Bruce Charlton's Notions

For inexplicable reasons, I have become a-bit-obsessed with the medieval Chinese adventure story Journey To the West (apparently the East Asian ubiquitous cultural equivalent of the King Arthur legends in the Anglosphere); which I uncomprehendingly and ironically often sampled as an undergraduate* via the (very-) dubbed BBC series Monkey, illustrated above and sampled below:



This series was - mostly - a case of 'so bad it's good' - but also it has many endearing aspects: its heart is in the right place, and there is a genuine folk-wisdom thing going-on. The very amusing narration, in a totally-OTT 'oriental' accent, also includes quite a lot of genuine Buddhist wisdom!

I also watched, with enjoyment, a 2015 movie of the first part of the story called The Monkey King; which includes a remarkable and moving (and monkey-like) performance of Monkey by a certain Donnie Yen.  

...Was, for me, a single small room in the village, with stacks only around three walls, and not full height or complete at the back - yet it seemed full of discoveries once I had 'graduated' to the adult sections (aged 14). Furthermore, merely for the trouble of filling-in a card, I could order... anything! from inter-library loans.

The next step-up was the Bristol City Library, which was essentially endless - the problem being to decide which of the inexhaustible riches, I should borrow on this particular day... The only problem being a two hour round trip to get there and back.

(It was only seven miles away, but the buses were very infrequent, unpredictable, and slow...)

Probably no other library since has been qualitatively a step-up for me; all university libraries being experienced as variations on the Bristol library... but they have often been superior as places to read, study, and have a coffee.

I have a similar love for second-hand bookshops (not so much for new bookshops) - but good libraries have the great advantage of a higher number of worthwhile books, and a higher ratio of worthwhile to worthless ones.

Of course beautiful libraries have an extra dimension - although the beauty of a library is a different thing from architectural beauty - it is more a matter of niches, than of overall effect.

My current favourite is the Literary and Philosophical library in Newcastle (above) - which is a pleasing early 19th century building, and well provided with various niches. A good place for treading-water among the stacks, and fishing for (or being hooked-by) who knows what...*

*Does anybody - without Googling - recognise this garbled reference to a favourite story?

I just found this transcribed somewhere on the interweb - it comes from the era when I used to write regularly for New Scientist - starting in 1987 and continuing for about five or so years until the Forum editor (Martin Alder; who liked my stuff) moved to take over The Veterinary Record - where he still rules; and NS pretty-much stopped taking freelance writing...

Whether this piece was actually published in New Scientist or elsewhere, I cannot remember; but by the note at the end about my job, this must have been written between late 1988 to autumn of 1989.

'Loadsamoney' was a catchphrase of a Harry Enfield character who performed on an improvised comedy show, late night on Fridays - he was an unskilled slapdash plasterer on building sites, who boasted of making 'loadsamoney' while doing a shoddy job...

Things have, of course, gotten much, much worse in science than I envisaged at this time.


It’s hard to keep up with the changing criteria for scientific excellence these days. It seems no time since ‘Loadsapapers’ was the hero of the hour, and he was bad enough, but now that ‘Loadsamoney’ is top dog I am beginning to mourn our old hero’s passing.

To recapitulate: the problem we all face is to decide (for the purposes of implementing The Cuts) who is a good scientist and who is not; in order to be able to make up tables of research ability using some kind of numerical measure. The answer is that the best measure of scientist excellence in a given field is based on deep knowledge of the subject and of the individuals involved. There is no better measure than this. It is the bottom line. Unfortunately, we don’t have that information and if we did then people would still disagree on it. That is life, and it is how things are; but it isn’t what is required.

So the first compromise was made. Even if we are not competent to judge the scientists' quality we can look at the publications. Even if we can't judge the quality of the publications, we can count them. Good scientists will publish lots of papers because they are clever and work hard and bad scientists will not because they are lazy and/or thick! Notice the accumulation of approximations in the reasoning. Still, this managed to convince some of the people for some of the time and led to the birth of 'loadsapapers' as the paradigmatic successful scientist. He ruled the roost throughout most of the sixties and seventies.

The next hero did not last so long, probably only for the first half of the eighties. He was called 'Loadsacitations’. The logic ran that there was no point in writing ‘loadsa’ papers if nobody was reading them, or if having read them, they ignored them. It was important that a person's research made a big "impact" on their field. How could you find out about this.

Well, once again, if you were an expert in the area and knew the principal workers then you would know as well as anybody could. But this runs into the same problems as before, it subjective, it is not quantitative and it is too slow and expensive to gather the data. So we got citation counting whose logic is that if you receive lots of mentions in the references to others people's papers them you are a good scientist. If they don't mention you for whatever reason then that is bad. The even lazier version of this method is to find out the journals whose papers usually get frequently cited and call them ‘high impact’. If you publish in these journals then your work will probably be cited a Iot, which means that it is probably having a lot of influence in some way, which means that you will probably be a better scientist. Again the chain of approximations building up as we go.

People fairly soon got fed up with a system which defined the greatest biologist of the century as the man who devised a neat, accurate and quick method of measuring protein. And scientist were under a tight squeeze for cash. All this in a society where the entrepreneur was the model: the person who made money full stop. It didn't matter how, it didn't matter what was done with it - the point was to make the money.

And so ‘"loadsamoney’, the Harry Enfield character who flaunts his wealth, gave up plastering and moved into science. Instead of being judged by papers or by citations, scientists are now judged by income. Research funding is the thing: how much external funding you are 'drawing in'. The stars are the ones who get the Megabucks from the big funding agencies. If you get lots of money, the logic runs, then you must be good.

Money is, of course, quantifiable; but more important it is something which we would all like. It is, so far as doing scientific research goes, a definitely Good Thing. Well, like all of these measures, there is some truth in it. Some truth. But not enough, because of the circularity which is set up. Money = good scientist = more money = even better scientist. It is hardly exaggerating to say that, at present anyway, people are not looking further than the money! When the time comes to judge by results we will probably have a different measure of excellence anyway.

It's time to caIm down a bit and remember what this whole quality measurement exercise is actually for. It is to select the best. We simply have to accept that no formula can do this for us: neither a simple formula nor any complex, weighted and balanced formula either. Nothing is better than the judgement of a single well informed person, and nothing can be. It is as blankly simple, and as infinitely complex as that.

The latest news is that ‘Loadsamoney’ has left science. In fact he left after his first pay cheque. He couldn't believe that he was expected to administer multi-million dollar research grants without any allocation of time, in addition to an increasing teaching load, on less than l5K a year and, to cap it all, without tenure!

* Dr Bruce Charlton MD MA is senior demonstrator in the department of physiological sciences in the medical school at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Man cannot live without some reasonably-clear notion of the good society - and for most people mostly that relates to what happens after death.

It seems to me that different people, in different times and places - have, individually on average - different utopias.

These hopes can be seen in variety of hoped-for outcomes in the various religions (and ideologies)...


Some hope for oblivion after death; some for bliss without self-awareness (just-enough awareness to experience bliss).

Some for a world of pure thinking - others for a world without thinking: a world of pure feeling... 

Some for a kind of static situation of perfection; others for a dynamic and creative situation.

Some for autonomy, independence; others for deeper and permanent relationships.

Some for eternal marriage and heavenly families - others to escape marriage and get-away-from their family.

Some for endless and unbounded creativity; others for an end to the need for it.

Some to gratify their desires; others for a harmonisation of their desires with those of God.

Some hope to live in a Heavenly City, with many specific roles and jobs and responsibilities, tailored to each willing individual - while others yearn for the simple, unplanned individuality of a spontaneous, small society.

Some hope that Heaven will be perfectly organised, down to the smallest detail; others that Heaven will be an end to organisation.

**

What sense can be made of all this? Is there one Utopia, one Heaven - and by-that-time, it will be the Heaven that everybody wants (even though they don't want it now).

Or is this all nonsensical wishful thinking - and the entirely of Mankind has been deluded throughout history until modern times, places and people? Really there is nothing-but nothing-ness - no meaning - either randomness, or mechanical determinism, or nothing at all.

Or who knows? Who cares? What can we do about it anyway? 


The answer I favour is that God, as both creator and loving Father, has a Heaven that he wants for us - and hopes that we also will want... by the time that decision arrives; but that God also provided many other outcomes and destination (many 'Heavens') according to the deepest and truest wishes of each individual person's heart.

If, therefore, we get what we want, and we get to choose... we ought to reflect more than we do, in more depth and detail, on what we really want from utopia.


NOTE ADDED: This is partly prompted by the observation that some people in this world, perhaps a lot of people, don't appear ever, at any time, to want what God has to offer them - and this makes me wonder why they are incarnated. Of course, there are those who are corrupted to evil... but there seem to be others who simply don't want Heaven. It strikes me that there may, for example, be some pre-mortal spirits who have decided that this whole conscious-life thing is a thing they don't want to persist with... It may be that, in some fashion, incarnation is a 'route' for such spirits to reach what they most aspire to (oblivion, Nirvana or whatever...); just as incarnation is in a very different way a route to death, resurrection and eternal life of the kind that Christians most hope-for.

Answer: Yes! (If you are Gilbert and Sullivan...)

Note: I'm afraid I can't be bothered to provide full links today - if any of the terms are unfamiliar, and you are interested in finding out more, just use the Blogger word search facility in the top left corner of this page. Just to note this post is an extension of the idea of undulation.

1. The morning is the time for Primary Thinking - Final Participation. I rise at 5.30 typically; and if any time is going to be possible on a given day to attain this highest (and most divine) of consciousness states, then it is mornings: up until about 10.00 or so. That's when I do my best thinking, by far (assisted by note-taking, the notes generally being discarded soon after) - and when I sometimes feel consciously that I am thinking from my Real Self. This is the time for Intuition (coming from within).

2. From around noon to the evening I am in the mainstream, modern Consciousness Soul state - that is, I am conscious mainly of my-self and more-or-less feel cut off from the world, from other people. And the self I am conscious of is not the real-self but one or another of the superficial and functional selves, learned by interaction with experience, inculcated by The World.

3. In the evenings I tend to sink into the Original Participation - that is an un-conscious, passive state of immersion in The World. I may respond strongly to external situations, arts and people, but in a kind of trancelike and only semi-conscious sort of way. A somewhat 'shamanic' and imaginative state of affairs - and perhaps a time for Inspiration (coming from without).

4. Deep sleep is, of course, wholly passive and completely cut-off. There is no consciousness at all - it is a kind of vegetable life. This is absolutely necessary; but what really is going on, I don't know. To come-out from deep sleep is to feel its importance - clarified, refreshed, re-booted!

5. Dreaming sleep is conscious, but in another place altogether, and another time - a time in which vast amounts of experience may be compressed into very little time-as-measured-during-awakeness. This is a mostly passive consciousness, but in the 'underworld' (something like Jung's collective conscious, or the Ancient Egyptian 'dwat') - and it seems to provide necessary experiences that otherwise I would not have.

As dreaming sleep comes to an end, presumably having done its work, the dreams become repetitive and I then awaken; and it is best if I immediately get up and awaken fully. Dozing on beyond this point is boring, pointless; and sometimes leaves me too dulled ever to properly awaken the next day.


I seem to be stuck with this cycle of activity, purposive consciousness declining through the day, then the two types of sleep; and it is futile and indeed counter-productive to try and fight against it.

Best just to make the most of it...

I always wondered why Rudolf Steiner did not (so far as I know) try to become a Professor; since the scholar's life would probably have suited him a lot better than being the leader of first Theosophical then Anthroposophical Society groups - and lecturing (on every topic under the sun) to the general public.

But as I consider the matter, I do not think a German Professorship would have been a possibility for Steiner - although I suspect that, if he could have developed sufficient proficiency in the English language, he would have walked-into a Professorship in the Anglosphere.

The first difficulty was that Steiner's editorial work on Goethe's scientific writings was controversial, and criticised for being insufficiently scholarly (lacking the usual scholarly 'apparatus'). Another problem was that Steiner was awarded his PhD from Rostock, which (I gather) was among the couple of least prestigious ('lowest standard') universities in Germany.

Then he did not proceed to work on his higher/ post Doctoral 'Habilitation' thesis - which was necessary to teach in a German university as a Privatdozent (an unpaid position occupied while waiting/ hoping for a 'call' from the Ministry of Education to occupy a Chair). Steiner also lacked the  private income or family backing, as well as the network of upper class supporters, needed to take this long-slow-risky career path.

Steiner's PhD was published in 1892 (Truth and Knowledge) and his magnum opus, the work of his heart, Philosophy of Freedom in 1994 - but both failed to attract approval, or even interest.

On the other hand, Steiner's qualifications and publications were extremely good by the standards of UK and US universities, and in that sense he could surely have obtained an academic job there, or in many other places other than Germany (which was without question the premier university system in the world, at that time).

But I presume Steiner either could not or would not move from the Germanic nations - he was consequently unable to make a living, despite trying a few careers. When the chance for paid lecturing came along, he grabbed it and made a great success of it.

Nonetheless, intellectually and spiritually speaking, I would have to regard it as a mis-step when Steiner allied with the Theosophical Society, and began to generate spiritual science in accordance with Madam Blavatsky's channelled revelations... He made a further error in getting 'mixed up with politics' from 1918, with his 'Threefold Society' ideas...

I think it took Steiner until 1924, and after he became terminally ill, before he began to rework his ideas in some very interesting (incomplete, not followed-up) directions in the Autobiography and Anthroposophical Leading-Thoughts/ Anthroposophical Guidelines...

A subject to which I will return soon, I hope.

But I regard it as a matter for regret that Steiner was, in a sense, 'forced' to make-a-living by becoming a spiritual leader - it would have been better for him if he could have remained a Dichter und Denker (poet and thinker) - a scholar-intellectual.

Charlton BG. The uses and abuses of meta-analysis. Family Practice 1996; 13: 397-401.

Meta-analysis is a quantitative process of summary and interpretation which involves pooling information from independent studies concerning a single theme in order to draw conclusions. Greatly increased employment of meta-analysis is currently being advocated for clinical and policy decision making. However, the prestige of meta-analysis is based upon a false model of scientific practice. Interpreting empirical research is an extremely complex activity requiring clinical and scientific knowledge of the field in question; and teams of professional 'meta-analysts' with a primary skill base in information technology and biostatistics cannot take over this role. Meta-analysis is not a hypothesis-testing activity, and cannot legitimately be used to establish the reality of a putative hazard or therapy. The proper use of meta-analysis is to increase the precision of quantitative estimates of health states in populations. If used to estimate an effect, the reality of that effect should have been established by previous scientific studies. But the summary estimate from a meta-analysis can only be directly applied to a target population when the 'meta-protocol' and 'meta-population' match the target situation in all relevant particulars. These constraints can rarely be satisfied in practice, so the results of meta-analysis typically require adjustment—which is a complex, assumption-laden process that negates many of the statistical power advantages of a meta-analysis. Lacking any understanding or acknowledgement of the need for adjustment, most meta-analyses must be regarded as abuses of the technique.


Meta-analysis may conveniently be defined as a quantitative method of pooling information from independent studies concerning a single theme in order to draw conclusions. It is a two-stage process of summary and interpretation.

Opinion regarding the technique ranges between extremes of approbation and disdain. Many commentators agree with Olkin that a meta-analysis of randomized trials constitutes the best form of evidence regarding therapeutic effectiveness.(1) Others have argued that it is motivated by a quasi-alchemical urge to transmute the base metal of inadequate data into the gold (standard) of validated fact, suggested that it is mostly a rather mundane and second-rate kind of intellectual activity and undeserving of high prestige, or simply erupted ''meta-analysis—schmeta-analysis!"(2,3,4)

I will argue that the critics of meta-analysis are closer to the truth than are the evangelists. Meta-analysis has its uses, and may occasionally be valid and applicable to real clinical situations, but these circumstances are so rare that most published instances of the technique must be regarded as abuses.


All commentators emphasize the difficulty of performing a valid meta-analysis, but the reasons given usually reveal a false model of scientific practice.(5,6) Meta-analysis is often stated to be necessary due to the sheer amount of data generated by present-day research.(1,7) Scientific practice is implied to involve a process of pooling or combining evidence from independent studies, then drawing conclusions based on the weight of evidence. If this were the case, then summarization would indeed be crucial and valid inference would become more difficult as the volume of research increased. This justification for overviews and meta-analyses is principally one of enabling increased efficiency in data assimilation.(8) But this description of theoretical science is false.

In reality, the theoretical practice of science draws upon evidence from studies judged to be both relevant and valid—such studies are seldom common and usually well known to practitioners. This highly selected evidence is then taken into account in constructing and testing theoretical models which can be tested against experiment and observation.(9) Most would-be evidence tends to be judged irrelevant to this process, and is deservedly ignored—certainly bad evidence is not pooled with the good.

The ingredients which make up this process of qualitative judgement and inference have never adequately been described in explicit terms, and scientific practice includes much knowledge that is tacit, and implicit, learned by apprenticeship to other scientists and from experience working in the field. It can, however, be asserted with a high degree of certainty that the scientific process is not primarily a statistical one based upon summarization and combination of all relevant data.(3, 11)


Proponents of meta-analysis make much of the 'objectivity' of the technique, which derives from the explicit nature of its procedures when compared with most editorials, reviews and commentaries.(6, 12) The sheer quantity and range of sources of the cited literature in a meta-analysis may be very impressive. This is achievable partly because of advances in computer systems of information retrieval, but mostly by the employment of full-time research assistants whose job is to hand-search journals, network among researchers and (by other labour-intensive means) endeavour to unearth recondite and far-flung publications and projects. (1, 7, 13)

The accumulation of data into one place which precedes the statistical manipulations of meta-analysis is frequently unprecedented in a given field. This creation of a complete catalogue may be valuable in itself, especially if it reveals an obvious consistency or pattern to the data which was not previously noticed (although such an oversight is unlikely in a mature scientific discipline). Some authors regard this activity of 'overviewing' evidence as contributing most of the value of meta-analysis, and have suggested that analysis should not go further than identifying a qualitative consistency of results across relevant studies.(14) There is no methodological objection to this kind of elaborate and expensive literature survey, but when unaccompanied by original thought it constitutes a somewhat mediocre activity which bears the same relation to creative science that an undergraduate dissertation does to a PhD thesis.

However, the defining feature of meta-analysis is not enumeration but interpretation and proponents of meta-analysis claim that it can perform this key task of selection and analysis of independent studies by means of algorithmic procedures and statistical summarization.

Meta-analysis makes the underlying assumption that when the results of relevant studies differ, the true value lies 'latent' within the existing data but concealed from investigators: firstly, by their failure to overview the whole data set (including unpublished studies); second, by excessive random error in studies examined one at a time (due to studies containing too few subjects); and third, by the lack of an optimal arrangement of evidence. In effect, the 'scientific truth' is conceptualized as a pattern that, once revealed, is unambiguous in its relevance and applicability so that the implications of research are transparent to any observer.

Meta-analysis therefore assumes that the diversity (or 'heterogeneity') among relevant research studies is randomly distributed around the 'true' value, so that errors in one direction in one study will tend to be balanced by errors in the other direction in other studies and therefore that appropriate statistical pooling and averaging will tend to produce an error-free (or at least error-reduced) estimate of the underlying, unbiased, 'true' value. Meta-analysis is thus indirectly but crucially predicated on a view of scientific truth as social consensus.

But real scientific practice makes no such assumption about the random distribution of error between (or within) studies. Indeed, a more plausible assumption would be that most investigators tend to make the same errors in the same direction, and only a minority of the best scientists will perform studies to the highest standard. Instead of seeking consensus, the social structures of science have the effect (albeit an imperfect one) of subjecting studies to critical appraisal by the peer group, in order to winnow the wheat from the chaff.

The production of scientific knowledge is a process closer to 'trial by ordeal' than trial by opinion poll.


The meta-analytic view of science leads to an assertion that the relevant techniques for understanding evidence are essentially informational and statistical.

Therefore, meta-analyses tend to be organized, performed and published by teams with disciplinary backgrounds in epidemiology, computing and biostatistics— only secondarily supplemented by advice from workers in the substantive field being overviewed. This is in sharp contrast to the specific scientific and clinical expertise and experience considered a prerequisite for the actual performance of primary medical research.

The bizarre result is that meta-analysis implies that theoretical and empirical science should be done by two different sets of people with different disciplinary abilities. In effect, empirical research is to be done by scientists and clinicians, and the interpretation of this research is to be performed by the likes of epidemiologists and statisticians who will decide what inferences may be drawn from the evidence.

The above scenario would only be credible if advocates of meta-analysis could point to a successful track record of theoretical advance—which they cannot; or if the major difficulties in evaluating research were amenable to standardized evaluation of studies and adherence to correct statistical procedures—which they are not. The massive implausibility of the biostatistical approach to interpretation should be obvious to anybody who has experienced the difficulties of learning how to become a practising scientist. Interpretation is, perhaps, the hardest of all scientific skills to master. The ability to evaluate and compare research papers, and the capacity to use this to judge the current state of knowledge and frame hypotheses for future investigation, is a skill attained—if at all—only with effort and after a prolonged apprenticeship. The skill is also relatively specific with regard to subject matter.

The notion that scientific interpretation can be reduced to statistical considerations, checklists and step-by-step flow diagrams applicable to any problem at any time (1,8,13,17,19) would be laughable were it not becoming accepted practice in some circles. Inventories are not a substitute for substantive knowledge. Clinical experience and that partly trained, partly instinctive, understanding of causes and insight into mechanisms which comes from personally grappling with the primary process of research are both elements that have time and again proved crucial to medical science.(3, 4, 20-22)


The limitations of a meta-analysis are dictated by the limitations of the epidemiological studies from which it has been assembled (on the basis of 'garbage in, garbage out')- Randomized trials are generally assumed to be the 'best' epidemiological evidence regarding therapeutic effectiveness, and the methodology most amenable to meta-analysis. (1, 23) Methodological constraints which apply to the randomized controlled trial (RCT) will therefore, mutatis mutandis, also apply to meta-analyses of other epidemiological techniques such as cohort and case-control studies, and surveys.(9)

The major limitations characteristic of 'mega-trials' (large, multi-centred trials analysed by 'intention to treat') (23, 24) derive from poor experimental control and biased recruitment. (21, 25) Mega-trials employ a deliberately simplified experimental design in order to maximize recruitment and compliance, both of subjects and of collaborating trial centres. Due to logistic and ethical constraints, trials are performed on a study population that is typically unrepresentative of any actual 'target population' to which their results might be applied.

Inherent in mega-trial design is that experimental protocols do not attempt to exclude or hold constant all known sources of bias, but instead employ randomization of large numbers of subjects to distribute these potential biases equally between comparison groups. Comparisons between allocated treatments will be unbiased but at the price of conflating several causal processes, and measuring 'intention' to treat rather than the effect of treatment. For instance, if age is an important confounder, mega-trials do not control for age, but randomize large numbers of differently aged subjects. The result is that the age distribution will tend to be balanced between allocation groups; but the effects of age will be conflated with the causal variable under study. The measured association will only be directly applicable to. a target population with the same age structure as the study population.(21-23)

Mega-trials should therefore be considered as descriptive and epidemiological in nature rather than analytical and scientific.(9,14-21) Indeed, although it is an experiment, a mega-trial can most easily be understood and interpreted as if it were a special kind of survey designed to compare the outcomes when two or more protocols are allocated to a group of subjects. Randomization ensures that the comparison groups have equivalent population characteristics, and the large number of subjects allows a high degree of precision in estimating the therapy-outcome association. Generalizing from a mega-trial also resembles generalizing from a survey because both procedures depend crucially on the study population being representative of the target population. A mega-trial does not, as a scientific experiment would, aim to isolate and measure a single causal variable linking a therapy and an outcome; the measured relationship between therapy and outcome is therefore an estimate of the magnitude of an association, not of a causal process. Consequently, mega-trials are not hypothesis-testing studies (21) - and a secondary mathematical summarization of trials, such as a meta-analysis, cannot be hypothesis-testing either.


We can now begin to delineate the legitimate uses of meta-analysis. The 'overview' stage is neither distinctive nor sufficient to define meta-analysis—quantitative interpretation is the crucial feature. Meta-analysis is essentially a method for pooling data in order to increase the precision of estimates. The summary statistic of a meta-analysis of RCTs therefore describes the (average) outcome of allocating a meta-protocol to a meta-population. Interpreting the summary statistic of a meta-analysis (i.e. 'applying' the estimate of effect) involves establishing that the meta-protocol and meta-population are comparable to the proposed intervention and the target population.

The nature of a meta-protocol is defined by the methodological parameters of the pooled individual therapeutic interventions of constituent mega-trials. In other words, the meta-protocol is a 'virtual intervention' in an experiment whose experimental rigour is the lowest common denominator defined by the pooled deficiencies of its component studies (the level of control being defined by the lowest permitted level of control, not the average level of control). The meta-population is defined as that virtual group of subjects which has emerged after the overview population has been pooled from the component studies (with Or without statistical weighting of individual studies).

In order for the estimate of the therapeutic effect of a meta-protocol to be applicable to a target population, the meta-population must be a representative sample of the target population. This requires either that the meta-population be a randomly selected sample of the target population, or that the meta-population be created from a balanced blend of individual study populations where relevant causal variables have been measured and assembled in their proper proportion.

Clearly, the vast majority of meta-populations in published meta-analyses are not representative of the target population, or indeed of any real-world population, because meta-analyses are assembled from a group of individual RCTs the populations of which are each unrepresentative (biased) to a significant and undetermined extent.(25) Estimates cannot then be generalized to any actual population without adjustment. Adjustment will need to involve quantification and subtraction of biases. For instance, if an estimate has been confounded by biases in the age structure of the meta-population compared with the target population, then the magnitude of confounding by age will need to be investigated, quantified and its effects removed from the analysis.

It is insufficiently appreciated that the process of 'adjustment for confounding' is not a purely mathematical manipulation, but is a form of quantitative modelling of the consequences of uncontrolled causal influences on the study. Adjustment introduces new assumptions into the analysis—causal assumptions which require validation in independent studies. Adjustment will therefore diminish precision of the estimate, somewhat defeating the object of the meta-analysis.


Meta-analyses of mega-trials yield estimates that apply only to group averages, not to individual patients, due to the high level of within-group heterogeneity of subjects in mega-trials and other epidemiological studies.(21-23) This, in itself, means that a meta-analysis does not necessarily have any relevance to clinical practice. A bad meta-analysis, like any bad piece of research, may be useless or harmful; and, unfortunately, bad research tends to be more common than is good research.

But even accepting the population level of validity, a meta-analysis should be performed on independent studies each of which employs a qualitatively similar and therapeutically credible study design, and where the pooled trial population is representative of the target population. Such a situation of between-study uniformity is extremely rare.(26)

Furthermore, meta-analysis should not be used for testing hypotheses, but only for obtaining a more precise estimate of an effect which is already known to be present from well controlled, hypothesis-testing studies. This means that most meta-analyses are misuses of the technique. For instance, it is wrong (although common) to employ meta-analysis to determine whether a putative health risk is a genuine hazard, or whether a putative therapeutic intervention is genuinely effective. Meta-analyses cannot make qualitative distinctions in cases where causation is doubtful. The epidemiological data from which meta-analyses are constructed measure association not causation, and are not sufficiently controlled to isolate and test hypotheses.

Moreover, there are no valid, general-purpose algorithms nor statistical procedures for the interpretation of empirical research, so that most meta-analyses are underpinned by no more than the subjective opinion of investigators who are sometimes distinguished mainly by lacking the appropriate training, experience, approach and interest necessary to draw inferences from empirical research.

Meta-analysis, when all is said and done, is a technique with very restricted applicability to the clinical practice of medicine. In certain rare, well-understood and well-controlled circumstances it may provide an enhancement in the precision of estimates of group outcomes. But meta-analysis is always likely to mislead due the mismatch between its high statistical precision and low scientific validity.(3-9)


1 Olkin I. Meta-analysis: reconciling the results of independent studies. Stat Med 1995; 14: 457-472.

2 Shapiro S. Meta-analysis/Schmeta-analysis. Am J Epidemiol 1993; 138: 673 (abstract).

3 Rosendaal FR. The emergence of a new species: the professional meta-analyst. J Clin Epidemiol 1994; 47:1325-1326.

4 Feinstein AR. Meta-analysis: statistical alchemy for the 21st century. / Clin Epidemiol 1995; 48: 71-79.

3 Charlton BG. Management of science. Lancet 1993; 342: 99-100.

6 Charlton BO. Practice guidelines and practical judgement Br J Gen Pract 1994; 44: 290-291.

7 Chalmers T. Haynes B. Reporting, updating and correcting systematic reviews of effects of health care. BrMedJ 1994; 309: 862-865.

8 Mulrow CD. Rationale for systematic reviews. BrMedJ 1994; 309: 597-599.

9 Charlton BG. The scope and nature of epidemiology. J Clin Epidemiol 1996 (in press).

10 Cromer A. Uncommon sense: the heretical nature of science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

11 Van Valen LM. Why misunderstand the evolutionary half of biology? In Saarinen E (ed.) Conceptual issues in ecology. Dordrecht: The Netherlands, 1982.

12 Friedenreich CM. Methods for pooled analysis of epidemiologic studies. Epidemiology 1993; 4: 295-302.

13 Dickerson K, Scherer R, Lefebvre C. Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews. Br Med J 1994; 309: 1286-1291.

14 Thompson SO, Pocock SJ. Can meta-analyses be trusted? Lancet 1991; 338: 1127-1130.

15 Ahlbom A. Pooling epidemiological studies. Epidemiology 1993; 4: 283-284.

16 Ziman J. Reliable knowledge: an exploration of the ground for belief in science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

17 Thompson SO. Why sources of heterogeneity in meta-analysis should be investigated. Br Med J 1994; 309: 1351- 1355.

18 Victor N. Indications and contra-indications for meta-analysis. Clin Epidemiol 1995; 48: 5-8.

19 Oxnam AD. Checklists for review articles. Br Med J 1994; 309: 648-651.

10 Julian D. Trials and tribulations. Cardiovasc Res 1994; 28: 598-603.

31 Charlton BG. Mega-trials: methodological issues and clinical implications. J R Coll Phys Land 1995; 29: 96-100.

22 Horvitz RH. A clinician's perspective on meta-analysis. J Clin Epidemiol 1995; 48: 41-44.

23 Peto R, Collins R, Gray R. Large scale randomized evidence: large, simple trials and overviews of trials. J Clin Epidemiol 1995; 48: 23-40.

24 Yusuf S, Collins R, Peto R. Why do we need some large, simple randomized trials? Stat Med 1984; 3: 409-420.

23 Charlton BG. Randomized trials: the worst land of epidemiology? Nature Med 1995; 1: 1101-1102.

26 West RR. A look at the statistical overview (or meta-analysis). JRColl Phys Lond 1993; 27: 111-115.


Note added: I wrote the above 22 years ago, when I was a lecturer in Epidemiology and Public Health; and would judge that it is one of the best and most original things I have done in that line. The conclusion that meta-analysis is almost always bogus and misleading remains as correct as when it was published, but the relevance is now far greater since ignorant pseudo-scientific meta-analysis has all-but taken-over the medical, and indeed bioscientific and psychological, literature; and is routinely mis-used to evaluate causality, measure generalizable treatment and causal effect size, and as a basis for public policy and clinical guidelines. The hegemony of meta-analysis is thus an encapsulation of the corruption of science.  

In his book Merlin (2006) (extracted at Albion Awakening), Geoffrey Ashe gives a synthesised summary of story, prophecy, poems, archaeology and legends - and traces Merlin's lineage up to the present day.

Merlin emerges as an unique composite-individual, with a special significance for the island of Britain.

It is clear that Christians have become unemployable in positions of high status and responsibility; and this exclusion is being incrementally extended to lower and lower employment positions.

The main reason is probably the fear that Christians may be honest in the workplace - which, in the modern workplace, with its endemic corruption covered by pervasive dishonesty, could be 'disastrous'.

Of course, most people - including many/ most Christians, have no problem about being dishonest; indeed, they don't even notice it. Dishonesty is the air they breathe: they are dishonest in almost every sentence, and certainly dishonest in every paragraph. So much dishonesty - everywhere, all of the time - becomes specifically undetectable. It is just 'how things are done'.


Indeed, in my experience, the most pervasively-dishonest people - those whose every communication is an act of calculated manipulation - may become genuinely outraged and angry if their dishonesty is noticed, or pointed-out. For them honesty just is expediency, and expediency just is how they communicate and act. It seems grossly unjust for them, personally, to be singled-out for doing what is general, approved and indeed compulsory within the organisation.

For someone to threaten to expose any specific dishonesty (even in private) is to disrupt the system of inter-dependent lies - this is called 'hypocritical'.

Modern people are, in general, not hypocritical in this sense - because modern people are complicit.


For example, the extreme instances of sexual abuse in Hollywood (eg those involving rape of chidlren) are sustained by the fact that essentially-everybody is complicit in the sexual revolution in one or another of its many aspects, to a greater or (mostly) lesser extent.

And Hollywood is an excellent place to pursue sexual promiscuity of all kinds - so many/ most of the people there will be exploiting the sexual opportunities as much as they can.


Complicit employees are usually acceptable, because they are Not honest. They are kept in line because because, in a system of corruption, everyone is complicit; but it is the low level employees that get busted for corruption.


So modern employers want people who are complicit with corruption, especially the corruptions of the sexual revolution - becuase such people will not be honest.

Modernity entails the exclusion of honesty. 


However, quite a few non-Christian ethnic groups are also not complicit with sexual corruption; yet these are regarded as acceptable - even desirable, because 'virtue-signalling' - employees.

Closer examination will show that this is although such ethnicities are not complicit in many forms of corruption (indeed they may rigorously oppose the sexual revolution, they may reject drugs and alcohol, they may reject self-mutilation etc.); but neither do such ethnicities regard honesty as a duty. Thus they are safe to employ. 


Genralised and principled honesty is a Christian virtue - a specifically-Christian virtue.

It is, in fact, only Christians - and only some minority of the self-identified Christians - who are not complicit in the system of lies; and who know they have a duty to speak-out honestly in general and to everybody, at all times and about all things.

These are what the modern mainstream calls 'fundamentalist' Christians - and it is the type of fundamentalist Christians that are not-complicit and also honest, who are now unemployable.


(Quite obviously, and rationally, when you are running a corrupt system, and are happy with the state of corruption, and personally benefit from it; then it would be dangerous to employ people who are not-complicit and who are also honest. That is just asking-for-trouble.)


And this is why 'fundamentalist' Christians - and only Christians - are excluded from employment, and responsibility.

Serious Christians already unemployable in high level elite positions, and we are increasingly unemployable at almost any level in modern institutions, organisations and corporations.

And the prospect is one of (de facto and aimed-at) total exclusion of serious Christians from all mainstream social organisations at every level.


Dis-honesty is the best policy! You know it makes sense...


Just to clarify: serious Christians are the only class of persons who are systematically being excluded from institutions and employment at present - but there are also individuals who are honest and non-complicit that are also being excluded. David Icke is a current, in the news, example - relevant because he is anti-Christian (or anti-Christian-priests & -churches at any rate).

Dishonesty is the most pervasive form of corruption - and the one that enables all the others to thrive.

This is possible because humans are Not naturally honest; neither intrinsically, biologically nor culturally honest.

Instead, as a general rule, people tell other people whatever is expedient - constrained only by what is deniable... what they can get-away-with - and truthfulness is reserved for a few, very specific situations.

But even specific honesty - as a positive goal - is unlikely, unless honesty is general. Science was basically honest until about the middle 1960s, but in face of the collapse of Western societal honesty is now no more honest that mainstream culture: which is to say that modern 'science' (ie professional research) does not even aim to be honest.  


Generalised honesty is, in essence, a purely Christian virtue, and has existed only in (some) Christian societies, and when Christianity has been dominant. And as Western Christianity has lapsed and been driven-out from public discourse and from all major social institutions (including law, education, and science); so has the ideal of honesty.

There is a clear dichotomy. Honesty is either a social ideal, and as such is the aim of all statements - great and small; or else is it is not - and any statement may be framed on a continuum from maximum to minimum honesty - from strictest possible honesty, to maximum strategic expediency.

Such thoughts were prompted by an extremely clarifying quote from the Instapundit Glenn Reynolds (H/T Dox Day):

Remember, they’re not making a big deal about sexual assault in Hollywood because they found out about it. They’re making a big deal because you found out about it.

The lessons of the Hollywood/ Mass-Media-in-general sex scandals are being lied about (purposefully, strategically) just as the normal, standard, approved, systematic sexual depravity and corruption of Hollywood is lied about in multiple ways.

The Mass Media who report the sex scandals are exactly the same social system within which the depraved sexuality occurs. What we can see is that there is a near-total cleavage in the sexual morals of the Mass Media and of ordinary people - especially in relation to the business of paedophilia/ pederasty/ assault/ rape relating to pre-pubertal children which is clearly common in the Mass Media, and a very common motivation among global Establishment leadership - while being almost unknown and incomprehensible outside of it.

This is not 'normal sexuality' being liberated by wealth and opportunity - it is a rare, corrupt, perverted and alien form of sexual desire. Yet it is so common among the ruling elites (not only in the mass media, but also politics and several other of the major social institutions) as to be regarded by insiders as normal.


As Glenn Reynolds said: from the mass media insider elite perspective, the only problem about systematic sexual corruption is when ordinary people get to hear about it. When there is honesty about what the insider elites are doing sexually, as a matter of daily routine - indeed as a matter of specific strategic preparation and organisation.

Otherwise it is evil concealed by lies upon lies, decade after decade. Among many tens of thousands of (rich, famous, powerful, high status) people who know exactly what is going-on and are quite happy about the situation - so long as other-people don't know what is going-on. 


If, like me, you believe that the mass media is the primary and most powerful social institution in The West; and the social institution that most pervasively shapes the minds, motivations and attitudes of the largest numbers of people... well then, This Is A Problem.

In fact it is, not just A problem; but The problem.

   

I have been struggling to find a term to express what I believe is needed in the modern West, here-and-now, for you and me; and the best I came up with was Spiritual Christianity, which I was never happy with since 'spiritual' is such a vague and multi-meaning kind of word.

(And a word that mostly refers to mostly-bad things, and things which are mostly-bad.)

Perhaps Direct Christianity is a better term?

What I am trying to express is that we need to be Christians (first and foremost) - and/ but we need to be Christians whose faith is based primarily upon what is directly-known.

There are two direct sources of knowledge: inspiration and intuition.

Inspiration is direct knowledge of God-without, of God as a separate Being. It is an old form of knowledge - for example Socrates describes very explicitly his inspiration by The God (his daemon, as it is sometimes called). Inspiration may come from prayer, meditation or simply arrive in the mind - the point being that inspiration is experienced as directly knowing the nature, motivations, wishes of God.

Intuition is direct knowledge of God-within, of God within-us - made possible because we are sons and daughters of God, therefore partly divine. Intuition is, I believe, a recent possibility - only possible since we became self-conscious in the modern way - and only made possible by means of the slow developmental-unfolding of the 'cosmic' work of Jesus Christ.

So, Direct Christianity would be something relatively new (only possible at all for a couple of hundred years, and only becoming widely possible more recently) - something that is active and a choice, something only possible by being able to know (consciously, explicitly) the true, divine self we all have-and-are.

For most people, attaining Direct Christianity can only be a goal, gradually and intermittently attained, and of variable strength and intensity. It provides us with the essential experience from which we can learn reality - this learning being a thing that happens at the level of eternal and universal reality (and not within our mortal brains or bodies).

Anyway, the idea is that Direct Christianity is now the primary form of Christianity, and indeed the only truly honest and viable form of Christianity - something which almost all serious Christians actually-do... but more-or-less unconsciously... And to do it un-consciously is not really to do it at all!

What I mean is that to be a serious Christian as a Westerner in The West and Now cannot be the passive and obedient, unconscious and childlike thing that it used to be some hundreds of years ago - and cannot means cannot. Those who think they can, are fooling themselves.

But anyway, we shouldn't want-to - we should want-to move forwards to something better, because more divine, more Christ-like.

Since it can be done - we ought to choose-to do it: but is must be chosen, cannot be compelled.


Note added: If you wonder why I suppose Direct Christianity is possible; one possible answer is that it is necessary. Here-and-now, with psychology, society and churches as they are, it is necessary that we have access to direct and personal forms of guidance - and preferably at least tow such, in case of errors. And because it is necessary, God has ensured it is available. 

Further note: In a simultaneous post, William Wildblood clarifies that (to use the terms above) Inspiration needs to come before Intuition.

A pessimistic - but I hope realistic - interpretation and analysis of the across-the-board-with-no-exceptions decline of Western Christian Churches in England especially; but The West (including the UK, Europe and the Anglosphere, even including the USA) more generally - has been posted over at Albion Awakening.

The mechanism proposed by Steiner was that there were certain changes that needed to be made, spiritual steps that needed to be taken, by Western Man in a fashion that was willed, conscious, explicit - and if such steps were not taken (and they were not taken) then the desired changes would appear in a distorted form as instincts post-hoc interpreted rationalistically...

I have edited parts the lecture to focus on the parts relating to what-turned-out-to-be the sexual revolution, now mainstream and dominant in the West - I have ruthlessly 'translated' some of Steiner's idiosyncratic terminology - so this is an interpretation as well as an edited version. Some of my comments are [in square brackets].

The whole lecture can (and should) be read here - but, be warned, it is difficult: 

What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future? 

Then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the consciousness of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies. 

Here lies the great danger for this age of the Consciousness Soul. [That is, the era in which consciousness, self-awareness, is intensified to the exclusion of contact with reality - the age of disenchantment, alienation, materialism.] This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us. 

But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out during sleep? Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping human bodies and Man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity, and therefore baleful. 

Certain instinctive knowledge will arise in human nature connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole; and this threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect. 

The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness. 

These sexual instincts would not be mere aberrations, but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.

So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left, which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene — instincts of a fearful kind.

And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. But light cannot be shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the outcome of the earlier ...

Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by science.

Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! 

In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness. 

Yet, nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as natural necessity. But it would actually denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential being.


Comment: In other words, our true destiny is for each of us deliberately, by choice, consciously and explicitly to make the next step in the evolution towards divine consciousness.

But if we do not make this choice and take this step (and we have-not done so in the past century since Steiner gave this lecture), then we will instead have...

What I find especially impressive about this prediction is that insight that the sexual aberrations would come to configure social life; and would be explained-away by 'science' as natural and inevitable developments: "Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes... and would experience... satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses"; and would see these as "evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness"; amounting to a mainstream societal adoption of value-inversion - "ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness".

Well, we will have exactly what we actually do have: Steiner's prophecy regarding the sexual revolution has-been fulfilled; explicitly and to the last detail.

I think visions or knowledge of the future, for example in dreams, are something that happens only sometimes and to only some people - and the previsions are (so far as I know) always imperfect in their precision and/ or accuracy.

How might such things happen?

Well, I regard life as being destined - that is unfolding according to an overall plan - but insofar as there are being exercising their agency (free will) these plans must continually be modified.

So - with respect to means and ends - if divinity to to reach certain ends, then the means must be flexible.

In other words, if the deity wants some specific thing to happen - some specific outcome to be reached, then the plan for how to reach it needs repeatedly to be modified to take account of the choices (agency) of the participants in the plan.

This, I take it, is why previsions are not wholly accurate - because the plan now is not going to be exactly the same as the plan next week - because in the mean time, some people have used their agency in unpredictable ways; so the vision of the future we have now, will not be exactly the same as the future as it turns-out - due to the interference of agency.

Indeed, the previsions are most likely relating to means rather than to ends - they are not (not usually) end points or aimed-at outcomes, but previsions are usually rather trivial and contingent things, presumably en route to the actual aimed-at situations.


(This scheme only makes sense when it is understood broadly what deity is trying to accomplish with destiny... and that this is a matter of (put ultra-simply) providing experiences from-which individual men and women can learn, aimed at enhancing the long-term post-mortem spiritual progression of specific individuals in a multitude of individual ways.)

From the inimitable John Michell, at Albion Awakening...

A superb scene from the Dreamworks movie Shrek Ever After (2010) in which the Pied Piper enchants the orgres. Watch out for the thin, black, cloaked and broad-hatted figure of the piper, and his wonderfully well-animated spidery dance:


To hear the music alone - which is well worth it:


I love the over-blown, bluesy, distorted improvised flute with jingling harpsichord in the intro; then the driving synthesized bass coming-in - then the quieter sections with the flashy flute runs etc.

The fascinating thing is how this piece works so very well as a 'single' length instrumental, yet was totally ('retrospectively', presumably) synchronised to the pre-existent on-screen action.


BTW Jeremy Steig is the flautist - Shake Your Groove Thing was written by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren and production was by Michael Simpson.

Are psychological-biological group differences (between social classes, races, men and women) real with respect to... intelligence, aggression, conscientiousness, strength, height, educational attainment, work ethic &c &c...

Are they real? What does the evidence say? What does rigorous reasoning say?


I have intense personal experience of such issues - because in 2008 I was briefly at the centre of an international media firestorm in relation to differences in general intelligence between social classes, and the effect such differences would be expected to have on admissions to universities of varying levels of selectivity.


My position was quite straightforward - but it depended on assumptions which, it turned out, were not shared by the majority of people in mainstream politics, education and the mass media.

My basic assumption was that it was plausible that there would be differences in intelligence, hence IQ measurements, between social classes. This arising from the application of normal psychological standards of evidence; mainly the a combination of the high heritability of IQ on the one hand - and the causal association between IQ ranking and a wide range of life outcomes including job status, educational attainment and salary.

Given my assumption that class differences in average intelligence (and distribution of intelligence) were inevitable, for me the only live issue was how big were these differences in a given situation, and how great an effect would be expected on that specific situation.


BUT - if the solid assumption is that there are NOT class differences in intelligence - then all of the above evidence and reasoning, and any other potential evidence that might be brought-forward, must inevitably be false, for one reason or another; and the only live issue is to find the specific falsehood in each study and expose it.

And fault-location need not be done too carefully, since even if a fault could not be located, it is already known for sure that a fatal flaw is present - because the given answer was wrong.

Indeed, the main flaw intrinsic to research showing class differences in intelligence was assumed to be malicious lying in support of a right-wing/ fascist/ 'racist' political agenda - because only a person who (whether openly or secretly) hated and/ or despised the 'lower classes' would even do research into intelligence differences according to class.

In other words any and all studies claiming to show intelligence differences between social classes were either bad-science because incompetent; or, more likely, bad-science because fraudulent.


So, from this experience, I learned the futility of arguing about evidence when it comes to matters of fundamental assumptions - of metaphysics. If you assume that group differences are plasuible - there is ample, high quality of evidence consistent with such assumptions. But if you assume that there are no such differences - then it is an easy matter to explain-away any and every piece of apparent evidence, and to dismiss the arguments of those who oppose you.


The only way that resolution could be found, in principle, would be if the participants were prepared to reveal and evaluate their fundamental assumptions; to try to see which was more plausible; or indeed whether some other set of assumptions might be superior.

Metaphysical analysis and evaluation is therefore an absolute necessity for resolving this particular issue; and by extension for all similar issues in relation to group differences.


How important is this? Extremely important; because the denial of such group differences is the basis of almost all major Liberal/ Left/ Labour-Democrat party policy over the past half century - because it is by assuming that there are zero significant and relevant class/ race/ sex differences of a psych-biological type that the alternative inferences can be put down malign to class/ race/ sex prejudice - and such prejudice is the rationale for most modern Establishment policy.

But upon this metaphysical assumption of no-difference rests a vast interaction of vested interests - upon this assumption rests the entire rationale of the entire Establishment of all the major social systems (politics, civil administration, law, business, health, education, arts, police, military and the mass media, mainstream religion... everything).

Honest metaphysical analysis is the only possible answer - but such is always and at any cost avoided.

So, there is nothing to be done unless or until the discourse has been shifted to metaphysics. And meanwhile accumulating or presenting evidence and reasoning will continue to be futile; a waste of time at best and counter-productive more often than not...

This is the essence of what I am currently trying to get across - a break point with the usual way of considering things.

Abstraction (pretty much) IS Positivism... and Positivism is what we are trying to escape. This, at least, is the case when Positivism is reconsidered as meaning Abstraction.

We start out as Personal - when we are children. As human culture (so far as we know) started out as personal - animistic, anthropomorphic, everything alive, conscious, personal.

Abstraction was introduced by (?) the Ancient Greek philosophers, and it grew initially in and from a situation of unconscious and spontaneous personalism. Thus the AG's advocated abstraction, but they were (by our modern Western standards) very animistic in their thought, behaviour and language (this last being well attested by Owen Barfield in his 1928 book Poetic Diction and elsewhere).

Since then Western Culture has become more abstract and less personal until now public life is wholly abstract - to the point that even in the Mass Media the personal is wholly abstract... that is my interpretation of the identity politics which has taken-over in the past 50 years: even people are now wholly (abstractly) representative of the class/ sex/ non-sex, race, religion of whatever. (As in the foundational feminist phrase The Personal Is Political.)

OK, it may be agreed that modernity is too abstract - a matter of models and symbols... but most people would regard The Concrete as the Opposite of The Abstract; I'm here pointing out that it is the Personal which is opposite.

So we must apparently become Personal instead of Abstract - but, I would emphasise, Not by trying to go back to being unconsciously and spontaneously and passively Personal, like a child or a putative simple hunter gatherer...

This times and in the future it much be a choice, a choice or decision that must be consciously and freely made. We need to decide that Personal is how things Really are: that deep-down and objectively things are ultimately Not abstract, but that they Are instead personal.

So we live in a reality, a universe, a world, where things are persons, things are beings - beings are persons... at bottom and root we have living and conscious beings.

This entails that mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology are not really real; these are (more or less use-full) simplified (= ultimately and always false) models.

(Same applies to the abstractions of managerialism - all those processes, measures, stats and targets - they aren't The Bottom Line they are plain wrong.)

It's a big change I am asking and advocating; but I think this is exactly what is demanded, what we need to do - by divine destiny. It's where we are all going, sooner (this mortal life) or later (after mortal life)... although we can, of course, always deny it; because we can (we are free to) deny anything...

When I do these ‘different takes’ on doctrine or theology, the idea is that sometimes, some people need to see the important ideas from a new angle. 

‘Some people’ including myself – in that there are matters that I find I do not *really* understand that everybody else apparently finds straightforward. 

When I make some kind of a mini-breakthrough or obtain a clarification, my hope is that this might help somebody else (some individual – not some mass or group of people). 

Surprisingly often, this is the case – and that person lets me know that it has ‘hit home’. 

This is what blogging is all about, for me. The majority of people, for whom any specific remark is unhelpful, should (and generally do) ignore it!


The above was abstracted from a comment I made at Junior Ganymede, and was included in a delightsome extemporised post by Blogmeister-G.

I have belatedly realised (such things always take me a t-herribly long time) that the modern world is being duped - wholesale - by the fake assertion that process is the ultimate source of validity; whereas in fact provenance is the basis of truth...

Allow me to explain... The (modern, fake...) idea is that 'understanding' of something is a matter of being able to describe it in terms of process; and that correct understanding has happened when process leads to predictable outcomes.

So - the modern activity of professional bureaucratic research that calls-itself 'science' claims that valid results are what come-out-of this process of research, and what comes out of this process is intrinsically valid. Science is regarded as The Process.

But, it would be truer to say (although still an abstraction) that science is what comes-out-of scien-tists; that is, out-of individual human creative-beings whose motivation is scientific. Science is what-(real) scientists-do.

Other examples would be my current obsessions of Primary Thinking and Polarity. I have been having difficulties explaining these, including to myself (especially polarity...). And these difficulties are related to my trying to do this explaining in terms of process - which is an abstraction.  I should instead have been trying to understand them in terms of their provenance.

Yet my explicit metaphysical foundation is that ultimate reality is personal, not abstract - my bottom line is that reality is made up of beings (variously alive and conscious beings). Abstractions are therefore merely models - therefore (being models) always simplified and always incomplete and always not-true... no matter how expedient or useful in limited circumstances.

So, trying to explain Primary Thinking in terms of process is always and necessarily wrong - in reality primary thinking is the thinking of that-which-is-primary: i.e. the thinking of our real self, which is a divine self (a son or daughter of God): a self that is in part existent from eternity.

The thinking of this real self is primary thinking - and the validity of the 'products' of divine thinking comes from that provenance: that is from thinking's origin in the real self. Thought that originates-from the real self is valid, and that provenance is what makes thought valid...

And polarity... I have (following Coleridge and Barfield) tried to explain it abstractly, that is as a model... but polarity so-considered is a process; a process consisting of opposed by inextricable centrifugal (feminine) and centripetal (masculine) elements... and so on. And all processes are abstractions, hence wrong.

So, in the end, polarity has not really been understood. And nobody can make a machine or any other model that 'does polarity'... Only beings do it.

Polarity is an abstract model of creativity, and creativity is done by beings.

The ultimate creativity is to create creators - that is, to pro-create, to have offspring. Thus the ultimate reality, of which polarity is merely an abstraction, is the fertile dyad of man and woman; of two complementary beings.

Other types of creativity (literary, scientific artistic etc) are inextricable from the inclusion of beings - a poem without a person to read/ a symphony without someone to hear it... is not a creative product but merely ink marks on paper.

All creativity entails beings. (And beings entail life and consciousness - of some type and degree.)

That is, creativity is also (like polarity, like primary thinking) a matter of provenance, of source and origin...

So, to return to Primary Thinking - we cannot explain it as a process, indeed that is its nature to be inexplicable as a process - else it would not be primary (and instead 'the process' would be primary).

We know primary thinking by knowing that we do it - more exactly, that we have been-doing it: that our real self has-been-thinking. We cannot look-within the process of primary thinking - because primary thinking is what eventuates-from our real self. We know primary thinking by recognising that it has-eventuated - we recognise primary thinking as a product-of our real self, thinking...

Therefore, the deepest understanding is not of (inevitably incomplete and biased) abstract models of processes; but knowledge of the nature of the beings that constitute reality.


Aside: All this is why and how Christians can correctly regard love as primary in God's creation - which would not make sense if ultimate understanding of creation was of the nature of physics or mathematics. Love is primary because beings are primary - thus ultimate reality is alive, conscious, purposive.