Odd that you choose to quote that (I'm sure I've seen it somewhere), when you have a very similar quote in your signature.
Remind me who is certain that there is life after death?
Proof of Immortality II
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Remind me who is certain that there is life after death?
Mojo
Mostly harmless
See Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. The quotation is basically an expression of the described effect.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
My pet name for them is "Zeno's Gish Gallop", after Zeno's Arrow.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Without diminishing the value of that research, I would argue a largely opposite effect. Rather than "unskilled and unaware," I would argue some fringe claimants are "unskilled and in purposeful denial." That is, Dunning and Kruger open their paper with an anecdote of a bank robber who thought he would be invisible to the security cameras if he rubbed lemon juice (you know -- the original "invisible ink") on his face. That culprit was genuinely ignorant of how the science worked and was genuinely flabbergasted when it didn't. He didn't try to evade the questioning or display any face-saving (no pun intended) behavior when confronted with the evidence of his guilt.
In contrast fringe claimants aggressively engage in the face-saving maneuver. This indicates they not only realize their position is precarious, but knew it all along and proceeded anyway. Had Jabba been laboring under the Dunning-Kruger illusion, he likely wouldn't have refused for so long to tell us where his numbers came from.
Jabba is simply trying to change the rules in mid-game. He originally proposed to prove immortality as a mathematical (i.e., statistical) enterprise. Now that he can't, the rules change from deductive rigor to, "You guys are just not open-minded enough." The rules of math didn't work for him, so he switched to the rules of rhetoric. Critic-shaming is a common fallback position when one's actual argument falls flat. Perhaps Jabba hopes his critics are as ignorant as he in the actual mechanics of the various sciences he invokes, and that the confidence bred in his critics from their knowledge and study is actually just as much a bluff as his.
In the most charitable sense, perhaps Jabba believes no rebuttal can possibly be as well-informed and confident as those against him appear to be. Thus he cannot distinguish confidence from overconfidence and begs for a more favorable standard of review. Such is usually the fate of fringe claims made outside the walled gardens to which Jabba has alluded.
Kid Eager
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Let's be honest here - Jabba is playing to an audience, and it's not us. He gave up any illusion of logic, reason or rigour long ago and it's now just "obsfucation by numbers".
Tawdry, lazy, intellectually dishonest, a fraud. Choose any two, then choose the other two. Or something....
Tawdry, lazy, intellectually dishonest, a fraud. Choose any two, then choose the other two. Or something....
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Correct. You've heard the old poker saying: If you sit down at a game and can't tell who the mark is, it's you. Repeated allusions to not getting a fair shake on "this forum" are fairly telling. The goal is not to test his theory or garner agreement. I think the goal is to portray skeptics generally as irrational, entrenched, biased, and unfair. And yes, that portrayal would indeed be aimed at a different audience -- I'm thinking those other places to which he alludes where people don't question his assumptions.
Aepervius
Non credunt, semper verificare
The problem with the Russel quote is that it is misused by woo people to dismiss good evidence and good reasonning.
It is the same as an einstein quote really. Rule number 1 of skeptic debate : if you quote one of them because you are being rebuffed for your woo, then you demonstrate clearly that you lost and all you can come up is "if you are sure of you then you are wrong".
ETA:_ in fact the guy arguing he can prove mathematically immortality is far more the butt of this quote than his detractor , just sayin' , so thanks for acknowledging that you are out of shallow water and deep in the depth.
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Maurice Ledifficile
Lost in translation
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At least he had the decency to refrain from translating the quote in
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
"Eethey olewhay oblemprey ithway..."
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
My Dear Mr. Savage:
I am sorry to seem obstreperous, but you offered to provide "proof" of "immortality". What does it matter what others think?
If you have "proof" (and not just a pop-culture misapplication of an incorrect understanding of Bayes' work) offer it up for inspection. Is it is convincing, and testable, and more than just a perfervid hope, it will change minds.
I remain tractably yours, &ct.
jond
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If you took the time to actually read the responses, you would find that the overwhelming majority of responses has been: show me the evidence. That means, every one of those responses indictates an open mind to the possibility that the opinion/consensus/standard position is possibly wrong. However, all the evidence thus far is that it is not wrong.
Speaking of open mindedness: are you, Jabba, open minded enough to accept the possibility that you are wrong?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Do you have any arguments that rise above simply begging people to agree with you? It's especially disingenuous of you to claim your critics are biased and intransigent when you treat them this disrespectfully.
You told us you could prove immortality to mathematical rigor. You failed. Which is to say, you were given ample time and opportunity to present your proof, whereupon it was duly questioned by your audience. At first you declined to answer any questions, but when pressed you admitted you simply made up the numbers and insinuated that the only reason we should not accept them is some imagined bias.
Your promised argument now having fallen flat, you're frantically begging people to let you aim at a weaker standard of proof (mere "possib[ility]").
The answer is no.
You failed to do what you promised to do. If you cannot endure the consequences of that failure, then life outside the walled garden of those who already think and believe as you do is frankly not for you.
If there is sufficient evidence to show it, then I would believe it. I'm waiting (as are we all, I think) for you to show us some evidence.
My mind is open to the possibility, I just need the evidence. Is your mind open to the possibility that we do only have one finite lifetime?
I Am The Scum
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I'll agree if you use the most liberal sense of the term. For example: There is a possibility that my car is actually a polymorphed dragon.
Please don't waste your time trying to calculate the odds of that.
Maurice Ledifficile
Lost in translation
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What is this calculating you speak of? The number is 0.01. Duh.
The Sparrow
Graduate Poster
I Am The Scum
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I apologize. I forgot the quotation marks.
John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
As soon as someone provides some decent evidence, I'll consider the possibility.
Have you got any?
jsfisher
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You have contrived what you mean by life into something beyond bio-chemistry and into the spiritual, and you have done it in such a way to make it undetectable.
You question is therefore meaningless.
Nonetheless, it is reasonable to believe we each get zero lifetimes, as you mean the term.
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