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  1. #21
    The Unstoppable Force PC2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Levelfive View Post
    Apparently ad hominem impugning of character and motives is ok when you do it.
    If I attacked a person or group and not their idea then just let me know and i'll fix the post by directing it against the person's argument.

    Quote Originally Posted by Levelfive View Post
    I have noticed that here and in other threads your approach to science mirrors Trump's approach to the law: to treat it with what amounts to contempt, while unreservedly abusing and misusing what little you understand of it to hide behind and / or further an agenda.
    No my contempt isn't for science, my contempt is for generalizing people and judging groups as opposed to judging ideas and individual behavior. It's about what is valid vs invalid.
    Last edited by PC2; 2020-03-28 at 07:34 PM.

  2. #22
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    No my contempt isn't for science, my contempt is for generalizing people and judging groups as opposed to judging ideas and individual behavior. It's about what is valid vs invalid.
    Nobody in this thread or the study that sparked it was judging individuals for their membership in a particular group.

    Evaluating the characteristics of groups as a whole, however, is absolutely scientific. Just as an obvious example; the entire concept of taxonomy. So yeah; you're engaging in anti-science posting.


  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    If I attacked a person or group and not their idea then just let me know and i'll fix the post by directing it against the person's argument.

    No my contempt isn't for science, my contempt is for generalizing people and judging groups as opposed to judging ideas and individual behavior. It's about what is valid vs invalid.
    When you accuse people of using data as "an excuse to denigrate people with with different behaviors and attitudes," that's an attack on character and motives. You frequently dismiss data altogether because you don't understand the role and relative value of correlation, and you strawman and / or misconstrue, deliberately or otherwise, the meaning and significance of things like causation (without which, you claim, data is "meaningless," which is flatly incorrect) and predictive power which you twist into "prophesy," which you then dismiss as impossible. It's no different than people who try to dismiss evolution as "just a theory"--it's using your own ignorance about scientific principles and definitions in an attempt to undermine their credibility. That is invalid, and it is contempt for science.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Nobody in this thread or the study that sparked it was judging individuals for their membership in a particular group.
    Right I was criticizing the original post for its lack of analysis. A good post will propose explanations that you could agree or disagree with, a bad post will amount to a stand-alone "data dump".

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Evaluating the characteristics of groups as a whole, however, is absolutely scientific. Just as an obvious example; the entire concept of taxonomy. So yeah; you're engaging in anti-science posting.
    Okay but science is about finding true theories, theories formed about groups are only valid if the claim is true in 100% of cases and not as a probability between 0 or 1. When you have data like that found in the OP then a lot of people will erroneously attribute characteristics to the group that are not really a fundamental characteristic of the group.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    Right I was criticizing the original post for its lack of analysis. A good post will propose explanations that you could agree or disagree with, a bad post will amount to a stand-alone "data dump".



    Okay but science is about finding true theories, theories formed about groups are only valid if the claim is true in 100% of cases and not as a probability between 0 or 1. When you have data like that found in the OP then a lot of people will erroneously attribute characteristics to the group that are not really a fundamental characteristic of the group.
    All you are accomplishing is showing you in fact do not understand the topic enough to join the adults in conversation, and getting upset when you are shown yourself in a mirror.

  6. #26
    The Unstoppable Force PC2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Levelfive View Post
    When you accuse people of using data as "an excuse to denigrate people with with different behaviors and attitudes," that's an attack on character and motives. You frequently dismiss data altogether because you don't understand the role and relative value of correlation, and you strawman and / or misconstrue, deliberately or otherwise, the meaning and significance of things like causation (without which, you claim, data is "meaningless," which is flatly incorrect) and predictive power which you twist into "prophesy," which you then dismiss as impossible. It's no different than people who try to dismiss evolution as "just a theory"--it's using your own ignorance about scientific principles and definitions in an attempt to undermine their credibility. That is invalid, and it is contempt for science.
    Evolution is a theory and theories can't be proven right in principle. There were flaws in Darwin's theory, and then there were major flaws in Lamarkianism, and we can also expect that the modern Dawkinsian theory of evolution also has imperfections that prove that it's not a correct theory. Science is just about adopting the latest best explanation, it's not about proving ultimate facts. In fact anything that's considered an "absolute" truth is inherently anti-scientific.

  7. #27
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    Right I was criticizing the original post for its lack of analysis. A good post will propose explanations that you could agree or disagree with, a bad post will amount to a stand-alone "data dump".
    And again; that claim is without merit. You're flatly wrong on this point. If you were right, developing data would always be a worthless proposition, and clearly, that's not the case.

    Okay but science is about finding true theories
    Deeply, fundamentally wrong.

    The scientific method is a means for testing hypotheses. Inserting "true" is horseshit, since showing that a hypothesis is incorrect is very much science. Particularly if said hypothesis had been untestable prior to some new development that allowed it to be tested.

    theories formed about groups are only valid if the claim is true in 100% of cases and not as a probability between 0 or 1.
    Also completely and totally false.

    First, you're using "theory" in a scientific context, when you mean "hypothesis". That's a mistake.

    Second, the claim that it needs to be true of 100% of cases, and that science cannot grasp statistical distributions, is just laughably incorrect.

    When you have data like that found in the OP then a lot of people will erroneously attribute characteristics to the group that are not really a fundamental characteristic of the group.
    Except the data shows that it is. You're lying about the data, at this point.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    Evolution is a theory and theories can't be proven right in principle.
    So, you're a creationist conspiracy theorist?

    There were flaws in Darwin's theory, and then there were major flaws in Lamarkianism, and we can also expect that the modern Dawkinsian theory of evolution also has imperfections that prove that it's not a correct theory.
    Demonstrating, again, that you do not understand what "theory" means, in a scientific context. You keep confusing it for "hypothesis". They're not synonyms.

    Science is just about adopting the latest best explanation, it's not about proving ultimate facts. In fact anything that's considered an "absolute" truth is inherently anti-scientific.
    Literally nobody was claiming an "absolute" truth, here.

    We simply don't accept skepticism that is not supported by the facts.

    Particularly not creationist anti-science twaddle like what you're pushing.
    Last edited by Endus; 2020-03-28 at 08:34 PM.


  8. #28
    Over 9000! Milchshake's Avatar
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    Looks like people are projecting their own biases onto what hard and soft sciences should be.

    SO hard to quit that party line


    Speaking of schools of study. There's a constrast between how most schools have shut down or gone fully online during the crisis. Except for one ...

    Liberty University students to return to campus amid coronavirus outbreak
    Up to 5,000 students will be allowed to return to Liberty University's campus this week, as the Lynchburg, Virginia, college bucks the national trend of school closures.
    What are the odds of this hapeening?
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  9. #29
    The Unstoppable Force PC2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    So, you're a creationist conspiracy theorist?
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Particularly not creationist anti-science twaddle like what you're pushing.
    I'm not sure how you got that but creationists bug the hell out of me because IMO it doesn't make sense the universe was created by a divine entity. My position is the opposite of that which is that things came about spontaneously and accidentally. I'll try not to venture too far into forbidden topics though because i'll get banned if I speak my mind. :s

  10. #30
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    I'm not sure how you got that but creationists bug the hell out of me because IMO it doesn't make sense the universe was created by a divine entity.
    You're disputing the entire body of evolutionary theory, because you're rejecting scientific principles.

    I've never seen anyone not a creationist do so, before. Hence the question.

    My position is the opposite of that which is that things came about spontaneously and accidentally. I'll try not to venture too far into forbidden topics though because i'll get banned if I speak my mind. :s
    Sure. If your position were reasonable and defensible, that wouldn't be the case. So you're essentially admitting to being unreasonable; the only reason you'd get banned for posting it is if it's a whackadoodle conspiracy claim, like flat-eartherism or moon landing denial, or if it were outright hate speech.


  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    Evolution is a theory and theories can't be proven right in principle. There were flaws in Darwin's theory, and then there were major flaws in Lamarkianism, and we can also expect that the modern Dawkinsian theory of evolution also has imperfections that prove that it's not a correct theory. Science is just about adopting the latest best explanation, it's not about proving ultimate facts. In fact anything that's considered an "absolute" truth is inherently anti-scientific.
    This post is a combination of strawmen, falsehoods, and words used so sloppily and haphazardly that it's like you went out of your way to demonstrate my point. I don't have the energy to start at the beginning, which is where you are in your understanding of these terms, but I'll link you a couple things that may help:

    "Finally, there is an epistemological argument against evolution as fact. Some readers of these newsgroups point out that nothing in science can ever be "proven" and this includes evolution. According to this argument, the probability that evolution is the correct explanation of life as we know it may approach 99.9999...9% but it will never be 100%. Thus evolution cannot be a fact. This kind of argument might be appropriate in a philosophy class (it is essentially correct) but it won't do in the real world. A "fact," as Stephen J. Gould pointed out (see above), means something that is so highly probable that it would be silly not to accept it. This point has also been made by others who contest the nit-picking epistemologists.

    The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

    'So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.'"


    - H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

    For more on what Gould actually said: "Many scientists and philosophers of science have described evolution as fact and theory, a phrase which was used as the title of an article by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1981. He describes fact in science as meaning data, not absolute certainty but "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent"."

    There's a lot on this page that would be a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolut...act_and_theory

  12. #32
    The Unstoppable Force PC2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    You're disputing the entire body of evolutionary theory, because you're rejecting scientific principles.
    I don't know how we got on this topic but Dawkinsian evolutionary theory is the current best explanation for life and people. It's still just a theory though that needs to be improved. For example one flaw in it is that we don't know how memes work as they relate to information states in the brain so it's possible that we need a new theory of evolution in the future. We simply don't know exactly how it works ATM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    I've never seen anyone not a creationist do so, before. Hence the question.
    Yeah well many of my positions appear to be similar to creationists however pretty much all creationists would consider my positions to be 'post-modernism on steroids' since I view people as inherently fallible and not capable of creating a correct theory.

  13. #33
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PC2 View Post
    I don't know how we got on this topic but Dawkinsian evolutionary theory is the current best explanation for life and people. It's still just a theory though that needs to be improved. For example one flaw in it is that we don't know how memes work as they relate to information states in the brain so it's possible that we need a new theory of evolution in the future. We simply don't know exactly how it works ATM.
    So, to unpack;

    1> "Dawkinsian evolutionary theory" isn't a thing. Dawkins did not develop any major new development in evolutionary theory that would warrant redefining the entire body of evolutionary theory in his name. Hell, Google the term, and you just get pages on Dawkins, because this isn't a thing.

    2> Evolutionary theory doesn't explain psychological concepts and neurological biology. Those are separate fields of study, entirely.

    3> An unanswered question does not invalidate a scientific theory. That's "God of the Gaps" fallacy bullshit.

    Yeah well many of my positions appear to be similar to creationists however pretty much all creationists would consider my positions to be 'post-modernism on steroids' since I view people as inherently fallible and not capable of creating a correct theory.
    So, again, completely opposed to basic principles of science, and disputing facts just because you've chosen to be contrarian.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Levelfive View Post
    This post is a combination of strawmen, falsehoods, and words used so sloppily and haphazardly that it's like you went out of your way to demonstrate my point. I don't have the energy to start at the beginning, which is where you are in your understanding of these terms, but I'll link you a couple things that may help:

    "Finally, there is an epistemological argument against evolution as fact. Some readers of these newsgroups point out that nothing in science can ever be "proven" and this includes evolution. According to this argument, the probability that evolution is the correct explanation of life as we know it may approach 99.9999...9% but it will never be 100%. Thus evolution cannot be a fact. This kind of argument might be appropriate in a philosophy class (it is essentially correct) but it won't do in the real world. A "fact," as Stephen J. Gould pointed out (see above), means something that is so highly probable that it would be silly not to accept it. This point has also been made by others who contest the nit-picking epistemologists.
    Just as a side note, since it may get lost in the shuffle, what this is arguing is that "science can't be a fact because science cannot prove anything 100%" is a bullshit argument.

    If you insist upon it, you have to admit that there are no facts. Or rather, one. "I am." That's it. You exist, to ask that question, but everything else is tentative. Even mathematics. Because what engine do you have to analyse it? How can you verify your own conclusions and derivations within mathematics, even hypothetically, if there's nothing else? You can't rely on your own reasoning and analysis, because you might be fallible and make a mistake, so even mathematics fails the "100% proven" measure. Even a simple principle like 1+1=2.

    It's such a completely dishonest standard to apply that anyone bringing it up can safely be dismissed as not being a serious person.

    Once you decide to be reasonable and admit that there are things that are facts, then you're going to have to admit that scientific theory, like evolutionary theory and anthropogenic climate change, those are facts too. And if you won't, we're back to you being dishonest.

    Nihilist "nothing is real, we only see figments in our own minds" stuff makes for neat philosophy, but it doesn't have any real practical utility outside of ontological or epistemological debate.
    Last edited by Endus; 2020-03-28 at 09:58 PM.


  14. #34
    This chart tells me that Democrats are acting more “doom and gloom” about the virus, and They are dying more than Republicans.

    Both are likely due to geography.
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD
    PROUD PROUD PROUD PROUD

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeth Hawkins View Post
    This chart tells me that Democrats are acting more “doom and gloom” about the virus, and They are dying more than Republicans.

    Both are likely due to geography.
    That's a good point. Republicans probably live in areas that would be least effected by corona virus since they dont live in highly dense populated areas. They dont feel the threat of it as much living in a farm town in Missouri as someone living in a high rise in New York.

  16. #36
    Over 9000! Milchshake's Avatar
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    Krugman has a must read on why COVID-19 denial has dominated the Republican Party.

    First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around assertions than any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects of tax cuts and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you’re already primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.

    This also helps explain the centrality of science-hating religious conservatives to modern conservatism, which has played an important role in Trump’s failure to respond.

    Second, conservatives do hold one true belief: namely, that there is a kind of halo effect around successful government policies. If public intervention can be effective in one area, they fear — probably rightly — that voters might look more favorably on government intervention in other areas. In principle, public health measures to limit the spread of coronavirus needn’t have much implication for the future of social programs like Medicaid. In practice, the first tends to increase support for the second.

    As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with redistributing income, simply because they don’t want voters to see government doing anything well.


    Republican-controlled states have rejected the as-rewritten-by-John-Roberts Medicaid expansion; not because it’s unpopular and doesn’t work, but because it’s popular and works. It’s a troubled worldview that doesn’t suddenly vanish during a pandemic.
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  17. #37
    Herald of the Titans D Luniz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Milchshake View Post
    Krugman has a must read on why COVID-19 denial has dominated the Republican Party.

    First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around assertions than any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects of tax cuts and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you’re already primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.

    This also helps explain the centrality of science-hating religious conservatives to modern conservatism, which has played an important role in Trump’s failure to respond.

    Second, conservatives do hold one true belief: namely, that there is a kind of halo effect around successful government policies. If public intervention can be effective in one area, they fear — probably rightly — that voters might look more favorably on government intervention in other areas. In principle, public health measures to limit the spread of coronavirus needn’t have much implication for the future of social programs like Medicaid. In practice, the first tends to increase support for the second.

    As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with redistributing income, simply because they don’t want voters to see government doing anything well.


    Republican-controlled states have rejected the as-rewritten-by-John-Roberts Medicaid expansion; not because it’s unpopular and doesn’t work, but because it’s popular and works. It’s a troubled worldview that doesn’t suddenly vanish during a pandemic.
    or as Saint Ronald of Reagan said



    then, we got 30 more years of that from the GOP (cept when they were in charge, then we are supposed to "respect the office" ect ect.)

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    Okay, how about this.

    The republican party has lead a decades-long crusade against the sciences and intelligentsia whilst sewing distrust in the media and supporting a bitterly partisan system that supports nationalism, xenophobia, and a cult of personality supporting the GOP as some sort of holy order. This has lead to individuals of the republican party who don't trust the words of scientists, don't believe in academics, don't believe the word of democratic leaders fearing that their surreptitiously trying to take down Trump, and believe the word of an inexperienced man-child over that of qualified experts to the point that it's become dangerous.
    The left is perfectly content with ignoring scientific evidence when it doesn't conform with their worldview. Some examples are the heritability of intelligence and IQ in general, fetal pain, differences between the sexes, GMOs, nuclear power, fracking, the environmental benefits of fossil fuels, using geoengineering to combat climate change, among other things. Even the intellectual foundations of the modern left are based on ideas that early on were considered pseudo-scientific like many of Marx, Freud, and Adler's social theories.
    Last edited by Deletedaccount1; 2020-03-29 at 05:53 AM.

  19. #39
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Knadra View Post
    The left is perfectly content with ignoring scientific evidence when it doesn't conform with their worldview. Some examples are the heritability of intelligence and IQ in general, fetal pain, differences between the sexes, GMOs, nuclear power, fracking, the environmental benefits of fossil fuels, using geoengineering to combat climate change, among other things. Even the intellectual foundations of the modern left are based on ideas that early on were considered pseudo-scientific like many of Marx, Freud, and Adler's social theories.
    Well seeing as... most of what you enumerated upon... has been dismissed by actual scientists as clap trap (I'm surprised you didn't put eugenics in there,) I really don't think your opinion on the matter is particularly important.

    And, once again, here's the distinction. You've imagined all of those things to be the case. You have no data to back it up. So you're pitting your imagined sense of how arbitrarily defined "leftists" react to a random litany of what you personally believe to be scientifically relevant topics... versus actual, statistically backed up reactions of actually defined conservatives to a real and observable pandemic that display that they are statistically more likely (again, citing real numbers) to react poorly, and from a less informed position, to the situation than the "leftists" you're chiding.

    Guess which I find more damning? Yeah, the one backed up by real numbers based on studies, rather than the opinion of the weight of imagined statistics by some random internet nobody.
    Last edited by Kaleredar; 2020-03-29 at 06:11 AM.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Kaleredar is right...
    Words to live by.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Milchshake View Post
    Study reveals how political identity shape one's response to crisis.
    The public response to the Covid Crisis in the United States is completely partisan in nature. Again, Identity Politics prevails.



    That the politics of COVID-19 are partisan is perhaps not surprising given the condition of American politics, but that mass public health behavior is more consistently predicted by partisanship than by anything else we measured has profound and distressing implications for public health in the coming months.
    Do we know how well the data in the A-column actually represent people's behaviour?

    That is do democrats wash their hands more often than non-democrats, or do they only claim they do?

    Since it is highly politicized people might deliberately or subconsciously give the "right answer" based on the political leanings, but act differently.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    Well seeing as... most of what you enumerated upon... has been dismissed by actual scientists as clap trap (I'm surprised you didn't put eugenics in there,) I really don't think your opinion on the matter is particularly important.
    Which ones? (Excluding the obvious fracking and other benefits of fossil fuels; and fracking isn't really science - just engineering.)

    And note that most scientists don't dismiss eugenics because it doesn't work (like astrology, phrenology) - but because of major ethical problems.
    And mild form of eugenics are actually in use, it's just that people tend to keep quiet about it.

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