Question #1: Religious/occult experiences
are not the object of scientific study by definition.
Religious/occult experiences are produced by the brain activity of the
religious adept.
The brain activity is the object of study in science.
The brain activity can be investigated by using the scientific methods.
This means that religious/occult experiences can be investigated and
actually must be investigated by using the scientific methods.
Neurocluster Brain Model does exactly that – Neurocluster
Brain Model investigates religious/occult experiences by using the
scientific methods.
Question #2: All this heresy “mediumship,
psychography, dowsing, telepathy, communication with
gods/angels/demons/etc” is just a fiction of charlatans.
Let’s raise a simple question: can you explain what causes the birth of
these fictions? Can you explain the origin of these fictions? Can you
explain why so many people believe in these fictions?
Neurocluster Brain Model does explain what causes the birth of
these fictions, it explains the origin of these fictions, and it
explains why so many people believe in these fictions.
We will remind that the majority of the religious architectural
buildings were built in places in which some adept of that religion had
seen hallucinatory visions.
As for example Christians build chapels/churches/cathedral/crosses/etc
in locations where some Christian has seen Jesus/Virgin Mary/etc in a
“vision”.
Exactly the same situation is in Hinduism and also in other religions.
All literature, painting and other arts are imbued with religious
subjects which are based on the hallucinatory visions.
Hallucinatory visions play quite a big role in human society.
Neurocluster Brain Model does explain why and how hallucinatory
visions arise, what laws govern the hallucinatory visions and how you
can control these processes.
Let’s take one practical example: the brownies (domovois).
Let’s raise a simple question: can you explain what causes the birth of
these fictions about brownies (domovois)? Can you explain the origin of
these fictions about brownies? Can you explain why so many people
believe in these fictions about brownies?
Neurocluster Brain Model does explain what causes the birth of
these fictions about brownies (domovois), it explains the origin of
these fictions about brownies, and it explains why so many people
believe in these fictions about brownies.
| http://neuroclusterbrain.com/domovoi_videos.html |
| Very often mythological stories
have real prototypes in real life. Medical reports show that approximately 18 percent of the population is prone to sleepwalking, however only 1 percent of the population experiences sleepwalking events regularly. It is obvious that from the earliest times people were faced with the phenomenon of sleepwalking. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the physiological mechanisms of the brain, the cases of sleepwalking were mystified and resulted in mythological stories about brownies, goblins, domovois, fiery serpents, etc. Almost all nations of the world have mythological tales about brownies (domovois), just the name of the “brownie” (“domovoi”) is different across different nations of the world. However, all these mythological stories have one common property – they all perfectly match the criteria of sleepwalking. When sleepwalker performs any household chores action (washing dishes, peeling potatoes, etc) “folk wisdom” believes that it was accomplished by the “brownie”. Properties of the “brownie” perfectly mach the criteria of the sleepwalker – “folk wisdom” claims that: 1) You cannot get rid of the “brownie”. When the owner moves to the new location, the “brownie” moves together with the owner (because after the man has moved to the new location, he still continues to suffer from sleepwalking); 2) “Brownie” drinks milk, eats candy (in reality, however, the sleepwalker drank milk and ate the candy himself during the sleepwalking incident, but the sleepwalker does not remember that after waking up); 3) You can check whether the brownie lives in your house in the following way – leave the candy on the table, and check next morning whether the candy has disappeared or not. Because the intellectual level of the brownie (i.e. of the sleepwalker) is very low, it is best to unwrap the candy and place it on the table without the wrapper in clearly visible place, because the removal of the wrapper from the candy might be too complicated task for the brownie (i.e. sleepwalker); 4) “Brownie” likes to play with the cards/toys, and in the morning you find cards/toys scattered around or they disappear (in reality, however, the sleepwalker himself scattered around these cards/toys during the sleepwalking incident, but the sleepwalker does not remember that after waking up); 5) When the sleepwalker leaves his house and goes to the neighbor’s house, and steals various objects from neighbor’s house (gold/silver, jewelry, banknotes, firewood, grain, apples, etc) and brings all of these stolen goods in his home, the “folk wisdom” claims that the “brownie/fiery serpent/Aitvaras/Křet/Skrat/Paleček/ etc” has brought these items to his the owner; 6) and so on. When after waking up the man finds that some objects in his home are misplaced in unusual places or some food was eaten, in order to remain sanity a man needs to have model of the world which would explain what is happening around him – and this the reason why mythological stories about brownies/domovois/fiery serpents/etc were invented. Over time, these stories about brownies were supplemented with claims out of thin air (claiming that the brownie is of such and such height, such and such color, such and such age, etc) – this is mechanism how mythological stories about the brownies have arisen. What is the underlying mechanism of the sleepwalking? It is very simple. During the sleep the main personality of a man falls asleep and during that time the autonomic neurocluster takes over the control of the human body and initiates actions. When the main personality wakes up he can not remember what was happening during the sleepwalking because all events had happened without his knowledge. |
| Movies about brownie (domovoi) |
Question #3: Wikipedia is not a
reliable source of information. Links to Wikipedia can not be taken
seriously.
Wikipedia is a good starting point to begin with.
Wikipedia is a good starting point especially for people who are not
experts in the required topic.
Wikipedia articles usually provide references to more professional
sources, so you can go and read these sources, or you can find these
sources on your own.
Anyway, excerpts from Wikipedia articles are provided only as the
additional reading material – if you are already expert in the required
topics, you can simply skip Wikipedia articles.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use |
| Follow two simple rules: 1) Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point. <…> 2) Use your judgment. Remember that all sources have to be evaluated. |
| Wikipedia |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia |
| the library at Trent
University
in Ontario states <…> that
Wikipedia can be used in any event as a "starting
point."<…> The Gould Library at Carleton College in Minnesota <…> cited Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales' view that Wikipedia may not be ideal as a source for all academic uses, and (as with other sources) suggests that at the least, one strength of Wikipedia is that it provides a good starting point for current information on a very wide range of topics.<…> BBC technology specialist Bill Thompson wrote that "Most Wikipedia entries <…> forms a good starting point for serious research <…> Bill Thompson who stated "I use the Wikipedia a lot. It is a good starting point for serious research, but I would never accept something that I read there without checking." |
| Wikipedia |
Another important reason to use Wikipedia is that Wikipedia is free
open source of information, which means that the reader can have easy
and free access to Wikipedia, in contrast with other sources, which are
usually hard to find and hard to access.
It is important to note, that as time goes on, Wikipedia’s overall
quality increases, however some specific Wikipedia’s articles might
drastically degrade with time or these articles might be deleted at all
from Wikipedia. This happens to the articles which contradict the
worldview and the belief system of Wikipedia owners. So if you find
good information on Wikipedia, we recommend that you save and back up
that information, because next time you come to Wikipedia, there is no
guarantee that you will be able to find that information – it might be
irreparably damaged or might be deleted at all from Wikipedia.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights |
| The
licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same
sense that free software is licensed freely. Wikipedia content can be
copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied
version is made available on the same terms to others and
acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included
(a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the
attribution requirement;
see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore
remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by
anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure
that freedom. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to
typical copyright licenses. To this end, ● Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify Wikipedia's text under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and, unless otherwise noted, the GNU Free Documentation License. unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts. ● A copy of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License is included in the section entitled "Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License" ● A copy of the GNU Free Documentation License is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". ● Content on Wikipedia is covered by disclaimers. |
| Wikipedia |
Question #4: What is the scientific
novelty of Neurocluster Brain Model?
The scientific novelty of Neurocluster Brain Model is the
following.
1) Previously, various religious and occult phenomena were thought to
be completely different, having nothing in common, phenomena. Even if
someone undertook to investigate some religious and occult phenomenon,
and even if he invented some explanation for this particular
phenomenon, this explanation covered only this one particular
phenomenon and this explanation could not be applied to other
religious/occult phenomena. For example, there were attempts to explain
telepathy by the claim that supposedly some mysterious waves transmit
information through the space from one human brain into another human
brain. However, can these mysterious telepathic waves explain
sleepwalking? No, they can not. Can these mysterious telepathic waves
explain brownie/domovoi? No, they can not. All these phenomena were
thought to be completely different, having nothing in common,
phenomena.
The novelty of the Neurocluster Brain Model is that
the Neurocluster Brain Model
can explain all religious and occult phenomena by using one single
underlying mechanism – the activity of autonomous neuroclusters in the
brain. Neurocluster Brain Model shows that all these allegedly
different religious and occult phenomena really are just different
manifestations of one single underlying mechanism. No one before could
do this, for the first time ever it was done only by the Neurocluster
Brain Model.
As for example, no one before could show that dream characters and
“voices in the head” (or “spirits”) – both have the same underlying
mechanism.
The diagrams below clearly show that, depending on the location and
size of the autonomous neurocluster, the activity of this neurocluster
will manifest itself as (supposedly) “completely different”
religious/occult phenomena, such as “voices in the head”, sleepwalking,
dissociative identity disorder, mediumship, psychography, telepathy,
etc.
| |
| Simplified scheme: brain zones
which are controlled by the main personality and by autonomous
neuroclusters. |
 |
| Simplified scheme: brain zones
which are controlled by the main personality and by autonomous
neuroclusters. |
2) Neurocluster Brain Model investigates and explains such
phenomena, which until now were not investigated by science, or science
has denied even the existence of such phenomena.
For example, science has completely denied even the existence of the
telepathy, however Neurocluster Brain Model can easily explain
the underlying mechanism of the telepathy and moreover, Neurocluster
Brain Model even explains under what conditions so-called
“telepathic connection” will work and under what conditions it will
fail to work.
Or let’s take another example – sleepwalking. Take the textbooks of
psychiatry and read carefully what these books say about sleepwalking.
And you will see for yourself that psychiatrists have no clue
whatsoever about underlying mechanism of sleepwalking.
Psychiatrists simply gathered and processed statistical data and
psychiatrists announced that the probability of inheriting sleepwalking
from parents is such-and-such. And that is the limit of psychiatrists’
knowledge about sleepwalking – in other words, it’s just the level of
the Stone Age.
You can go to the library and try to find at least one scientific book
which explains in detail the underlying mechanism of dissociative
identity disorder (or multiple personality disorder), sleepwalking,
hypnosis, mediumship, psychography, telepathy, communication with gods,
angels, demons, etc.
If you will try to find such a scientific book, you will see for
yourself that there is no such book.
However Neurocluster Brain Model explains all these religious
and occult phenomena.
3) Neurocluster Brain Model shows you the guidelines how you
can control religious and occult phenomena.
For example, it follows from the Neurocluster Brain Model that
it is impossible to expel “demonic spirits” by using “holy water” or
other exorcism rites.
The high failure rate of Christian Church’s exorcism was explained in
Bible by Jesus himself – Jesus himself said very clearly that Jesus is
unable to cast out demons forever and all demons return back to a man
sooner or later. Below are the words of Jesus himself where Jesus
clearly states that after the demons had been cast out they return back
and “and the last state of that person is worse than the first”.
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+12&version=ESV |
| Return of an Unclean Spirit 43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” |
| Bible. Matthew 12:43-45 |
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+11&version=ESV |
| Return of an Unclean Spirit 24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” |
| Bible. Luke 11:24-26 |
It follows from Neurocluster Brain Model that “demonic
spirits” can be expelled only by physically affecting brain neurons
(for example, by removal of brain regions which are responsible for
generation of “demonic spirit”, or by creation of new additional
channels of communication between brain modules, etc).
4) The reason for the success of Neurocluster Brain Model is
very simple – Neurocluster Brain Model uses the latest
knowledge from all branches of the exact sciences.
And now let’s take a closer look at the activity of psychiatrists, and
why psychiatrists are still unable to understand the underlying
mechanism of such phenomena as dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a.
multiple personality disorder), sleepwalking, hypnosis, mediumship,
psychography, telepathy, communication with gods, angels, demons, etc.
Please see the video lecture starting from 5 minutes 0 seconds:
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8#t=5m0s |
| |
| The most important lesson from
83,000 brain scans | Daniel Amen | TEDxOrangeCoast (starting from 5
minutes 0 seconds). Length: 15 minutes |
Quote from the video lecture „The most important lesson from 83,000
brain scans”:
„Did you know that psychiatrics are the only medical specialists that
virtually never look at the organ they treat. Think about it.
Cardiologists look, neurologists look, orthopedic doctors look,
virtually every other medical specialties look, psychiatrists guess.”
For more movies about psychiatry
please click here.
„Multiple personality disorder“ is among the most controversial of
the dissociative disorders in psychiatry, and among the most
controversial disorders found in the DSM-5. Psychiatry has no clear
consensus regarding neither the diagnosis of „multiple personality
disorder“ nor its treatment. In year 1994 American Psychiatric
Association renamed „multiple personality disorder“ into improper name
„dissociative identity disorder (DID)” which clearly reveals that
current psychiatry has no clue whatsoever about underlying mechanism of
„multiple personality disorder“. The only thing which psychiatry admits
is the existence of patients in which multiple personalities switch
back and forth like TV channels, however psychiatry has neither the
model of „multiple personality disorder“ nor the understanding of
underlying mechanisms of „multiple personality disorder“.
The reason for this is very simple. The brain is a massively parallel
computing machine (i.e. a computer), so if you want to understand the
activity of the brain, you need the knowledge about the (massively
parallel) computing machines from the fields of the computer science
and electronics. However, the majority of psychologists/psychiatrists
do not have even the most elementary knowledge from the fields of
computer science and electronics, which means that they do not have the
necessary knowledge to understand the brain activity, which means that
such people are simply incompetent to make conclusions about the brain
activity.
Question #5: Such-and-such reputable
scientist X does not accept Neurocluster Brain Model.
Crude incomplete prototypes of Neurocluster Brain Model were
developed by the following reputable researchers: Nobel laureate Roger
Wolcott Sperry, Carl Gustav Jung,
Marvin Minsky, Michael S.
Gazzaniga, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett, Robert Ornstein, Michio Kaku,
Thomas R.
Blakeslee, etc.
To read about the history
of Neurocluster Brain Model please click here.
In order to understand Neurocluster Brain Model you need to have the knowledge of multiple disciplines of science.
The brain is a massively parallel electrochemical hybrid-analog-digital
computer, thus in order to understand the activity of the brain, you
must have the knowledge about the (massively parallel) computing
machines.
Prerequisites for understanding of Neurocluster Brain Model are: analog computers, non-electronic computers, massively parallel computing, neuroscience, etc.
However, the majority of “reputable” scientists (like for example, the
majority of “reputable” psychologists/psychiatrists) do not have even
the most elementary knowledge in these scientific fields, which means that they do not have the necessary knowledge
to understand the brain activity, which means that such people are
simply incompetent to make conclusions about the brain activity.
We will remind, that “appeal to authority” (i.e. appeal to “reputable
scientist”) is a form of logical fallacy.
“Appeal to authority” is not a the scientific argument; “appeal to
authority” is a form of logical fallacy.
“Appeal to authority” is the diagnostic criteria which identifies the
religious adept.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority |
| Argument from authority, also ad
verecundiam and appeal to authority,
is a common form of argument which leads to a logical fallacy. In informal reasoning, the appeal to authority is a form of argument attempting to establish a statistical syllogism. The appeal to authority relies on an argument of the form: A is an authority on a particular topic A says something about that topic A is probably correct Fallacious examples of using the appeal include any appeal to authority used in the context of logical reasoning, and appealing to the position of an authority or authorities to dismiss evidence, as authorities can come to the wrong judgments through error, bias, dishonesty, or falling prey to groupthink. Thus, the appeal to authority is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts. |
| Wikipedia |
Click here to read more detailed
article “Appeal to authority is a form of logical fallacy”.
It is interesting to note that history has hundreds of examples
when religious adepts who mimic “reputable scientists” declared real
scientists as “being crazy”.
One such classical example is the case of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who
proposed the practice of washing hands before carrying out medical
surgeries/procedures. Reputable medical professors/surgeons/etc
unanimously decided to lock up Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis into the
lunatic asylum for his “crazy/crank” ideas. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis
died being locked up in the lunatic asylum.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis |
| Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (born
Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp; 1 July 1818 – 13 August 1865) was a Hungarian
physician of German extraction now known as an early pioneer of
antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis
discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever (also known as
"childbed fever") could be drastically cut by the use of hand
disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in
mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%.
Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime
solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First
Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality
of midwives' wards. He published a book of his findings in Etiology,
Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various
publications of results where hand washing
reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted
with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and
his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were
offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and
Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his
findings. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only
years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and
Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist's research,
practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In
1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at
age 47 of pyaemia, after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after
he was committed. <…> Efforts to reduce childbed fever Semmelweis demonstrated that puerperal fever (also known as childbed fever) was contagious and that this incidence could drastically be reduced by appropriate hand washing by medical care-givers. He made this discovery in 1847 while working in the Maternity Department of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital. His failure to convince his fellow doctors led to a tragic conclusion. However, he was ultimately vindicated. While employed as assistant to the professor of the maternity clinic at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria in 1847, Semmelweis introduced hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions for interns who had performed autopsies. This immediately reduced the incidence of fatal puerperal fever from about 10% (range 5–30%) to about 1–2%. At the time, diseases were attributed to many different and unrelated causes. Each case was considered unique, just as a human person is unique. Semmelweis's hypothesis, that there was only one cause, that all that mattered was cleanliness, was extreme at the time, and was largely ignored, rejected, or ridiculed. He was dismissed from the hospital for political reasons and harassed by the medical community in Vienna, being eventually forced to move to Budapest. Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his wife, believed he was losing his mind, and in 1865 he was committed to an asylum. In an ironic twist of fate, he died there of septicaemia only 14 days later, possibly as the result of being severely beaten by guards. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, offering a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis's findings. He is considered a pioneer of antiseptic procedures. |
| Wikipedia |
In science, the only way to confirm or to refute the theory/model,
is to carry out the experiments and test whether the predictions of the
model/theory are confirmed or not. There is no other way in science. In
science the philosophical-theoretical blabber has no value whatsoever.
The only judge in science is the experiment.
The difference between the scientist and the religious adept is the
following:
1) The scientist does the experiment and checks out if the predictions
of the model/theory are confirmed or not, and then based on the
experimental results the scientist makes conclusions.
2) The religious adept says “I have not done the experiment, I will not
do the experiment, I believe my religious dogma no matter what is the
evidence, I will not look into the evidence, I am not interested in the
evidence, I believe my religious dogma no matter what is the evidence”.
Click here to read more detailed
article “What is science and what isn't science?”.
Neurocluster Brain Model is strictly scientific model, so if you want
to check whether it is correct or not – all you need to do is to carry
out the experiments which are described in Neurocluster Brain Model.
Neurocluster Brain Model was built based on the analysis and processing
of experimental data of numerous experiments carried out on a
statistically large sample of people.
If you have any doubts about Neurocluster Brain Model and if
you want to check whether it is correct or not – all you need to do is
to carry out the experiments which are described in Neurocluster Brain
Model.
If you have not carried out the needed experiments, if you do not have
experimental results, then you are not qualified as scientist to make
the judgment, your judgment is based purely on religious dogmas.
Question #6: Why Neurocluster Brain Model
is not published in a reputable peer reviewed journals?
There are thousands of scientists who are doing fine science without
getting published in peer reviewed journals – these are the scientists
who work in secret military projects, secret government agencies,
commercial companies and so on.
| http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ |
| <…> NSA has quietly been
reborn. <...> there is no doubt
that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and
potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created. <…> Some 300 scientists and computer engineers with top security clearance toil away here, building the world’s fastest supercomputers and working on cryptanalytic applications and other secret projects. |
| The NSA is building the
country’s biggest spy center (watch what you
say) Wired, 03.15.2012 |
| https://www.nsa.gov/careers/jobs_search_apply/hirerequire.shtml |
| Hiring Requirements Qualifications for NSA employment depend on the position for which you are applying. <…> You must also be eligible to obtain a high-level security clearance. |
| National Security Agency |
In other words, these are the scientists whose salary does not
depend on the requirement of having publications in “peer reviewed
journals”.
We will remind that the salary of scientists who belong to
academic institutions vitally depends on so-called “citation index”
(i.e. number of publications in “peer reviewed journals”).
These scientists from academic institutions have no other choice
as to get involved in the imitation of useful activity – they
have no other choice as to get involved in publishing in so-called
“peer reviewed journals”. The salary of these scientists vitally
depends on having publications in so-called “peer reviewed journals”
However scientists, whose salary does not depend on so-called “citation
index”, have no need whatsoever to get involved in the imitation of
useful activity – they have no need whatsoever to get involved in
publishing in so-called “peer reviewed journals”.
| https://svpow.com/2017/03/17/every-attempt-to-manage-academia-makes-it-worse/ |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The problem is a well-known one,
and indeed one we have discussed here
before: as soon as you try to measure how well people are doing, they
will switch to optimising for whatever you’re measuring, rather than
putting their best efforts into actually doing good work. In fact, this phenomenon is so very well known and understood that it’s been given at least three different names by different people: ● Goodhart’s Law is most succinct: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” ● Campbell’s Law is the most explicit: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” ● The Cobra Effect refers to the way that measures taken to improve a situation can directly make it worse. As I say, this is well known. There’s even a term for it in social theory: reflexivity. And yet we persist in doing idiot things that can only possibly have this result: ● Assessing school-teachers on the improvement their kids show in tests between the start and end of the year (which obviously results in their doing all they can depress the start-of-year tests). ● Assessing researchers by the number of their papers (which can only result in slicing into minimal publishable units). ● Assessing them — heaven help us — on the impact factors of the journals their papers appear in (which feeds the brand-name fetish that is crippling scholarly communication). ● Assessing researchers on whether their experiments are “successful”, i.e. whether they find statistically significant results (which inevitably results in p-hacking and HARKing). Table 1: Growing Perverse Incentives in Academia (adapted from Edwards{Roy 2017, 10.1089/ees.2016.0223, under the terms of the CC-BY-NC license)
References ● Edwards, Marc A., and Siddhartha Roy. 2017. Academic Research in the 21st Century: Maintaining Scientific Integrity in a Climate of Perverse Incentives and Hypercompetition. Environmental Engineering Science 34(1):51-61. ● Harford, Tim. 2007. The Undercover Economist. Abacus (Little, Brown). 384 pages. |
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| Every attempt to manage academia
makes it worse March 17, 2017 SV-POW! |
Let's look more closely how the imitation of useful activity looks
in practice.
Let's look more closely what is the value of “reputable peer reviewed
journals”.
Scientific verification of “scientific” papers of psychologists has
revealed that at least 80 percent of the “scientific” papers of
psychologists are fakes and pseudoscientific nonsense.
That is the classical typical example of the value of so-called
“reputable scientists” in so-called “reputable peer reviewed journals”.
| http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study-delivers-bleak-verdict-on-validity-of-psychology-experiment-results |
| Of 100 studies published in
top-ranking journals in 2008, 75% of
social psychology experiments and half of cognitive studies failed the
replication test. A major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science. An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings. The study, which saw 270 scientists repeat experiments on five continents, was launched by psychologists in the US in response to rising concerns over the reliability of psychology research. <…> John Ioannidis, professor of health research and policy at Stanford University, said the study was impressive and that its results had been eagerly awaited by the scientific community. “Sadly, the picture it paints - a 64% failure rate even among papers published in the best journals in the field - is not very nice about the current status of psychological science in general, and for fields like social psychology it is just devastating,” he said. Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results |
| Study delivers bleak verdict on
validity of psychology experiment results The Guardian, August 27, 2015 |
| http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/psychology-experiments-failing-replication-test-findings-science |
| Science is the best thing that
has happened to humankind because its
results can be questioned, retested, and demonstrated to be wrong.
Science is not about proving at all cost some preconceived dogma.
Conversely religious devotees, politicians, soccer fans, and
pseudo-science quacks won’t allow their doctrines, promises, football
clubs or bizarre claims to be proven illogical, exaggerated,
second-rate or just absurd. Despite this clear superiority of the scientific method, we researchers are still fallible humans. This week, an impressive collaboration of 270 investigators working for five years published in Science the results of their efforts to replicate 100 important results that had been previously published in three top psychology journals. The replicators worked closely with the original authors to make the repeat experiments close replicas of the originals. The results were bleak: 64% of the experiments could not be replicated. <…> Probably the failure rate in the Science data would have been higher for work published in journals of lesser quality. There are tens of thousands of journals in the scientific-publishing market, and most will publish almost anything submitted to them. The failure rate may also be higher for studies that are so complex that none of the collaborating replicators offered to attempt a replication. This group accounted for one-third of the studies published in the three top journals. So the replication failure rate for psychology at large may be 80% or more overall. This performance is even worse than I would have predicted. In 2012 my anticipation of a 53% replication failure rate for psychology at large was published. Compared with other empirical studies, the failure rate of psychology seems to be in the same ballpark as replication failure rates in observational epidemiology, cancer drug targets and preclinical research, and animal experiments. Psychology experiments are failing the replication test – for good reason |
| Psychology experiments are
failing the replication test – for good reason By John Ioannidis The Guardian, August 28, 2015 |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q |
| |
| Is Most Published Research Wrong? Mounting evidence suggests a lot of published research is false. Length: 13 minutes |
Another example of the value of “peer reviewed journal”.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Advanced_Computer_Technology |
| In 2005, two scientists, David
Mazičres and Eddie Kohler, wrote a paper
titled Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List and submitted it to WMSCI
2005 (the 9th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and
Informatics), a conference then notorious for its spamming and lax
standards for paper acceptance, in protest of same. The paper consisted
essentially only of the sentence "Get me off your fucking mailing list"
repeated many times. In 2014, after receiving a spam email from the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology, Peter Vamplew forwarded Mazičres' and Kohler's old paper as an acerbic response. To Vamplew's surprise, the paper was reviewed, rated as "excellent" by the journal's peer-review process and accepted for publication. The paper was not actually published as Vamplew declined to pay the required $150 article processing fee. This case has led commenters to question the legitimacy of the journal as an authentic scholarly undertaking. |
| Wikipedia |
| http://www.iflscience.com/technology/journal-accepts-paper-reading-get-me-your-fucking-mailing-list |
| Journal Accepts Paper Reading
“Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List” |
| IFL Science, November 23, 2014 |
Another example of the value of “peer reviewed journals”.
| http://www.ibtimes.com/fake-research-papers-how-did-more-120-gibberish-computer-generated-studies-get-published-1558725 |
| Fake Research Papers: How Did
More Than 120 'Gibberish'
Computer-Generated Studies Get Published? |
| IBM Times, March 01, 2014 |
| http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/03/01/over-100-published-science-journal-articles-just-gibberish/ |
| Over 100 published science
journal articles just gibberish |
| FOX News, March 01, 2014 |
| http://www.cbsnews.com/news/computerized-fake-research-papers-get-published/ |
| Scientific world getting duped
by computerized fake research papers |
| CBS News, February 27, 2014 |
| http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/feb/26/how-computer-generated-fake-papers-flooding-academia |
| How computer-generated fake
papers are flooding academia |
| The Guardian, 26 February, 2014 |
| http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/27/how_nonsense_papers_ended_up_in_respected_scientific_journals.html |
| How Gobbledygook Ended Up in
Respected Scientific Journals |
| Slate, February 27, 2014 |
Another example of the value of “peer reviewed journal”.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/27/....5031427452343393 |
| Major publisher retracts 43
scientific papers amid wider fake peer-review scandal |
| The Washington Post, March 27, 2015 |
We will remind, that “appeal to authority” (i.e. appeal to reputable
peer reviewed journal) is a form of logical fallacy.
Religious adepts can be very easily identified by using the following
diagnostic criteria:
1) they use the “appeal to authority” as an argument;
2) they are unable to provide scientific definitions for the terms that
they use in their texts, and instead of scientific definitions they
provide crackpot blabber;
3) they are totally incapable to provide the scientific arguments and
instead of scientific arguments they actively use all sorts of
bureaucratic muck (write complaints/denunciations, vote “against” at
the polls/ratings, etc.).
4) and so on.
“Appeal to authority” is not a the scientific argument; “appeal to
authority” is a form of logical fallacy.
“Appeal to authority” is the diagnostic criteria which identifies the
religious adept.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority |
| Argument from authority, also ad
verecundiam and appeal to authority,
is a common form of argument which leads to a logical fallacy. In informal reasoning, the appeal to authority is a form of argument attempting to establish a statistical syllogism. The appeal to authority relies on an argument of the form: A is an authority on a particular topic A says something about that topic A is probably correct Fallacious examples of using the appeal include any appeal to authority used in the context of logical reasoning, and appealing to the position of an authority or authorities to dismiss evidence, as authorities can come to the wrong judgments through error, bias, dishonesty, or falling prey to groupthink. Thus, the appeal to authority is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts. |
| Wikipedia |
Click here to read more detailed
article “Appeal to authority is a form of logical fallacy”.
Click here to read more detailed
article “What is science and what isn't science?”.
Another very important reason why Neurocluster Brain Model is not
published in a so-called “peer-reviewed journals” is the following.
After the publication of the article in “peer-reviewed journal”, the
article becomes virtually inaccessible for the average statistical
reader. That is because the “peer-reviewed journal” charges expensive
fee for the reading of the article, and as a result the article becomes
virtually inaccessible for the average statistical reader. If somebody
makes this article freely available for reading, then the
“peer-reviewed journal” prosecutes such man for the alleged copyright
infringement, because “peer-reviewed journal” loses revenue from the
sale of this article. Please note that the real author of the article
does not receive a penny from the sales of his own article, all the
money from the sales of the article is taken by the “peer-reviewed
journal”. When the real author of the article gives away for free his
article to somebody for reading, then according to the law, the author
becomes a criminal, who can be prosecuted for alleged copyright
infringement.
This situation is very favorable for the
pseudoscientist who mimic “scientist”, because the smaller the number
of readers who will read his article, the less likely that someone will
detect fakes and pseudoscientific nonsense in his article – that is the
reason why the industry of “peer reviewed journals” flourishes and is
not going to give up its positions.
The main purpose of the
description of Neurocluster Brain Model is absolutely free access for
all readers. The most effective way to achieve this goal is to publish
the description of Neurocluster Brain Model on the open, free internet.
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices |
| <...> Robert Darnton, director of Harvard Library told the Guardian: "I hope that other universities will take similar action. We all face the same paradox. We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free … and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.<...> |
| Harvard University says it can't
afford journal publishers' prices By Ian Sample, science correspondent 24 April 2012 |
| http://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science |
| A researcher in Russia has made
more than 48 million journal articles – almost every single
peer-reviewed paper every published – freely available online. And
she's now refusing
to shut the site down, despite a court injunction
and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world's biggest publishers. For those of you who aren't already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it's sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn't afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it's since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court – a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science. "Payment of $32 is just insane when you need to skim or read tens or hundreds of these papers to do research. I obtained these papers by pirating them," Elbakyan told Torrent Freak last year. "Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal." If it sounds like a modern day Robin Hood struggle, that's because it kinda is. But in this story, it's not just the poor who don't have access to scientific papers – journal subscriptions have become so expensive that leading universities such as Harvard and Cornell have admitted they can no longer afford them. Researchers have also taken a stand – with 15,000 scientists vowing to boycott publisher Elsevier in part for its excessive paywall fees. Don't get us wrong, journal publishers have also done a whole lot of good – they've encouraged better research thanks to peer review, and before the Internet, they were crucial to the dissemination of knowledge. But in recent years, more and more people are beginning to question whether they're still helping the progress of science. In fact, in some cases, the 'publish or perish' mentality is creating more problems than solutions, with a growing number of predatory publishers now charging researchers to have their work published – often without any proper peer review process or even editing. "They feel pressured to do this," Elbakyan wrote in an open letter to the New York judge last year. "If a researcher wants to be recognised, make a career – he or she needs to have publications in such journals." That's where Sci-Hub comes into the picture. The site works in two stages. First of all when you search for a paper, Sci-Hub tries to immediately download it from fellow pirate database LibGen. If that doesn't work, Sci-Hub is able to bypass journal paywalls thanks to a range of access keys that have been donated by anonymous academics (thank you, science spies). This means that Sci-Hub can instantly access any paper published by the big guys, including JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier, and deliver it to you for free within seconds. The site then automatically sends a copy of that paper to LibGen, to help share the love. It's an ingenious system, as Simon Oxenham explains for Big Think: "In one fell swoop, a network has been created that likely has a greater level of access to science than any individual university, or even government for that matter, anywhere in the world. Sci-Hub represents the sum of countless different universities' institutional access – literally a world of knowledge." That's all well and good for us users, but understandably, the big publishers are pissed off. Last year, a New York court delivered an injunction against Sci-Hub, making its domain unavailable (something Elbakyan dodged by switching to a new location), and the site is also being sued by Elsevier for "irreparable harm" – a case that experts are predicting will win Elsevier around $750 to $150,000 for each pirated article. Even at the lowest estimations, that would quickly add up to millions in damages. But Elbakyan is not only standing her ground, she's come out swinging, claiming that it's Elsevier that have the illegal business model. "I think Elsevier’s business model is itself illegal," she told Torrent Freak, referring to article 27 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits". She also explains that the academic publishing situation is different to the music or film industry, where pirating is ripping off creators. "All papers on their website are written by researchers, and researchers do not receive money from what Elsevier collects. That is very different from the music or movie industry, where creators receive money from each copy sold," she said. Elbakyan hopes that the lawsuit will set a precedent, and make it very clear to the scientific world either way who owns their ideas. "If Elsevier manages to shut down our projects or force them into the darknet, that will demonstrate an important idea: that the public does not have the right to knowledge," she said. "We have to win over Elsevier and other publishers and show that what these commercial companies are doing is fundamentally wrong." To be fair, Elbakyan is somewhat protected by the fact that she's in Russia and doesn't have any US assets, so even if Elsevier wins their lawsuit, it's going to be pretty hard for them to get the money. Still, it's a bold move, and we're pretty interested to see how this fight turns out – because if there's one thing the world needs more of, it's scientific knowledge. In the meantime, Sci-Hub is still up and accessible for anyone who wants to use it, and Elbakyan has no plans to change that anytime soon. |
| Researcher illegally shares
millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge. Welcome to
the Pirate Bay of science. By Fiona Macdonald 12 February, 2016 |
| http://qz.com/528526/academics-have-found-a-way-to-access-insanely-expensive-research-papers-for-free/ |
| Most academic journals charge
expensive subscriptions and, for those without a login, fees
of $30 or
more per article. Now academics are using the hashtag #icanhazpdf
to
freely share copyrighted papers. Scientists are tweeting a link of the paywalled article along with their email address in the hashtag – a riff on the infamous meme of a fluffy cat’s “I Can Has Cheezburger?” line. Someone else who does have access to the article downloads a pdf of the paper and emails the file to the person requesting it. The initial tweet is then deleted as soon as the requester receives the file. Andrea Kuszewski, a San Francisco-based cognitive scientist who started the hashtag, tells Quartz that “the biggest rule is that you don’t thank people.” Those who willingly share papers are, in most cases, breaking copyright laws. But Kuszewski says it’s an important act of “civil disobedience,” adding “it’s not an aggressive act but it’s just a way of saying things need to change.” Quartz reached out to academic publisher Elsevier and will update this post with any response. She explains that many people are becoming increasingly frustrated with a business model – where work is produced by academics, edited by their peers, and often funded by the taxpayer – is hidden behind a paywall. If someone doesn’t want to pay the subscription price on, say, the New York Times, she says, they often can go read the news elsewhere, but this isn’t the case for academic papers behind a paywall because that’s the only place to find the full work. Publishers who use the paywall model insist it’s vital to maintain the quality of the journal but others have shifted. Since 2003, when the only major open-access publishers were PLOS and BioMedCentral, the number of open-access journals has risen. Kuszewski says the internet has “changed everything” and people are simply no longer willing “to pay $30 to read a paper from 1987.” In the meantime, she hopes the hashtag will pressure publishers to change their “outdated model.” |
| Academics have found a way to
access insanely expensive research papers – for free By Aamna Mohdin October 21, 2015 |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a91WYyhnCP0 |
| |
| Why Did Aaron Swartz Face More
Prison Time Than Killers? Length: 5 minutes "On Friday, Internet pioneer and open information activist Aaron Swartz took his own life at the age of 26. At the time of his death, Swartz was under indictment for logging into JSTOR, a database of scholarly articles, and rapidly downloading those articles with the intent to make them public. If Swartz had lived to be convicted of the charges against him, he faced 50 years or more in a federal prison."* Aaron Swartz was a brilliant hacktivist who stood for the spread of knowledge before he committed suicide at 26. He was facing more prison time for spreading academic articles on the internet publicly. What was it about Swartz that threatened the federal government so much? Cenk Uygur breaks it down. *Read more from Ian Millhiser/ Think Progress: https://thinkprogress.org/aaron-swartz-faced-a-more-severe-prison-term-than-killers-slave-dealers-and-bank-robbers-8b19a32e4ec5/ Aaron Swartz Faced A More Severe Prison Term Than Killers, Slave Dealers And Bank Robbers Ian Millhiser January 14, 2013 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz |
| Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8,
1986
– January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur,
writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. He was involved
in the development of the web feed format RSS and the Markdown
publishing format, the organization Creative Commons, the website
framework web.py, and the social news site Reddit, in which he became a
partner after its merger with his company, Infogami. Swartz's work also focused on civic awareness and activism. He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism. In 2010, he became a research fellow at Harvard University's Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption, directed by Lawrence Lessig. He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act. In 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself. In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame. |
| Wikipedia |
| https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt |
| Information
is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage,
published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being
digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to
read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences?
You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier. There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost. That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable. "I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal — there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's already being done: we can fight back. Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends. Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends. But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy. Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies. There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture. We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access. With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us? |
| Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Aaron Swartz July 2008, Eremo, Italy |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis |
| Library Genesis (Libgen) is a
file-sharing website for scholarly journal articles, academic and
general-interest books, images, comics, and magazines. In part, the
site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not
digitized elsewhere. Libgen describes itself as a "links aggregator"
providing a searchable database of articles, books, and images
"collected from publicly available public Internet resources", as well
as uploaded "items from users". Controversy surrounds the copyright status of many works accessible through this website. For example, Libgen provides access to PDFs of content from Elsevier's ScienceDirect web-portal. Some publishers like Elsevier have accused Library Genesis of providing pirate access to articles and books. In turn, others assert that academic publishers benefit from government-funded research, written by professors—many of whom are employed by public universities. Background Started around 2008 by Russian scientists, it absorbed the contents of, and became the functional successor to, library.nu, which was shut down by legal action in 2012. Legal issues In 2015, the website became involved in a legal case when Elsevier accused it of pirating and providing access to articles and books freely. In response, the admins accused Elsevier of gaining most of its profits from publicly funded research which should be freely available to all as they are paid for by taxpayers. Libgen is reported to be registered in both Russia and Amsterdam, making the appropriate jurisdiction for legal action unclear. Libgen is blocked by a number of ISPs in the United Kingdom, but such DNS-based blocks are claimed to do little to deter access. It is also blocked by ISPs in France, Germany, Greece, Belgium (which redirects to the Belgian Federal Police blockpage), and Russia. In late October 2015, the District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Libgen to shut down and to suspend use of the domain name (libgen.org), but the site is accessible through alternate domains. Archives Library Genesis grew rapidly by assimilating other entire libraries at a time. By 2014, its catalog was more than twice the size of Library.nu with 1.2 million records. As of 28 July 2019, Library Genesis claims to have more than 2.4 million non-fiction books, 80 million science magazine articles, 2 million comics files, 2.2 million fiction books, and 0.4 million magazine issues. |
| Wikipedia |
Question #7: Description of Neurocluster
Brain Model contains a lot of spelling/grammatical errors, so it is
obvious that it is pseudoscientific nonsense.
We are sorry for spelling/grammatical errors. English is not a native
language for us.
Please e-mail us at info@neuroclusterbrain.com
about all spelling/grammatical errors which you have found and we will
fix these errors. Thank you in advance.
The argument about spelling/grammatical errors actually is “ad
hominem”argument.
We will remind, that “ad hominem” is not a the scientific argument; “ad
hominem” is a form of logical fallacy.
“Ad hominem” is the diagnostic criteria which identifies the religious
adept.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem |
| Ad hominem (Latin for "to the
man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a logical
fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character,
motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or
persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the
substance of the argument itself. Fallacious ad hominem reasoning is normally categorized as an informal fallacy, more precisely as a genetic fallacy, a subcategory of fallacies of irrelevance. |
| Wikipedia |