes ten times more effort and time to correct the record. In fact, I’ve yet another meeting tomorrow morning in Phoenix that pertains to correcting that record.

But don't just say things like "pfff, Nobel price... If Al Gore wins one, it's worth nought" and "pfff, you call that science?".

Actually, the Gore Nobel is an excellent example in every detail, including the omission and falsification of critical data, of the altered direction and narrowed scope of research I reference above. By the way this Gore stuff has had its indirect impact on my research as well. Don’t fool yourself as in some disciplines; review for some researchers is little more than a rubber stamp or grammar/spell check. I think the real problem is that under current conditions, once a very marginal or entirely incorrect theory becomes imbedded it quickly worsens the scenario outlined above by further diverting and narrowing research to the point that may become nearly impossible to remove it from the literature.

Sorry, I must run for now

CmacQ