Anti-Science countermeasures ...

'We are pleased to announce the winners for the 2025 Nature Awards for Standing Up For Science - The John Maddox Prize.

We are proud to announce that our Maddox Prize winner is Virginia Burkett, United States Geological Survey. Judges were impressed by her persistence, as a government adviser and an expert in coastal systems, in the face of opposition.' ...

https://www.nature.com/immersive/maddoxprize/winners/index.html

Virginia Burkett's five 'tips for resisting the anti-science lurch'

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group-population

2. KEEP RECEIPTS (your memory) know your institution's scientific integrity policy	2. Never compromise on scientific integrity
3. Find allies 5. Be prepared for setbacks, e.g. relying on family and religious faith.	keep receipts (your defence) 4. KNOW YOUR INSTITUTION'S  SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY POLICY

My source:

Anjana Ahuja, Tips for resisting the anti-science lurch, Opinion, Research. Financial Times, Wednesday 5 November, 2025, p.20.

The 2025 peace laureate

The 2025 peace laureate

'The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to Maria Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

In the past year, Ms Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.'

Individual

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      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC =========================  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

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Group

María Corina
Machado	Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach

Essay Competition: On the Principles of Intelligence c/o AI-SGES list

On December 17, 1903, two brothers from Dayton,
Ohio, named Wilbur and Orville Wright,
were successful in flying an airplane they built.

Dear all,

Around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci published his sketches of an aircraft with rounded wings, and in 1783 the first manned hot-air balloon took off. It wasn't until 1905 – over 4'000 years after the oldest known depiction of human flight was carved in clay – that the Wright Brothers took off for the first sustained, controlled, and heavier-than-air crewed flight. From today's point of view, the principles of aerodynamics necessary to build operational aircraft seem relatively trivial.

But only in retrospect are the results of such breakthroughs considered part of the 'obvious'. In 1957, psychologist Frank Rosenblatt published the first paper on trainable neural networks. Since then, humans have walked on the moon, the internet has been invented, and smart devices have been built to fit in our pockets – but neural networks have still not led to human-level artificial intelligence. Neural networks appear like wings that fly for a short time but then drop like a stone when confronted with unknown tasks. Therefore, we'd like to propose moving away from the current hype around neural networks and ask you more fundamentally:

Which fundamental principles of intelligence must be considered in the successful design of artificial intelligence?

The appropriate example from aviation would be: "What are the core aspects of flight that must be considered in the successful design of aircraft?" (One possible answer: As a curved airfoil wing flies through the sky, it deflects air and alters the air pressure above and below it. When moving forward, the curved upper part of the wing lowers the air pressure directly above it, so it moves upward.)

With that in mind, we challenge you to write an essay of 2'000 to 3'000 words and become the Wright Brothers in the field of AI! Whether you answer the question from a philosophical, biological, computational, mathematical, neuroscientific, psychological, social, or any other perspective is up to you. We value novel and insightful arguments that are useful in the field of AI.

Go to https://lab42.global/essay/ and hand in your essay by 23:59 GMT on December 31, 2022. The best essays are rewarded with 3'500 USD in total.

Best regards

Oliver Schmid
oliver.schmid AT lab42.global

https://lab42.global/essay

[Do read the guidance on the website. PJ]

Image use here: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_976.html
original credit - inc. Library of Congress

AI-SGES list

Health for All Film Festival still available c/o GANM

Dear Colleagues,

WHO HQ is delighted to share with you that the Health for All Film Festival still available for replay at www.who.int/film-festival in three languages, and would like to call your attention to the GRAND PRIX, an animation about a dedicated nurse (Phosphoros)? A student from El Salvador made this emotional film.

The above link contains a player with the six sessions of the event being accessible directly, and this helps now the public look at the portion they are interested in. You can easily access the playlist of winning films at:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9S6xGsoqIBWS_JUFdjXpdvLL86R_8VQq 

Global Network of WHO Collaborating Centers for Nursing and Midwifery Secretariat
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
525 N Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21205
E. son-whocc AT jhu.edu
W. globalnetworkwhocc.com

Source: https://groups.ibpnetwork.org/g/global

Dementia research meets motorsports: Innovation Accelerator

Are you an early career researcher with an interest in dementia?

Would you like the chance to collaborate, innovate and compete?

Race Against Dementia and the DEMON Network, in partnership with Cranfield University, are inviting applications to participate in our Innovation Accelerator. This unique event will bring together teams of early career dementia scientists and similar stage experts from the motorsport industry, create diversity of thinking and break down ‘silos’ that currently exist between institutions and disciplines.

You will have the opportunity to think big and outside the box, develop ambitious ideas and learn from experts in the motorsports industry and other commercial enterprises with track records of rapid progress and innovation.

Ultimately, you will pitch to secure a hypothetical £20k seed funding prize. This competitive workshop will prepare you as an innovator to create successful applications for dementia research funding. It is also an opportunity to network and develop collaborative relationships.

More detail including how to apply.

My source: DEMON network.

Care for the ear - Svetlana Alexievich

individual
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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
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group - population

"Flaubert called himself a human pen;  I would say that I am a human ear." "I am drawn to that small space called  a human being . . . a single individual."
	"It always troubled me that the truth  doesn't fit into  one heart,  into one mind,  that truth is somehow splintered.  There's a lot of it, it is varied,  and it is  strewn about the world."

Alexievich, S. (2015) 'Speak with a human voice', Life & Arts, FT Weekend, December 19-20. pp.1-2.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 Svetlana Alexievich

Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Big Utopia

'New Philosopher' magazine #3 (print) Health

I purchased issue #3 (print) on Health in New York on Sunday. As I digest this I'll try and add some comments here.

http://www.newphilosopher.com/products-page/books/issue-7/








The magazine was publicised in Times Square last year. There is also an NP writing competition.




Images: https://www.newphilosopher.com/wp-content/themes/acubensportal/subscribes/covers/cover-US-issue1.jpg

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink: Book

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

group - population

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink: The Indepedent - Review

Image source: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/five-days-at-memorial-sheri-fink/1114975091?ean=9780804128094

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences & the scope of innovation

A prize that furthers progress in the life sciences is to be welcomed and the winners certainly lauded. Logic would dictate that The Life Sciences Breakthrough Prize and the funding behind it targets the hard sciences: biology, physics and chemistry and the vast and growing number of associated specialist disciplines.

'Life', however, as in living is more than a binary operation - as the FT Weekend editorial notes:

Those eureka ideas

... It would be good to see more daring choices in the future: those outside the well-trodden circuit of university departments and research institutions in the industrialised world.
Breakthroughs in life science go beyond the laboratory to interactions with patients, doctors, public health officials, drug companies and regulators. They should also tap into advances in information technology. ...

(Financial Times - FT Weekend, page 10, 9th - 10th March 2013)

Greenspan wins Dynamite Prize in Economics

Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2^nd and 3^rd place finishers Milton Friedman and Larry Summers have won the first – and hopefully last — Dynamite Prize in Economics.

In awarding the Prize, Edward Fullbrook, editor of the Real World Economics Review, noted that “They have been judged to be the three economists most responsible for the Global Financial Crisis. More figuratively, they are the three economists most responsible for blowing up the global economy.”

The prize was developed by the Real World Economics Review Blog in response to attempts by economists to evade responsibility for the crisis by calling it an unpredictable, “Black Swan” event. In reality, the public perception that economic theories and policies helped cause the crisis is correct.

The prize winners were determined by a poll in which over 7,500 people voted—most of whom were economists themselves from the 11,000 subscribers to the Real-World Economics Review. Each voter could vote for a maximum of three economists. In total 18,531 votes were cast.

Fullbrook cautioned that not all economics and economists were bad. “Only ‘neoclassical’ economists caused the GFC. There are other approaches to economics that are more realistic—or at least less delusional—but these have been suppressed in universities and excluded from government policy making.”

“Some of these rebels also did what neoclassical economists falsely claimed was impossible: they foresaw the Global Financial Crisis and warned the public of its approach. In their honour, I now call for nominations for the inaugural Revere Award in Economics, named in honour of Paul Revere and his famous ride. It will be awarded to the 3 economists who saw the GFC coming, and whose work is most likely to prevent another GFC in the future.”

Dynamite Prize Citations:

Alan Greenspan (5,061 votes)
As Chairman of the Federal Reserve System from 1987 to 2006, Alan Greenspan both led the over expansion of money and credit that created the bubble that burst and aggressively promoted the view that financial markets are naturally efficient and in no need of regulation.

Milton Friedman (3,349 votes)
Friedman propagated the delusion, through his misunderstanding of the scientific method, that an economy can be accurately modeled using counterfactual propositions about its nature. This, together with his simplistic model of money, encouraged the development of fantasy-based theories of economics and finance that facilitated the Global Financial Collapse.

Larry Summers (3,023 votes)
As US Secretary of the Treasury (formerly an economist at Harvard and the World Bank), Summers worked successfully for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which since the Great Crash of 1929 had kept deposit banking separate from casino banking. He also helped Greenspan and Wall Street torpedo efforts to regulate derivatives.

The poll was conducted by PollDaddy. Cookies were used to prevent repeat voting.

For further information and interviews email: pae_news@btinternet.com

My source: (with additional links and image) Ciresearchers.net

Image source: http://sveccha.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/laws-of-and-black-swan/