Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
From The Barrister at Maggie’s Farm, we learn of an article at one “Quillette”:
The Unbearable Asymmetry of Bullshit
written by Brian D EarpScience and medicine have done a lot for the world. Diseases have been eradicated, rockets have been sent to the moon, and convincing, causal explanations have been given for a whole range of formerly inscrutable phenomena. Notwithstanding recent concerns about sloppy research, small sample sizes, and challenges in replicating major findings — concerns I share and which I have written about at length — I still believe that the scientific method is the best available tool for getting at empirical truth. Or to put it a slightly different way (if I may paraphrase Winston Churchill’s famous remark about democracy): it is perhaps the worst tool, except for all the rest.
In other words, science is flawed. And scientists are people too. While it is true that most scientists — at least the ones I know and work with — are hell-bent on getting things right, they are not therefore immune from human foibles.
Yes, we do seem to be having the same troubles with our scientists that we have with women: They’re people, and people have faults. Just avoid the absolute statements about members of a class being always in the wrong, or never in the wrong, and you should be fine.
Should.
But…
There is a veritable truckload of bullshit in science. When I say bullshit, I mean arguments, data, publications, or even the official policies of scientific organizations that give every impression of being perfectly reasonable — of being well-supported by the highest quality of evidence, and so forth — but which don’t hold up when you scrutinize the details. Bullshit has the veneer of truth-like plausibility. It looks good. It sounds right. But when you get right down to it, it stinks.
There is something else going on here. Humans try to do, on any given day, all sorts of things some of which are scientific while some are not. All these humans have human faults. But all of these attempts are not riddled with “veritable truckloads of bullshit,” as we so often see the “science” is.
Much of the problem comes from without. Science offers a tasty morsel for the predatory. If you’re in an argument and you can say “science,” you get to impose obligatory thought upon the opposition, which has long been a lasting temptation among those who have holes in their souls. Science sides with me! Now bow down!
When the moniker of “science” is used for no better end than to prevail in an argument, what results from the concoction is neither good science nor good argument. Science, as I have so often had to remind others, is not a credential or a membership club; it is a method. As for arguing, it is a test. We all like to win our arguments, and of course losing one is detestable, but if you want to win all of the time whenever you have arguments there is a prerequisite: You’ve got to do some arguing.
Science has become less trustworthy, I cannot help noticing, during a time in which people need to be reminded of these two essential truisms, more-or-less all of the time. We see a lot of people invoking the word “science” without using, or making reference to anybody who’s using, science as a method. And we have a lot of people who want to win all the arguments without doing any arguing.
For this reason, I see science as mostly as pristine as we have known it to be — on the inside. I see it as under attack from outside hostiles.
But, then there is this…
There are many ways to produce scientific bullshit. One way is to assert that something has been “proven,” “shown,” or “found” and then cite, in support of this assertion, a study that has actually been heavily critiqued (fairly and in good faith, let us say, although that is not always the case, as we soon shall see) without acknowledging any of the published criticisms of the study or otherwise grappling with its inherent limitations.
That is contamination from within, and it does happen. What also happens from within, sends Mr. Earp on a wild tear many paragraphs long, which cannot be pruned down much by way of my amateur editorial skills.
I am referring to a certain sustained, long-term publication strategy, apparently deliberately carried out (although motivations can be hard to pin down), that results in a stupefying, and in my view dangerous, paper-pile of scientific bullshit. It can be hard to detect, at first, with an untrained eye — you have to know your specific area of research extremely well to begin to see it—but once you do catch on, it becomes impossible to un-see.
I don’t know what to call this insidious tactic. But I can identify its end result, which I suspect researchers of every stripe will be able to recognize from their own sub-disciplines: it is the hyper-partisan and polarized, but by all outward appearances, dispassionate and objective, “systematic review” of a controversial subject.
To explain how this tactic works, I am going make up a hypothetical researcher who engages in it, and walk you through his “process,” step by step. Let’s call this hypothetical researcher Lord Voldemort. While everything I am about to say is based on actual events, and on the real-life behavior of actual researchers, I will not be citing any specific cases…
In this story, Lord Voldemort is a prolific proponent of a certain controversial medical procedure, call it X, which many have argued is both risky and unethical. It is unclear whether Lord Voldemort has a financial stake in X, or some other potential conflict of interest. But in any event he is free to press his own opinion. The problem is that Lord Voldemort doesn’t play fair. In fact, he is so intent on defending this hypothetical intervention that he will stop at nothing to flood the literature with arguments and data that appear to weigh decisively in its favor.
As the first step in his long-term strategy, he scans various scholarly databases. If he sees any report of an empirical study that does not put X in an unmitigatedly positive light, he dashes off a letter-to-the-editor attacking the report on whatever imaginable grounds. Sometimes he makes a fair point — after all, most studies do have limitations — but often what he raises is a quibble, couched in the language of an exposé.
:
The subterfuge does not end there.The next step is for our anti-hero to write a “systematic review”…He Who Shall Not Be Named predictably rejects all of the studies that do not support his position as being “fatally flawed,” or as having been “refuted by experts” — namely, by himself and his close collaborators, typically citing their own contestable critiques — while at the same time he fails to find any flaws whatsoever in studies that make his pet procedure seem on balance beneficial.
The result of this artful exercise is a heavily skewed benefit-to-risk ratio in favor of X, which can now be cited by unsuspecting third-parties. Unless you know what Lord Voldemort is up to, that is, you won’t notice that the math has been rigged.
:
A similar phenomenon can play out in debates in medicine. In the case of Lord Voldemort, the trick is to unleash so many fallacies, misrepresentations of evidence, and other misleading or erroneous statements — at such a pace, and with such little regard for the norms of careful scholarship and/or charitable academic discourse — that your opponents, who do, perhaps, feel bound by such norms, and who have better things to do with their time than to write rebuttals to each of your papers, face a dilemma. Either they can ignore you, or they can put their own research priorities on hold to try to combat the worst of your offenses.It’s a lose-lose situation. Ignore you, and you win by default. Engage you, and you win like the pig in the proverb who enjoys hanging out in the mud.
That last is illustrative of a dire situation that confronts us, a situation that wasn’t here a generation ago. Science has begun to collide with politics. Perhaps it is more precise to say: Bad science has begun to collude with bad politics.
Think back to decades ago when our liberals commanded us to question authority, as opposed to agreeing with authority all of the time to prove we’re not racists. I don’t mean in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, I mean more like Vietnam. In those days, politics became the dominion of liberals. Conservative parents wanted their liberal kids to get haircuts, and jobs. The liberal kids wanted to protest. From this split came a situation in which the liberal kids concentrated on getting, keeping, and using a voice, and the passion persisted until they were no longer kids. Conservatives, meanwhile, figured out the chickens weren’t going to gather their own eggs, the roofs weren’t going to repair themselves…they didn’t have time for this shit.
Throughout this time, you see the liberals still lost elections. But they lost them after having won the previous elections, after the public got a good clear view of the harm that comes from liberal policies. These decades represent repeated laps around the unnecessary-mistake track; laps taken by, unfortunately, the entire country.
Now we are at a critical juncture. The conservatives who clean the crap out of the sewer lines and lay the foundations upon which buildings will be erected, that will house all sorts of publicly funded liberal-egghead think tanks, have come to the unpleasant realization that previous generations never quite learned: They have to make the time for politics. They’ve got to attend to it, as if it’s yet another chicken with eggs not yet gathered, otherwise everything else they’ve done is for nothing. They’ve got to write the code that works, they’ve got to build the diesel engines that successfully contain the explosions, they’ve got to manufacture the action boxes for 9mm pistols that don’t rupture under the stress, and do all the other things that liberals can never do. Then, they have to participate in politics like the liberals do. And the conservatives have to grow all our food.
Can you imagine a liberal being a potato farmer? It would never work. He would decide “this soil is good for growing potatoes,” and then he would do what liberals do all the time: Promulgate the narrative. The very last thing to figure into his actions would be the lingering question of whether or not the soil is any good…and come harvest time, there’d be no potatoes. If you want a big bundle of excuses about how everything is Republicans’ fault, liberals are your guys. Or, gals, or zhers or whatever. But if you want something to actually work then that’s not where you go. It’s not their bag, baby.
If liberals ever toil away under any sort of standard, their first move is to re-negotiate the standard. They’re so busy re-defining things, they’ve made themselves into strangers to the concept of ever getting any actual work done.
So conservatives have to make things work…food that can really be eaten, code that can really be run, combustion chambers that really do contain explosions…then they have to make time to argue with liberals who don’t have to worry about any of that. Wrestle with the pigs in the mud.
What has to happen with the science is the same thing as what has to happen with the politics. The issue is control of the theater of operations. For a generation or two now, the politics have been monopolized not quite so much by liberals, or conservatives, but rather by those who loathe definitions. What’s happening with science is that this rot has spread. We’re seeing the same things happen there that we’ve been seeing elsewhere in years past.
Statements about “X = Y” are no longer X = Y. They’re more like: If we presume A, B, C and D then it could be inferred that X is functionally equivalent to Y. And then it falls to those we call “conservatives” to ask the questions adults should be expected to ask, like: Why, pray tell, should we be presuming A, B, C and D? And if X is treated like Y when it’s not really the same thing, resulting in a cost of Z, who pays that?
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mkfreeberg: Can you imagine a liberal being a potato farmer?
More than one in four farmers are Democrats. Due to the current high polarization of the political parties, we can say that most of those are at least somewhat liberal.
- Zachriel | 02/22/2016 @ 10:09Says someone who has never been around a farmer.
- Severian | 02/22/2016 @ 10:24But…but….according to the “new” code of conduct….
- CaptDMO | 02/22/2016 @ 10:46mkfreeberg: Can you imagine a liberal being a potato farmer?
Z: More than one in four farmers are Democrats. Due to the current high polarization of the political parties, we can say that most of those are at least somewhat liberal.
You’ve managed to kill just about everyone else, but like a poor marksman you keep… missing… the target.
OK, so, better than one in four are Dems… most of those are at least somewhat liberal. That still leaves, generously, 70+% of farmers who in fact are not liberal. More than twice as likely, per a quick calculation. And then there’s the “somewhat.” Morgan’s point – which I think quite clear from the context of the argument – is that the “somewhat” would not extend to the growing of potatoes. Potatoes don’t grow in narrative. They don’t grow just because someone proves that their harvesters pulled the lever for Obama or donated to Planned Parenthood. They grow under certain conditions of soil, climate, water, etc.
It is not the hallmark of liberal thought to notice when certain conditions are met, and what steps will best produce those conditions, and what to do to correct things when they’ve gone wrong. Inasmuch as potatoes do grow under the care of our one-in-four farmers who Feel the Bern, they are not acting in their profession the way they do in the voting booth. The farmer doesn’t get his crops by complaining at the ground until they come around to his way of seeing things.
You can call that a No True Farmers argument if you wish, but you would be as wrong about that as you are in your critique of Morgan. You may as well say that I’m making a No True Triangles argument when I observe that a circle, lacking three sides, must therefore not be a triangle.
- nightfly | 02/22/2016 @ 12:29nightfly: That still leaves, generously, 70+% of farmers who in fact are not liberal.
That’s correct. You can say that farmers are much more likely to be conservative than liberal. However, it isn’t hard to imagine that a farmer could be liberal, because when among a group of farmers, every fourth farmer is likely a liberal. The statement indicated a lack of imagination, or more important, a lack of experience.
This is a common problem of overgeneralization. Take a very red state, such as Wyoming, wherein more than one in four voters voted for Obama in 2012. That means if you have a group of a hundred Wyoming voters, twenty-eight voted for Obama on average. Or take Vermont, which overwhelmingly supported Obama, at a gathering of a hundred Vermont voters, thirty-one voted for Romney on average. They’re right there, right in front of you. They’re your neighbors and probably some of them are your friends or family.
- Zachriel | 02/22/2016 @ 13:24Don’t be so sure. A lot of farmland is in places with a tradition of being Democrat, but if you were to actually talk with them, you’ll find people more conservative than many GOP politicians. I can remember within my lifetime when in my hometown, “everyone was democrat.” Why? It wasn’t a one party rule but because the “real” election happened in the primary. Rather than voting between two guys in the general, you voted between two guys in the primary (after that, the general was just a formality). And, like I said, even though they had a D by their name, most were far more conservative than McConnell.
Then again… there’s my dad, could be classified a farmer, arch conservative. And his brother, also essentially a farmer, pretty liberal (except foreign policy). Yet when I look at their two farms… well I know which one I’d ask to grow potatoes.
Then again, uncle hasn’t been farming as long so we’ll see if in a few years some honest work has pushed him right. Funny how the closer one has to deal with reality, the more their views seem to drift right…
- Nate Winchester | 02/23/2016 @ 15:12Nate Winchester: lot of farmland is in places with a tradition of being Democrat, but if you were to actually talk with them, you’ll find people more conservative than many GOP politicians.
The data source is campaign contributions, so it reflects the party being supported, not the nominal affiliation. And while the data is only approximate, the key point is that some non-trivial minority of farmers support Democratic candidates, such as Obama, meaning it’s not hard to imagine a farmer having liberal views. Indeed, populism on the left was a common phenomenon in previous eras.
- Zachriel | 02/23/2016 @ 15:29http://verdantlabs.com/blog/2015/10/06/best-american-infographics-2015/
blah blah blah the key point is that some non-trivial minority of farmers support Democratic candidates, such as Obama, meaning it’s not hard to imagine a farmer having liberal views blah blah blah…
Yes, just like democrat George Wallace.
- mkfreeberg | 02/23/2016 @ 18:02mkfreeberg: Yes, just like democrat George Wallace.
In the period when Wallace was active, the parties weren’t as polarized. There were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. But you’re right. George Wallace was a Democrat. Now, would you consider segregationist George Wallace to have been a liberal on the issue of civil rights?
- Zachriel | 02/23/2016 @ 18:07If you follow the link you see my answer.
Y’all are bad at this.
- mkfreeberg | 02/23/2016 @ 18:14mkfreeberg: If you follow the link you see my answer. Y’all are bad at this.
The link is to a comment by Zachriel responding to nightfly. “Y’all are bad at this.”
- Zachriel | 02/23/2016 @ 18:21S…C…R…O…L…L…….D…O…W…N…
- mkfreeberg | 02/23/2016 @ 19:01mkfreeberg: S…C…R…O…L…L…….D…O…W…N…
Okay. You cited an article which calls Wallace a “staunch conservative”.
- Zachriel | 02/24/2016 @ 06:39You know, I used to think Morgan & severian were a little hard on you just glancing at some posts but now… I mean you didn’t read a damn thing did you? Do you like… put in MORE effort to misunderstand than to even try and grasp the point?
Or like… Jim Webb?
Of course the website does point out their own possible methodology fail which you missed:
A caveat with this methodology is that we assume Democrats and Republicans contribute at a similar rate to each other within each profession. In other words, we assume that a 75 / 25 split of contributions by Democratic teachers vs. Republican teachers translates to a 75 / 25 split of Democrat vs. Republican teachers in the general populace. If it’s actually the case that, say, Republican teachers are looser with their wallets and have a higher per capita contribution rate, our ratio for that profession will be a bit skewed. Thus, the ratios should be viewed as approximate.
(so it could just as easily be a dozen really rich liberal farmers contributing vs thousands of poorer conservative ones)
So in conclusion, your original point is even MORE bullshit (cattle farmers: 91R v 9D) than first estimated.
“it’s not hard to imagine…” as long as you’ve not met or dealt with any actual farmers. But that’s how it always is, it’s easy to imagine anything until you’ve actually confronted or looked at the reality. So yeah, get outside a bit more and check out the real world.
- Nate Winchester | 02/24/2016 @ 06:49“But that’s how it always is, it’s easy to imagine anything until you’ve actually confronted or looked at the reality.”
That is the entire crux of the problem. On each and every topic you care to imagine, whenever the Cuttler Collective engage, they always prefer the theory, the abstract, the pronouncements of “experts” over what is actually right in front of them. I mean, Gregson and Lestrade were dullards but even they eventually came around when Holmes did the whole observe-and-deduce bit. The Cuttlers would insist that reality itself was wrong because the studies said so. Holmes isn’t a real accredited detective, right?
At this point we have years of conversations demonstrating this. But when we point any of it out, we trigger Automatic Response #17, “We are happy to look at any new evidence.” And to them it’s perfectly valid, because what you just spent days presenting to them wasn’t, by their definition, “evidence.” It didn’t have an imprimatur.
Sev thinks it’s severe Aspergers. I suspect it’s a 15-year-old getting tons of laughs tossing a well-designed bot at our comments sections. It would never pass a Turing test, but it’s still worth it to demonstrate the folly in case real humans are looking in.
- nightfly | 02/24/2016 @ 09:35There’s a SciFi story there somewhere about a human failing the turning test…
- Nate Winchester | 02/24/2016 @ 09:39Severe spergs would probably fail the Turing test. The train is fine, remember? The train is fine. The train is fine.
- Severian | 02/24/2016 @ 10:21Nate Winchester: Or like… Jim Webb?
Good example. Jim Webb is on the left on many issues, but to the right on others.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/James_Webb.htm
Nate Winchester: Of course the website does point out their own possible methodology fail which you missed
No. As we stated, and you quoted, the data is only approximate.
Nate Winchester: “it’s not hard to imagine…”
About 22% of individual donations in the agricultural sector went to Obama according to Open Secrets. It’s reasonable to assert these people were more liberal than conservative.
Nate Winchester: as long as you’ve not met or dealt with any actual farmers.
You need to get out more.
- Zachriel | 02/24/2016 @ 14:22Based upon what? Your feels? I provided a frame of reference (hometown, family close & extended) while so far you’ve provided…
So less than your “1 in 4” estimation, and no, you keep twisting the proof. 22% of the TOTAL individual donations in agriculture went to Obama, which could be 22% of the individuals total donating or one rich individual donating 22% of the funds.
You want to play with stats?
Farming Experience broken down by county (the darker it is, the more n00b)
Percent of farming land by county.
And you know where this is going…
Presidential election by county.
Oh look at that! Presidential and Experience line up almost exactly (as I said – with the except of Wyoming apparently, a lot of conservative n00bs it seems) and the “percentage used” lines up exactly with the except of the tiny belt in California.
So… yeah, conservatives are the ones growing potatoes, just look at Iowa.
- Nate Winchester | 02/24/2016 @ 14:55Wait, wait, wait…. you’re telling me that Zachriel distorted, fudged, and outright lied about their supposed proof? Well knock me over with a feather! Nate, don’t you know that you’re not supposed to go noticing things? You’re supposed to just accept their ex cathedra pronouncements, because “studies.”
- Severian | 02/24/2016 @ 15:34Nate Winchester: I provided a frame of reference (hometown, family close & extended) while so far you’ve provided…
Sure. You provided anecdotal information about people close to you. Your personal experience can be meaningful, but isn’t necessarily representative. It’s expected that the people you know personally will be more likely to share your values, and many people won’t openly express a minority viewpoint. In any case, while you provided anecdotal information, we provided data.
Nate Winchester: 22% of the TOTAL individual donations in agriculture went to Obama, which could be 22% of the individuals total donating or one rich individual donating 22% of the funds.
Or it could be a few small donors donating to Republicans and a larger number of individual donors to Democrats. Indeed, in 2008, nearly half of Obama’s individual donors contributed less than $200, while nearly half of McCain’s individual donors donated $2300 or more.
Nate Winchester: conservatives are the ones growing potatoes, just look at Iowa.
Take Butler County, Iowa. The county is largely agricultural. The population is 99% white. Barn quilts are the major attraction. There’s not even a stoplight in the county. Obama lost the county, only receiving about 44% of the vote to Romney’s 55%. It’s not that these areas aren’t reliably Republican; but even if a particular county voted 80% for Romney, that still means when you walk into a room, one in five voted for Obama.
- Zachriel | 02/24/2016 @ 15:38…and, one in five won’t know how to grow potatoes.
- mkfreeberg | 02/24/2016 @ 15:43Which is still more than you provided. Something still beats nothing.
- Nate Winchester | 02/24/2016 @ 15:53that still means when you walk into a room, one in five voted for Obama.
Which does NOT, of course, mean that the Obama voter is a liberal. After all, how many times have we heard that “Obama is more conservative than Nixon,” etc. etc.? Voting Democrat does NOT necessarily make one a liberal — as we’ve seen with Zachriel’s new bestie, George Wallace, no? 🙂
The thing is, Squirty, you’re so very very bad at this. You think you can just swap out terms like “Obama voter” and “liberal” and nobody will notice. But trust me: everybody notices, because a) we actually read what is written, and b) we have better reading comprehension skills than a concussed chimpanzee.
- Severian | 02/24/2016 @ 15:57Nate Winchester: Which is still more than you provided.
We provided data. Something beats nothing, as you said.
- Zachriel | 02/24/2016 @ 17:59The data you provided does not support the conclusion you assert. This is called “lying.” It’s the standard definition; all practical lexicographers agree.
- Severian | 02/24/2016 @ 18:19Nate Winchester: http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/James_Webb.htm which still doesn’t prove any statement about farmers’ views.
No, but you introduced Webb, presumably as an example of a Democrat with conservative views, and while Webb is conservative within the context of the Democratic Party, he is liberal on many fundamental issues, such as abortion.
Nate Winchester: No… that’s factually untrue as anyone can see up above.
Facts:
You disputed that the amount of campaign contributions represented the number of contributors. This is rebutted by pointing out that Obama received more small contributions than McCain in 2008. While not definitive, this tends to support the original claim, which is that …
some non-trivial minority of farmers support Democratic candidates, such as Obama, meaning it’s not hard to imagine a farmer having liberal views.
- Zachriel | 02/25/2016 @ 06:41Based upon what? Your ass?
No sources = no good.
- Nate Winchester | 02/25/2016 @ 07:07the key point is that some non-trivial minority of farmers support Democratic candidates, such as Obama, meaning it’s not hard to imagine a farmer having liberal views.
We’re back to imagining things, I see. To use Nate’s example: There are X number of dentists in America. Y percent of Americans like to juggle. Therefore, it’s not hard to imagine that some dentists juggle. We can play this game all day, but the key word is still imagine.
populism on the left was a common phenomenon in previous eras
There you go, trying to assign 21st century notions to the 19th century. Nobody talked about “left” and “right” in the 19th century. This is basic cultural literacy.
In the period when Wallace was active, the parties weren’t as polarized
Wallace ran for president in 1972. Didn’t you just get through telling us that The Great Magic Party Switch of 1964 completely polarized the parties? Unless all those horrors you go on about — segregated water fountains, water cannons turned on protesters, armed soldiers escorting black kids to school — don’t count as polarization somehow. What would practical lexicographers say?
Mkfreeberg cited an article which calls Wallace a “staunch conservative”.
So the Democrats are the conservatives. Man, this is confusing!
About 22% of individual donations in the agricultural sector went to Obama according to Open Secrets.
Relevance? “Big Oil” donates almost as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans. So it’s not hard to imagine that a whole bunch of oil company CEOs are liberals, right?
in 2008, nearly half of Obama’s individual donors contributed less than $200, while nearly half of McCain’s individual donors donated $2300 or more.
Relevance?
Take Butler County, Iowa
Relevance?
Nothing “supports” a work of the imagination, chief. That’s why it’s called “imagination.” Here, look, I’ll construct another equally valid argument based on your “facts:”
Due to the high polarization of the political parties, one can assume that at least some of those farmers are cross-dressing My Little Pony fanfiction readers who call themselves “xir.” Since 22% of agricultural donations went to Obama, it’s looking more and more likely that at least some of those farmers are extremely liberal. And since cross-dressing My Little Pony fanfiction readers who call themselves “xir” are much likelier to work in low paying service jobs, like baristas, the fact that nearly half of Obama’s donors (nationwide and across all sectors, though you seem to want us to assume that this is just farmers) contributed less than $200, it’s looking increasingly likely that those farmers are all cross-dressing My Little Pony fanfiction readers who call themselves “xir.” Take Butler County, Iowa, where Obama won 44% of the vote despite the place not even having a stoplight (whatever relevance that has). Therefore, it’s easy to imagine that Butler County, Iowa, has a really great cosplay scene and a kickass My Little Pony convention.
- Severian | 02/25/2016 @ 07:57Nate Winchester: Based upon what?
Based on evidence. You are more than welcome to dispute a claim, but simply waving your hands doesn’t constitute an argument.
• farmers are much more likely to be conservative than liberal.
This follows from the same information we used to support that some non-trivial number of farmers are likely to be liberal.
1. About three in four dollars contributed by individuals in agriculture go to Republicans.
http://verdantlabs.com/blog/2015/10/06/best-american-infographics-2015/
2. The current political parties are highly polarized, so Republicans are more likely to be conservative than otherwise.
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/.a/6a00d83451d25c69e20120a786109e970b-500wi
We’d be happy to support our other claims, but most of them are easy to verify for yourself. Have a go!
- Zachriel | 02/25/2016 @ 08:16Based upon what? Your ass?
Well, his ass is a leading expert in the field of having stuff pulled out of it.
- nightfly | 02/25/2016 @ 08:30Nate Winchester: Based upon what?
Based on evidence. You are more than welcome to dispute a claim, but simply waving your hands doesn’t constitute an argument.
• farmers are much more likely to be conservative than liberal.
This follows from the same information we used to support that some non-trivial number of farmers are likely to be liberal.
1. About three in four dollars contributed by individuals in agriculture go to Republicans.
- Zachriel | 02/26/2016 @ 07:04http://verdantlabs.com/blog/2015/10/06/best-american-infographics-2015/
2. The current political parties are highly polarized, so Republicans are more likely to be conservative than otherwise.
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/.a/6a00d83451d25c69e20120a786109e970b-500wi
We’d be happy to support our other claims, but most of them are easy to verify for yourself. Have a go!
- Zachriel | 02/26/2016 @ 07:04The current political parties are highly polarized, so Republicans are more likely to be conservative than otherwise. We’d be happy to support our other claims, but most of them are easy to verify for yourself. Have a go!
But first a question. Were the political parties highly polarized in 1968, when George Wallace was being called a conservative…by…someone?
- mkfreeberg | 02/26/2016 @ 07:17Who cares how polarized the parties were / are? They’re trying to pretend they’ve got “data” to “support” an ass-pulled assertion. They claim that
When in fact “we” can say no such thing.
Saying that 1 in 4 farmers are Democrats says nothing about the liberal-ness of their beliefs. Nor does the average donation amount, the fact that Butler County, Iowa, doesn’t have a stoplight, or that someone somewhere once called George Wallace a conservative. None of those things follow, empirically or logically. They are all ass-pulls.
If you have data — like, general social survey-level data — that specific farmers are very liberal, link it. If you don’t, shut up – you’re embarrassing yourselves. Again.
- Severian | 02/26/2016 @ 09:39Sorry, P_Ang has been away. Working for peanuts in order to survive, arguing with the government that got paid to look the other way when the “Big Company” laid off thousands of skilled and trained Americans to hire unskilled and untrained “others” located in country “I”.
Anyway, back to empirical evidence. I worked farms growing up. In what is currently one of the most liberal states in the country. While the cities are well-known for the whack-job liberals that control the vote, not a single farmer was (or currently is) liberal. However, these low-life conservative scum only grow food, they don’t do important stuff like wax poetic on one-armed black lesbian communist umbrella-openers who make $300 for a one-hour lecture at the University. Now THAT’s work!
- P_Ang | 02/26/2016 @ 11:04P_Ang,
sorry to hear it, man. I hope things are getting better (or will soon!). I’ve had a similar experiene with farmers (as, indeed, has anyone who has ever known farmers) — whether or not they vote Democrat (some do), they are by no means “very liberal.” They would laugh themselves into an aneurysm if you insisted on calling Bruce Jenner “Caitlyn,” for example, and you’d hear some salty language if you described yourself as “triggered” in need of a “safe space.”
(for what it’s worth, all the Dem-voting farmers I know still seem to think FDR is President and the AAA is keeping them afloat).
But since I’m sure that’s “handwaving,” I’ll construct an identical “argument” with analogous “evidence:” Since “climate change” is such a polarizing issue, and we know that at least some “climate scientists” have been caught doctoring evidence, we can be sure that the 3 in 4 “climate scientists” who pull their checks from governments, NGOs, and the Green lobby are dishonest hacks who doctor their “evidence” to keep themselves employed. Oh, and Butler County, Iowa, doesn’t have a stoplight.
QED
- Severian | 02/26/2016 @ 11:45mkfreeberg: Were the political parties highly polarized in 1968, when George Wallace was being called a conservative…by…someone?
No. The political environment was highly polarized, but the Republican Party and the Democratic Party both included liberals and conservatives. That was evident due to the ongoing conflicts *within* the Democratic Party between liberals and conservatives from at least 1948. The long-term effect of these conflicts was a movement of traditionally reliable Southern white Democrats to the Republican Party, which has resulted in the highly polarized parties of today, with conservatives primarily found in the Republican Party and liberals primarily found in the Democratic Party. There are a number of studies which support this.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/polarized-politics-in-congress-began-in-the-1970s-and-has-been-getting-worse-ever-since/
Was Wallace a considered a liberal according to how the terms were used at the time of the Civil Rights Movement? Can you provide support for your position?
- Zachriel | 02/26/2016 @ 14:28Everyone got that? The “political environment” was highly polarized, but the parties themselves weren’t… even though this was after the Great Magic Party Switch of 1964, in which all the racists left the Democrats and went to the Republicans. I guess huge numbers of people — enough people to switch whole states from blue to red — leaving the party of their ancestors, which had controlled their hometowns since before the Civil War, wasn’t polarizing.
Who knew? Man, I wish I had Zachriel’s mad mind-reading skills. I could’ve aced history class! Best of all, when the professor marked all my answers wrong on my blue book, I could just say “hand waving” and assign myself an A.
- Severian | 02/26/2016 @ 14:35P_Ang: I worked farms growing up. In what is currently one of the most liberal states in the country.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Your personal experience is valuable, but may not be representative of the entire population of farmers. The data which shows that a non-trivial portion of farmers donated to Obama rather than Romney implies they are more liberal than conservative. About 7% of principal farm operators are minorities.
- Zachriel | 02/26/2016 @ 14:42Thank you for recognizing my personal experience. It encompasses about a quarter of the state, and the entire farming area.
“About 7% of principal farm operators are minorities.”
Ah…I see. So you’re taking into account the number of people in downtown New York, Philly and Chicago that were getting farm grants from Obama “for minorities” in the amounts of 200-500k? You know, for their large scale farming efforts in concrete wastelands? I think the rest of us were actually referring to production. It still goes back to Morgan’s rather verifiable statement. Conservatives produce. Liberals use. The simple fact of the matter is, were we to suddenly split the nation between the two ideologies, your side would quickly starve to death.
- P_Ang | 02/26/2016 @ 15:54The data which shows that a non-trivial portion of farmers donated to Obama rather than Romney implies they are more liberal than conservative.
It implies no such thing. Quite a few oil companies donate to Democrats, too. Does this imply that oil company CEOs are more liberal than conservative? Surely you knew that farms are businesses? Anyone so well versed in the traffic light situation of rural Iowa knows all about the economics of farming.
About 7% of principal farm operators are minorities.
Implying that all minorities are liberal. Racist.
- Severian | 02/26/2016 @ 15:59P_Ang: Thank you for recognizing my personal experience. It encompasses about a quarter of the state, and the entire farming area.
What percentage of farmers in the state were among those with whom you talked politics? Was this in any sense of the word a scientific survey? Or is this a case of the proverbial Kaelism, “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”
http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/bernie1.jpg
P_Ang: So you’re taking into account the number of people in downtown New York, Philly and Chicago that were getting farm grants from Obama “for minorities” in the amounts of 200-500k?
Actually, most minority farms are worked by the principal agents, and have fewer than 180 acres.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 08:03The idea that has raised y’all’s cackles, that y’all are trying to refudiate, is:
No no point to make here, I just thought it might be good to post a reminder of the point of dispute. Since the evidence y’all are presenting to force this paradigm shift, is a one-eyed minority-liberal guy wasting a sizable portion of his meager 180 acres (“they’ve made themselves strangers to the concept of ever getting any actual work done”) to show the world how he feels about Slow Bern (“promulgate the narrative…so busy re-defining things”).
I’m not seeing much of a necessity to go re-thinking anything. The point stands. As nightfly said,
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 09:25mkfreeberg: Since the evidence y’all are presenting to force this paradigm shift, is a one-eyed minority-liberal guy wasting a sizable portion of his meager 180 acres
It wasn’t wasted. He had already harvested his crop.
mkfreeberg: Potatoes don’t grow in narrative. They don’t grow just because someone proves that their harvesters pulled the lever for Obama or donated to Planned Parenthood. They grow under certain conditions of soil, climate, water, etc.
And it turns out that liberals also successfully grow crops. P_Ang made an appeal to his personal experience, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean that his experience is representative. Nightfly and mkfreeberg have generally waved their hands because the evidence provided contradicts their own narratives.
mkfreeberg: You can call that a No True Farmers argument if you wish
The guy has a tractor, a harvested field, and an eyepatch. He’s a farmer. Asking whether he’s a True Farmer is just silly.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 09:50It wasn’t wasted. He had already harvested his crop.
Amazing! The point sailed over y’all’s heads, once again. Alright then, he’s wasting other things. Obviously not concerned about production…the way a farmer needs to be, in order to do farming.
And it turns out that liberals also successfully grow crops.
It does turn out that way, really? How successfully do they grow those crops?
Is Bernie Sanders support generally associated with material success, or the lack of it?
The guy has a tractor, a harvested field, and an eyepatch. He’s a farmer. Asking whether he’s a True Farmer is just silly.
The one(s) who raised the question about this farmer’s success, is y’all. Now that y’all have raised it, “it turns out” that that is a needed component to the argument y’all are trying to make and have not yet made. And it isn’t a “No True Farmers” fallacy to point it out, since the original point y’all are trying to challenge is that actually producing commodities in this industry, relies on a mode of thinking liberals cannot achieve, at least not while they’re thinking like liberals.
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 09:56mkfreeberg: Alright then, he’s wasting other things. Obviously not concerned about production…the way a farmer needs to be, in order to do farming.
That’s contradicted by the fact that he successfully grew and harvested the field.
We’ve provided multiple sources of information that a non-significant, albeit minority of farmers tend to be liberal. Now, you are reduced to arguing that a man with a tractor, who just harvested his field of soybeans, is not a farmer.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 10:50That’s contradicted by the fact that he successfully grew and harvested the field.
Did he? All I can find out about him is that he carved a name in his field because supposedly, conservatives stole his Bernie Sanders signs (article contains video that auto-plays). And I can’t even find evidence of that much other than his saying so.
It would seem that y’all’s anecdote, far from posing any sort of challenge against my claim, does much to support it. The thinking that this lone-rat liberal in the middle of “ultra conservative” farm country, is a successful, prosperous and/or effective farmer, remains generally unsupported…”easily imagined,” I suppose.
If it really is a piece of imagination that happens to nail the truth, like a stopped clock being right at that particular time of day, one cannot help but wonder how much of his harvest he’s willing to share with the less fortunate…
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 10:57mkfreeberg: When asked about the reaction from his neighbors, he described his town of Clarinda, Iowa, as “ultra-conservative.” Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the county by 25 percentage points in the 2012 presidential election.
Good example. In Page County, Romney received 62% of the vote to Obama’s 37%. That means there is a sizable number of Obama supporters in this very red county.
mkfreeberg: far from posing any sort of challenge against my claim, does much to support it.
We’ve provided many lines of evidence, and now you are arguing that this particular farmer is not True Farmer. Then you cite the election returns from the county, which clearly indicates that more than one in three people in this very rural, “ultra-conservative” county voted for Obama.
They’re right there, right in front of you. They’re your neighbors and probably some of them are your friends or family.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 11:10And some of them are even farmers.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 11:11We’ve provided many lines of evidence, and now you are arguing that this particular farmer is not True Farmer.
Not quite accurate. I may as well correct it now, since y’all have made this mistake numerous times.
The question remains as to whether or not he produces as a farmer. And this is part of a broader point that when people actually produce, they’re not liberals. If they are liberals, they don’t think as liberals when they do their producing. If they do, they don’t produce. That is the point. If y’all have evidence that will upset that apple-cart…produce. So far all y’all have done is produce the liberal way, which is not-producing and then dishing out lots of instructions about how people are supposed to look at it.
That has the effect of reinforcing, rather than challenging, my statement.
Additionally, y’all are raising a lot of questions about whether y’all understand the subject matter. These questions have been written by others, evidenced here, without any help from me. One of the very first thing one learns about farming when one farms, is that it is quite possible — let’s called it easy to imagine, although unfortunately it is not limited to the imagination — to do lots of sowing without managing to do much harvesting.
Liberals should not summarize the viewpoints of their opposition on behalf of their opposition, because liberals don’t understand their own opposition. They’re proud of not knowing.
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 11:46mkfreeberg: The question remains as to whether or not he produces as a farmer.
Um, he just harvested a field of soybeans at a place identified as a “farm”. That means he produced soybeans. What did you think farmers did?
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 12:20Um, he just harvested a field of soybeans at a place identified as a “farm”. That means he produced soybeans.
Um, I just clarified the point of disagreement one comment ago and y’all completely ignored it.
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 12:32mkfreeberg: I just clarified the point of disagreement one comment ago and y’all completely ignored it.
We just addressed it directly.
mk: The question remains as to whether or not he produces as a farmer.
Z: He produced soybeans as a farmer.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 12:36We just addressed it directly.
Let’s check that.
The question remains as to whether or not he produces as a farmer. And this is part of a broader point that when people actually produce, they’re not liberals. If they are liberals, they don’t think as liberals when they do their producing. If they do, they don’t produce.
Y’all’s reply,
Um, he just harvested a field of soybeans at a place identified as a “farm”. That means he produced soybeans.
How much of a crop did he produce? And did he do this production while thinking like a liberal? Have y’all got some evidence that will answer these questions? If so, produce it. Thus far, y’all aren’t. Which has the effect of reinforcing, rather than challenging, the statement I made.
He’s a Bernie Sanders supporter, so it is easy to imagine that his level of production has left him unsatisfied. Why nurse feelings of jealousy against what others have managed to produce, if one is satisfied with what one has produced himself? By the Zachriel standards of rebuttal, I have produced a quality rebuttal. Vastly superior to mere “hand waving.”
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 12:42mkfreeberg: How much of a crop did he produce?
Seriously! You’re reduced to arguing that the guy with the tractor who just harvested his bean field is not a True Farmer™. Heh. Maybe he’s actually a pirate.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 12:51http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/bernie1.jpg
Holy tap-dancing Allah y’all are retarded. The point of contention is quite simple: Morgan said that farmers who produce crops, can’t do so as liberals, because liberalism is all about talking. When a liberal meets the real world, he must either a) get something done, in this case “growing crops,” and therefore has to put all his liberalness aside in order to accomplish it, or b) continue talking and talking at the empty field, lecturing it on its racism and privilege, trying to win the argument with the soil.
This proposition is debatable. It tracks pretty well with my experience — you’ve never met as staunch a conservative as a liberal whose policies have backfired to affect himself or his family. In my college town, for example, they re-districted some of the faculty ghetto, such that their kids now went to school in the actual ghetto. White flight? At about Mach 3, even though they were the ones out there protesting about the school district’s lack of diversity not two semesters past. But hey, whatever. We can debate this proposition — that liberals must abandon liberalism to function in the real world — all day. We can’t know what’s in someone’s heart, so all we can do is make observations and draw inferences. This is the kind of conversation adults have.
But then y’all come along, trying to “prove” that at least some farmers are very liberal. Y’all try to “prove” this by claiming that the political parties are highly polarized, that 1 in 4 farmers donated to Obama, that Obama’s individual contributions were usually under $200, and oh yeah, Butler County Iowa doesn’t have a stoplight.
None of that “proves” jack shit. It’s not even suggestive of jack shit — it’s a string of non sequiturs.
First, voting for a party doesn’t mean you sign off on 100% of their agenda. This is common sense. Nor does it follow from party polarization, because — follow closely now — the word polarization means “drawing further apart.” A moderate voter might well say “gosh, my party has gotten crazy, but the other guys have gotten really crazy… better to stick where I am.” It’s as easy to imagine this as all of y’all’s similarly ass-pulled scenarios. Second, business owners tend to donate to both parties, since they have to work with whoever wins….
But whatever. Even if any of that were true, it still doesn’t address Morgan’s argument. Under Morgan’s hypothesis, even the most Obama-loving transgendered wymyn’s studies major would have to notice that, when it comes to actually growing crops, X conditions lead to Y result, regardless of what anyone says about it. Corn may be “cisgendered,” soybeans might be chock full of “legume privilege,” and the barn may not be a safe space festooned with trigger warnings, but the crops still grow when the proper conditions apply, and fail to grow when they don’t apply.
Simple, really, if you have 3rd grade reading comprehension skills and aren’t an autistic troll collective. Y’all really should try missing the point over at Vox Popoli some more — he still doesn’t seem to think he’s a racist, despite all y’all’s yeoman work cutting and pasting your own comments.
- Severian | 02/27/2016 @ 12:52Seriously! You’re reduced to arguing that the guy with the tractor who just harvested his bean field is not a True Farmer…
And…y’all just did it again. I can only explain the same position so many times.
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 12:53mkfreeberg: I can only explain the same position so many times.
You were quite clear. Here it is again.
mk: The question remains as to whether or not he produces as a farmer.
The man with the tractor harvested the field of beans he grew on his land. That means he produced as a farmer.
- Zachriel | 02/27/2016 @ 12:58The man with the tractor harvested the field of beans he grew on his land. That means he produced as a farmer.
And, how many?
He doesn’t seem to be satisfied with his own level of production.
If his level of production surpasses the average, why doesn’t he share? If he is not sharing, it would be logical to conclude that his level of production is below the average, right?
- mkfreeberg | 02/27/2016 @ 13:00That’s pretty easy to imagine.
- Severian | 02/27/2016 @ 13:21[…] I dusted this off recently in a comment: […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/27/2016 @ 16:16mkfreeberg: And, how many?
How many beans? Pattavina has a few hundred acres under production.
mkfreeberg: If his level of production surpasses the average, why doesn’t he share?
He does share, with family and neighbors. He also pays taxes, part of which helps those less fortunate.
Are you saying he is not a farmer? Or he is not a liberal?
- Zachriel | 02/29/2016 @ 06:56Sorry, Zachriel, but I have learned not to waste my time with dishonest men and you have proven yourself quite dishonest.
Assert whatever you want and call it whatever you want. You’ve proven yourself a liar and so until it’s sourced (and I certainly won’t be helping you there any more) around here we’ll just have to assume the opposite. Pattavina probably doesn’t share or pay taxes.
Here let me show you how it’s done properly: You want evidence liberalism doesn’t produce?
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/02/venezuela-is-out-of-food-heres-what-an-economic-collapse-really-looks-like.html
Or just look at who imports:
http://www.indexmundi.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/19/food-exports-and-imports-worldwide/
Looks like a lot of socialists (or former) on there…
- Nate Winchester | 02/29/2016 @ 07:13That’s the problem with Leftist “theory” — someone is forever trying to put it into practice, and when it inevitably fails, the result isn’t a reexamination of the theory. Instead, the results themselves are “theorized.” Moscow, Beijing, Pyongang, etc. were (and, for the latter two, still are) chock-a-block with “intellectuals” who can produce thousands of mind-numbing pages on why the new policy — which looks exactly like capitalism, except nobody gets paid and nothing works — is what Marx really intended all along.
I must admit — in case y’all can’t tell — I find socialist psychology fascinating. It all seems so self-evidently false… and yet, Lysenkoism was a real thing, and the official scientific ideology of a space-faring nation.
- Severian | 03/01/2016 @ 12:23[…] Well…Score! I think. Half a year ago, this time. Turns out I was talking about science, and what lately has been happening to it. Then I drifted just a bit… […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/11/2016 @ 17:46[…] and nobody’s a full-time Leftist, because that’s impossible. Seriously — you can’t grow potatoes by “thinking” like a Liberal, because that would entail you can grow potatoes whenever […]
- The Liberal Rage Virus | Rotten Chestnuts | 10/10/2018 @ 07:08