PraxSci

Praxis Science. Bridging tradition and technology.

[PraxSci @praxsci]

Terminus:PGH, July 25th. This time we want to hear from you and talk about the needs of the Pittsburgh scientific community.

https://t.co/MLR58IUXcS

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

This Thursday I'll be excavating the teleological past to shape technological future.

"Cybernetics, Phenomenology & Teleology"

Or

"Only Husserl's God can save us now"

Thanks to the Kris Rockwell Foundation for grant support. Future publications will be on-chain, DeSci.

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

John von Neumann invented AI in 1945 with his EDVAC memo

[Ethereum Daily @EthereumDaily_]

20. 🕊️ Ethereum For Good

@barracu_DAO is a non-monetary governance DAO and small, technical expert model (STEM) agent cortex for the conservation of the great barracuda.

It facilitates shared governance for researchers to accelerate open data sharing and dissemination of knowledge on-chain and serves as a DAO template for researchers from other areas of life science to make their own governance decisions, including monetized funding.

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Cybernetics, Phenomenology & Teleology

I'll talk on cybernetics' teleological roots, its intersection w/ phenomenology, and their alignment for purposeful machine intelligence.

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit
Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center
November 24th, 2025, 3pm

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

DeSAI conference is complete and a smashing success.

Thanks to our key guest speakers:

Ron Poropatich, Center of Military Medicine at UPitt (covering the Good - autonomous care in remote and austere environments)

Ami Elliott (below), Form Bio/Colossal Bioscience (covering the complex Future of AI in science along with the t-shirt she got from bringing back the Dire Wolf)

I covered the Bad, the Four Horsemen of the Sci-Pocalypse (Publishing, Reproducibility Issues, Funding Problems, and Sci Slop), along with the value of DeSci to help fix these issues.

Thanks also to Martina Truche who talked space science and technology with @hybridkris_eth - which included as one of many key takeaways that given aging is accelerated in space, longevity research goes much more quickly there!

Thanks also to @dmaultsby53 for his wise counsel and hosting us in this amazing venue - state of the art education center in the top floor of the historic Frick Building - the original @frontiertower

And thanks to the dozens of scientists, technologists, business leaders, educators and more who turned out to kick-off this perpetual DeSAI conference, learn about @barracu_DAO and our @praxsci roadmap and our raison d'être, and start shaping the future of scitech in a science-first way!

Next up, saving science

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

If you want to shape the future, it is best to bring the past and the present together.

We had an amazing night at the Clemente Museum - which also hosts an amazing wine cellar.

Ownership of the wine is decentralized, with various ballplayers (their numbers adorn their barrels), companies and individuals owning barrels, funding operations and enjoying the space cavernous basement space.

Our keynote for today's DeSAI conference, Ron Poropatich, grew up near the old firehouse in Lawrenceville where this amazing place now lives.

He has gone from helping with the family's butcher shop there to Army doc and head of TATRC to now running UPitt's Center for Military Medicine Research and putting autonomous medical drones in place to help with everything from overdoses in rural areas to autonomous medical care on the battlefield.

The old and the new, business and academia, big schools and small (Duquesne and RMU represented), science and technology.

DeSci is more than just crypto. And the future is more than just tech. It is the people and the plans to put it in practice.

TradSci + DeSci = @praxsci

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Hey DeSci - "Sci Slop" makes its first appearance in science conference form tomorrow.

Ref: Manion, S (2025, October 2). Decentralized Science: What and why? [Conference presentation]. DeSAI: The Impact of New Tech on Science: The Good, the Bad & the Future, Pittsburgh, PA.

[Kris Rockwell @hybridkris_eth]

In our ongoing effort to bring Mondo back, we’re out posting fliers in coffee shops for our upcoming DeSAI conference. #longacademia #praxisscience

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

DeSci has promise but is distracted by trinkets.

TradSci has flaws but still shines.

What if they were aligned, with validation and purpose?

TradSci + DeSci = @praxsci

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Going back to school and bringing DeSci and SciAI with us. #longacademia

@praxsci will be kicking off a perpetual DeSAI conference on October 2nd, 2025 with our in-person "DeSAI25: The Impact of New Tech on Science - the Good, the Bad and the Future".

This will mark the beginning (return?) of the Invisible College, Decentralized.

Some short-sighted groups tell you to #shortacademia, but we had fully decentralized science long ago and it was a mess.

Then we got the academic approach to modern science and its been the a critical component of advancing civilization for 400yrs running.

Over the last 75yrs the academe and modern science have fallen into disrepair - beset by bureaucracy and conflicted by corporate interests and money grabs (publishing, pharma, tech, etc.).

In the past decade, DeSci has emerged as a tool that can help fix what ails science and accelerate it into the future.

Some want to splinter off and recreate all the wheels, casting aside trillion$ in research infrastructure, billion$ in annual spending and millions of brilliant, trained TradSci minds in academia.

We think that's silly and #shortsighted

We see DeSci and AI as toolsets to fix the problems in science and accelerate it into the future.

But you need to get the science right - or we are back to Sci Slop and pseudoscientific silliness.

TradSci + DeSAI = PraxSci

This is the way.

Choose wisely.

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

ShroomDAO?

Spent the day with dozens of amateur and professional mycologists - collecting, identifying, sampling, sequencing and verifying mushrooms deep in the forest (thanks to connectivity provided by @hybridkris_eth).

Most people don't realize that not only do we know only a small amount about all of the mushrooms on earth, we also don't know what we know is right and wrong in many cases. Species lumped together by looks, or falsely split.

By connecting mycologists in real time to coordinate initial ID, geolocation, iNat # and DNA sample we can connect the data and get a better understanding of this unknown kingdom of fungi.

DeSci in action. Is a DAO up next? We're working on it, but it's up to the mushroom science community to determine their own governance and priorities - and then shape the tech around it.

This is the way. @praxsci

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

The future of science is not one dimensional.

TradSci + DeSci = @praxsci

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Coming Oct 2nd, Pittsburgh (Birthplace of AI) - then everywhere

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Similarly, "AI Sci Slop" (or "Sci Slop" for short) is a term I've coined not for simply underdeveloped AI and related tech for science, but specifically as a taxonomic category for unvalidated and overhyped (overt or by subvert association).

I've been using the term and its has made some people mad, with @BioProtocol even accusing me of "defamation" (of AI?!?).

I'll be rolling the term out in a first formal forum at my panel on DeSci at the College of American Pathologists conference next week, and peppering it around at the Department of War's "Medical Autonomous Care State of the Science" meeting I've been invited to for my DeSci/AI perspective.

I'm also conducting a self funded (because DeFiDeSci gatekeepers wont fund it, heh) independent assessment of some tools out there like @Aubrai_ to get a better alignment with the current offerings of tech for science with standardized scales like NASA's tech readiness level - akin to what Fleuren et al did for medical AI.

In science, you can just do things - though you also want to define your terms, describe your methods, present findings, gather and incorporate feedback, etc.

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

In Jan of 2018 I convened a group of scientists, techies, regulators and degens to game out why DeSci wasn't thriving in the early DeFi ecosystem and ICO waves.

What @ResearchHub, @@BioProtocol and others are learning now with the mediocre performance of $RSC and $BIO and others recently, despite (or because of) massive hype, could have (and should have) been anticipated.

The complexity level is different in science, the IP/open science friction is unique (e.g. economics of a quasi-public good), the regulatory environment, interlocking business models, and unique incentive system of operators (puzzles and ribbons, then money) make the DeSci approach different by design from the DeFi approach.

What we are seeing so far in "DeSci" is really just a cargo shorts cult modeling DeFi with a science wrapper.

DeSci is going to break out of containment and save science from what ails it, but not in the current gimmicky DeFi way you are seeing.

@praxsci has been in open stealth the past few months, but now ready to step out fully into the world. There are hard learned lessons from a decade of DeSci ready to be applied.

But it will take complex solutions to complex problems, and change strategy approaches to getting buy-in of the TradSci community who WANT new solutions, but are skeptical of the nonsensical silly hype or tech.

We'll fix this. #longacademia #longscience #longDeSci

#shortSciSlop

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

I said I’d start sharing DeSci projects reviews I’ve been doing for the next edition of my “Blockchain for Medical Research” book (March 2000) when I hit 500 followers.

Getting close.

Follow and suggest projects you would like to see reviewed. 🧵(1 of 6)

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Hey DeSci - there's a lesson here.

In science, like cooking, speed is not always your friend.

Quality first.

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Hey DeSci - @hybridkris_eth and I have been getting some questions (and some dirty looks) since we announced that our initial @praxsci DAO - @barracu_DAO - is a non-monetary, governance token only DAO.

It's weird! How are you gonna pump (and dump) it!?!

Let me explain. 🧵

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Hey DeSci - why recreate science wheels when you can build on what's already rolling?

@praxsci is pleased to join the @INCForg industry advisory council. INCF is focused on "a collaborative network for open, FAIR, and citable neuroscience."

TradSci + DeSci = PraxSci!

[Sean Manion @TheUnjournaling]

Hey DeSci, crawl before you fly and disintermediate the PIs first.

Why do scientists need an overlord for every project and paper?