Philosophy Now Forum

TimeSeeker. I did enjoy the ideas in the essay about the Lindy Effect. Please remind me: some days ago you named useful theory that engineers have for describing fragility/non fragility with regard to duration between accidents; what was it called ?

I praised expert opinion. I trust enlightenment science and principles of scepticism and peer review. I am aware that academics are political animals but academics do aim for objectivity.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 3:16 pm TimeSeeker. I did enjoy the ideas in the essay about the Lindy Effect. Please remind me: some days ago you named useful theory that engineers have for describing fragility/non fragility with regard to duration between accidents; what was it called ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time ... n_failures

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 3:16 pm I praised expert opinion. I trust enlightenment science and principles of scepticism and peer review. I am aware that academics are political animals but academics do aim for objectivity.

It boils down to degrees of precision/quality assurance again. Peer review is a safety mechanism. As far as safety mechanisms go - it is batter to have it than not-have it. And yet people routinely get garbage passed through the system (intentionally) with 80-90% success rate. That is the same as saying that it peer review FAILS 80-90% of the time!!!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal
http://theconversation.com/the-peer-rev ... pair-72669

In my field of work failure rates of >0.001% are unacceptable! In the aviation industry - that threshold is much higher.

Academics lack Skin in the game ( https://medium.com/incerto/what-do-i-me ... 858dc73260 ) so they have really low standards. Quantity over quality is the game that they are in! Which is why so much of science is junk.

I have great dislike for academics/intellectuals. They don't have much of what I would call 'knowledge'.