#Methodological Rigor

[omegaphilosophia]

Demarcating Science: Criteria for Distinguishing Science from Pseudoscience

The demarcation problem, which is the challenge of distinguishing science from pseudoscience or non-science, has been a topic of debate among philosophers of science for many years. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, but several proposed criteria and approaches have been suggested over time. Here are some potential solutions and criteria for addressing the demarcation problem:

Falsifiability (Karl Popper): According to Karl Popper, a scientific theory should be considered scientific if it is falsifiable. This means that for a theory to be scientific, there must be a way to test it empirically, and in principle, it should be possible to find evidence that could potentially refute or falsify the theory. If a theory is not falsifiable, it falls outside the realm of science.

Empirical Evidence: Another criterion for demarcating science from pseudoscience is the reliance on empirical evidence. Scientific claims should be based on empirical observations, experimentation, and data. If a purported scientific theory lacks empirical support and relies primarily on anecdotal evidence or testimonials, it may be considered pseudoscientific.

Predictive Power: Scientific theories often have predictive power. They can make testable predictions about future observations or experiments. The ability of a theory to make accurate and successful predictions can be seen as a hallmark of scientific validity.

Methodological Rigor: Science typically adheres to well-established and rigorous methods of inquiry, including the scientific method. The presence of systematic and well-documented research methods, peer review processes, and a commitment to critical evaluation can help distinguish science from non-science.

Progressive Research Program (Imre Lakatos): Imre Lakatos proposed a demarcation criterion based on research programs. He argued that scientific research programs should be judged by their ability to generate novel research questions and solutions. A scientific program that continually generates new questions and adapts to new evidence is considered progressive.

Consensus and Peer Review: Consensus among scientists and peer review processes can be used as indicators of scientific validity. Scientific claims that have withstood scrutiny, debate, and rigorous evaluation by experts in the field are more likely to be considered scientific.

Naturalism: Some philosophers argue for naturalism as a criterion, suggesting that scientific theories should be rooted in natural causes and explanations. Any theories invoking supernatural or unobservable entities may be considered pseudoscientific.

Historical Precedent: Examining historical cases of scientific advancement and the criteria used by scientists in the past to distinguish science from pseudoscience can provide insights into demarcation.

It's important to note that these criteria are not always clear-cut, and there may be gray areas where it is challenging to make definitive judgments. Additionally, some philosophers argue that the demarcation problem may not have a single, universal solution and that it may vary depending on the context and the specific scientific discipline under consideration. As a result, the demarcation problem remains a subject of ongoing debate and discussion in the philosophy of science.

[nineoftoads]

howm I supposed to get thru work today when I have to make sure I get to my tooth fixing appointment this afternoon??

[todays-xkcd]

If you think curiosity without rigor is bad, you should see rigor without curiosity.

Good Science [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Miss Lenhart is standing in front of a whiteboard with some scribbles on it.] Miss Lenhart: I'm supposed to give you the tools to do good science.

[Miss Lenhart is now standing in front of Jill and Cueball, who are seated at classroom desks.] Miss Lenhart: But what are those tools? Miss Lenhart: Methodology is hard and there are so many ways to get incorrect results. Miss Lenhart: What is the magic ingredient that makes for good science?

[Miss Lenhart headshot.] Miss Lenhart: To figure it out, I ran a regression with all the factors people say are important:

[A list, presented in a sub-panel that Miss Lenhart is pointing to:] Outcome variable: • correct scientific results

Predictors: • collaboration • skepticism of others' claims • questioning your own beliefs • trying to falsify hypotheses • checking citations • statistical rigor • blinded analysis • financial disclosure • open data [presumably the list goes on, as it runs off the visible part of the panel]

[Another Miss Lenhart headshot.] Miss Lenhart: The regression says two ingredients are the most crucial: 1) genuine curiosity about the answer to a question, and 2) ammonium hydroxide

[Miss Lenhart, standing, and Jill, seated at desk] Jill: Wait, why did ammonia score so high? How did it even get on the list? Miss Lenhart: ...and now you're doing good science!

[crossdreamers]

Real scientists unmask the anti-transgender Cass Review as methodologically flawed and misleading

The Cass Review, a widely cited report on gender-affirming care in the U.K., has been heavily criticized by researchers for its methodological flaws and unsupported claims.

A new peer review published in BMC Medical Research Methodology found that the review lacked statistical rigor, misrepresented evidence, and excluded key studies without justification.

Headed by pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass, the Cass report dismissed gender-affirming medical care as unreliable, recommending "exploratory therapy," which critics argue is akin to conversion therapy.

The review applied biased analytical methods, misquoted previous studies, and selectively adapted assessment tools to justify anti-trans conclusions.

It also advocated randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for puberty blockers, which experts denounced as unethical. Despite its flaws, the Cass Review influenced policies, leading to a U.K. ban on puberty blockers and contributing to restrictive health measures in the U.S.

Chris Noone and his colleagues write:

Using the ROBIS tool, we identified a high risk of bias in each of the systematic reviews driven by unexplained protocol deviations, ambiguous eligibility criteria, inadequate study identification, and the failure to integrate consideration of these limitations into the conclusions derived from the evidence syntheses. We also identified methodological flaws and unsubstantiated claims in the primary research that suggest a double standard in the quality of evidence produced for the Cass report compared to quality appraisal in the systematic reviews.

Experts urge policymakers to reject the report, calling for research centered on patient autonomy and accurate scientific analysis.

See Them for more.

The science paper can be found here: Critically appraising the cass report: methodological flaws and unsupported claims

[forkingandcountry-if]

For King and Country is an 18+ period immersion fantasy fic which seeks to combine the extensive background work and history associated with high fantasy titles such as LOTR with more ‘realistic’ storytelling and settings. It may contain distressing content like depiction of regressive attitudes (sexism, misogyny and prejudice), major injury to the characters, character deaths, blood, gore, abuse and optional sexual content. More specific warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter 1 Out Now! (277k words)

Remember those long summer days when the countryside was green and life was still young, when you were but a little culver and all the world was promised for you.

But summer has ended. Amidst the furore and tumult, autumn crept in unnoticed, finding you unprepared, still a greenhorn.

Now, the old order is dead, yet the Empire endures. In this new and uncertain world, what are you willing to do for your King and Country, O little culver?

Ah little tragedies, that you could not remain in the safety of your family's country manor, that they could not shield you once again from this world.

You must take to the capital at once, like all men and women of good birth, for king and country and the glory of the commonwealth! The spirit of progress and change has swept through the nation. The heady days of revolution are long over, and the streets have been washed clean of blood and filth. Invited to serve in the King's Army and attend university as a ward of the king, you must answer the King’s call. Navigate and become increasingly entangled in the web of intrigue, gossip, violence, and ideas that swirl around the nation. Enter a society radically different from the one you were raised to expect. These are the years that will decide your fate and that of your fellow countrymen. Act wisely, for it is not often that the world is within your grasp.

Features

Fully customize your MC. Choose your pronouns, sexuality, appearance and more. Assume the identity of a citizen of noble birth and experience the story through their eyes.

Romance one of eight ROs or engage in a polyamorous relationship with a pre-selected two of them. The only possible poly route is the Young King and the Queen Ruler.

Practice and specialise in the skills of the King's Army with the option for swordplay, marksmanship, offensive galderquid and diplomacy.

Define your political leanings on the leading issues of your time.

Debate, engage and make allies and enemies with the various competing factions and interests that flock to the city.

Study at Azma University, earning your lecturers admiration for your diligence, intellect, ambition or adventurousness or cruise through relying on your wealth and ability to hide.

Help to stabilize or sabotage the Empire.

Don't lose your head.

Critical Lore*

Talent

Galder denotes the practice of magic within our nation, a discipline requiring extensive study and mastery. The ability to manipulate Galderquid, the fundamental essence of magic, is a rare and intricate skill, demanding years of rigorous training to achieve even moderate proficiency.

Every individual possesses a basic affinity for Galderquid, but those with exceptional potential are identified through comprehensive evaluations conducted by village or city physicians around the ages of 12 or 13. These assessments determine the individual's capacity for advanced magical education.

Upon evaluation, candidates are assigned a national rank based on their proficiency. Those demonstrating exceptional aptitude are offered state-sponsored education at the Azma Univetsity at the age of 18. Others are placed in various other institutions or may pursue private tutelage.

Galder is often referred to as the "fifth philosophy," characterized by its non-intuitive nature. Mastery requires adherence to rigorous methodologies grounded in reason, first principles, and established precedents. The study of Galder encompasses several specialized fields, each with distinct applications and techniques:

Sympathetic Galder: This field focuses on influencing the minds of individuals or animals. It includes practices such as illusion creation, language translation, emotional manipulation, and sleep inducement.

Transmutative Galder: Involves altering the intrinsic nature or form of objects. This process generally relies on the principle that the original and transformed items must possess equivalent 'worth.' The approximate worth of common subjects of transmutation can be found in any good transmutation book.

Invocation Galder: Pertains to the summoning and manipulation of natural elements, including water, earth, fire, and wind.

Clerical Galder: Associated with the Church, this field is predominantly closed practice. However, educational institutions provide instruction in healing and charming, which are also fundamental aspects of clerical magic.

Archery: Involves the use of Galder to manifest a bow and arrows composed of energy. These projectiles deliver significant blunt damage upon impact but they have more varied usage and techniques as taught by bow-masters.

Blade-Use: Similar to Archery, this field focuses on creating blades, swords, or daggers from Galder. These weapons inflict substantial blunt damage but they have more varied usage and techniques as taught by blade-masters.

The Second Civil War

The Second Civil War, also known as the Revolution, erupted ten years ago and lasted for two years, reshaping the political landscape of the realm. The conflict ended with the ascension of King Edmund I of House Wynd, following a tumultuous period of unrest and upheaval. The war’s roots lay in years of widespread discontent under King Wulfric I Wynd, whose governance was marked by controversial policies and growing resentment among the populace.

The immediate trigger for the war was King Wulfric's deathbed decision to legitimize his illegitimate son and name him heir presumptive, bypassing his eldest daughter, who was widely expected to ascend the throne. This unprecedented act enraged both the nobility and commoners, particularly in Redeemist regions, where it was seen as an affront to both justice and religious teachings. Protests erupted across the empire, with laborers and yeomanry deposing officials loyal to the usurper in a series of violent uprisings. Martial law was declared as the disinherited princess rallied loyal houses and nobility to her cause.

The rebellion gained a critical leader in Marshal Walthe Courtney, a veteran of the unpopular Eleven Years’ War. Courtney’s military acumen and strategic alliances with peasant uprisings turned the tide of the conflict. Alongside the Princess’s royal forces, his army executed a series of decisive sieges, culminating in the Siege of the King's Seat, where the usurper was overthrown.

The war concluded with a great council of the great houses instituting sweeping reforms. Though the monarchy was retained, it was bound by a codified constitution, the Grand East Code, ensuring limits to royal power. Tragically, the Princess died on the battlefield, leaving behind a will that named her youngest brother, Edmund, as the rightful heir. She bypassed their older brother, Cassian, whom she described as “too choleric and red-blooded in his aspect for the duties of kingship,” appointing him as regent until Edmund came of age at 18.

The post-war reforms sought to balance power and placate the revolutionary factions led then by Courtney:

Parliamentary Restructuring: The previous weak bicameral parliament that had been unable to prevent the amendment of the Act of Succession was replaced by a unicameral National Assembly with expanded suffrage for yeomanry and laborers owning sufficient land. Eligibility criteria were simplified, and elections were set to occur every eight years.

Military and Noble Oversight: Nobles' heirs were required to serve as wards of the king for 24 months upon reaching the age of 18, receiving military training and living in the capital. This was framed as a means to unite the realm but also served to prevent rebellion and strengthen Edmund's legitimacy.

Expanded Education: Azma University, previously exclusive to the nobility, was opened to all individuals of suitable skill, broadening access to education and opportunity.

General Walthe Courtney, hailed as a war hero, was appointed Lord Protector with sweeping powers to some extent by the demand of the peasant army he'd led. He served as Commander of the Armies and a critical stabilizing force throughout Edmund’s reign and Cassian’s regency. The King’s Council was restructured to include the elected Premier, who could recommend cabinet appointments, although the King retained the final decision. Early in his reign, King Edmund has established a precedent of accepting the recommendations of both the Premier and the Lord Protector, balancing the demands of reformists and royalists alike.

The King's Army and Azma University

The King's Army, colloquially known among the common folk as the Small Army or King's Life Guard, serves as a voluntary armed force in peacetime within the Empire. Its primary role is to function as a national guard, maintaining peace and order across the extensive and diverse territories of the Empire and swear loyalty solely to the King.

During periods of peace, the King's Guard is comprised of volunteers who contribute to the stability of the nation. However, in times of war, the monarch is vested with the authority to implement conscription, thereby obligating the great houses to raise men to fight for their king.

Following the Great Council of 421, significant reforms were introduced regarding service in the King's Guard. Those heirs of great houses are now required to complete two years service and training within the King's Army as wards of the king although this time can be commuted upon ascension as Lord/Lady Paramount of their house. This training is relatively light compared to full military training, designed to balance the economic and educational responsibilities of these citizens with their military duties.

Azma University is a theological university founded in the year 262AR by Trista of Azma, a master of theology and galder and was recognized by the King as a royal college in 289AR. It's Faculty of Theology is unrivaled across the entirety of the world and is considered one of the foremost institutions for education in galder, theology and philosophy.

Azma admits its students on the basis of the national ranking system and the census taken each year, those students with a sufficiently high natural affinity for the study of galder are offered a place in which to study it beyond the common extent offered by tutors and hedge-witches.

Azma has in recent years, following the second civil war and the increase in punishment by religious courts for physicians who attribute false rankings, with an increased student cohort particularly from the yeomanry and international scholars though the large majority of the general cohort remains largely consisted of the children of nobility.

Beyond its Faculty of Theology, Azma University is one of the foremost institutions driving forward the development of innovations regarding farming and building, mechanics and the engine'ering class that has developed in major cities across the Empire.

Situated in the capital city, Azma University benefits from its central location in what is often regarded as a hub of youthful energy and societal activity. Its reputation as a center for young nobles and genteel individuals enhances the college's role as a key venue for social introduction. It is frequently heralded as a place where the most advantageous social and matrimonial matches are made, positioning it as a pivotal institution in shaping the elite's social landscape.

The Empire

The Empire, as it is commonly known, is a vast realm governed by the Nine Paramountcies and the Imperial Household, all of whom rule from the King's Seat. This grand structure of power was forged between the years 23 ANU (Anno Non Unitus, or Year of the Ununified) and 1 AR (Anno Rex, or Year of the King) through the conquests of King Adan I, who earned the title "the Unifier."

From its inception, the Empire adopted an expansionist stance, which has characterized much of its history. This policy of territorial growth has been met with widespread approval among its citizens, largely due to the substantial wealth and resources it has brought to the nation. As the largest empire in the world and the unifier of the continent, it has established itself as the dominant lingua franca of common, further solidifying its influence and stature.

Throughout the Empire's history, the Imperial Household and the title of King have primarily been held by House Galagar, reigning from 1 AR to 399 AR, and later by House Wynd, from 399 AR to 438 AR. There have been instances where other houses acted as regents, temporarily holding the title on behalf of House Galagar, such as House Champion (348 AR-352 AR) and House Abbey (9 AR-13 AR & 154AR-155AR).

Despite its vast wealth and dominance, the Empire has faced relatively frequent rebellions in its paramountcies where calls for independence have persisted. Historically, these uprisings have been met with swift and overwhelming military responses. However, recently in 399AR during the Wyndham Rebellion, King Hendrick the Conqueror succeeded in overthrowing House Galagar and replacing it with his own house who have led the empire since.

*The lore detailed here is accurate but also only extends as far as the protagonist's knowledge of these subjects at the present time of the fic, some detail will be lost or may have been withheld from the MC and they may have misconceptions.

Romances

When the advisors are not praising his good sense, nor the bards his mirth, the church his piety or the poor his generosity, the question emerges just who is King Edmund I Wynd?

The young king thrust into a position of power who uses it as well as he knows how, having learnt from the mistakes of his grandfather and father and the long shadow of war that is still cast over the continent?

Or is he merely the figurehead, installed after a turbulent civil war, a king whose true authority has been surrendered to the councilors around him, contenting himself with the trappings of kingship rather than its substance?

Alas who is to know?

Name: King Edmund I Wynd

Age: 21

Height: 6'5

Appearance: Edmund stands at a 6'5, noticeably lanky although his seemingly permanent jaunty posture appears to cut an inch or two of him. He possesses short bronde hair styled in such a fashion that it appears wind-swept and fashionably ruffled with various products used to achieve the effect. He possesses a lean athletic physique although it is evidently achieved through some sort of diet or exercise for aesthetic rather than being muscles created by years of work. He nearly always has a relaxed expression with a smile and his pale face is framed by his grey eyes.

(he/him) poly-route, solo-route

Tropes: Life of the Party, Commitment Issues

-

Could it be that she, the queen consort, wields the true power behind the throne, acting as a surrogate for her kind lord, who never could bring himself to grasp the reins of authority?

She possesses the strength and allure of a king in her own right. Under her vigilant oversight, the king’s armies have routed the empire's foes, and now her gaze turns inward, determined to root out the treacherous elements within the realm.

Yet, amid her march towards peace at the end of a sword, there are those who seek to see her order destroyed. How long can it last? A queen consort without an heir, without children, lacking a direct claim to the throne, aging, and some even question her bond with the king himself.

Name: Veronica Abbey-Wynd

Age: 36

Height: 5'9

Appearance: Veronica stands straight at a tall 5'9 although her heels often push her to 5'11 or even 6'0. She has long wavy chestnut brown hair although more often than not it is in an updo of some sort for practicality. She has a healthy physique with faint lines and wrinkles, with an olive skin as well as doe-shaped deep brown eyes. Somehow a picture of beauty and severity, all the soft lines of her body somehow harsh.

(she/her) poly-route, solo-route

Tropes: scary hot, masc women

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Walthe Courtney, Commander of the King’s Armies and Protector of the Realm, emerged as a formidable figure in the Second Civil War. Leading the rebels with unmatched martial prowess, he earned the acclaim of being the finest swordsman in the land. His valor and leadership were instrumental in overthrowing the usurper-king and restoring order to the fractured realm.

In the aftermath of the bloody conflict, he was celebrated as a folk hero—a commoner who rose to lead his people to victory and bring about a semblance of peace. His contributions were rewarded with knighthood and elevation to nobility, an ode to his honour.

Now, as Protector of the Realm, Walthe ensures the continuation of stability with a steady hand. Yet, despite his efforts, a persistent thorn remains, a challenge beyond even his considerable grasp, casting a shadow over his otherwise successful stewardship.

Name: Walthe Courtney

Age: 43

Height: 5'11

Appearance: Walthe has short, practical wavy black hair streaked with grey throughout, reflecting years of experience and hardship. their muscled, well-built stature is a testament to their years of service. He has warm tanned skin, indicative of his heritage being from the centre of the continent. His light green eyes stand out against his rugged features, with a determined, piercing gaze.

(he/him/they) solo-route

Tropes: The Stoic, No Sense of Humour, Heroic BSoD

-

From the day his family and house declared for the usurper-king, it was clear that Lorn Greenspan, the youngest of seven brothers, would be sent away as a ward.

Only eight years old, he had to play his part, leaving behind the familiar chill of his home—its cold peaks and harsh landscape fading from sight. He was a pawn in a conflict he could scarcely comprehend

His father had told him plainly that he must be strong—because until the day their house bent the knee, Lorn would remain a ward, and his father had no intention of surrendering.

Forced to adapt, Lorn became useful, talented, indispensable—not out of love for those his family would call captors, but out of necessity. Now, he stands as your closest advisor and a member of your house in all but name—cool, calculating, indifferent. Yet beneath that icy exterior burns a quiet resolve. Though he never expects his father to yield, he is determined to see his homeland again, even if it means waging war to bring it to heel.

Name: Lorn of Greenspan

Age: 18

Height: 6'0

Appearance: Lorn has a thick head of dark chestnut hair, gently wavy, it is always styled fashionably with pomade and volume. He has a tawny complexion and almost amber, brown eyes that if you didn't know him you'd think were perpetually concerned and caring rather than probing and scanning. Though under his stylish clothes you couldn't tell it, his body is lean and athletic from harsh training.

(he/him) solo-route

Tropes: advisor-turned-lover, secretly-in-love, black cat

-

The unbroken line of Galagar Kings may have fractured at Kirston Wall, but the proud Highland rulers never truly relinquished their claim. To them, Hendrick the Conqueror and his descendants are nothing more than traitors. Yet, they understand that a king's throne is grounded in the right of conquest, and so they bide their time, quietly assembling their forces, tempering their men, and honing their blades.

Preparing for the inevitable clash, they drill relentlessly through lashing rain and violent gales, each generation more convinced of their righteousness and the frailty of their enemies. The realm may slumber in uneasy peace, but in the Highlands, war is always on the horizon.

Kent Galagar, the young Lord of Kirston, was shaped by this belief from childhood. His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather—all were kings in their own eyes, their thrones stolen by usurpers. To Kent, acknowledging this truth makes you an ally, a friend. To deny it brands you an enemy, destined to be crushed when the time comes.

For Kent, proud, arrogant, and stubborn as he may seem, the world is divided by a simple truth: those who support the Galagar claim, and those who will fall before it.

Name: Kent Galagar

Age: 18

Height: 5'9

Appearance: Kent possesses a mane of thick, raven-black hair, often left loose or tied back with a leather strap. His skin is scattered with freckling, with a pale complexion. He has piercing blue eyes and a gaze that can shift from arrogant levity to fiery determination in an instant. His powerful frame is unmistakable, with broad shoulders and a chest that strains against the fabric of his tunics. His physique is defined—broad-shouldered and muscular, but not overly so, with a build that suggests both agility and power. His movements carry the confidence of someone who knows his strength and is unafraid to use it.

(he/him) solo-route

Tropes: Intense, enemies to lovers, jerk with a heart of gold

-

The nobility are arrogant, cruel, greedy, scheming, and foolish—qualities Arfryn has learned all too well through her peripheral access to them. Her current place among them is no accident but the product of the sweat, blood and tears of her entire family.

Born to a guildman father and a common mother from the east continent, Arfryn witnessed firsthand how the shifting tides of national conflict mirrored the fortunes of her own family. Every struggle either bolstered their wealth or teetered them on the brink of ruin, a fate shared by the yeomanry at large.

Her father, Jasper Caldwell, is the first Premier elected from the Small Parliament, a yeoman elevated by the newly enfranchised class. He has—in no uncertain terms—made it clear that his own position hinges on the peace of the realm.

Arfryn, understanding these dynamics, sees through the superficial grandeur of the nobility. Though she finds them to be the very embodiment of arrogance and folly, she is determined to bend them to her will. For now, she plays the game—offering smiles, be gracious, and dance while they are watching.

Name: Arfryn Caldwell

Age: 20

Height: 5'11

Appearance: Arfryn has a striking presence with her rich, deep brown skin and loose, jet-black braids that cascade down her back. Her eyes are a penetrating dark brown, revealing a sharp intelligence behind a charming, amiable demeanor. She dresses in elegantly simple fabrics that highlight her natural grace—always muted and refined to suit her surroundings but always at the very forefront of courtly fashions. At 5'11 her movements are deliberate, blending seamlessly into the nobility’s world, designed to make her easy to like and hard to hold grudges against.

(she/her) solo-route

Tropes: Steel Magnolia, Dark Feminine

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In public Dean Champion is everything a Lady-Knight should be, prodigiously skilled with both galder and weapons, valiant, chivalrous and extremely popular amongst all who meet her or have the chance to witness her in action.

She like many knights is also spoiled to a fault, her suits of armour gleaming and her squire-boys tasked with keeping them so, as they are expensive and extravagant. Indeed she wears them because all people like a performance.

In private, Dean has dedicated herself entirely to her studies at Azma University, determined to learn all there is about the study and practice of galder and perhaps indeed the deeper secrets that only the great masters know—all the better to become both loved and indispensable to the state.

As the younger sibling of a line with many children, she does not expect to ever inherit and nor does she ever want to, she is entirely content with her career as a tourney knight and the life she's lead in the King's Seat thus far. Indeed Dean has long been utterly convinced that she'd make an awful Lady Paramount, she is convinced utterly that all those like her that revel in the spectacle, the fervor of battle and tourney alike are utterly unsuitable for such position.

Name: Dean Champion

Age: 19

Height: 5'9

Appearance: Dean has long deep auburn hair, typically braided for both practicalities sake and fashion, with strands often escaping to frame her face. Her skin is fair as if she'd somehow escaped the sun of both her home and the tourney. Her hazel eyes are bright and framed by dark eyelashes. Dean's build is athletic and commanding, showing off the results of rigorous training and combat practice, yet she carries herself with a grace that befits her status as a renowned Lady-Knight. Her entire demeanor projects a sort of graceful confidence, like that you'd expect of a Prince of ages past.

(she/her) solo-route

Tropes: The Lady and Knight, Knight in Sour Armour

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Fran has long understood that she commands little respect at court—indeed, as a bastard, she finds herself dismissed even within her own family. Yet there is one, a young Lord who is but a child, who gave her legitimacy, who looks up to her, and has earned her unwavering loyalty. Her beloved little brother.

It is for him that she accepted the king's invitation to the King's Seat, to train in the King's Army. She wants to be his eyes, his ears, and his sword.

True loyalty is a rare commodity among the highborn, for what do they owe anyone but themselves and their own appetites?

She is content to endure their scorn and wear the title "Loyal Hound" with pride. After all, what insult lies therein? A good hound is strong, lethal, obedient, loved, loyal, and free to roam so long as it always returns. And return to him she will.

Name: Fran Radwell-Cadderly

Age: 18

Height: 5'7

Appearance: Fran's dirty-blonde hair is cut short, falling just above her shoulders—a length chosen for practicality rather than fashion. Her complexion is fair, lightly sun-kissed from time spent outdoors, with a few sun-spots across her nose and cheeks. Her eyes are a dull blue-green, carrying an intensity that contrasts with her otherwise unassuming features. Her build is lean and wiry, reflecting a life of rigorous training, with a strength that belies her slender frame. Though she dresses simply, her presence is commanding, a blend of quiet confidence and restrained power and it makes her feel much bigger than the 5'7 she stands at.

(she/her) solo-route

Tropes: Guard Dog, Loyal Companion, Golden Retriever

Additional

Dashingdon Demo: out now!

Cogdemos Demo: out now!

Pinterest: not yet available

Art: not yet available

Feedback Survey: not yet available

All Asks and Reposts are appreciated, work will be slow but steady and a demo should be ready shortly!

ask me lore questions please, I have far too many notes on this.

[justblades]

hypothesis — anaxa x fem! reader

IN WHICH, your research study piques anaxa’s interest, inducing him to trap you into a collaboration to achieve the end you both desire

TAGS, MDNI. dub con, university setting, drugged sex, mind fuck, not proofread.

Applause rises from the crowd in front, the expressions painted on the majority’s faces are one of shared joy - it was a moment of delight and fulfillment, as marvelous minds clashed and melded with one another to craft such a significant research. Your group stands proud while the research panel awards you the trophy and certificate, hereby marking a significant milestone; the batch shall continue to tread the endless pursuit of wisdom and knowledge after the graduation.

The previous proud grins of some gradually curl upside down, catching your attention as you whip your head to your members’ direction. You pick up from the beads of tears streaming down their cheeks, the other attempting to bite down his threatening sobs, it was when it finally dawned on you: you truly have made it. The sleepless nights of stress and pressure indeed bore fruition.

After what felt like an eternity of suspense and excitement, the emcee then reads her closing spiel, formally announcing the end of the event. The big day comes to an end, loud cheers of the batch naturally follow, resounding all throughout the grove.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans, as it unties the already woven threads of triumph, letting it all loose as the scrutiny of the meticulous professor lands upon you. Seeds of doubt and confusion were sowed in the depths of your heart as you receive a bizarre call, “Professor Anaxa has queries about your research.”

Standing before you now is the infamous blasphemer of a teacher, whose mind is unbridled of moral restraints for the sake of knowledge. Expectedly, as a scholar, that trait of his was highly condemned and yet you find a part of you justifying his actions whenever you come across such wild rumors.

His fingertips slowly glide past the corners of the hardbound pages, skimming through the context of the rigorous part of your thesis: the methodology. Your heart thrums against your ribcage, this time, twice more as Anaxa slides in his pen to mark the part he was focusing on. Subsequently, he hums and looks at you with anticipation.

Slightest hint of disapproval emanates from his stare, to which the professor tries to coat as confusion to test your resolve. “If I’m not mistaken, you were the assigned leader of your thesis, no?” His voice stern as ever, you immediately respond. “Yes, sir.”

Dating back, you never happened to have a class taught by Anaxa. It was just a one time occurrence when you were able to witness how the cogs of his bright mind function when he stood as an adjudicator for a debate event held by the academy, to which he successfully cracks down the fallacies made by the opposing team with just mere questions, with the purpose of catching them by their own words, akin to a fish biting the bait and digging its own grave.

If anything, you knew him more through rumors and gossip, as the last you heard about was him expressing an opinion that scholars who are hellbent on gaining newfound knowledge shall be willing to bend the arrows of their moral compass to achieve such an end. Naturally, his school of thought anchoring on this expression was heavily criticized for the main reasons of ethics and confidentiality in the field of academics.

“Entitled ‘Efficacy of Specialized Alchemy through the Lens of Genetic Modification’ . . . Interesting. But the theoretical framework and methodology do not align.” He states, slate hue fixating on you. “If you were to study the efficacy of a particular object, you’d normally employ a design that encompasses both the quantitative and qualitative nature of the data to be derived, yet you stuck with one that adheres more to the latter. Care to explain how you came up with this process?”

Your brows furrow, bewilderment sits on your facial expression. The rationale of the methodology is already stated in the same paragraph for that question - why was he asking things that are obvious?

“Professor Anaxa—“

“Please refer to me as Anaxagoras.”

“Sir, as expressed in the introductory text, to determine efficacy, qualitative data shall provide an in-depth understanding of the subject, to name the factors that cannot be determined by merely recognizing patterns and trends. It tends to have a nuanced nature as it doesn’t just describe the leverages of the topic, its drawbacks shall also be determined in order to establish possible interventions for its improvement and to ensure your hypothesis is approved.”

“—Additionally, our thesis hinges on the concept of genetic modification with the main focus of improving our five senses, to be able to heighten them at our own volition as we see fit to be utilized according to the circumstance we are in.”

Anaxa pays close attention to your gestures as your hands tend to move on their own, a habit you happened to develop as you hone your dissertation all throughout these years. “However, our paper just touches upon the efficacy, not the practical application of specialized alchemy.”

“And? What are the results?”

Your jaw widens out of disbelief, as if the answers he was looking for cannot be found in the book. The longer this supposed questioning drags on, the more toll it took on you. Regardless, respect shall be shown, so you backtrack the results of your study. “The majority of the respondents strayed from describing the concept as something that can be done right, but rather, for them, it’s an insult to the human life. The quantitative data geared more to it being an impractical method to improve one’s capabilities, which was further supported by the verbatim cited in the presentation part of the chapter.” You recite, breaking off eye contact with Anaxa, head hung low facing the ground. Your fists balled, a bittersweet mood washes over you, recalling the summary of the data you gathered from the respondents.

“And let me guess, you were disappointed with the results.” With one sentence, you look back up at him, this time, more puzzled than before. A question arises, how did he know?

He slightly tilts his head and waves his hand in the air, “It is truly a shame to realize that these people, supposedly seeking wisdom, are the same ones who will never get to quench this thirst as they are held back by their morals. If we do not change up our methods, do you think it will yield different results each time?” His words had weight on them, not seemingly just blank questions one would typically ask in a thesis defense. The whole exchange becomes all the more confusing.

“I suppose you already have an idea where I’m getting at.” The teal haired drops his finality, and like a last puzzle piece falling into its right place by pure coincidence, you were able to see the bigger picture Anaxa prepared for you.

Alignment stems from shared vision, branching into different methodologies cultivated through revisions to obtain an answer from your assumptions. As Anaxa skimmed through your thesis, it was undoubted that he was able to relate your justification with his school of thought. The two of you were willing to tiptoe on the boundary lines of ethics in research - because if not, how will we be able to procure knowledge if sacrifices were not to be made?

“I understand, sir.” It was when you approved of his invitation that the green curls of smoke in the laboratory started to become more visible, carrying minuscule pigments of shimmer as rays of light spill in the littlest crooks of the room. “Wh—“

You were cut off as Anaxa takes steps towards you while you stepped further away from him. A loud thud echoes in the vicinity as you find yourself trapped between Anaxa’s looming aura and his master desk. The sage’s tattooed hand then brushes softly on your supple skin. Starting from your collarbone, making his way up to your neck, “I employed modifications on my genes to test my assumption - but I couldn’t activate those out of my own volition. To determine the efficacy of something, its participant should be willing. Am I right?”

As if you were at a standstill in time, your breathing hitches the longer his skin is in contact with yours. His fingers were rough, some had dry patches, as expected of a practical researcher. Yet the warmth he exudes from his touch feels foreign, a driving force that makes your stomach churn with a whirlpool of mixed emotions.

“Let’s start off with sense of sight. Close your eyes.” Your chest rises and falls, heartbeat pacing faster in each minute. “Sir—“ Unexpectedly, you follow suit to his command, shutting your eyes. Your brows knit even further, wanting to protest against this method but the words you intend to verbalize die down on your tongue in an instant.

How did he manage to make you follow suit to his command? What else did he incorporate to the component?

Darkness graces your eyes, another chilling sensation rides on your skin. It felt hot, but the second it trails away into another direction, it leaves an icy feeling, lingering.

Thousands of thoughts surface in your mind and none of them were of composure. You were astonished, confused, wanting to beg for more time to adjust but here you are being immediately toyed in Anaxa’s palms. As if acting out of desperation to break free from this predicament, a new pseudo dimension forms, to which faint lines of everything around you could be discerned, each having its distinct color.

The surroundings were pitch black, yet every object in the space had its own different hue, the lines materializing as you try to get used to this awakening. Trying to make out of whatever was happening in front of you, with enough focus, you could envision the sage leaving ephemeral licks on your skin, particularly on the back of your hand. Your jaw falls agape to which Anaxa quickly notices, the corners of his lips then tug into a boastful smirk.

It’s as if he had already put two and two together that he realized your sense of sight indeed improved, incomparable to that of a mere human’s.

“Second. Sense of hearing.” As soon as he announces his next step, he prods into your mouth with the same tattooed hand, inserting his index and middle fingers to explore your cavern of warmth. Your stomach turns as Anaxa toys with your tongue, not leaving enough space for you to breathe nor have sufficient time to process everything.

As this act unfolds, you suddenly begin to hear your saliva being mushed with his fingertips, your mouth making slick noises inside, to which you could do nothing but leave mumbles of puzzlement. “A . . . Naxa.” Every splash of the liquids inside reverberate inside your head, which further affirms Anaxa’s assumptions.

After what felt like eternity, you could finally peel your eyes open and see the view unravel before you, Anaxa being a mere hair’s breadth from your face, goosebumps rake your spine. Up close, his brows are knitted in expectation, eyes somewhat heavy-lidded in which excitement gleams from his slate monochromatic iris. With one swift movement, he stops fiddling with your tongue, taking his digits out, leaving a small trail of saliva connecting your lips to his fingertips.

“My patience is wearing thin.” He expresses, wiping away the smeared saliva from the margins of your lips with his gloved hand. Dumbfounded, you could do nothing but just lie in wait to what he’s supposed to do next. “Let’s amp up our methodology. We’ll be testing the remaining three senses simultaneously. I hope you can bear with it.”

Suddenly, your clothes dissipate into thin air, the fibers curling into little burnt cinders until they��re void of anything. “Anaxa—“ he proceeds to fervently crash his lips into yours, a surprising tang of sweetness cracks on your tastebuds. Your stature wobbles and threatens to fall, but the male had already anticipated that as he supports your weight with an arm slithered on your waist. He aids in maintaining your balance, but it was only a mere second that you were able to think straight when his free hand toys with your inner region.

With little effort, your arousal coats his fingers, muddling his skin’s red markings with a cloud white color, your scent inevitably wafts inside the laboratory. Anaxa inhales deeply, taking in everything all at once that is unfolding. Nonetheless, he proceeds, inserting his fingers into your pussy.

Caught off guard, he thrusts in and out, your walls taking the shape of his long, slender fingers. At the same time, your tongue twirls in rhythm with his, the sweet taste gradually enveloping the cranny of your mouth.

It all felt messy, as if Anaxa’s actions override one another, making everything far more overwhelming than it is prima facie. Your mind was lost, yet your body basks in the foreign sensation, pleasure emerging as you feel you were nearing your satisfaction. The male’s gloved fingers wrap around your neck after and breaks the deep kiss, “Are you ready?” He queries, taking a quick glance at your seeping cunt and trail back up to your eyes with a surprising longing gaze in them.

A second passes by, he undoes the buckles of his belt, letting everything loose as he strokes his own erection, wrapping his coated fingers around himself. You eagerly watch at every movement he does, a tantalizing view to etch in the deepest part of your memory. As he deems himself fit, he rubs his tip on your entrance, the position possibly adding up to the struggle.

His breath drops, feeling a short wave of satisfaction once he gets a taste of your slicked pussy. “Time to prove my hypothesis was right.” Anaxa rams inside you, your walls enveloping around his girth as he struggles to keep himself still. “Anaxa . . !” His tangled thoughts were abruptly cut off as he hears your plea, spiraling into an abyss of pleasure as an intense gaze locks his eye with yours.

“Spit.” He orders, a vague one in which you cannot crack immediately. A breathy moan bubbles from his throat subsequently, a rare occurrence of Anaxa showing vulnerability. Regardless, he expounds. “Gather an appropriate amount of your saliva.” As if obedience was coded into your personality, you purse your lips together. “Let it trickle down your chest.”

You follow suit to his command, slightly parting your mouth open, leaving just enough space for it to stream down your dewed skin, leaving such a sticky feeling. The professor wastes no time as his hands glide up to your tits, fingers fidgeting with your perked nipples, lubricating them with your own spit. He traps the buds within his calloused fingertips as you grant him the most lewd noises you’ve ever made in the entirety of your life.

Anaxa wasn’t the type of person to hunger for indulgences like this. But upon witnessing a remarkable sight right in front of him, impulse rush in as he digs into your mounds as well, the tip of his tongue caressing your nipples.

“It’s too warm . . sweet . . and hot.” Mindless musings come undone the margins of your lips, making the sage’s libido hike even more. Additionally, these testaments of yours reinforce the data he supplied in his test drive journal for this study, another victorious feat for him it appears. “Very good.”

He simpers, starting the momentum of his thrusts to your body, nice and slow in the beginning yet with such intensity and impact in each push. Naughty noises echo inside, along the gibberish you’ve been rambling for a while which were descriptions of the changes occurring in your body. Anaxa encourages it, playing along as if he was able to comprehend your barely coherent sentences.

“Sir, I . . . feel like I’m being suffocated.” You yelp, first time among your endless prattles he was able to understand something, your hips grinding along Anaxa’s dick as he fills you to the brim. You look down and see how easy it was for him to prod into your folds, the very entrance curling around the base of his cock with such longing and excitement. “You’re doing great.” He manages to say in between thrusts and hefty breaths, “What else?”

Anaxa’s praises reverberate in your head, like a badge of excellence as he sees you worthy to be his research partner and that in itself is a privilege. Gradually, the male’s pent up sexual frustration reaches its end as strings of cum sprawl out, Anaxa withdraws just in time. A searing heat of temptation pools inside your body, thoughts clouded with nothing but pure carnal desire instilled by the sage.

“If . . If you’re willing to . . as well, I’d be honored to do more of these with you.”

[h-sleepingirl]

Essay: Hypnosis is Irrational

For PSYCHOSPIRITUAL: A Spirituality/Hypnokink Essay Jam

This is an essay about bonfires, Quaker meetings, Judaism, and the entirely transcendent nature of hypnosis. I'm sorry in advance to philosophers and scientists. Don't come for me until you've seen God in the ceiling through your fluttering lashes!

--

Rationality is a core value of modern western society. Materialism and objective, evidence-based science are seen as the gold standard for how to view the world around us. It’s easy to see why -- this approach has catapulted humanity forward over a relatively short period of time, technologically and philosophically. Finding the truths of the universe through hard evidence and math is extremely compelling and much more logical than basing our views off of conjecture or old religious texts.

Hypnosis entered public western consciousness in tumult. Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism clearly worked, and he had theories of why, but they didn’t hold up to scientific rigor. Really from its inception, hypnosis has been fighting to be seen as legitimate as a medical practice, and as compatible with evidence-based science.

It’s not that it doesn’t make sense that hypnotherapy fights so hard to be accepted as a “real” discipline, or that it needs to go through studies to be practiced on patients. We value medicine that is objectively safe and effective -- for good reason.

That being said…

I am not anti-science. But I do think if we don’t acknowledge the methodology’s limitations, we are being dishonest and misleading -- with ourselves and with those we teach.

Here’s the thing: We are not doing therapy with our partners. We don’t need to be beholden to these limitations. Not in our theory, and especially not in our practice.

We are free -- more free than any other practitioners of hypnosis -- to accept and celebrate its irrationality.

And when we stop trying to shoehorn our experiences into being understandable, we are free to explore and experience unbelievable things.

--

In terms of spiritual beliefs, I would describe myself as a skeptic-leaning agnostic. I think that how you are raised is a major religious influence on you, and I happened to be raised in an atheist household. Despite branching off from my family and taking spiritual exploration seriously, I would never confidently say “I believe in God” or “I believe in magic,” nor that I am even particularly convinced by my handful of difficult-to-explain experiences.

While my spirituality intersects with hypnosis, I am not here to tell you that hypnosis is the result of God or magical forces -- and I’m not here to define how hypnosis fits into “magic” or vice versa. I think that too is a kind of rationalization -- it’s trying to explain something nebulous in a concrete way, trying to fit it into a box.

I don’t think that calling hypnosis irrational should cause us to seek alternative, definitive answers outside of science. I think that we as humans need to be comfortable not knowing, not labeling -- a space that can be very uncomfortable for us, but one that ultimately allows us to have less-filtered subjective experiences.

Subjective experiences are the core of hypnosis. No matter what method is purported to be “objectively” best, the one that you should actually use is the one that makes your partner feel trance most intensely. Science simply cannot anticipate, direct, or account for the subtlety of the subjective experience of hypnosis.

Scientific tests cannot accurately measure anything about hypnosis, because hypnosis relies almost entirely on the softest variables: the interpersonal relationship and biases we have, the way a person is feeling or primed on a given day, the slightest changes in tone or delivery or nonverbal language. We might say that standardized hypnosis is a completely different activity from the hypnosis that we practice with real partners.

A brainwave-measuring machine cannot communicate the intricacies and depth of a trance. I would not be surprised, if I was hooked up to an EEG, that many of my “trance states” would not produce expected effects on the device. Even physically observable signs of trance do not tell the whole story -- I can be having an intensely hypnotic internal experience while appearing completely awake. There is simply not an objective way to tell when I am hypnotized -- it is completely based on my own feelings.

And yet, with shocking accuracy, my partner can tell the exact moment that I slip into trance, even if I give no discernable outward response. When pressed, he often can’t identify what the signal is -- it is very, very subtle, if anything.

It is a moment where his focus on me melds into my experience, into my mind.

Really, there have been countless times in hypnosis that I feel with total certainty that my mind is being read or that I am reading my partner’s mind. It’s shocking, and sort of maddening, and I have heard from many others that they’ve experienced the same thing. Our urge is to say, “Well, that’s a result of unconsciously reading microexpressions, of knowing a person’s nonverbal language intimately, of having a robust internal map of a person, being good at anticipating hypnotic responses, linguistic cold reading tricks.” That’s rationalizing, and it’s all very logical and certainly has some element of truth to it -- but it causes us to say “OK, case closed,” and sigh in relief that we can dismiss the question and no longer be faced with it.

The reality is this: Those are guesses. They are probably pretty good guesses, but I believe we fall into this trap of assuming the logical-sounding guesses we make are objectively correct, even in the absence of evidence.

Ostensibly, the vast majority of “answers” we have about why hypnosis works are just that -- theories, models, best guesses. Science doesn’t even have a singular accepted answer on whether hypnosis is an altered state. Often, working within a given theory (or two) gives us structure and allows us to perform more effectively. But when we really think about the nature of hypnosis, the truth is that we really don’t have much of a solid idea why and how it works.

That’s uncomfortable. I’m not pushing that because it’s the cold, hard truth, or because accepting it is some form of mental asceticism (nor spiritual gateway). I’m saying it because living in that liminal space of irrationality will actually change the way you do and experience hypnosis -- because it frees you from the limitations of feeling like everything we do has to make sense.

--

I have my own theory about why we want to make those logical guesses: Because it feels embarrassing to say we are hypnotists and yet there are things we don’t understand. Because we are afraid of judgment if we say we are actually mind-reading or doing magic, even as a shorthand for a complex invisible process. I think these are unconscious biases -- a result of seeing ourselves as rational people in a rational world. Spirituality is seen as lesser and fake -- entertaining the idea of magic gets you labeled as immature or crazy.

But when you try to remove your biases and think about it, it is crazy that we use just our words to make people forget things, hallucinate things, have orgasms, experience dissolution of the ego. And we don’t really know why.

True curiosity and wonder are hypnosis’s best friends. New subjects who struggle to experience trance or suggestions often are stuck because of their expectations -- they feel like they know what is supposed to happen, so when their experience doesn’t line up, they perceive it as failure. It’s why one of the best ways you can set a person up for “success” in hypnosis is to really cultivate a sense of curiosity, of not being judgmental of their experience, of not assuming they know what is happening.

Even still, this model of trance often has the subject experiencing wide-eyed wonder while the hypnotist actually holds the esoteric knowledge of what’s going on behind the curtain. But in my opinion, the real magic happens when both parties are prepared to question everything they know, to be surprised, to not take for granted, and to observe without rationality.

My most treasured memory is one that I keep close to my chest. Briefly: it was at a hypnosis-friendly bonfire on the autumnal equinox. My partner and I embraced and for an hour had a completely shared experience, wordless and hypnotic and bizarrely spiritual. Neither of us were “driving” -- we were both passengers, almost like being possessed. No drugs were involved, just the two of us in the right place at the right time, able to let go of the feeling that we were “crazy” or being illogical, or that we knew what was going to happen. We were both really shaken by it.

That ultimately led us to being able to have trances, occasionally, where we mutually let our guard down and play without the usual “rules.” We can’t do it intentionally, but sometimes we hit on little pockets of magic, and then the trance becomes like spellcasting, and spellcasting isn’t bound by the laws that supposedly govern hypnosis.

We know that hypnosis is influenced largely by how we expect it to work. We give pretalks to set expectations that often function as suggestions, boundaries, and definitions: “All you need to do to be hypnotized is pay attention -- it’s OK if your thoughts drift.” “Hypnosis might feel different from what you expect, like floating or sinking.” Even: “You can always come out of trance if you need to.”

I believe my partner and I are on similar pages about whether magic is “real.” The word “maybe” does a lot of heavy lifting in my worldview. It’s really more about being open to different perspectives, and playing in different models. So if we can dip into a perspective where hypnosis behaves a bit more like magic -- or otherwise irrationally -- then that actually, literally changes the way hypnosis works.

This is the true nature of hypnosis -- it is a shapeshifter. If you define hypnosis as a science or as a spiritual practice, it works either way. So if you can change the beliefs you inhabit, you will experience wildly different trances. And it may be irrational to assign spirituality and magic to it, but it is not absurd.

--

In this way, belief and perspective is actually where a lot of the nature of hypnosis sits.

After the “bonfire incident,” I was motivated to do some spiritual seeking, and I started going to Quaker meetings. Quaker meetings are simple but intense: People get together in a room and sit silently, opening themselves up to “messages” from within their own hearts or outside themselves, and if they feel moved to share a message, they stand up and speak it. There is no discussion, just completely passive listening and speaking.

I found this to be an extremely potent spiritual environment. We weren’t meditating, per se, just going quiet. Sitting silently for an hour with no other stimulation was luxurious, and felt quite a bit to me like a kind of trance.

I went regularly for a few months. I never spoke, but I did listen. There was one meeting I remember vividly where I was sitting and thinking about something, and at that moment, a woman stood up, and shared a message that was very close to what I was pondering over.

Then another woman stood:

“I know sometimes in this room,” she said, “we feel like we are all thinking the same thing when someone shares a message. This is one of those times for me.”

There was no fear of judgment, nor proclamation of metaphysical experience. It was just a statement of fact.

Quaker meetings taught me to be curious. If the bonfire opened the door, Quaker meetings honed my ability to be irrational. There was a period while I was going regularly where I was seeing wonder in the world at every turn -- a leaf falling on my back felt like a tap on the shoulder, the wind felt like a whisper.

And when my partner and I were doing hypnosis, my rigid belief system became so flexible that I was utterly open to suggestions about my experiences. He would tell me things and I believed them completely, almost like being on a drug, or completely enchanted. We were doing serious magic back then, tempting reality to peel back and reveal the “truth” underneath. It was intoxicating, and it certainly had an element of danger.

As intense as it was, I found this magic to be frustrating too, because I wanted to understand the nature of it -- I wanted to understand hypnosis so badly, and I wanted so badly for magic to be real. I thought that maybe there was a facet of hypnosis that I’d been missing -- some spiritual facet -- that would take me one step closer to an objective, unified, overarching hypnosis model.

I was right that I had been neglecting to think about spirituality with regard to hypnosis. But of course the idea that was leading to some overarching truth was a red herring. The real truth is that there is no overarching truth -- hypnosis can be seen from many models and perspectives, but there isn’t a singular “correct” one.

-- 

I have written extensively about how I feel this is core to hypnosis -- both in educational articles, an upcoming book, and in a personal essay about Judaism. My Jewishness is critically important to me, and has taught me a lot about the value of diverse perspectives, including on the spectrum of rationalism versus spirituality or mysticism.

By some, religion is often seen as incompatible with science (or rationality) -- unprovable mystical forces, an unseeable omnipotent creator. But there have been a number of important rationalist thinkers throughout history, across world religions.

Judaism’s most famous is probably Maimonides -- Moses ben Maimon. He lived in Spain in the 1100s, a time and place where Jewish mysticism was thriving. Maimonides was both a scientist and a deeply religious, learned Jew. One of his greatest contributions to the culture was in codifying Jewish law and practice in the common tongue to make it accessible to the average Jew at the time. In doing so, his rationalism made a great impact in Judaism as a whole.

Maimonides brought Aristotalian philosophy into Judaism, which came with a full rejection of the supernatural -- with the exception of God as transcendent creator. (The creation exists, so it must have been created.) One of his major theological tenets was that there was no conflict between the scientific and the teachings of Torah -- that the revelations of God were completely compatible with science. To Maimonides, for example, angels were not supernatural beings, but a metaphorical personification of the natural forces of the world. There are “angels” for why the wind blows, and “angels” for why we are held stuck to the earth.

If something appeared to be at odds with the natural order of the world -- whether it was from Torah or a perceived miracle -- Maimonides said that was our own lack of understanding, both of science and of the “secrets” of Torah. Essentially: everything that seems irrational has a rational explanation.

There are pros and cons to this, in my opinion. First, it’s neat, elegant, and sensible -- and I think it’s compatible with a measured view of hypnosis. Hypnosis is real -- no one is disputing that -- and while it has unknowable parts to us at our current point in history, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it behaves counter to the natural order of the world.

But I think Maimonides contradicts himself. If you claim to be humbled by the secrets of the world and revelation, why would you so vehemently reject that the world might behave differently than you understand or expect?

How can we claim to “know” the natural order of the world in any capacity beyond what we can observe? How can we claim that our observations are universal or objective?

If we can’t know, we can only experience, explore, experiment. It is brutally human -- reaching out to the world with our limited five senses and our remarkable consciousness. By the nature of us being humans, our explorations will all produce different perspectives and models, all of which have an element of truth to them because all of our experiences are “real,” true experiences.

Hypnosis operates necessarily with/on the human brain -- two unique human brains -- so we each see a unique, limited facet of it. By talking, playing, and connecting with each other, we learn about other facets and perspectives which influence our internal models of it. On a larger scale, as a community, we create, bend, and break rules about it as our community experience evolves. We actually change what hypnosis is, how it works, and how to do it.

Even in just 15 years, I have seen firsthand how hypnosis changes as the community changes. If you look back at historical sources about hypnosis, you can see that we do something radically different nowadays -- which we think of as more sophisticated, but then again, historical hypnotists were doing amazing things too.

Hypnosis as a thing evolves as we explore it more -- as we explore each other more -- and push its boundaries.

We can’t pin down what it is. We can’t model it. But we can participate in it.

It is transcendent -- as Maimonides and Aristotle say God is transcendent; utterly beyond us.

--

Part of my experience of being hypnotized really intensely is a deeper acceptance of what I am feeling or thinking, moment to moment. It is a kind of radical acceptance that what my brain is doing is important and real. It’s not that I don’t understand that I’m hypnotized, or that I don’t make any critical judgments about what is happening. It’s just partially that if I feel something “weird,” I don’t dismiss it out of hand.

When I am in deep trances, weird stuff often happens. I get spontaneous sensory hallucinations, I get stray thoughts that can blindside me.

Occasionally, I have this unmistakable feeling that I am “seeing God.” That felt like a crazy thought to me the first time I had it -- like a person of capital-F “Faith” would have. It didn’t suddenly make me believe in a higher power, but I was left with that feeling that I had touched something divine while my partner murmured into my ear and took control of me.

Hypnosis is not just transcendent by nature or in a vacuum -- it feels transcendent. It feels like nothing else in this world; it completely transcends language and the realm of usual experience.

It makes sense that when faced with this kind of experience, it makes a skeptical person like me feel for a moment that there might be something more, something ineffable. It makes sense that when I have spiritual experiences with hypnosis, it feels innately spiritual to me.

But also it is true that hypnosis is simply very weird.

Why do I feel like I am connecting with divinity in deep trance? Why do I feel certain that my partner and I are reading each other’s minds? Why have I felt a quality of presence or possession?

I can believe it or disbelieve it all I want. I can rationalize it in any way I want. You can relate to me, or think less of me and judge me. But none of that takes away from what my experiential truth is.

What hypnosis feels like is not just more important than what it “is,” that is what it is. The subjective experience that we inhabit is hypnosis. 

Humans are moved by weird, irrational, transcendent experiences. Those are the times our worldview is affirmed or shaken. For those of us who are spiritually open to the idea that the materialistic world might be more than it seems, these moments are bright sparks of light, motivating, inspirational.

Hypnosis does this to me all the time. I am constantly amazed by it. I truly believe the only reason we look at it as a mundane phenomenon is because we assume our world is mundane -- we take it for granted.

But it is not mundane. It is two people communicating in such an intimate way that it behaves like a psychoactive drug. It is striving to know another person so deeply that you innately understand what they are thinking and feeling and you don’t know why. It makes the impossible seem possible; it makes magic feel 100% real.

That’s not some perspective that is out of touch with reality. That is the grounded view of hypnosis.

We are allowed to have crazy experiences with this art. Our main job is not trying to sell people on the idea that it is real. We work so hard to portray ourselves as sane and grounded -- we imitate therapists who need to have an answer to skeptics walking into their office. I think that at a certain point when we are doing intimate hypnosis we are allowed to say, “OK, I know this is real, and you know this is real, so let’s drop the bullshit and acknowledge that what we are doing is actually completely crazy.”

Hypnosis is amazing. It is just amazing. I am not saying that it is completely impossible to understand -- I think it is fair to say at this point that my life’s work is trying to understand it and communicate that understanding. I am saying that we need to not cut ourselves off from amazement, from confusion, from wonder, from not-knowing -- those are crucial to understanding, even crucial to science.

It is a form of respect to the art and to our partners to inhabit a space where we don’t know, to relax our egos and say that hypnosis is more than we can comprehend. To listen -- to ourselves or our partners -- when weird stuff happens.

Hypnosis will grow with us as humans if we let it. We have the opportunity to open ourselves to it, to greet it curiously, and to truly surrender to our exploration.

--

Sleepingirl (they/she) is a hypnokink educator with over a decade of experience on both sides of the pocket watch. They’re the author of several books, many articles (patreon.com/sleepingirl), and LearnHypnokink.com (a guide through the foundations of improvised hypnosis).

Their body of work in hypnokink is extremely extensive and spans many mediums -- see everything at https://sleepingirl.info/.

[max1461]

I think my problem with most discussions of abuse is that they're epistemically ill-founded. People will say things like "abusers do X, Y, and Z, and another tactic they commonly employ is gaslighting their victims and convincing the victim that they are actually the abusive one. They'll get the victim to believe that they're the one doing X, Y, and Z to the abuser instead of the other way around. Also, abusers don't want to listen to criticism, and so if you tell them they're actually being abusive they won't listen". This is a pretty standard thing to hear. But the problem is... this way of thinking puts both the abuser and the victim in the same epistemic position; they are both posited to say and feel that the other is abusive and that they are the victim. I'm not saying this is necessarily true, what I'm saying is... if you're in a bad relationship, and there's a lot of conflict but you can't easily pinpoint the source, this description of abuse gives you no way to determine if you are being abused or if you yourself are abusive (a very important thing to know, because these require very different courses of action!).

These discussions always suppose that people will just... know, magically, who is an abuser and who isn't, and so something which is described in near identical terms is posited as either innocent victimhood or DARVOing depending on who is already presumed to be the abusive party!

My point is not to claim that abuse doesn't exist, my point is that if you want to want to say anything useful about abuse you need a way to substantively identify it, and to discern it from non-abusive behavior, in a non-circular fashion. Otherwise whatever you claim about it cannot be used fruitfully by victims who have been gaslight into believing they are the abuser, it cannot be used fruitfully by people who have abusive patterns of behavior and want to get better, and it cannot be used fruitfully by research psychologists interested in a methodologically rigorous account of abuse.

[nellywrisource]

A writer’s guide to the historical method: how historians work with sources

In this post, I provide a brief overview of how historians engage with different types of sources, with a focus on the mindset of a historian. This insight could be valuable for anyone crafting a character whose profession revolves around history research. It may also prove useful for authors conducting research for their book.

Concept of historical source

The concept of historical source evolves over time. 

Initially, the focus was mainly on written sources due to their obvious availability. However, as time has progressed, historians now consider a wide range of sources beyond just written records. These include material artifacts, intangible cultural elements, and even virtual data.

While "armchair historians" may rely on existing studies and secondary sources, true professional historians distinguish themselves by delving directly into primary sources. They engage in a nuanced examination of various sources, weaving together diverse perspectives. It's crucial to recognize the distinction between personal recollection or memory and the rigorous discipline of historical inquiry. A historical source provides information, but the truth must be carefully discerned through critical analysis and corroboration.

Here's a concise list of the types of sources historians utilize:

Notarial source

Epistolary source

Accountancy source

Epigraphic source

Chronicle source

Oratory and oral source

Iconographic source

Diary source

Electronic source

Example: a notarial source

These are documents drafted by a notary, a public official entrusted with providing legal certainty to facts and legal transactions. These documents can take various forms, such as deeds, lawsuits, wills, contracts, powers of attorney, inventories, and many others.

Here we are specifically discussing a lawsuit document from 1211 in Italy.

A medieval lawsuit document is highly valuable for understanding various aspects of daily life because in a dispute, one must argue a position. From lawsuits, we also understand how institutions truly operated.

Furthermore, in the Middle Ages, lawsuits mostly relied on witnesses as evidence, so we can access a direct and popular source of certain specific social situations.

Some insight into the methodology of analysis:

Formal examination: historians scrutinize the document's form, verifying its authenticity and integrity. Elements such as structure, writing style, language, signatures, and seals are analyzed. Indeed, a professional historian will rarely conduct research on a source published in a volume but will instead go directly to the archive to study its origin, to avoid transcription errors.

Content analysis: historians proceed to analyze the document's content, extracting useful information for their research. This may include data on individuals, places, events, economic activities, social relations, and much more. It's crucial to compile a list of witnesses in a case and identify them to understand why they speak or why they speak in a certain manner.

Cross-referencing with other sources: information derived from the notarial source is compared with that of other historical sources to obtain a more comprehensive and accurate view of the period under examination.

Documents of the episcopal archive of Ivrea

Let's take the example of a specific legal case, stemming from the documents of the episcopal archive of Ivrea. It's a case from 1211 in Italy involving the bishop of Ivrea in dispute with Bongiovanni d'Albiano over feudal obligations.

This case is significant because it allows us to understand how feudal society operated and how social status was determined.

The bishop's representative argues that Bongiovanni should provide a horse as a feudal service. Bongiovanni denies it, claiming to be a noble, not a serf. Both parties present witnesses and documents supporting their arguments.

Witnesses are asked whether the serf obligations had been endured for a long time. This helps us understand that in a society where "law" was based on customs, it was important to ascertain if an obligation had been endured for a long time because at that point it would no longer be contestable (it would have become customary).

The responses are confused and inconsistent, so witnesses are directly asked whether they consider Bongiovanni a serf or a noble. This is because (and it allows us to understand that) the division into "social classes" wasn't definable within concrete boundaries; it was more about the appearance of one's way of life. If a serf refused to fulfill his serf duties, he would easily be considered a noble by bystanders because he lived like one.

Ultimately, the analysis of the case leads us to determine that medieval justice wasn't conceived with the logic of our modern system, but was measured in oaths and witnesses as evidentiary means. And emerging from it with honor was much more important than fairly distributing blame and reason.

Other sources

Accounting source: it is very useful for measuring consumption and its variety in a particular historical period. To reconstruct past consumption, inventories post mortem are often used, which are lists of goods found in households, described and valued by notaries to facilitate distribution among heirs. Alternatively, the recording of daily expenses, which in modern times were often very detailed, can lead to insights into complex family histories and their internal inequalities - for example, more money might be spent on one child than another corresponding to their planned future role in society.

Oral source: in relation to the political sphere, it is useful for representing that part of politics composed of direct sources, that is, where politics speaks of itself and how it presents itself to the public, such as a politician's public speech. However, working with this type of source, a historian cannot avoid hermeneutic work, as through the speech, the politician aims to present himself to a certain audience, justify, persuade, construct his own image, and achieve results. This is the hidden agenda that also exists in the most obvious part of politics.

Iconographic source: it concerns art or other forms of "artistic" expression, such as in the case of an advertising poster. They become historical sources when it is the historian who, through analysis, confers upon them the status of a historical source. Essentially, the historian uses the source to understand aspects of the past otherwise inaccessible. The first step in this direction is to recontextualize the source, returning it to its original context. Examining the history of the source represents the fundamental first step for historical analysis.

Diary source: diaries are a "subjective" source, a representation of one's self, often influenced by the thoughts of "others," who can be close or distant readers, interested or distracted, visible or invisible, whom every diary author can imagine and hope to see, sooner or later, reflected on the pages of their writing. Furthermore, they are often subject to subsequent manipulations, and therefore should be treated by historians only in their critical edition; all other versions, whether old or new, foreign or not, are useful only as evidence of the changes and manipulations undergone over time by the original manuscripts.

Electronic source: historians use Wikipedia even if they often don't admit it out loud.

This blog is supported through tips here on Tumblr. If you’d like to support me, please consider giving a tip.

[rthwrms]

science = our modern magic system

i just read uncleftish beholding for the first time and this is what i'm saying when i say science is magic: it's about language. its about what you consider to be "magic" in our reality.

i mean, in ancient times, they sure didn't know what a virus was. but they were smart enough to figure out that something literally invisible was making them sick. they call em demons and we call em viruses but we're talking about the same thing here.

and the ritualized aspects of science- it's right there in the methodology taught in school- it's right there! you must do this, and then this, and then that, and you will get a hypothesis at the end. you know what they used to call those? spells!!!! "i think this happens because this happened" and "if you do this, then you will most likely get this result" if i give you herbs for your stomach ache, the stomach ache will lessen. if i give you ibruprofen, the same.

it's all about your perspective. there is nothing supernatural or natural about magic, just like there is nothing similar about science. it's neither and both. theyre the same cause nothing in this reality is actually unnatural. it's literally impossible. humans are nature. we're nature. what we do is nature too.

science is a rigorous structural system, hierarchical and deeply westernized, and it's magic. all can be true!!!

the word magic comes from the PIE root magh* which puts the concept of magic best i think:

"to be able."

because it truly is such a miracle that there is anything at all, isn't it?

[darlingofdots]

I saw a [short-form internet video] today asking who people would trust more to learn from about a topic, someone with a PhD in that subject or a neurodivergent person with a special interest in it, and holy shit you guys we need to address this level of anti-intellectualism. I am the first person to point out that you don't need a fancy degree to learn and know things and that we need to be more open to non-academic expertise in many areas* but when it comes to reliable and trustworthy information, a researcher formally trained in their field should absolutely be considered preferable to a layperson who has studied independently. Not because you can't become an expert on your own but because the processes of academic qualification ensure that a person has both basic and specific knowledge of and training in the methodology and advances in their field, they are practiced in assessing the quality of sources and generating their own data, and they are subject to assessment by other experts. In order to get those fancy letters to go with your name you have to prove that you have the knowledge and skills to meaningfully contribute to the scientific conversation; the title is a reward for your hard work but it's also a kind of quality control seal.

Getting a PhD in any subject is really fucking hard. It's gruelling. Most of us do it because we love our research and want to know everything about our chosen topic. As a lot of commenters on that video pointed out, the PhD and the neurodivergent person are often one and the same! But especially in an era when mis- and disinformation is so rampant, we need to remember that although it is flawed, we do have a system to help us assess whether a person sharing information about something we don't know is likely to be reliable or not, and in the vast majority of cases, people who have passed through years and years of rigorous training and assessment should absolutely be our first pick.**

*my field of choice, popular romance studies, owes a lot of knowledge to readers and fans without relevant degrees or institutional affiliation who share their thoughts and observations through book reviews etc., and we're so grateful to them!

**obviously "experts" can be wrong or malicious and laypeople can have extremely valuable insight or experience that we should not dismiss out of hand. That's not what this is about.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Highlight below:

Study Overview The study analyzed 97 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years. These participants were evaluated for persistent symptoms associated with Long COVID, occurring well after their acute infection phase. Using a modified World Health Organization (WHO) form, researchers documented symptoms and evaluated their progression over time.

The study revealed that nearly half of the adolescents (45.3%) continued to experience symptoms after 340 days. Notably, their symptom profiles differed significantly from those of adults. The institutions involved in this research employed a rigorous methodology, which included two follow-up evaluations and clustering techniques to categorize symptoms and patterns.

Key Findings: A Unique Symptom Profile The most prevalent symptoms reported by adolescents were fatigue (62.9%) and dyspnea (43.3%). Headaches, thoracic pain, and diarrhea were also common, affecting 28.9%, 22.7%, and 20.6% of participants, respectively. Interestingly, symptoms such as memory loss, sleep disturbances, and anxiety - frequently seen in adults with Long COVID - were less common in adolescents. This discrepancy underscores the need for age-specific approaches in diagnosis and treatment.

Persistent symptoms also varied depending on the severity of the initial COVID-19 infection and the phase of the pandemic. For instance, adolescents infected during the pre-Omicron phase experienced a higher overall number of symptoms (3.2 compared to 2.5 for those infected during the Omicron phase). Additionally, moderate to severe acute infections were linked to a greater number of long-term symptoms.

Symptom Persistence and Clusters One year after their acute infection, 45.3% of the adolescents still experienced lingering symptoms. Fatigue and dyspnea remained the most persistent, though their prevalence decreased over time. For example, fatigue, initially present in 62.9% of participants, dropped to approximately 20% during the second follow-up evaluation.

Clustering analysis revealed two distinct groups of adolescents based on their symptoms. Cluster 1 included those with more severe symptoms and a higher prevalence of dyspnea, thoracic pain, and diarrhea. Cluster 2 consisted mainly of adolescents with fewer and milder symptoms, largely infected during the Omicron phase.

[transmutationisms]

hello! im just finishing up my read of structures of scientific revolutions, which has genuinely been very useful and shifted my understanding of science in a way being around people doing scientific research all day really didn't! i don't have a liberal arts education so i would love to get a sense of (a) what else of the philosophy / history of science canon is worth reading in the original (b) standard review papers or introductory textbooks and (c) critiques of the canon. i understand this is a big ask ofc, so feel free to point me to good depts / syllabi from good courses. thanks :)

yessss such a fun question >:) so, the thing that was so great about 'the structure of scientific revolutions', which i'm sure you've picked up on, is that kuhn pushed historians and philosophers of science to challenge the positivist model of science as a linearly progressive search to 'accumulate knowledge'. the idea of a 'paradigm shift' was itself a paradigm shift at the time; it was an early example of a language for talking about radical change in science without giving into the assumption that change necessarily = 'progress' (defined by national interests, mathematisation, and so forth). this is still an approach that's foundational to history and philosophy of science; it's now taken as so axiomatic that few academics even bother to gloss or defend it in monographs (which raises its own issue with public communication, lol).

where kuhn falls apart more (and this was typical for a philosopher of his era, training, and academic milieu) is in the fact that he never developed any kind of rigorous sociological analysis of science (despite alluding to such a thing being necessary) and you probably also noticed that he makes a few major leaps that indicate he's not fully committed to thinking through the relationship between science and politics. so for example, we might ask, can a paradigm shift ever occur for a reason other than a discovered 'anomaly' that the previous paradigm can't account for? for instance, how do political investments in science and scientific theories affect what's accepted as 'normal science' in a kuhnian sense? are there historical or present cases where a paradigm didn't change even though it persistently failed to explain certain empirical observations or data? what about the opposite, where a paradigm did change, but it wasn't necessarily or exclusively because the new paradigm was a 'better' explanation scientifically? how do we determine what makes an explanation 'better', anyway, especially given that kuhn himself was very much invested in moving beyond the naïve realist position? and on the more sociological side, we can raise issues like: say you're a scientist and you legitimately have discovered an 'anomaly'. how do you communicate that to other scientists? what mechanisms of knowledge production and publication enable you to circulate that information and to be taken seriously? what modes of communication must you use and what credentials or interpersonal connections must you have? what factors cause theories and discoveries to be taken more or less seriously, or adopted more or less quickly, besides just their 'scientific utility' (again, assuming we can even define such a thing)?

again, this is not to shit on kuhn, but to point out that both history and philosophy of science have had a lot of avenues to explore since his work. note that there are a few major disciplinary distinctions here, each with many sub-schools of thought. a 'science and technology studies' or STS program tends to be a mix of sociological and philosophical analysis of science, often with an emphasis on 'technoscience' and much less on historical analysis. a philosophy of science department will be anchored more firmly in the philosophical approach, so you'll find a lot of methodological critique, and a lot of scholarship that seeks to tackle current aporias in science using various philosophical frameworks. a history of science program is fundamentally just a sub-discipline of history, and scholarship in this area asks about the development of science over time, how various forms of thinking came into and out of favour, and so forth. often a department will do both history and philosophy of science (HPS). historians of medicine, technology, and mathematics will sometimes (for arcane scholastic reasons varying by field, training, and country) be anchored in departments of medicine / technology / mathematics, rather than with other faculty of histsci / HPS. but, increasingly in the anglosphere you'll see departments that cover history of science, technology, and mathematics (HSTM) together. obviously, all of these distinctions say more about professional qualifications and university bureaucracy than they do about the actual subject matter; in actuality, a good history of science should virtually always include attention to some philosophical and sociological dimensions, and vice versa.

anyway—reading recs:

there are two general reference texts i would recommend here if you just want to get some compilations of major / 'canonical' works in this field. both are edited volumes, so you can skip around in them as much as you want. both are also very limited in focus to, again, a very particular 'western canon' defined largely by trends in anglo academia over the past half-century or so.

philosophy of science: the central issues (1998 [2013], ed. martin curd & j. a. cover). this is an anthology of older readings in philsci. it's a good introduction to many of the methodological questions and problems that the field has grown around; most of these readings have little to no historical grounding and aren't pretending otherwise.

the cambridge history of science (8 vols., 2008–2020, gen. eds. david c. lindberg & ron numbers). no one reads this entire set because it's long as shit. however, each volume has its own temporal / topical focus, and the essays function as a crash-course in historical methodology in addition to whatever value you derive from the case studies in their own right. i like these vols much more than the curd & cover, but if you really want to dig into the philosophical issues and not the histories, curd & cover might be more fun.

besides those, here are some readings in histsci / philsci that i'd recommend if you're interested. for consistency i ordered these by publication date, but bolded a few i would recommend as actual starting points lol. again some of these focus on specific historical cases, but are also useful imo methodologically, regardless of how much you care about the specific topic being discussed.

Robert M. Young. 1969. "Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory." Past & Present 43: 109–145.

David Bloor. 1976 [1991]. Knowledge and Social Imagery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (here is a really useful extract that covers the main points of this text).

Ian Hacking. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steven Shapin. 1988. “Understanding the Merton Thesis.” Isis 79 (4): 594–605.

Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. 1989. Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Mario Biagioli. 1993. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bruno Latour. 1993. The Pasteurization of France. Translated by Alan Sheridan and John Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Margaret W. Rossiter. 1993. “The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science.” Social Studies of Science 23 (2): 325–41.

Andrew Pickering. 1995. The Mangle of Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Peter Galison. 1997. “Trading Zone: Coordinating Action and Belief.” In The Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario Biagioli, 137–60. New York: Routledge.

Crosbie Smith. 1998. The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chambers, David Wade, and Richard Gillespie. “Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge.” Osiris 15 (2000): 221–40.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. Zone Books, 2002.

Timothy Mitchell. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

James A. Secord. 2003. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Sheila Jasanoff. 2006. “Biotechnology and Empire: The Global Power of Seeds and Science.” Osiris 21 (1): 273–92.

Murphy, Michelle. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Duke University Press, 2006.

Kapil Raj. 2007. Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650–1900. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schiebinger, Londa L. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Harvard University Press, 2007.

Galison, Peter. “Ten Problems in History and Philosophy of Science.” Isis 99, no. 1 (2008): 111–24.

Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. Zone Books, 2010.

Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2011. “The Muddle of Modernity.” American Historical Review 116 (3): 663–75.

Forman, Paul. “On the Historical Forms of Knowledge Production and Curation: Modernity Entailed Disciplinarity, Postmodernity Entails Antidisciplinarity.” Osiris 27, no. 1 (2012): 56–97.

Ashworth, William J. 2014. "The British Industrial Revolution and the the Ideological Revolution: Science, Neoliberalism, and History." History of Science 52 (2): 178–199.

Mavhunga, Clapperton. 2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynn Nyhart. 2016. “Historiography of the History of Science.” In A Companion to the History of Science, edited by Bernard Lightman, 7–22. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Rana Hogarth. 2017. Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Suman Seth. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Aro Velmet. 2020. Pasteur's Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, its Colonies, and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

i would also say, as a general rule, these books are generally all so well-known that there are very good book reviews and review essays on them, which you can find through jstor / your library's database. these can be invaluable both because your reading list would otherwise just mushroom out forever, and because a good review can help you decide whether you even need / want to sit down with the book itself in the first place. literally zero shame in reading an academic text secondhand via reviews.

[jingerpi]

there are some people on this website (and actually most places but we're on Tumblr so that's what I'm talking about) who I do genuinely agree with on most topics but they do not know how to argue or communicate effectively why they are correct and as a result seeing some discourse arguments from them is suffering. not because of platforming bigots or whatever but because I can tell they're convincing nobody when even I don't buy their argument for something I already believe.

it tends to happen most with positions that are already very demonized or hard to find in academia because there's often less agreement or overall information/methodology on a position that certain more mainstream beliefs. a ton of people can make a decent argument as to why capitalism sucks, there's a lot, but try to get a newer communist to explain why they like china and they flounder. another area I see it a lot is with trans advocacy, there are so many backwards ideas of transness people fall into metaphysics constantly because they simply don't know how to effectively self advocate and it's frustrating but honestly sometimes it's more so just sad to see.

I do want to add the caveat that some people aren't trying to argue effectively they're just existing with "controversial" views and that's fine I guess. You don't have to always explain every belief you have rigorously, but when you get into fights on the internet, at least be equipped to carry them out, please?

[onecornerface]

When flat-earthers argue for their view, they sometimes do it by invoking a weird hard-to-classify type of premise. First I’ll cover some other types of premises they do and don’t use, then I’ll talk about the weird type of premise.

Flat-earthers generally don’t appeal to laws of physics, such as Newton’s laws. Occasionally they invoke geometric laws, but often without the math–such by as invoking the “law of perspective” but ignoring the math of the law itself. And sometimes they invoke “commonsense” notions or putative direct observation, such as that the earth “looks” flat.

But sometimes they invoke a weird type of premise that is somewhere in between commonsense or direct observations on the one hand, and actual scientific or mathematical laws on the other. This includes claims like “Gas pressure requires a container” and “Water finds its level.” They build a lot of their arguments for flat-earthism on such claims.

Such claims have the vibe of being “scientific” facts, not commonsense or direct observations. But they don’t have any precise definitions, math, or any other kind of rigor of ordinary scientific appeals.

Some of the "things all flat-earthers say" in Dave Farina's video here are like this (including the two examples I gave above). Some of these kinds of arguments are also discussed intermittently in various sections of Veritas's multi-hour video essay. Dave is struck by how repetitive and unthinking many flat-earthers are in how they adopt a lot of sloganized statements from a small number of top flat-earth YouTubers. Veritas is interested in how flat-earthers distort the methodology and concepts of science at every level.

I appreciate and agree with many aspects of both their videos (especially Veritas-- still the best video ever made about flat-earthism), but my focus here is on the strange type of claim flat-earthers are making, and how it seems to occupy an interesting middle-ground between two other types of common premises.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Tips for spotting pseudoscience

Pseudoscience (that which is presented as science but does not follow proper methodology and does not meet scientific rigor) is everywhere and being able to spot it is important to keep yourself from being misled. Here are some common things you see with pseudoscience that should not be present with real science. This list is not exhaustive and not all pseudoscience will fit all of these traits, these are just common ones.

Testimonials

Pseudoscientists won't provide proper evidence to support their claims. If they could, it would be science, not pseudoscience. Instead, they will offer people's stories about how whatever they're selling worked for them. You see this very frequently with people selling alternative medicine. "My cancer disappeared after I started using black salve" or "This homeopathic remedy cleared up my flu right away". Testimonials aren't useful as evidence for the same reason eyewitness reports are the least useful for of evidence in court: people are flawed. People can misremember, people can lie, people can make mistakes, and people can be biased. Science is structured so that mistakes or biases can be spotted and corrected through peer review and replication of experiments. However, a person who seems to sincerely believe what they're telling you intuitively seems more trustworthy than a clinical scientific paper.

Appeals to emotion

An appeal to emotion is when someone trues to persuade you of something using emotion rather than reason. There are lots of different kinds of appeals to emotion out there and all of them get used in pseudoscience. A creationist saying "do you really want to be an accident of nature instead of created by a loving god?" is appealing to a desire to feel special and important. A homeopath saying "don't you want to take this one simple pill instead of going through months of chemotherapy?" is appealing to a desire to have a quick and simple solution to a complicated problem. A conspiracy theorist saying "the government is hiding the truth from you" is appealing to anger at feeling deceived. A militant vegan claiming that cow milk is full of pus and spreads disease is appealing to disgust. How we emotionally feel is not an indicator of the truth of a claim.

Appeals to intuition

I almost consider this one a subcategory of appeals to emotion. Science is really complicated and we naturally want to find simple solutions to things. Combine that with an innate bias to accept claims that support our beliefs and reject claims that do not support them, and we get the problem that people naturally want to believe ideas that seem intuitively correct and reject ideas that don't. This is where you'll get stuff like creationists saying "does evolution really make sense?" Appeals to intuition are flawed for the simple reason that our intuition is often wrong. Our brains evolved to help us find food, shelter, and mates, not to understand the mysteries of the universe. Therefore, what we intuitively think of as correct is often wrong. Intuitively it makes sense that the earth is flat and the sun orbits us, but through examination and discovery, science has shown that both of these are wrong.

Conspiracy theories

Pseudoscientists can't admit that the reason their ideas aren't mainstream is because they don't work. Instead, they will come up with conspiracies their they are being suppressed by "them". Alternative medicine proponents will claim that big pharma is covering up their miracle cures because they make more money treating patients than curing them. Free energy proponents will say the same things about power companies. This is often wrapped up with religions claims. Creationists often claim that scientists promote evolution to deny god and tons of conspiracy theorists claim that satanic cabals are behind the world's problems. If anyone tells you that their claims are being suppressed by scientists, run.

Technobabble

Pseudoscientists love to misuse scientific terminology or to make up their own. By misusing scientific terms, they can use the appearance of scientific rigor to lay people who don't know what those terms actually mean. In science, terms have very specific meanings that may differ from how those terms are used in common parlance. A classic example is creationists trying to dismiss evolution by claiming it's only a theory. This conflates the popular use of the term theory (to mean a guess or idea) with the scientific meaning of theory (a well-supported explanation for some aspect of the universe). One of the biggest sources of technobabble comes from quantum mysticism. Pseudoscientists like Deepak Chopra misuse terms like the observer effect and take advantage of how unintuitive and confusing quantum physics is to claim stuff like observation effects reality. Other examples include new-agers describing things as being ona different frequency or vibration without explaining what frequency means (it's a unit of measurement describing the number of times something happens in a given time span) or what is vibrating or alternative medicine proponents claiming that their product cleans toxins without explaining what said toxins are or how they work.

Unquestionable authorities

In science, nothing is beyond questioning. Scientists should welcome other people questioning or criticizing their ideas because that's how science progresses. Individual scientists don't always live up to that standard, but that's why science is a collaborative process. In pseudoscience, the proponents are often treated as infallible gurus. These people hate being questioned because questioning and critically examining their claims shows them to be false. Proponents of pseudoscience often go trough diploma mills (places that give easy access to diplomas without needing to go through a credible institution) and publish their claims in pseudoscience journals to give themselves the appearance of credentials and scientific rigor, counting on lay people not being able to tell the difference between said diploma mills and pseudoscience journals and the legit ones. Western media loves the trope of the lone genius standing up and proving everyone else wrong and pseudoscientists love to play into this, but that's just not how real science works. This trait of pseudoscience very often goes along with the next one. Followers of pseudoscience gurus often react angrily to said guru being questioned and will ignore all criticism, no matter how valid. For a real life example, Andrew Wakefield published a biased and flawed study claiming to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Despite the fact that the study has been redacted and shown to be fraudulent by every relevant medical professional, anti-vaxxers still cling to Wakefield as the ultimate authority figure.

Response to criticism

As mentioned above, science works by having people independently test, verify, refute, and refine each other's ideas. It's a group project that never ends and is always being refined. Criticism and questions should be welcomed, not rejected and if somebody proves you were wrong, you should thank them because together you have helped improve the collective body of knowledge that is science. Pseudoscientists hate being criticized. They tend to lash out at those who do, often proclaiming them to be close-minded, stupid, or part of the conspiracy to suppress their ideas. A good rule of thumb is that real scientists don't respond to criticism by posting lengthy rants on Youtube or with personal insults. Scientists can and often do get annoyed at lay people questioning them, which is why better science communication is so important. Keep in mind that it's vanishingly rare for something in science to be disproved by a lay person simply because lay people don't have the experience and knowledge that practical experience and education provides.

Strawmanning

Strawmanning is when someone presents a series of inaccurate points as their opponent's position and then refutes that instead of tackling their opponent's actual position. This allows the presenter to appear as though they've refuted their opponent when actually they haven't. Like many other pseudoscience tactics, this one relies on lay people not knowing enough about the topic to spot the deception. A classic example of this is the crocoduck incident. Young-earth creationists Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort claimed that if evolution were true, there should be an animal halfway between a crocodile and a duck, which they presented as a picture of a duck with a crocodile's head. This relies heavily on a misconception of what common ancestors are. Common ancestors do not need to look like a chimera of their descendants. Cameron and Comfort claimed that since there is no crocoduck, that was evidence against evolution. In fact, this was only evidence against their strawman of evolutionary theory. Most strawmen are nowhere near as obviously wrong as the crocoduck and the more you know about a topic, the better you will be at spotting strawmen. It's worth doing some research on claims to see if anyone has debunked them yet.

If I have a conclusion to all this, it's probably that pseudoscientists rely on the general public not having a good enough understanding of science to realize they're spouting bullshit. Part of that comes from the fact that science is really complicated and often needs years or decades of education and experience to fully grasp. Another part of the problem is the piss-poor state of science communication and basic education in science and critical thinking right now. We desperateness need to do better at both. Unfortunately, in my country of the USA, conservative activists and politicians are actively undermining public understanding of science and critical thinking because an uninformed public is more likely to vote against their own interests. We need to actively support science education and communication to help people break free of misinformation.