Scroll down to read this post.

 

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News


The moral and intellectual decline of American academic research

Link here. This well documented essay outlines how federal government funding has poisoned American academic research, and if we do nothing to fix it, will only be another precursor of a coming dark age.

My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields.

Yet, more importantly, training in “science” is now tantamount to grant-writing and learning how to obtain funding. Organized skepticism, critical thinking, and methodological rigor, if present at all, are afterthoughts. Thus, our nation’s institutions no longer perform their role as Eisenhower’s fountainhead of free ideas and discovery. Instead, American universities often produce corrupt, incompetent, or scientifically meaningless research that endangers the public, confounds public policy, and diminishes our nation’s preparedness to meet future challenges.

The essay focuses on how the lure of tax dollars has warped and corrupted medical research, but anyone with any knowledge of almost all other fields of science that now depend on federal funding will recognize the same problems.

Many of the stories the author documents include major universities (Duke, Cornell, Harvard) that not only have been producing lots of studies have required retraction or included documented fraud, but have also not done anything to punish those involved.

Overall, this study, along with the many examples of totalitarian attempts to silence dissent on American campuses, proves that these institutions no longer any public funding. At a minimum, high school students should consider other colleges. At best, they should be shut down.

Hat tip reader John Jossy.

The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.

 

Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.

8 comments

  • I have noted that, in general, and in education and health care in particular, that the more resources available to a system, the more the system focuses on process at the expense of goals.

  • V-Man

    Yep, it’s another application of Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

  • mike shupp

    And on the other side, defending things, I’ll point to
    “https://aeon.co/essays/higher-education-in-the-us-is-driven-by-a-lust-for-glory”

  • mike shupp

    One more, which will let readers blame either governments or capitalists:

    “https://www.salon.com/2020/02/02/the-art-of-scientific-deception-how-corporations-use-mercenary-science-to-evade-regulation/”

  • Phill O

    I disagree with your first link mike.

    “Fear works by holding the threat of firing over the heads of workers in order to ensure that they stay in line: Do it my way or you’re out of here.”

    It is this fact in academia which has pushed the AGW theory to the point of some saying that it is”Settled Science” which is absolutely incorrect.

    It is fear of offending which has lead to the discrimination of conservative thought on campuses.

  • eddie willers

    I wouldn’t trust anything from Solon.

  • James Street

    Headline from The Babylon Bee:
    “Yale Med School To Stop Teaching Medicine Discovered By White Males”

  • Edward

    Phill O noted: “It is fear of offending which has lead to the discrimination of conservative thought on campuses.

    However, it is perfectly acceptable to offend conservatives, just not the other way around. After all, progessives define conservatives as intolerant of any thought other than their own, so any thinking that deviates from progressive thinking should be mocked, shut down, and eliminated. Therefore, the science is settled, because the progressives say it is. There is no need to debate the issue, because logic has nothing to do with it, only emotions, such as being offended. And it is perfectly acceptable to offend conservatives.

    Meanwhile, I heard on the radio hourly news, this morning, that a scientist is predicting a little ice age until 2050. I found this on the interweb, from a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK:
    https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/2015/07/northumbria-academic-says-little-ice-age-could-hit-earth-in-2020/

    Prof Zharkova described the research as ‘the first serious prediction of a reduction of solar activity that might affect human lives’. If the decrease in solar activity takes place, it could result in a period similar to the ‘Maunder minimum’ of 1645 to 1700.

    Zharkova and her co-authors extended the prediction of solar activity to future cycles. They discovered that the waves become fully separated into the opposite hemispheres leading to a sharp decline in solar activity in years 2020 t0 2050 – comparable with the conditions of the Maunder minimum in the 17th Century. This will lead to a reduction of the solar magnetic field and a noticeable decrease in solar irradiance.

    I suppose it is not coming from a progressive AGW scientist, so it will be mocked, shut down, and eliminated. I wonder how this hypothesis made the news? The article says it is news in many countries.

    Speaking of declining morals and intellect in American academic research, this may not extend to the UK. Prof Zharkova has confidence enough to encourage others to check her work:

    Speaking about her confidence in her team’s work, Prof Zharkova added: “I am absolutely confident in our research. It has good mathematical background and reliable data, which has been handled correctly. In fact, our results can be repeated by any researchers with the similar data available in many solar observatories, so they can derive their own evidence of upcoming Maunder Minimum in solar magnetic field and activity.”

    Unlike that East Anglia guy who would rather lose his tree-ring data than let anyone check it — and then did lose the data when others insisted upon checking it. Since he is a progressive, no one is allowed to question his motives, because that may offend him.

    Hmm. East Anglia is in the UK, too. Maybe morals and scientific integrity are declining around the world. I wonder whether it is dependent upon whether or not someone can offend the scientist, because he is emotional rather than intellectual. Maybe part of that emotion is greed, and this results in a pursuit of government grant money rather than pursuit of actual knowledge of the world around us.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *