[FRIAM] never enough power laws!

[gⅼеɳ ☣]

> Marcus Daniels marcus at snoutfarm.com, Mon Aug 28 14:19:59 EDT 2017:
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-physicist-modeling-isis-and-the-alt-right/537699/

Johnson says: "Which is interesting, because that means there’s probably more opportunity to persuade them away, for instance by trying to get into one of the groups that seem to be where they are heading and soften the message and deflect the person away.  Now, that’s not my business; I do the science. But there are interesting possibilities that we hope might be looked into."

I can't help but be put off by this assumption of objectivity.  I think, as I age, I become more and more convicted by the idea that you can't study or understand anything without manipulating it.  But maybe in Johnson's case, it's simply an extension of the idea that their model is "mechanistic" (differential equations of objects).  It's natural for us to think of our mechanistic models as actual mechanisms ... It's a kind of crypto-induction.

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☣ gⅼеɳ