Scientific Form Over Function: Co-Opting From The Start, vs Bridging The "Context Gap" Using Cultural Hybridization.

UK State of the State session in Parliament:

‘On all sides barely an honest word will be ­spoken.’

You mean politics is the same everywhere?  Why?

You know, reading this article, the obvious finally hit me about why indirection and active misdirection and outright lies & propaganda are still universally tolerated in aggregate politics. It's not a bug ... it's still a feature.

"Policy formation for aggregates will forever require the active pursuit of short-cuts and active mis-direction (lies), in a never-ending struggle to ... gracefully ... accelerate the always-emerging steps of re-organization in rapidly evolving aggregates."  Me.

One aggregate step forwards, one staggeringly long polynomial series of adjustments ... just to maintain - let alone increase - agility, in an aggregate that is always expanding as well as evolving.

It's funny how trivial this is ..... and not funny how deeply such an obvious topic is skirted in the training programs for all "system-science" disciplines.

All data is meaningless without context.  

Going further, most data is meaningless even TO context.

Plus, some data relevant to last context is irrelevant to the next, and vice versa.

Hence, over time, progressively greater amounts of extant data are INCREASINGLY MEANINGLESS to the subsequent cascade of contexts.

So what IS the actual relevance of the scientific method? What is its adaptive PURPOSE?

To continuously coax the most coordinated relevance from the excess of data we already have, and continue stockpiling!

We rarely need more data about existing components, and in fact, we spend most of our time actively ignoring already relevant bits of data.

So-called "advancement" in every discipline is actually a stubborn exercise in form over function, ...

... even as the overwhelming majority of aggregate "value" comes from making & tweaking frankenstein hybrids from already existing data & components. 

Snowmobiles? New species? New cultures? By statistics alone, re-combination explores more options than discipline-specific invention does. Hybridization is not limited to plant species. Human cultures hybridize too.

The most important question in every science field - in fact in every human discipline - from day 1, may well be: 

"how do we coordinate current & emerging knowledge in each discipline, with current & emerging knowledge in all disciplines?"

Without such continuous re-modeling of changing FULL context, we continue accumulating meaningless data - minus changing context!  Forget our economic Output Gap, our Cultural Context Gap represents a far deeper gap between us and our potential Adaptive Rate.

Our Cultural Context Gap represents the greatest gap between us and our potential Adaptive Rate.

Why isn't FACING all this social angst - and all our social taboos - a key axiom in all Science-X01 courses at undergraduate and graduate level training programs? Is it a lack of honesty, a lack of courage, a lagging intelligence, simply a lack of distributed involvement ... or all of the above?

Perhaps because most faculty couldn't survive doing as poor a job as they presently do? 

Science Faculty: "Students, our honored task is to examine every phenomenon except the recombinant elephant in the room. To this axiom, we shall forever hold true. Honesty shall be our guide." [Doh!]

WTF? If students actually used their heads coming in, they wouldn't stand for existing education, from day one.

It seems that the Erbles are in secret league with all sheltered Luddites, in all disciplines. How do you say "guanxi" in every discipline-specific jargon, in every language? 

And to think that in the past several years I've been deluding myself, actually thinking that economics was unique in this depth of self-fraud. Today's "stain" of orthodox macro-economists may briefly lead in the application, but they're not as uniquely exceptional as they may think they are (if they truly "think" at all). There are new vistas of baffling bullshit to explore, in all fields. The pie in the sky's the limit.

"Science which is not taught naked of all taboos is the greatest fraud of all. For then the very application of reason is hidden - from day 1- behind the recombinant taboo of the day. That is a mockery of the scientific method at it's most fundamental core ... when we pretend to practice science, while lying to ourselves from the start, about net adaptive relevance." Me.

Scientific form over function. Selling out from the start. Usually by systematically ignoring dynamic or "recombinant value" while over-valuing static value. That's just phenotypic persistence writ large.

Every day, every generation and every context, we can't see our novel, emerging aggregate for the current components!

Nor our expanding, aggregate options worth exploring.

Our social parasites don't need to even try to baffle people with bullshit, when aggregates willingly co-opt themselves coming out of the gate.

Does anyone think that even autocatalysis is immune to Natural Selection? Not all that auto-catalyzes is equally adaptive across local, regional or national scales, nor are all hybrids. Gresham's Dynamic is one proverbial (mal-adaptive) exception, and Gresham's dynamic is always hiding, by default, in all the various sub-disciplines practiced by members of all aggregates - always in plain sight for those who won't look.