Bad Science

One of the last decisions of the Pope Benedict VI before he called it quits was to unveil a trove of centuries old documents from the Vatican Library. One of them is a transcript from the trial of Giordano Bruno (translated from Latin below). It has a very modern feel and it puts the early history of science in a new light.

Rome, late 1597.

Grand Inquisitor: Mr. Bruno, are you the lead PI on the grant 1590-02 funded by the Vatican Science Foundation?

Mr. Bruno: Yes your Highness. I am eternally grateful to the indulgences-buying public for this opportunity.

Grand Inquisitor: Yeah, yeah, a bit late for your false gratitude.  Are you familiar with the  Grant Proposal Guide?

Mr Bruno: the 1220 edition?

Grand Inquisitor: Yes, of course. The newest.

Mr Bruno:  Unfortunately I am only familiar with the stone-tablet executive summary. The sheepskin copy burned with the rest of the library in 1425 and has not yet been replaced.

Grand Inquisitor:  Never mind, never mind. (murmurs to himself) That explains the formatting issues in his proposal.
Can you remind the Court what your project was about?

Mr. Bruno: The project was called "A New Paradigm for Planetary Motion". I had a cool scheme for using the deferent and three epicycles for the rapid calculation of planetary positions. The calculations were quite complicated but I found a way to make them distributed.  I planned to have three postdocs running epicycles and a graduate student running the deferent.  They were passing the numbers between themselves using homing pigeons.  The first milestone was  to tabulate Jupiter's motion for the next 50 years.

Grand Inquisitor: Did you ever get there?

Mr. Bruno: (with growing agitation) No, your Highness. It was soon clear that I needed one or two more epicycles to get the right accuracy but with the restrictions on grant supplements and an accelerated spending schedule I was stuck.  I started looking for alternatives and  I came across the writings of  Mr. Copernicus. With his scheme I could do three whole planets with three postdocs. I got really excited and regrouped in this direction. But it was such rubbish, and Mr. Copernicus turned out to be a total dimwit - hot air and pretty pictures. His scheme looked good but I could not even compute the position of the Moon with it! But I did not give up; the postdocs were working hard, perhaps too hard and disasters started mounting.  One got leprosy and the other got into a habit of wearing cilice. His continuously infected wounds made closer collaboration difficult. The third one eloped  with the graduate student and I was left alone.

 Grand Inquisitor: Did you report any of it to your Sponsored Research office?

 Mr. Bruno (suddenly worried): No Sir, I did not. (apologetically) My sponsored research office is exclusively staffed with veterans from the last Crusade, and these dudes do not have any sense of humor. Just the other day they  put a fellow who listed more than ten slain enemies in his cv on the rack for forcing them to yank his proposal from surepath.vat

Grand Inquisitor: (in somber and accusatory voice) So you went out of scope on your project and then kept it hidden from the grant office?!

Mr. Bruno: Your Highness, in the business of planetary motion you are only as good as your last horoscope. I wanted to get ahead of the guys in Istanbul (his voice trails off sadly)

Grand Inquisitor: Listen son,  when you are funded by the Vatican Science Foundation you ought to take it seriously. For every month of your project there is a village somewhere that paid for it with their indulgences. These are simple people, and you are right,  they do deserve  a good horoscope.  (sternly) But the modern world needs solid science, not someone who is chasing some flashy half-baked  ideas. (and slightly raising his voice) We do not want to go back to the Dark Ages! (screaming) What  were you thinking??

(calming down) Mr. Copernicus is one of our guys but he is lazy and he trades solid mathematics for  ideas that are either wrong or not very useful.  He was preoccupied with locating the center of the universe but seriously, who cares when everything moves?

(pauses briefly)
The panel that reviewed your proposal liked the concept of a human computing machine, and they called it potentially transformative.   Isn't it something?  The only other  discovery of that magnitude that the panel took a note of was an utensil they called a fork, and I

(the protocol ends abruptly here)

Well, Mr. Bruno strayed from the path  and in the end he did not fare well but this newly found document sheds some light on the level of scientific oversight  of this period.   Traditionally, Mr. Bruno's persecution is being viewed as one of the last excesses of the Middle Ages. However, this document indicates that it was one of the signs of the Enlightenment, as it represents the laying of foundations for rigorous scientific exploration. The  Ptolemy system involved sophisticated mathematics which anticipated Fourier analysis, compressed sensing and, if Mr. Bruno's project came to fruition, parallel computing. On the other hand, Mr. Copernicus is the inventor of the elevator talk - a simplistic idea that can be encapsulated in a 30 second sound bite that can be unleashed on an opportunity hunter such as your agency director. Unfortunately, the harsh treatment of  Bruno gave credibility to his scientific blunders and ultimately, trading accuracy for simplicity became standard. The Copernican revolution was a significant scientific  setback as it jettisoned sophisticated  multi-parameter mathematical model  for a useless philosophical metaphor.
Luckily, the Grand Inquisition's tough rulings on issues of grant compliance, scope deviations and bad accounting of indulgences-related funds led to the establishment of strong standards for reporting requirements,  putting future research on rock-solid foundations and going without mercy after bad science.  While burning on the stake has been largely phased out, we anticipate a steady increase of the incarceration rates among scientists.  To wit, over four hundred years after Mr. Bruno's trial, and 200 miles from  Rome, seven Italian scientists were put to jail for questionable earthquake modeling tools. Clearly more is yet to come, but not all of it is bad.   In fact, various scientific communities view their jailed colleagues as proof that science matters, that their theories and discoveries have important societal consequences, and that straying from the path of the righteous cannot be taken lightly.  These principles are firmly rooted, and communities with  low incarceration rate have started doing some soul searching regarding the validity of their scientific work. The biggest level of dissatisfaction is among the economists. While they are being rewarded with Nobel prizes and leadership positions in governments, their incarceration rate is zero. Yes, zero! In spite of ruining countless countries and creating one global crisis after another, so far none of them ended up in jail!  The situation has grown so desperate  that  several prominent economists demanded jail time for themselves after they denounced their theories as flawed, or even (in extreme cases) as total nonsense.  The courts have so far sided with the self-accusers on the merits of their  work, but in the end they ruled that their theories are "not even bad".  A similar crisis is developing among psychologists and social scientists.
On the other hand, many engineers, architects, biologists, etc are languishing in jail, and this speaks volumes about the consequences  of badly designed bridges, eyesores in the middle of our cities or frustrating people with questionable "revelations"  found in their DNA. These days purchasing "bad science insurance" became a norm in the community, and seeking protection from one's bad ideas is very much in need.  A typical package provides protection from results of shoddy science of up to $100,000,000 and up to 20 years, and the premiums take a serious toll on one's lifestyle.  Sadly, many scientific screw-ups have much higher costs, and this leads to a massive increase in collaborative work, with the aim of diluting one's personal responsibility. The days of the academic rat race and the "publish first" mentality are waning, and Gauss' motto "Pauca sed matura" guides modern researchers as they cautiously move ahead.

Education!

Education is a funny business. Evolution gave us basic locomotion skills and the ability to make noises understandable to others. The rest is our own doing, and sadly we still have not figured out the correct business model. Abstractly, one's knowledge can be visualized as a  bar of the corresponding length carried on one's head, collectively all the bars making up a gigantic pyramid. New knowledge continuously rains on the pyramid, and societal forces continuously push to broaden the base and spread the new stuff more evenly. Now, after several thousand years the base of this pyramid covers nearly every human being and the minimal load keeps on increasing. While this pyramid is an abstract concept, the consequences of its untamed growth - the education tax  - are very real. The fact is that, at the moment,  acquiring knowledge is the second (after sleep)  most unproductive time in human life. This idleness takes a horrendous societal toll, a human being can spend a third of a lifetime in various classrooms and libraries turning slowly into a beer guzzling layabout.  A healthy ten-year old can be excused of all household chores under the pretense of studying Icelandic mythology, partial differential equations  or other such nonsense. Do I need to say more?


But as usual science comes to the rescue and leads the way out of this predicament. We can almost completely eliminate the education tax and  increase the overall education level tenfold. The scheme rests on three inventions: MOOC, googgles, and soon to be discovered Human Learning Algorithm (HLA).

My colleagues say that I am a blabber-mouth, but I can't resist to say a few words about the future, while hoping that these indiscretions will not hamper the discovery of HLA. HLA will be a crowning accomplishment in the area of mathematics known as Foundations. In spite of laying ground for digital computers, discovery of incompleteness phenomena, and in the near future HLA, Foundations' growth is marred by ignorance and prejudice among fellow mathematicians and officials in grant funding agencies.

HLA is several things at once: a knowledge sequencer, a knowledge packer, and an ingenious interface for the knowledge delivery. The knowledge sequencer is an algorithm that breaks down any logically consistent content  into tiny pieces that can be easily absorbed by the human brain, but when examined separately, look like gibberish. This gibberish, when fed back to the brain  is assembled back into knowledge in a way that is not completely understood. A good analogy, but in the other direction,  is  the human digestive system - we mind a great deal what goes in, but only a doctor wants to examine what comes out. In this light, the current educational system has it all wrong.  A traditional knowledge presentation  follows certain  logical structure: big picture, underlying ideas, all the way down to fine details in hope of recreating the leading  thought process in the recipients brain.   In the context  of HLA, this represents mistaking output for input, and in a hindsight, it  is responsible for most problems with education.   In other words the  current educational system resembles a poor fellow invited for a fancy dinner who ends up having a six-course meal with wine pairings shoved up his ass!

The knowledge packer delivers  pieces produced by sequencer to the brain, relying on its phenomenal abilities to reassemble the pulp into humanly communicable form. This process can be done in a straightforward fashion, but there are many legal obstacles. Brain is an organ, just like liver or kidneys, and accessing it directly bypasses its legal owner who unfortunately is often a blooming idiot who does not know what is good for him. For that reason, the interface puts the knowledge delivery in the grandfather-mode: a traditional teacher-student interaction with  the never-ending appeal to the brain's owner to keep things running.

Rather than speculating on how these discoveries can be utilized let's jump ahead to the future and hear directly from the eyewitnesses.


Graduation
April 20, 2023

I will soon be  graduating from  MOOC ONE - the largest university on Earth.  In these few paragraphs I want to  give you the brief history of my school and the development of the modern educational system, a result of the search for a proper business model that took over a millennium.


Mitt Romney

It all started in 2013 with our founding father's  failed bid for the US presidency. In the middle of that fateful year a small group of American businessmen headed by Romney realized that building the perfect educational system is within reach and, after the discovery of HLA,  all key elements were in place. At this point US educational system was completely dysfunctional - we had gender gap, accomplishment gap, racial gap, skill gap and  an infinite number of other maladies. Things could not have been worse.

Jobs and Education

Romney asked what are the main features that a perfect educational system ought to have - a list that at a time looked like a fantasy land. These were:

* education is available to everybody at a minimal cost,
* students are trained by the very best teachers,
* education comes with  an offer of an employment for students and graduates alike,
* acquiring knowledge should be a pleasure not a chore.

Founders understood that building new educational system has to start with the appropriate  legislation and these principles together with the accompanying  executive orders became cornerstone of The Right to Mooc Bill of 2013 - the first legislation that put Congress' approval rating on a path to double digits. At the same time, the legislation stipulated the elimination of  most of the educational tax by combining education with productive and fruitful life - a goal that suddenly became a possibility. At a time these initiatives were perfectly in line with the elimination of other forms of wasteful spending and frivolous taxation.

The point is that Right to Mooc Bill was a reaction to the old educational system that violated every single of these principles. In the language of today the differences could not been greater: a  moocer does not buy the instruction time but the knowledge itself. In modern terms - a moocer aims for certain KA (knowledge acquisition) that is provided at a rate determined by his/her KAB (knowledge acquisition bandwidth). The price is only $100 a month (with no KA limits). Furthermore, moocing does not require undivided attention, so a moocer gets a job at one of the sponsoring businesses and works there at half pay while moocing, a major factor in economic growth of the country. Last but not least, gone are tests and exams, and a simple brain scans and neural  zapping verify that KA has occurred. A moocer with a wide KAB may need only minutes of moocing a day while one with a narrow KAB will take many hours, but in the end everybody ends in the same place at the same time.

How does it all work?

MOOC ONE is underwritten by Google, Apple, iMacDonalds's (after acquisition by Apple), Walmart, Facebook,  Angry Birds, and scads of smaller players. It is really a genius of Mitt Romney to get all these partners on board.

Google and Apple came up with moocing technology, while other partners employ moocers  and provide housing and subsistence for them.

Moocing rests on three technological breakthroughs. The first component is googgles - an extension of Project Glass. This is a knowledge delivery system that utilizes one eyeball, one ear and about half of neural connections in one's brain. This leaves a moocer with the ability to simultaneously perform simple tasks such as polishing iPad screens, flipping burgers or running a scanner at a cash register.

The second component is the MOOC itself. In spite of some setbacks the technology has tremendous potential and in the economic terms it is a reincarnation of the factory production line.

The third component is HLA (Human Learning Algorithm) - an algorithm that matches KA with KAB in a seamless manner. The  working of the software is a well guarded secret because of the potential risks. In a well publicized incident, a hacked version of HLA put in direct access mode allowed one sorry individual to learn Korean in a mere three hours. Unfortunately, he died soon after regaining consciousness and before uttering a single word in his newly acquired language.

The rise of  cyclops

Moocers are sometimes called cyclops because often they keep their moocing eye closed and resting when they take their googgles off. Now they represent the majority of any society and it is a pleasure to watch them discussing in six languages intricacies of the Langlands program while on a short break in the factory cafeteria. Even people of older generation do some moocing, and in particular micro-moocing is particularly appealing to them. My father mooced how to fix a bathtub and his friend from work mastered the art of making soufflés by using his son's googgles!


World of MOOC ONE

MOOC ONE has headquarters in Cayman Islands, a consequence of the horrific burden of the US taxation system. Our school got a tremendous shot in the arm when Harvard and MIT relocated to Europe and CalTech moved to Columbia and become CaliTech.

Today MOOC ONE and its main partners have capitalization of over trillion dollars, proving once and for all that education is a driver for profits and economic growth. US took the lead manufacturing countless gadgets that are churned up by Asian scientists day and night. Grim days of outsourcing are gone - call centers, packing facilities, and scads of simple jobs appropriate for knowledge hungry moocers are springing all over the country.

 Millioner Club

MOOC ONE instructors are paid one dollar for one moocer per year. Most mooc over hundred thousand students per year, but some are millionaires. Members of Millioner's Club include Socrates, Richard Feynman, J.K. Rowling, and many more. Sadly, many of them are deceased and some are characters from the movies - Mr. Holland and Mary Poppins to name a few. If you want the best teachers, looking among living just does not cut it.

Deceased faculty keep the costs down but sometimes cause  problems as well.  Consider the case of R.L. Moore, the inventor of  Moore method. Professor Moore mooced millions of students until someone discovered that the HLA resolved his moocing materials to a single frame saying "Mooc ahead!"  The brain scans indicated that KA took place but unfortunately these scans do not determine what has been mooced.  As usual nay-sayers call it mooc-fraud.

Science and Religion

MOOC ONE is all inclusive and under the guidance of our president, alternative view-points are well represented. I mooced "Six thousand years in six hundred minutes" - a concise history of Earth since the day of creation. Cool stuff! I particularly  liked the picture of Jesus Christ our Lord making his Atlantic crossing on a back of a triceratops.  I did not know that triceratops was such a good swimmer!

Graduation speech

Today is my graduation day, a day of happiness and pride. I was selected to text my graduation  speech to millions of other moocers. Here it is together with the link to MOOC ONE anthem:

My fellow moocers!

We hav nevr met bt we R strong & united by our comN XperENs. I fEl yor presence rownd & I share my prId w U. We hav Bin given a greatest gift of aL - an education & a job. d old dispute wethR education pays off hz Bin setLD 1ce & 4 all!

I luv moocing & I plan 2 mooc a lot mo. My job @ Walmart iz nIs & I lIk my dwelling n MOOC weld.
nw foLow DIS Lnk & pls stNd ^ 4 our skul song.