How do we find the ''best'' explanation?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wegs, Oct 14, 2016.

  1. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    No, actually, one can do this. There are volumes written on comparing evidence of different accuracy and on how to attempt to create baseline measurements from different kinds of measurements.

    You seem to be ignorant of this, though it is likely that people have pointed out this to you before. This makes it look like a lie similar to the one you tell again and again that ignores that in the 1960s the overt racists left the Democratic party to become a central political element of the Republican party.

    Can you find any evidence of this? Seriously, if one looks at the best data from the last 100 years, it doesn't look stable. Sure, people cherry pick specific measurements from specific months rather than using proper statistical methods to make all kinds of lies. Why you want to grab onto the lies and ignore proper statistical techniques is fairly obvious.

    Nobody does something without emotions and values: there is no reason in facts alone to do something about them. If one has a commitment to stick to the science, then one has little choice on climate change because the content of the science is extremely one-sided. If one has a commitment to deny climate change, then there are lots of liars out there willing to make a buck.
     
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  3. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah. That's good advice. Tim Ball is a guy who literally lies about his own degree: he claims to be one of the first PhDs in climatology; there were many people with such a PhD before Ball and he doesn't even have that credential!
     
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  5. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    What I said is that you are lying by saying that anybody that digs in depth in the science denies anthropogenic global warming. The content of the science, e.g., the "consensus", supports human caused global warming.

    Yeah, using the phrase "climate change" was an idea promoted by Republican strategist Frank Luntz in order to make the problem seem less frightening. The word used, however, does not change the facts of global warming.

    https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=326

    You are showing many symptoms of latching on to easily debunked lies. E.g.:
    If one goes just a little farther and reads about Tim Ball and his book, one finds that it is a very bad book with a lot of mistakes. You are the person here not looking in depth; you flatter yourself that you have done a serious investigation into this issue.
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1164
    "Tim Ball was a "scientific advisor" to the oil industry funded Friends of Science, an organization well known for its climate skepticism and politically charged attack ads. Ball is a member of the Board of Research Advisors of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Canadian free-market think tank which is also predominantly funded by foundations and corporations. Ball is also a writer for Tech Central Station, a climate denial website run by the PR firm DCI Group"

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    hohum

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    He flatters himself on many issues including much rhetoric about being an "investigator" when in fact showing that he is no more than any run-of-the-mill, gullible, impressionable amateur.
     
  8. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Hello. I maintain you must ASK the question, and the truth will be given. A lie is constructed and if you read between the lines you may ascertain the truth from their story. They WILL be telling you the truth, even though they are lying.
     
  9. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    If you are saying that any media outlet, tend to put a slant on stories, and/or sensationalise, then I whole heartedly agree with you.
    It's simply a matter in most cases of weeding through the syrup and getting to the underlying facts.
     
  10. The God Valued Senior Member

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    Sensationalize is ok, it is nothing but flavored distortion, wherein the main theme can be identified. But what about outright dishonest reporting or suppression of facts known to media but could be damning for a particular interested person/organization if exposed.
     
  11. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly that happens: YEC's and there rubbish, many other religious zealots, the claims and reporting of Donald Duck in the present US elections, many interests pushing alternative rubbish, such as 9/11, Electric/Plasma Universe, anti GR zealots, climate change denialists. etc etc etc.
    In a democracy these are free to exist and preach their lies and nonsense, but by the same token, most of their buffoonery is recognisable as such, and known to exist at either end of the extreme spectrum.
    But in the normal middle of the road western press, and regions slightly left and/or right of center, the truth in general, can be filtered through the bullshit political slant either side.
     
  12. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    If you were doing a scientific study, and you threw out your bad data and plot only your good data, this can make your theory look better. It can also cause any audience to infer the wrong conclusion. You are still presenting good data. None of you data is fake. However, one is not presenting all the data, so the audience can infer properly.

    One of the radio commentators in the US, calls such audiences, who only watch limited news, the low information crowd. Low information does not mean the audience is not smart or intelligent. Rather it means the audience will use their inference skills, based on very limited data and information. They can be led to infer the wrong conclusion, without knowing it.

    Not everyone will look for a wide range of sources, from both sides, to fill in all the data. To most people, news is something they passively do 30 minutes a day, before Wheel of Fortune. If their favorite news organization only presents low information, their best conclusion will be wrong, in terms of hard reality. If I cherry pick the data points to look like a sine wave, the intelligent person will infer a sine wave.

    If you look at Left leaning media, the negative Trump data is true. But the data presented will not include the good Trump data in the same proportion. The good Hillary data is also true, but they will not present all the bad wiki-leaks data to the same proportion. The low information person, using their common sense logic, will infer a curve from this limited data and conclude there is more bad to Trump and more good to Hillary, just like the data reported.

    The media will argue this is all good data, which it is. They will not point out data proportions, and how any good reality curve, need all the data; good and bad, or else the curve can be made to look like something it is not.

    Maybe a good exercise would to have both sides, of the Hillary and Trump debate, generate all the bad data about Trump and Hillary. Each side knows more about the trash of the other side. Then we present all the good data for candidates. Each side will know more about the good data for their candidate. After the data brain storm, we compile the data, side by side. Then we all look at the complete data set and see what conclusions we draw. If done scientifically, all should agree. Partisan politics is based on partial data illusions.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016
  13. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    Can we please compare this to how you say over and over that the Democratic party is the party of racism by bringing up the overtly racist members of the 60s without mentioning that they all left in the 60s to join the Republican party? Is that not cherry picking?

    Please produce two examples of "Left leaning media".
     
  14. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No, they won't all agree, because of a little thing called subjectivity.
    One person's "good" is another person's "bad". They may agree on the factual content but not necessarily on the conclusions.
     
  15. river

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    True
     
  16. river

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    So how to stick to the facts . Without subjectivity .

    Now this goes down the ridigity of the facts .

    So it comes down to this ; is the Universe just mechanical in it's behaviour .

    Or does life has its place as a energy .
     
  17. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    what do you mean by "just mechanical in its behaviour"?
    Do you mean "does the universe strictly adhere to rules (that we may or may not yet fully understand)"?
    Or do you somehow see energy as distinct/exempt from such rules?

    I.e. Why do you think the universe being mechanical in its behaviour is mutually exclusive from life having "it's place as a energy"?
     
  18. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    You need to look at history in an objective way. Under the Democrats, the KKK formed as a militant enforcement wing of the Democratic party. The KKK under the Republicans; the 1960's onward, became a shadow of its former militant self. Today the KKK is more like the Black Panthers; semi-peaceful bigots who use political means and free speech instead of violence.

    The blacks, when they sided Republican, were family orientated and peaceful. After the blacks changed sides to the Democrats, the black used more violence, beginning with the early Black Panthers to modern looting demonstrations. It is not coincidence that Democrats tend to bring out the violence. The Democrats were the ones trying to incite violence at peaceful Trump rallies.

    CNN and New York Times are two examples of left leaning media. Go to the front page of the NY times on any day and count positive and negative articles on Hillary and Trump. Then compare the data count available for low information inferences.
     
  19. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    When a candidate is not even supported by some members of their own party for what they have said, done and stand for, the number of negative articles about them might just have nothing to do with bias.
     
  20. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Trump is not a professional politician. Rather Trump is a businessman and billionaire. Trump's historical role in the political process, before the primaries, was that of the donor class. The donor class does not have to look pretty, if their money is green. They can be direct. Looking pretty is the job of professional politicians. The donor class makes requests, and pays to make it happen. In the middle is not important.

    When Trump crossed over, from donor class to politician, he retained the arrogance of the donor class, who is used to getting its way. Trump did not feel he had to look pretty, like the begging class. This was Trump's advantage in the Republican primaries. Nobody expected him to win, so all the other candidates were being nice to him; political class, even while he was being crude and rude. The political class hoped for his donor class support, if and when he loss the primary.

    It was not until the end of the Republican primary, that Trump, staying like the donor class, started to rubbed the professional politicians the wrong way. They felt that candidate Trump needed to follow a different set of rules, with requires two faces. One of the two faces has to appear pretty and rehearsed in public, while the other face gets to be different, and align itself properly behind the scenes. Trump continued to do one the vulgar NY donor one face, rubbing many people the wrong way from both parties.

    Liberals like two faces and dual standards. Trump supporters prefer one face, even if not polished. To them it is about ability; donor class. It will be interesting if a donor class Trump becomes President. This prospect is making the rest of the donor class unsettled, since a President Trump might learn how to better cross back and forth. A two faced political Trump who also knows the ways of the donors, could upset the donor and political power structures. Hillary has four times the donations, compared to Trump, since both the political and donor classes are very nervous about the possibility of a bridge president, who will want to change both politics and donors into more in the image of a composite.
     
  21. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Good question Wegs. How do we know an answer is correct? Well I suppose we must have a consensus: the people must agree.

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  22. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

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    Argument by Consensus.
    While it may yield a truth, it is nonetheless an informal logical fallacy.
    Have you never come across something that was agreed upon by the masses, only to be discovered to be false?
     
  23. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, calling the Black Panthers bigots doesn't make you racist in the slightest.

    Plus you are still ignoring the fact that the Republicans actively fostered racism while the Democrats repudiated it. Your only complaint is that the Republicans did not do as good a job at racism as people did during the time right after slavery was abolished.
    Are you expecting people to agree with your assessment that Martin Luther King Jr was well known for his violent ways.
    No, they are not.
    Trump is a disaster as identified by Republicans, so negative coverage of him is merely objective, not biased.
     

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