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On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted.
In fairness to Carson, not a fan of him personally, but just because someone's conclusion from the evidence is different from yours does not mean he is automatically wrong. Carson could simply have not been convinced by the evidence of evolution, doesn't mean he has an agenda just because the argument was bad. Believers in science don't believe in true answers anyway, just most the most recent and likely explanation to the observed and inferred phenomena. Scientists understand that they could be wrong about everything and accept that its possible they're wrong about things people think are true.
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On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. Or the experts who said there were WMDs in Iraq. Very trustworthy.
I agree that we have a huge problem with biased "experts" and people believing what they want. Carson is a prime example of this. But giving into the very irrational idea that all experts are bad/biased is not productive. In fact, it only feeds into the problem and gives license to people like Ben Carson.
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On August 04 2016 02:23 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. In fairness to Carson, not a fan of him personally, but just because someone's conclusion from the evidence is different from yours does not mean he is automatically wrong. Carson could simply have not been convinced by the evidence of evolution, doesn't mean he has an agenda just because the argument was bad. Believers in science don't believe in true answers anyway, just most the most recent and likely explanation to the observed and inferred phenomena. Scientists understand that they could be wrong about everything and accept that its possible they're wrong about things people think are true.
The problem is that at present, the evidence in favor of evolution is so strong that any dismissal of it is basically willful ignorance and denial of the facts. Listen to his reasons why evolution isn't real and you would quickly see that he is full of shit and just taking a religious stance on a science issue.
The ability for science to be wrong doesn't support the conclusion that "any interpretation is as valid as any other." No, some people are definitely more correct than others.
Though since we're talking about political rather than scientific experts, perhaps the WMD example is more pertinent.
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Carson is only an expert in medicine; biology is a related, but different field. Medicine is also much more practical than scientific, at least for the parts Carson was in.
It is sad how unknowledgeable he seems to be outside of that.
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On August 04 2016 02:23 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. In fairness to Carson, not a fan of him personally, but just because someone's conclusion from the evidence is different from yours does not mean he is automatically wrong. Carson could simply have not been convinced by the evidence of evolution, doesn't mean he has an agenda just because the argument was bad. Believers in science don't believe in true answers anyway, just most the most recent and likely explanation to the observed and inferred phenomena. Scientists understand that they could be wrong about everything and accept that its possible they're wrong about things people think are true.
He's objectively wrong about evolution. You can argue whether or not its agenda driven. But there's no doubt he is absolutely wrong on the issue.
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On August 04 2016 02:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. Or the experts who said there were WMDs in Iraq. Very trustworthy. I agree that we have a huge problem with biased "experts" and people believing what they want. Carson is a prime example of this. But giving into the very irrational idea that all experts are bad/biased is not productive. In fact, it only feeds into the problem and gives license to people like Ben Carson.
In general experts should be trusted. The problem is when bad experts poison the well of trust, and the politicians who support them. That tends to lead to people distrusting real experts as well as fake ones.
On August 04 2016 02:28 zlefin wrote:
Carson is only an expert in medicine; biology is a related, but different field. Medicine is also much more practical than scientific, at least for the parts Carson was in.
It is sad how unknowledgeable he seems to be outside of that.
Biology is central enough to medicine that it can be reasonably inferred that he is at least well-educated enough in biology to understand why evolution is pretty clearly correct.
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On August 04 2016 02:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:26 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. Or the experts who said there were WMDs in Iraq. Very trustworthy. I agree that we have a huge problem with biased "experts" and people believing what they want. Carson is a prime example of this. But giving into the very irrational idea that all experts are bad/biased is not productive. In fact, it only feeds into the problem and gives license to people like Ben Carson. In general experts should be trusted. The problem is when bad experts poison the well of trust, and the politicians who support them. That tends to lead to people distrusting real experts as well as fake ones.
Yes, and that is something that should be addressed through highlighting the bad experts and some sort of consequence if they willingly mislead people. Fanning the distrust of all experts is the road to destruction and should not be encouraged.
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On August 04 2016 02:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:26 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. Or the experts who said there were WMDs in Iraq. Very trustworthy. I agree that we have a huge problem with biased "experts" and people believing what they want. Carson is a prime example of this. But giving into the very irrational idea that all experts are bad/biased is not productive. In fact, it only feeds into the problem and gives license to people like Ben Carson. In general experts should be trusted. The problem is when bad experts poison the well of trust, and the politicians who support them. That tends to lead to people distrusting real experts as well as fake ones. Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:28 zlefin wrote:
Carson is only an expert in medicine; biology is a related, but different field. Medicine is also much more practical than scientific, at least for the parts Carson was in.
It is sad how unknowledgeable he seems to be outside of that. Biology is central enough to medicine that it can be reasonably inferred that he is at least well-educated enough in biology to understand why evolution is pretty clearly correct.
general biology isn't actually that pertinent to medicine; it's pertinent to its history and research, but not so much to its practice. Human anatomy is quite a small subset of biology, so thats' more studied directly, rather than as a component of biology.
And the case that documents why evolution is correct is generally not covered in detail unless you go in much deeper, as is common in science, most of the actual proofs are long and complicated work of a great many people.
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On August 04 2016 02:28 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:23 Naracs_Duc wrote:On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. In fairness to Carson, not a fan of him personally, but just because someone's conclusion from the evidence is different from yours does not mean he is automatically wrong. Carson could simply have not been convinced by the evidence of evolution, doesn't mean he has an agenda just because the argument was bad. Believers in science don't believe in true answers anyway, just most the most recent and likely explanation to the observed and inferred phenomena. Scientists understand that they could be wrong about everything and accept that its possible they're wrong about things people think are true. The problem is that at present, the evidence in favor of evolution is so strong that any dismissal of it is basically willful ignorance and denial of the facts. Listen to his reasons why evolution isn't real and you would quickly see that he is full of shit and just taking a religious stance on a science issue. The ability for science to be wrong doesn't support the conclusion that "any interpretation is as valid as any other." No, some people are definitely more correct than others. Though since we're talking about political rather than scientific experts, perhaps the WMD example is more pertinent.
Your talking about someone who thought the Pyramids were used as grain silo's.
The guy might be a great surgeon but he is utterly clueless and completely and objectively wrong.
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On August 04 2016 02:33 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:30 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:26 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. Or the experts who said there were WMDs in Iraq. Very trustworthy. I agree that we have a huge problem with biased "experts" and people believing what they want. Carson is a prime example of this. But giving into the very irrational idea that all experts are bad/biased is not productive. In fact, it only feeds into the problem and gives license to people like Ben Carson. In general experts should be trusted. The problem is when bad experts poison the well of trust, and the politicians who support them. That tends to lead to people distrusting real experts as well as fake ones. Yes, and that is something that should be addressed through highlighting the bad experts and some sort of consequence if they willingly mislead people. Fanning the distrust of all experts is the road to destruction and should not be encouraged.
It's harder to do in soft sciences and in political matters. Politicians will uphold experts who, while biased, will support their position. And when will you see that they are wrong? In the case of Iraq and WMDs, two costly wars later. And the intelligence branch of the US has lost a lot of credibility for that obviously explicitly political blunder.
Soft sciences and politics tend to address events that are large in scale and hard to acquire good evidence for. Fake experts can survive for much longer than those in science.
On August 04 2016 02:40 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:28 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:23 Naracs_Duc wrote:On August 04 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:07 Plansix wrote:On August 04 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 01:37 TheYango wrote:On August 04 2016 01:22 LegalLord wrote:
I think of the statement "people have enough of experts" as stupid when said explicitly, but that the sentiment behind it is the same kind of sentiment you would use for dismissing some of the long-winded, "data driven" biased posters in this thread who will remain unmentioned: people with some degree of expertise who twist the facts and use a biased interpretation to support a position that is less so true and more so made for personal political gain. The "experts" being referred to are in social science fields where explicit bias plays a much bigger role than in the hard sciences. While I agree with this, I think responding to those "experts" in such a dismissive way rather than engaging them in rational discourse dumbs down the discussion in a way that's thoroughly unproductive. Really, it's ignorance and laziness to just say "I don't want to deal with you". While some do question the "experts" a lot of people are just laymen, who can at best say something is fishy about what said experts say but can't give a full rebuttal because data and data collection are in the hands of a biased party, and they themselves aren't educated enough in that field to give a proper response. For example, if the government doesn't collect race or nationality in police statistics, is it still fair for people to suspect that immigrants from the Middle East are most responsible for crimes? I think it's a reasonable low-level assertion that the "experts" have often vehemently denied with willful dismissal of facts. Are there people who are stupidly opposing the views of the experts? Yeah. There are also people blindly following the word of biased experts which is also stupid. But "people have enough of experts" is a valid, even if stupidly worded, sentiment. I am uncomfortable with any blanket dismissal of someone with high levels of training and knowledge on any subject. Especially when we are still trying to convince our country that climate change is real, conversion therapy is torture and we have several high level profile elected officials saying vaccines should not be mandatory. I don’t approve of people stoking fear of violence when it is down nationwide and has been for over a decade. Feeding into the fear for police when the job has never been safer. Leadership’s job is to reassure the public and lead them forward based on the best information. Not claim that the information is biased or false based solely on the fact that isn’t what the public believes is true. That isn’t leadership. In general this is true and most of the time the experts in any given field are correct. The problem is when the leadership starts giving credibility to biased experts (of which there are many) who will just shill for the position that the leadership wants whether or not it is accurate. That diminishes the degree of trust that people have in those experts, for good reason. Look no further than Ben Carson if you want an example of a highly trained person who can say things that are batshit insane and that directly contradict the field they are in. You could say that he's just wrong about politics, but his dismissal of evolution is very strongly at odds with his training in medicine. A blanket dismissal of his opinion on a wide range of issues is not unwarranted. In fairness to Carson, not a fan of him personally, but just because someone's conclusion from the evidence is different from yours does not mean he is automatically wrong. Carson could simply have not been convinced by the evidence of evolution, doesn't mean he has an agenda just because the argument was bad. Believers in science don't believe in true answers anyway, just most the most recent and likely explanation to the observed and inferred phenomena. Scientists understand that they could be wrong about everything and accept that its possible they're wrong about things people think are true. The problem is that at present, the evidence in favor of evolution is so strong that any dismissal of it is basically willful ignorance and denial of the facts. Listen to his reasons why evolution isn't real and you would quickly see that he is full of shit and just taking a religious stance on a science issue. The ability for science to be wrong doesn't support the conclusion that "any interpretation is as valid as any other." No, some people are definitely more correct than others. Though since we're talking about political rather than scientific experts, perhaps the WMD example is more pertinent. Your talking about someone who thought the Pyramids were used as grain silo's. The guy might be a great surgeon but he is utterly clueless and completely and objectively wrong.
That's the point. An expert but also prone to being completely off-base too, even within something close enough to his area of expertise that one could think him to be out of his mind for having the opinions he has.
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On August 04 2016 02:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:14 Sadist wrote:On August 04 2016 02:11 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 04 2016 02:04 Sadist wrote:On August 04 2016 01:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 03 2016 20:58 Biff The Understudy wrote:On August 03 2016 19:06 Sent. wrote:It's not about Trump saying dumb things, it's about calling him literally mentally ill or adding: Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S. under every article about him, even when it's irrelevant to the article. I guess it's pointless complaining because it's impossible to control the media but it's still sad to see. Hillary is and has been under WAY bigger scutiny than Trump. Fact is, nobody talks about the numerous time Trump fucked investors who trusted him in the ***, when he abused credulous young students with his fake "university" etc etc etc. or simply the fact he lies to the nation every time he opens his mouth. Meanwhile Hillary's campaign has been a mountain of minor scandals blown out of proportion and simple defamation both from the right media and the gop (there is not a single piece of evidence she's ever been corrupt for example). cor·rupt
kəˈrəpt
adjective
1.
having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. Hillary "showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for personal gain"That's just an 1 example from this week. Not that Trump has any room to make the critique, but she's corrupt by definition. I feel like this election will be in full newspeak before the end. I dont consider that as corrupt. More misleading/lying and cover your ass. I would think of corruption as kick backs and favors. Also im not even a Hillary fan but if thats corruption by definition every politician is corrupt. That's fine if you don't want to accept the definition of the word, but if someone says Hillary is corrupt, it's an accurate statement. Separately, do you actually think this process is navigated by her without Hillary promising and receiving kickbacks/favors? Or are those just not the type of kickbacks/favors you're talking about? Every politician promises kickbacks and favors for everything. Even you or I do in our real life if you want to get down to the "definition" of it. Its all in the nuance and what the specific kickback is. Or if it is illegal. I don't see doing the practically the same act in a legal way as significantly different than doing it illegally from a moral perspective. If I lie to the public, but tell investigators the truth, then deny the truth I told them in favor of the lie I tell the public, I don't see the moral superiority to just consistently lying. More to the point people can have fun pointing out who the bigger liar, more corrupt, etc... candidate is, but when people say they aren't lying through their teeth or corrupt they are living in an alternate universe. Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:19 Naracs_Duc wrote:On August 04 2016 01:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 03 2016 20:58 Biff The Understudy wrote:On August 03 2016 19:06 Sent. wrote:It's not about Trump saying dumb things, it's about calling him literally mentally ill or adding: Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S. under every article about him, even when it's irrelevant to the article. I guess it's pointless complaining because it's impossible to control the media but it's still sad to see. Hillary is and has been under WAY bigger scutiny than Trump. Fact is, nobody talks about the numerous time Trump fucked investors who trusted him in the ***, when he abused credulous young students with his fake "university" etc etc etc. or simply the fact he lies to the nation every time he opens his mouth. Meanwhile Hillary's campaign has been a mountain of minor scandals blown out of proportion and simple defamation both from the right media and the gop (there is not a single piece of evidence she's ever been corrupt for example). cor·rupt
kəˈrəpt
adjective
1.
having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. Hillary "showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for personal gain"That's just an 1 example from this week. Not that Trump has any room to make the critique, but she's corrupt by definition. I feel like this election will be in full newspeak before the end. So the guy says that she didn't lie, and the guy says she wasn't hacked--but the still believes she's bad because it might have happened possibly even when he found no evidence it happened? That's a really weird dude. This is the type of nonsensical dribble I'm talking about.
I agree with you about the legality vs moral statement. Obviously we are in agreement about shades of grey. I think you just picked a really poor example to say shes corrupt. Every politician does what she did there. It would be great if everyone was an open book but nothing would get done in the world because we would be picking apart everything about everyone. Its already bad enough as it is.
Id think of corruption as all of the lobbying that we see everyday. Pharmacutical, oil, agriculture, medical. People who knowingly make false statements that damage all of us (healthcare industry and oil) because they are backed by big industry in their home state. If they actually believed what they said that would be one thing. But theres no way most of these politicians believe what they say about healthcare and the environment. Thats the definition of corruption to me.
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Biased experts is not the real problem. The real problem, in social sciences, relates to the way labs are financed, specifically their relationship with specific interests, and how they produce datas and expertise that certainly have value but oftentime mistrepresent fact or elude specific issues.
In economics, just always watch who says what and how he/it is financed and you will be able to know their conclusions before even reading anything.
And also the fact that the science is biased at its core (econ).
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On August 04 2016 02:47 WhiteDog wrote:
And also the fact that the science is biased at its core (econ).
I've always found it remarkable how far within (US academic) economics you have to go before there is any mention at all of the fact that capitalism may not be the end-all be-all of how best to structure an economy.
Not entirely without merit, but biased to a fault.
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Economics suffers heavily from human interactions (which are often irrational) and the inability to test theories and models as well as overall complexity and number of interacting elements.
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The innate bias inherent to the process of presenting data is practically unknown among folks not in the Ivory Tower. This ignorance pervades our nation's understanding of economics and is, in addition to what Gorsameth describes above, what leads to stuff like unknowing acceptance of the label "fiscal conservative." To most laypeople, that term simply means "not wasteful," which is a crock of bullshit 
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On August 04 2016 02:55 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:47 WhiteDog wrote:
And also the fact that the science is biased at its core (econ). I've always found it remarkable how far within (US academic) economics you have to go before there is any mention at all of the fact that capitalism may not be the end-all be-all of how best to structure an economy. Not entirely without merit, but biased to a fault.
Its ok, there are a lot of people in the US who hold that opinion. Sadly we worship the mythical god known as the "Free Market" and saying that this god can't solve every problem on the planet is a terrible sin.
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On August 04 2016 02:55 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:47 WhiteDog wrote:
And also the fact that the science is biased at its core (econ). I've always found it remarkable how far within (US academic) economics you have to go before there is any mention at all of the fact that capitalism may not be the end-all be-all of how best to structure an economy. Not entirely without merit, but biased to a fault.
that isn't how it is though, it is the market and not capitalism that is held as sacrosanct. maybe at the university of chicago and other places where austrian theories hold sway capitalism itself is put on a pedestal in the econ departments.
the market really is the end-all be-all of how to best structure an economy, you can have a very generous 'socialist' welfare state as long as you don't fuck with the market too much.
that's how the scandinavians do it anyway even though they've pulled back on the spending a bit recently. . keep the market humming and it will generate a lot of wealth and you can spend a good chunk of it on social welfare. that's where venezuela screwed up, it destroyed the market and spent spent spent at the same time.
On August 04 2016 02:58 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2016 02:55 LegalLord wrote:On August 04 2016 02:47 WhiteDog wrote:
And also the fact that the science is biased at its core (econ). I've always found it remarkable how far within (US academic) economics you have to go before there is any mention at all of the fact that capitalism may not be the end-all be-all of how best to structure an economy. Not entirely without merit, but biased to a fault. Its ok, there are a lot of people in the US who hold that opinion. Sadly we worship the mythical god known as the "Free Market" and saying that this god can't solve every problem on the planet is a terrible sin.
better to pray to a god that actually delivers than to one that doesn't. the supremacy of keeping closer to free market principles than otherwise is very very obvious.
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Leaks and statements coming from within Trump's campaign are pretty alarming right now. You can't even pretend it's media hysteria because it's people on Trump's team saying those things.
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On August 04 2016 03:51 Doodsmack wrote:
Leaks and statements coming from within Trump's campaign are pretty alarming right now. You can't even pretend it's media hysteria because it's people on Trump's team saying those things.
I'm starting to get worried Clinton will be running against someone else. I think that even if Rubio or Ryan or someone got tossed into the ring, he'd lose though.
Romney could have some awesome revival though lmao. I am imagining a world where Romney walks up, lands 60% of the vote and has a solid 8 year presidency.
EDIT:
What the fuck is going on
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana openly split with Donald J. Trump, his running mate, on Wednesday by endorsing Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s re-election bid, doing so a day after Mr. Trump said he was not ready to make such an endorsement.
That the two members of the Republican presidential ticket were taking different positions on whether to endorse the House speaker, a fellow Republican, was extraordinary and showed the searing divisions tearing apart the party.
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On August 04 2016 02:58 Gorsameth wrote:
Economics suffers heavily from human interactions (which are often irrational) and the inability to test theories and models as well as overall complexity and number of interacting elements.
It's not even a question of testing theories and models, it's also that some of those theories and models are just false from a basic logical standpoint. Many mainstream models have been debunked (think about the model of the market which is a complete fraud) but students don't learn that until they are in master degree.
Even textbooks basically present arguments in a way that make it seems like the critics are a footnote when they are, in reality, complete rebutals (sonnenschein comes to mind).
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EPT
