Saturday, November 07, 2009

123rd Skeptics' Circle

It's up at Blue Genes.

Open thread as usual, but saying being a skeptic is as easy as ABC is FORBIDDEN!

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've just finished watching a documentary on race and intelligence on channel 4 in the UK.
Its here on the net:


http://www.channel4.com
/programmes
/race-and-intelligence
-sciences-last-taboo

Just in case our resident gerbil troll wants to squeek and run away from some evidence against his racially pure ubermenschitty, and start posting irrelevancies here at least he has been told about this.
A dewey eyed wankfantasy from the Stormfrant website it ain't.
Watch it and weep gerbil boy!

Dark Jaguar said...

Unfortunatly I cna't watch any of that... I'm from the wrong country it seems. Region based IP address blocking never has sat well with me. It seems so pointless.

MWchase said...

I've always seen it as slightly less aggravating, in the abstract, than assuming that IP address maps one-to-one to identity.

Anonymous said...

Dark Jaguar said...
"Unfortunatly I can't watch any of that... I'm from the wrong country it seems. Region based IP address blocking never has sat well with me. It seems so pointless."

DAMMIT! You missed a good programme. The upshot of it being that when a culture promotes learning and good education then IQ levels increase. The highest IQ levels are in the east asian group because of the Confucian meme of hard work when it comes to learning.
The molecular biologists laid the genetic master race BS to rest. Which is what I wanted our "racially pure ubermensch" to see.

Dark Jaguar said...

It's also very likely that ol' Gabe won't get a chance to watch it and then claim that ivory tower eggheads and their "experiments in sterile labs" can't possibly reflect the "real world" where the down to earth people deal with "reality".

MWchase said...

I had my money on him claiming that the study actually supported his beliefs. Somehow.

Dark Jaguar said...

I think we're actually betting on which inane argument he's going to use. That's some sad predictability.

At any rate, know any places to find alternate streams of this show? It'd help if I knew the channel name rather than the local number for it, unless it's literally called channel 4 across England? I'm not too sure.

Anonymous said...

Dark Jaguar posted:
"At any rate, know any places to find alternate streams of this show? It'd help if I knew the channel name rather than the local number for it, unless it's literally called channel 4 across England? I'm not too sure."

I'll have a look to see if there are any places other than the Channel 4 site that it can be accessed.
And yes it is literally called Channel 4 over here in the UK.

Anonymous said...

If you search using "Race and Intelligence" and "Rageh Omaar" you should get some downloads listed, unfortunately using dodgey websites. With luck someone will put parts of the programme on Youtube after it expires from being viewed from Channel 4's website.

Anonymous said...

I am writing this on the road with no
internet connection, so I will just copy
and paste my entire post when I get a
chance to connect to the Net, sorry
for this.

Bronze Dog, I feel very sad by the fact
that you ignore and brush aside any opinion
you do not agree to so easily. Further on
it gets worse that you misrepresent me and
over and over again state the complete
opposite of what I say. I may say that
"a Sphere is not a Square, so do not make
the mistake of thinking I am claiming this",
and the response I may get to a particular
post would immediately state that Gabe
thinks a Sphere is a square(?) Why do this,
it makes no sense.

Alas, I can only presume it is an attempt
to avoid the issue at hand and as your sheep
follow you blindly and never question you,
you know very well they will all nod in
unison and agree that now, even when Gabe
said the opposite, thinks that a Sphere is
a square.


Knowledge seems to be your enemy, and this
is the true root to it all. You have shown
hostility towards my travels around the world
an made it clear that a person that travels
Russia knowns less about its culture and people
then someone sitting at home checking 'Russia'
in Wikipedia, this is a very skewed view of
the world where you seem to give some sort of
absolute power and knowledge to internet and
certain sites supplying the 'knowledge'. It
is interesting that www.CreationWiki.com would
not get the same acceptance, I even suspect
you would claim them to be false and lying
which would show your biased and lack of
objective view, both Systems (Wikiepdia and
Creationwiki) are based on people of the
worlds opinion, some have references, some
have not, most references are also based on
peoples opinion (wich you call knowledge if
it suits your needs).

I want to ask you a direct question and that
you give a foundation for your beliefs;


Say we have someone going to Japan (Nippon), Call im Ga briel, he lives in Tokyo, travels around Japan, learns the culture, its history, he gets plenty of japanese friends which he communicate with to get a good understanding of the culture, and he start to be able to communicate rather good in Japanese (Nipponese).

Now we have some guy in America, Call him, say, Eric, he has never been abroad, never done anything or seen anything in his life other then playing World of Warcraft which makes him want to take a
class of Japanese because of the Japanese people he 'met' in World of Warcraft (or where they Chinese?
Whats the difference, to Eric they are all the same) and he goes to a class of "contemporary History of
Japan", after a month or so it finishes and he aces the essay given.


Who has more knowledge of the actual Japan, Eric (who went to a class to study Japanese culture) or Ga briel (who lived there and experienced the culture)?

Anonymous said...

Example II:
Another example, your response will be
quite telling, think about your previous
claims when you respond to this (that
experience is not worth anything compared
to a lesson in school).


James climbs mountains. He climbed Mt. Everest
by himself as well as various mountains in the Himalaya
region. James also taken various expeditions
to Adam's Peak as well as a rescue expedition
to Mt. Kilimanjaro. James has also done various
other expeditions, usually by himself around the
world for the last 30 years.

Eric is a freshman from College. Eric has
not done anything in his life, but he would
claim he have, he was in the Dragons Lair
in World of Warcraft as well as slained the
beast of mitroch when he was a level 17,
something no one has ever done, he claims.
Eric decided to go to a Climbing School because
he saw a movie called 'Vertical Limit' that
inspired him to be one of 'them'. He studied
hard and the classes where very detailed
and time consuming. Once a week the class
got to climb on a wall that was almost 30
meter. After 6 months Eric aced the tests and
was the best in class, his family was very
proud of him. In the last lesson the class
was to be given a surprise, a movie about
climbing, and to Eric's suprise it turned
out to be 'Vertical Limit', but it was such
a terrific movie so he was happy to see it
again.


Now Bronze, who has most experience and
knowledge of Climbing?


Eric, who has never actual climbed a mountain,
but aced the tests and was better then anyone
in his class in climbing the wall, not to mention
that he got to see 'Vertical Limit' TWICE.

Or

James, who has been a climber for the last
30 years, having done dozens of Rescue missions
as well as individual climbing on various
mountain ranges.


You may think the answer is easy, but it is
not if you are Bronze Dog. You see Bronze Dog
has continued to claim that Experience of the
world is inferior to 'desk knowledge'.
I hope that he sees how silly this is
and possible even be a real man about it and
admit his mistake, and possible even apologize
for the insults thrown at Ga briel, alas, this
would not happen, only a real man would face up
to his errors, and Bronze Dog does not need to,
he got all sheep on his side, so he can just
ignore me. Really mature indeed.

djfav said...

Let's see...

1. Dichotomous questions...check.

2. Strained analogies...check.

3. False theses...check.

Nice work, Gabe.

Anonymous said...

The gerbil squeeks again!
" I waffle on about all sorts of irrelevant shit. Alas, I can only presume it is an attempt
to avoid the issue at hand. As my Nazi loser dogma, that I follow blindly and never question, keeps me unquestioningly sheeplike in the thrall of my loser hero, Hitler.
You know very well I will waffle some more irrelevant bullshit in another boring attempt to squirm away from answering pertinent questions. please don't attack my Nazi wankfantasy, as I'm weak willed, and will die if I accept that black folks are just as human as I am."


Nazi, change the tune.
Define "white". Is it genetic or not?

JS;)

Anonymous said...

Who has more knowledge of the actual Japan, Eric (who went to a class to study Japanese culture) or Ga briel (who lived there and experienced the culture)?

If Gabriel went there blinded with a lot of prejudices and only choose to look at that which seemed to back this up... then Eric!

From your comments it's clear that you not only seem to think that your experiences of a certain country trumps people's knowledge who hasn't been there, but you also think your experiences trumps those who are natives of that country. You're not only a bigger authority on the Japanese than 'Eric' but also than the Japanese.

Also you keep saying that the people who comment here have never set foot outside the borders of the USA and therefore can't know anything. But some people who comment here and many who read this have never done anything else THAN been outside of the USA, you know, because we are not from there! You're on the Internet, you're talking to the world. For all your travelling you still have this weird narrow USAcentric view of the world. What a waste, all that travelling experience, and you've learned nothing.

Bronze Dog said...

Gabe: You have shown hostility towards my travels around the world an made it clear that a person that travels Russia knowns less about its culture and people then someone sitting at home checking 'Russia' in Wikipedia, this is a very skewed view of the world where you seem to give some sort of absolute power and knowledge to internet and certain sites supplying the 'knowledge'.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. The only one applying this sort of absolutist ad hominem/argument from authority nonsense would seem to be you. My argument has always been about the quality of controls against bias, not some divine priesthood hierarchy of authorities you seem to be advocating.

You don't seem to understand that I'm not letting you get away these subject changes. Science is about making the person who presents the evidence irrelevant to its quality. Instead of the data, you're changing the subject to who presents the arguments. You haven't controlled for your biases or alternative explanations. That's why your evidence is of such poor quality. We want the facts to be cold and hard, and you just seem to constantly demand that they be soft and squishy personal experiences easily swayed and altered by biases.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anonymous(?)

If Gabriel went there blinded with a lot of prejudices and only choose to look at that which seemed to back this up... then Eric!

Indeed, but that is not the scenario nor the reality, so lets keep it in the real world rather then skewing it to fit your false premises.

From your comments it's clear that you not only seem to think that your experiences of a certain country trumps people's knowledge who hasn't been there, but you also think your experiences trumps those who are natives of that country. You're not only a bigger authority on the Japanese than 'Eric' but also than the Japanese.

This makes no sense, I did not make such a scenario nor ever done such a claim. Yes, I would claim a Japanese would hold better or equal knowledge and understanding then a native Japanese, you could also say that Ga briel, who have MORE knowledge as he has been BOTH in Japan and in his native country seen BOTH and experienced BOTH cultures, he simple has BOTH sides of it, and alas, know more.

But I did not make such a claim or say anything about it, you just made something up to have EXCUSES not to address the issue at hand.

It could be debatable (the possible scenario I just made), and interesting debate, say a None-American would no doubt be better to see OUR society as he is coming from a foreign society, I guess you would have problems accepting that.

Also you keep saying that the people who comment here have never set foot outside the borders of the USA and therefore can't know anything. But some people who comment here and many who read this have never done anything else THAN been outside of the USA, you know, because we are not from there! You're on the Internet, you're talking to the world. For all your travelling you still have this weird narrow USAcentric view of the world. What a waste, all that travelling experience, and you've learned nothing.

Nope, sorry. Bronze Dog is american, I speak to him as an american. I assume most are americans reading (atleast the majority that has made comments towards me), once again, stop giving excuses.

And what have I 'not learned'? Prey tell?

Bronze Dog said...

Gabe, I want to know more about the temperature of a lake in Africa. Who should I trust:

A) A group of hydrologists who send a team over to dip thermometers into the lake who keep track of the time and depth of recording, and into nearby lakes for comparison, carefully writing down all of their methods in detail. They apply their statistical analysis skills to determine the average temperature of the lake as it varies over season and depth. They use their knowledge of Africa's weather patterns and fluid dynamics of water to determine probable causes of increases and decreases.

B) Some guy who spent a few months looking at the lake, claiming that he can tell temperature with his eyes. When asked how he does this, he changes the subject.

I don't know about you, but I'd say A will probably get the more accurate answer.

Anonymous said...

Ehm... Bronze, I do not really understand now, you make scenario that confirms what I said and then.. Hold on, is this a linguistic way of admitting yo uare wrong and you admit that Someone who knows more about a subject knows more then someone who does not?

To make it easier, could you just give me your respose to the two examples I gave, I included two to see if I would get two polar positions (mere interest) but wanted to see if you where man enough to actually face it. You been claiming for so long that experiene and knowledge is not valid, or rather, is not experience and knowledge and people who have never done something is more qualified then someone who is not. Please, respond.

I wonder if you would not hold this view if you would have travelled, you know, say you seen things, experienced the world and actually learnt things aobut the world, would you not question people who has? Is it jealousy? What is it?


Now, your Scenario was only a copy of mine, obviously the One living there and experiencing it has more knowledge then the one that has not, now I assume this mean you changed your mind and accept that Experience and Knowledge, say travelling and living in Zambia gives more information and make tht person more knowlegable about that country then someone who has lived in his basement all his life surfing the internet.

Please be detailed. Do you agree or not?

Bronze Dog said...

Gabe: Ehm... Bronze, I do not really understand now, you make scenario that confirms what I said and then.. Hold on, is this a linguistic way of admitting yo uare wrong and you admit that Someone who knows more about a subject knows more then someone who does not?

Oh, so you collected DNA samples when you were there, and performed a statistical analysis on the resulting data that contradicts the results of the Human Genome Project? Why didn't you say so?

Bronze Dog said...

To put things in perspective: Months ago, one of us links to a Wikipedia article about the Human Genome Project, which involved scientists collecting DNA samples from people all over the world.

Instead of following the citations to their sources and critiquing either that scientific study or the accuracy of the Wikipedia summary, Gabe starts whining about a straw man of some WoW-playing Wikipedia worshipers who never existed. The lying liar repeats the lie often enough on this blog that he now believes it himself, transforming into a PoMo.

The lie becomes a defense mechanism. Because any recording medium newer than squishy, subjective human brains is Automatically Wrong, he doesn't need to read the article because he knows it's Automatically Wrong. Out goes all critical thinking about how information is gathered, because Gabe, now the Ultimate Arbiter of Epistemology (elected in office by American Idol) declares it to be so. His ability to read DNA by looking at people gives him the divine power to summarily dismiss the most extensive research project ever performed human DNA.

If you're going to say this is a lie, Gabe, maybe you should probably start regretting all your efforts to change the subject when we asked for more information about them.