who lied?

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that where we disagree with you is with your confusion with the words "indicative" and, say, "conclusive."

All your quotes don't say that anecdotal evidence is not factual.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is meaningless! Anecdotal evidence is BY DEFINITION unfalsifiable -- we don't know if it's factual or not; we can never know without further inquiry! That's why it's meaningless nonsense!

[ QUOTE ]
For example, let's say I could site 100 occurrences in the past year of conservative students being abused by their professors for their political leanings. Let's go further that in all 100 occurrences the professors admitted to their actions, or an investigation has proven it beyond doubt. In this example, this evidence is clearly factual and would "indicate" that there may be something to this conservative student/liberal professor thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol...oh...my...god

Just stop. For the benefit of all of us. Just stop.

You turned 'anecdotal evidence' into AN INVESTIGATION AND A CONFESSION OF THE ENTIRE SAMPLE SIZE. YOU TURNED ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE INTO THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

If you walk into court in the middle of a murder trial, and say there's a rumor going around town that the guy on trial is the murderer, you get laughed out of court and the evidence is inadmissable. If on the way out, I loudly yell 'but everyone in town knows the rumor!', the courtroom only laughs louder.

If you walk into a court while the murderer is in the middle of his [censored] confession after a lengthy trial where his guilt was proven beyond a doubt, IT'S NO LONGER ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

You guys are absolutely scary.

[ QUOTE ]
By trying to limit anecdotal evidence to people who claim they saw a UFO, or who report their belief in Jesus or other faith has changed their lives, you ignore all the times when there is factual, anecdotal evidence that may be used to advance a belief, while not being certain enough proof to be able to prove the belief beyond doubt.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Factual, anecdotal evidence"...."while not being certain" -- you know, all those 'facts' that 'we're not certain about and can't prove.'

lol, like I said, scary.

[ QUOTE ]
Finally, you say "[t]he fact that conservatives think they're persecuted on campus is indicative of nothing more than conservatives think they're persecuted, and says nothing about the empirical reality." Again, you confuse "anecdotal" evidence with what people think (UFO, Christ), instead of what people might know, even if their knowledge is based on anecdotal evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol...knowledge based on anecdotal evidence. Oy.

[ QUOTE ]
I know for a fact that there have been hundreds of reported incidents of liberal professors acting against conservative students because of their political beliefs. I don't "think" that these events happened, I know that they happened.

[/ QUOTE ]

You only 'know' those reports happened, you don't 'know' that conservatives were actually bullied by liberals -- that's a little like saying 'I know UFOs are reported'; wow, amazing. What the [censored] does that tell us about the existance of UFOs? Nothing. It's meaningless.

[ QUOTE ]
That the evidence is anecdotal might weaken my argument -- in that I can't make any sweeping allegations as to how often it happens, how wide spread the problem may be, etc. -- but it allows me to make some conclusions that this problem exists at some level.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, again, truly frightening.

[ QUOTE ]
And finally, because there is no anecdotal evidence that I have ever seen of the inverse problem, that enforces my argument.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. wow.

[ QUOTE ]
You read all your definitions as being negative about anecdotal evidence. It isn't that it is negative or bad, it is that it is not complete or conclusive. One you forgot to include might assist:

Dictionary.com: "non-scientific observations or studies, which do not provide proof but may assist research efforts"


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah; anecdotal evidence can typically be the beginning of the formation of a hypothesis. Right-wingers are surprisingly adept at forming hypothesis and declaring the conclusion true without any serious inquiry on the matter -- perhaps because they have mysteriously gleaned enormous compelling power from anecdotal evidence. That at violates the scientific method and spits in the face of the rules of logic is apparently of little import.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
As I stated in my other post, I really think that you don't understand what "anecdotal" means. All the quotes you give talk about how we should be cautious in using anecdotal evidence to make absolute conclusions. You and I don't disagree there.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, oh yeah? You showed alot of caution here:

"I know for a fact that there have been hundreds of reported incidents of liberal professors acting against conservative students because of their political beliefs. I don't "think" that these events happened, I know that they happened. That the evidence is anecdotal might weaken my argument -- in that I can't make any sweeping allegations as to how often it happens, how wide spread the problem may be, etc. -- but it allows me to make some conclusions that this problem exists at some level. And finally, because there is no anecdotal evidence that I have ever seen of the inverse problem, that enforces my argument."


lol you guys...I'm not going to get to sleep tonight, either, I guess. Thanks for ruining my weekend.

[ QUOTE ]
But, you seem to think that the "anecdotal" evidence has something to do with the supernatural, or something that can't be seen or proven.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will say it so very slowly:

ANECDOTAL...EVIDENCE...IS...BY...DEFINITION...UNFA LSIFIABLE.

We can take anecdotal evidence as a starting point for research (namely in the formation of a hypothesis); WE CAN THEN COLLECT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, which can then be tested against our hypothesis.

I think you guys may have missed this step in science class. You concluded your hypothesis as de facto accurate without strict (read: any) adherence to the scientific method and the testing requirements it demands.

[ QUOTE ]
The anecdotal evidence itself can obviously be factual ... it's the conclusion that is drawn from that evidence that has to be carefully looked at in the absence of some type of greater or better empirical evidence to support the conclusion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anecdotal evidence, in the absence of better empirical evidence, IS MEANINGLESS NONSENSE. Anecdotal evidence doesn't stand as true until someone can disapprove it. The burden of proof is one the one who makes the claim!

[ QUOTE ]
Let me approach it a different way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know. I would stop here.

[ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't you agree it is often the existence of anecdotal evidence of something that leads scientists/researchers to perform emperical studies to prove or disprove the conclusions drawn from the empirical evidence? Your answer had better be, "yes."

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course. By all means, cite the ample studies and research (that utilizes the scientific method) which demonstrates conservatives are bullied by liberals on campus. Good luck with that.

[ QUOTE ]
If you can understand this, then my question to you makes sense. I wasn't asking you to disprove anything. I was assuming that would have to admit that there have been hundreds of reports of the lib prof/cons stud issue. That is fact.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay. There are thousands of reports of UFO sightings everyday. Urban legends run rampant on the internet. Millions of people believe Nostradamus predicted 9/11 merely because they read it in a chain mail. This has been heavily reported.

Reports exist? Who cares? It's meaningless. IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE EMPIRICAL REALITY.

[ QUOTE ]
I thought it fair of you to point out that a few instances of this doesn't prove there is a liberal professor conspiracy against conservatives.

[/ QUOTE ]

Millions of people report praying to Jesus helped them cure their diseases. BUT, OHHHH, I HAVEN'T HEARD OF NEARLY AS MANY PEOPLE PRAYING TO SATAN AND HAVING THEIR DISEASES CURED!!!! ERGO, THE POWER OF JESUS IS ON DISPLAY!!!

Uh, no. The absence of the inverse doesn't prove the converse. It doesn't 'go to help prove' the converse. It doesn't 'aid' to prove the converse. It doesn't 'lead us to believe' the converse. This is fundamentally flawed logic. Please reconsider this line of argument. It's objectively terrible.

[ QUOTE ]
But I found it funny that you would then "conclude" that such an argument is nonesense. Based on your argument, don't you have to have emperical evidence that no such conspiracy exists?

[/ QUOTE ]

I CAN'T PROVE A [censored] NEGATIVE. I AM NOT SUPERHUMAN. PLEASE STOP ASKING ME TO DO THE LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

See: argumentum ad ignorantiam

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, anecdotal evidence can cetainly be falsified ... people can lie about what happened to them or what they saw. That is why it isn't as conclusive as emperical evidence. Based on your argument, I assumed that you had proof that all these students were making all this stuff up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Burden of proof --> on Copernicus (claimant); burden of proof --> not on DVaut1

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It may or may not be (and usually is) factual

[/ QUOTE ]

lol


Two questions:

1) How do we deduce, then, whether or not anecdotal evidence is actually factual? WHEN YOU ANSWER THIS QUESTION, YOU WILL REALIZE WHY ANECEDOTAL EVIDENCE IS USELESS. Ancedotal evidence is meaningless nonsense because it tells us absolutely nothing. It can't be tested. It can't be falsified.
2) ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE IS USUALLY FACTUAL!?!?!? lol my goodness.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has already been answered by me and NCAces.

I'll put it a different way. ALL evidence is anecdotal until there is enough of it and it is organized and assessed in a scientific manner. That doesnt make it non-factual.

As far as whether any particular evidence is factual, it has to be judged on its own. Since it is my personal experience, and also the experiences of others that have been reported in the mainstream press, I am quite satisfied it is not only factual but not isolated to the University where I witnessed it.

If you don't accept it as factual that is an opinion formed without basis...but then why would anyone expect you to treat these facts any differently then your routine ignorance and denial of fact throughout your posts.

Your denial here is just more of the usual "it conflicts with my position so I will continue to deny it until someone spends the time to post some links and then I'll disappear from the thread".

Here is more anecdotal evidence for you to ignore, including an example from the campus where I have seen it in action.

[ QUOTE ]
A 2003 survey by the Independent Women's Forum found that anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of students had felt forced to check "their intellectual and philosophical honesty at the door in order to get good grades." A brand-new American Council of Trustees and Alumni survey finds that half of all students--not just conservatives--at the top 50 colleges say that profs frequently inject their political views into courses, and almost one-third think that they have to agree with those views to get a good grade.



[/ QUOTE ]

And from the ACTA:

[ QUOTE ]
Since that time, others have documented the growing political intolerance and abuse of academic freedom on campus.

Students report feeling intimidated by professors and fellow students if they question politically correct ideas. In some cases, students have been subject to official sanctions for speaking their minds in class.

The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center finds that hundreds of colleges have adopted speech codes or sensitivity requirements that threaten free speech and academic freedom.

American historians cited “political correctness” and “overspecialization” most frequently when asked to name weaknesses in their profession by an Organization of American Historians survey.

The Student Press Law Center reports over 100 instances of campus newspaper theft, with little or no punishment for the perpetrators.

Professors have been removed and punished, in some cases illegally, for violating the norms of political correctness.

What happens when the threat is internal? What happens when the intellectual freedom of politically unfashionable colleagues or students is threatened by other professors, whose outrageous behavior is itself protected by tenure and “departmental autonomy”? It is important to understand how dramatically the situation has changed. Professors who once preached objectivity now celebrate subjectivity. The measure is not truth but power—especially the power of one's race, class, and gender. The aim is not to educate the young to think for themselves but to transform them into “change agents” for the professor's own brand of social engineering.


[/ QUOTE ]

[sirio11]

Man, it's beyond me, why do you decide to spend all this time with people this dense.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
Man, it's beyond me, why do you decide to spend all this time with people this dense.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol I don't know. I'm clearly sadistic. The word 'emotively', the scientific method, what anecdotal is...they have absolutley no idea what any of these things are. What can you do with these people? Four, five, six posts that all clearly demonstrate "anecdotal evidence is completely unfalsifiable", and just as many responses saying "but, but...I have alot of it!...and you don't have any!". One of those situations where I'm left to think nothing but "there but for the grace of God go I".

I have serious misgivings that some of these people are allowed on juries. Here's to hoping I never get falsely accused of a crime and have these guys deciding my fate. I get closer to a position of anarchist everyday. That these people conceivably (even if the chance is highly remote) have some control over my fate is enough to consider a complete restructuring the criminal justice system.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Man, it's beyond me, why do you decide to spend all this time with people this dense.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol I don't know. I'm clearly sadistic. The word 'emotively', the scientific method, what anecdotal is...they have absolutley no idea what any of these things are. What can you do with these people? Four, five, six posts that all clearly demonstrate "anecdotal evidence is completely unfalsifiable", and just as many responses saying "but, but...I have alot of it!...and you don't have any!". One of those situations where I'm left to think nothing but "there but for the grace of God go I".

I have serious misgivings that some of these people are allowed on juries. Here's to hoping I never get falsely accused of a crime and have these guys deciding my fate. I get closer to a position of anarchist everyday. That these people conceivably (even if the chance is highly remote) have some control over my fate is enough to consider a complete restructuring the criminal justice system.

[/ QUOTE ]

you can chat with your sycohphant to your hearts content. That doesnt change the FACT that you were WRONG about "anecdotal evidence" implying "non-factual evidence". Spin away, it just reinforces that you hide your head in the sand when you are proven wrong.

You also might try reading the links for more "anecdotal evidence".

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
you can chat with your sycohphant to your hearts content. That doesnt change the FACT that you were WRONG about "anecdotal evidence" implying "non-factual evidence". Spin away, it just reinforces that you hide your head in the sand when you are proven wrong.

You also might try reading the links for more "anecdotal evidence".

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't responded because it's just an inane strawman. I try to avoid strawmans in the guise of a coherent argument, but since you've said the same asinine thing three or four times now, you'll get a response. Here's what I said. Read very closely:


[ QUOTE ]
I'm not claiming a list of such instances from Newsmax would be 'made up' -- such a claim (that is, to claim conservatives are 'bullied on campus by professors)' is patently moronic because it's wholly unquantifiable. Such 'instances' are almost universally unverifiable, let alone occurring in great enough number to produce a significant sample; they’re merely anecdotal stories from students who feel they were slighted because of their political views; but we can't know that to be true, anymore than I could claim my boss doesn't promote me because of my political views, or that my church doesn't serve me Communion as fast as others because of my political views. It's by its very nature subjective.

GIVEN THAT WE HAVE NO OTHER IMFORMATION PLACED BEFORE US, SAVE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, there's certainly no objective measure, to my knowledge, by which we can quantify why some college student received a poor grade – “bias of professor” is as legitimate as “student was objectively poor, but now has sour-grapes-axe-to-grind with faculty”.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe the students are telling the truth? Maybe there are truly liberal professors who pick on conservative students. Who's to know? Anecdotal evidence is 'non-factual' BECAUSE WE CAN'T [censored] KNOW IF IT'S TRUE OR NOT. That's why no one who performs serious research in any field that dares call itself a sceince RELIES ON ANECDOTAL [censored] EVIDENCE.

Maybe rocks will float if I drop them. Who's to know? That's why YOU HAVE THE BURDEN OF PRESENTING EMPIRICAL, TESTABLE EVIDENCE THAT'S SUBJECT TO THE STANDARDS OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, not "here's some [censored] I heard." Until that point, your point is categorically UNPROVEN and remains nothing more than idle speculation. I tend to call unproven conjecture like "I saw a UFO", "rocks might fall up", "AIDS isn't caused by HIV", and "conservatives are bullied by liberal professors" in the category of abject nonsense, as most rational people do. The fact that you wave your hands around, and claim "no, no, I have lots of unproven conjecture!" means absolutely nothing.

I can't believe I have to explain what should be elementary knowledge to you.

[Copernicus]

1. this isnt a scientific theory that requires the scientfic method for support. The burden of proof that you are asking for is inappropriate.

2. you said "anecdotal evidence" IS NOT factual. You were wrong. You cannot admit it.

3. There are numerous reports of the phenomena that I pointed out. If you choose to believe they are all lying, thats your prerogative. Thinking people recognize that a large number of reports of a social phenomena are not likely to ALL be lying.

4. I have seen it for myself. Your burden of proof for anecdotal evidence is totally irrelevant to someone who has experienced it.

ignorance is bliss. You must be very happy in your tired narrow world.

[Lame Amateur]

As a former Ivy Leaguer, I not only observed several anti-right wing professors, but occasionally even openly anti-racism professors.

To think that a professor would chastise a student for openly racist (or even homophobic) remarks in class is just awful.

[NCAces]

DVault ...

I tried as best I could, without any emotion or flaming, to exlain to you where I think you are wrong. Go back and read the posts. I didn't call you names, I didn't redicule your position. I simply provided a reasoned explanation as to the value of anecdotal evidence, while also admitting its weaknesses.

Your response is to flame away, which is fine I suppose. I would just hope that in the future you would actually read what someone says, stop for a minute or two and try to see where they are coming from. Right now you are so convinced that you are right you can't even remotly consider that you might be misinterpretting what anecdotal evidence is.

So, with that I have wasted enough time and we will have to agree to disagree on what anecdotal evidence is.

I am interested to see your response about the empirical evidence that I supplied.

NCAces