Continuation Part 21: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[acbytesla]

I wish I knew how schools could turn magical thinkers into scientific thinkers. I don't have the textbook from my Scientific Thinking course in front of me, but I do recall reading that it's difficult to teach and learn scientific thinking. Students who have established thinking patterns that are not critical or scientific do not easily learn to think critically and scientifically.

I have met some very bright people who don't work very hard at thinking. Critical and scientific thinking, however, requires time and discipline. You need to be willing to ruthlessly examine your own ideas and to take the time to do the research to ensure that your positions are as correct as they can be given the current state of the peer reviewed research and the evidence available.

Kevin_Lowe commented repeatedly on the training and discipline required for scientific and critical thinking in the early threads discussing this case. Here's a sample of what he had to say in the Continuation thread (Part 2, I suppose) when the time of death based on the empty duodenum was under discussion:

Kevin_Lowe on constructive and destructive thinking

Guilters spend a lot of time on purely constructive thinking. They survey a lot of data (sometimes without worrying too much about it's source, verifiability or accuracy) and they weave it together into a story. They act like scientists who are trying to come up with a new theory, in a way, except that unlike scientists they don't check their "facts" against the peer-reviewed literature.​

I wish this too.

 

[Stacyhs]

Do you think your sources never being correct about anything may be reason enough to start rejecting the reliability of the information you receive from them? Do you think it may be a wise idea to check the accuracy of the information you receive before you repeat it on here? Do you realize that when you repeat incorrect information, it becomes a "factoid" that gets repeated ad nauseam and that is exactly how false information gets spread -- and this is how "multiple sources" report the same nonsense?

Do you think top experts in their fields who publish papers in the top forensic journal in the world (specifically about this case) may be a more accurate source of information than your sources who are always wrong? Do you think your sources being wrong (since they have been wrong about everything else) is a more likely explanation than every DNA expert in the world being a paid shill for Amanda Knox?

Some things to think about, Vixen. Although it is amusing to me you need this spelled out for you after all these years.

You're a paid shill, right?

 

[Stacyhs]

I wish I knew how schools could turn magical thinkers into scientific thinkers. I don't have the textbook from my Scientific Thinking course in front of me, but I do recall reading that it's difficult to teach and learn scientific thinking. Students who have established thinking patterns that are not critical or scientific do not easily learn to think critically and scientifically.

I have met some very bright people who don't work very hard at thinking. Critical and scientific thinking, however, requires time and discipline. You need to be willing to ruthlessly examine your own ideas and to take the time to do the research to ensure that your positions are as correct as they can be given the current state of the peer reviewed research and the evidence available.

Kevin_Lowe commented repeatedly on the training and discipline required for scientific and critical thinking in the early threads discussing this case. Here's a sample of what he had to say in the Continuation thread (Part 2, I suppose) when the time of death based on the empty duodenum was under discussion:

Kevin_Lowe on constructive and destructive thinking

Guilters spend a lot of time on purely constructive thinking. They survey a lot of data (sometimes without worrying too much about it's source, verifiability or accuracy) and they weave it together into a story. They act like scientists who are trying to come up with a new theory, in a way, except that unlike scientists they don't check their "facts" against the peer-reviewed literature.​

You've just described the entire investigation by Mignini and the Perugia police.

 

[Stacyhs]

Speaking of atheists often being afraid to express their non-belief in God due to societal stigma and even legal ramifications:

"Saudi Arabia sentences a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter"

http://www.independent.co.uk/…/saudi-arabia-sentence-man-to…

 

[acbytesla]

Speaking of atheists often being afraid to express their non-belief in God due to societal stigma and even legal ramifications:

"Saudi Arabia sentences a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter"

http://www.independent.co.uk/…/saudi-arabia-sentence-man-to…

That makes me almost as sick as this article. " Pakistan police arrest 14 in ‘honor killing’ of teen said to have helped bride to elope". https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...badeea-12c6-11e6-a9b5-bf703a5a7191_story.html

We don't know how lucky we are. I want to shout from the rooftops that "Atheism is the answer. No faith required. " Thank God I live in a country where I can say that.

 

[Vixen]

What generally happens, and what happened here, is that there is a single, false (oftentimes leaked, to poison the well and make convictions easier) news report. Then, other news agencies or blogs pick up this information and repeat it, never bothering to check its accuracy or cross-validate with other, more reliable sources. So you now have "multiple sources" that contain false information.

Then gullible people on the internet who don't have much life experience with these things and don't understand that sometimes tabloids can be false, eat it up without bothering to think how reasonable it is and what actual empirical evidence is available. They may or may not join an internet hate cult devoted to smearing the reputation of two innocents. They may or may not be associated with authors who write books about the murder for a quick money grab, and thus have a financial incentive to lie. They may (as a form of projection) then accuse all of the world renowned experts who have unequivocally stated the evidence was misleading and faulty of being "whores" who accept payment for testimony. And published papers and books apparently. Ironic eh?

These crazy people who don't know how to evaluate evidence properly can be ignored though. They rant and rave and gossip a lot, but there is never any substance to their posts.

Darkness Descending is one of the earliest books of the case on the market. The authors had to undertake their own original research.

 

[Vixen]

Just think, if Amanda Knox was out of town that week visiting her aunt in Germany, Guede would have had to stick to his "left handed stranger did it while I was listening to my ipod" story that nobody would believe, and all of us would have billions of neurons spared to put to purposes other than the properties of luminol vs TMB and LCN DNA protocols and the intricacies of paragraph 1 vs 2 acquittals in Italy.

Mez would still be alive enjoying her family and career.

 

[Vixen]

I wish I knew how schools could turn magical thinkers into scientific thinkers. I don't have the textbook from my Scientific Thinking course in front of me, but I do recall reading that it's difficult to teach and learn scientific thinking. Students who have established thinking patterns that are not critical or scientific do not easily learn to think critically and scientifically.

I have met some very bright people who don't work very hard at thinking. Critical and scientific thinking, however, requires time and discipline. You need to be willing to ruthlessly examine your own ideas and to take the time to do the research to ensure that your positions are as correct as they can be given the current state of the peer reviewed research and the evidence available.

Kevin_Lowe commented repeatedly on the training and discipline required for scientific and critical thinking in the early threads discussing this case. Here's a sample of what he had to say in the Continuation thread (Part 2, I suppose) when the time of death based on the empty duodenum was under discussion:

Kevin_Lowe on constructive and destructive thinking

Guilters spend a lot of time on purely constructive thinking. They survey a lot of data (sometimes without worrying too much about it's source, verifiability or accuracy) and they weave it together into a story. They act like scientists who are trying to come up with a new theory, in a way, except that unlike scientists they don't check their "facts" against the peer-reviewed literature.​

LOL. I had an excellent scientific education, thanks very much, a couple of my classmates became successful surgeons and another has a long string of letters after his name and is/was a professor at Rutgers in the US specialising in physics and astrophysics. I used to beat these guys in exams.

Back to the drawing board on the idea people who can clearly see the kids' almost certain guilt lack precise critical thinking skills.

 

[Vixen]

It is amazing isn't it? I wish that schools taught kids to be skeptics and critical thinking skills from day 1 on. It's absolutely flabbergasting to me just how so many people don't know how to think critically. It's a discipline more than it is a measure of intelligence. Although I do believe it leads to a sharper mind.

ROFLMAO It's the way he tells 'em, folk!

 

[Vixen]

I wish this too.

ROFLMAOBAG

 

[Vixen]

Speaking of atheists often being afraid to express their non-belief in God due to societal stigma and even legal ramifications:

"Saudi Arabia sentences a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter"

http://www.independent.co.uk/…/saudi-arabia-sentence-man-to…

You live in Saudi Arabia? My apologies. I thought you came from the land of the Brave and the Free.

 

[Vixen]

That makes me almost as sick as this article. " Pakistan police arrest 14 in ‘honor killing’ of teen said to have helped bride to elope". https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...badeea-12c6-11e6-a9b5-bf703a5a7191_story.html

We don't know how lucky we are. I want to shout from the rooftops that "Atheism is the answer. No faith required. " Thank God I live in a country where I can say that.

Would this be the same tolerant country wherein Ted Cruz said he'd flatten Islam, and, on retiring from the presidential race said , 'May the USA long be Judeo-Christian'? The same country where the other main Republican candidate, whose name we are not allowed to mention, goes on and on about his 'grandmother's Bible', wants to ban Muslims from entering the States and plan to build a mother of a wall 'to stop those pesky Mexicans coming in"?

Put your own house in order...

 

[Bill Williams]

Would this be the same tolerant country wherein Ted Cruz said he'd flatten Islam, and, on retiring from the presidential race said , 'May the USA long be Judeo-Christian'? The same country where the other main Republican candidate, whose name we are not allowed to mention, goes on and on about his 'grandmother's Bible', wants to ban Muslims from entering the States and plan to build a mother of a wall 'to stop those pesky Mexicans coming in"?

Put your own house in order...

Vixen - you have monumentally misunderstood the point being made. You need to fine-tune your random post generator; at least aim for the same area code for the point in question.

 

[NotEvenWrong]

Darkness Descending is one of the earliest books of the case on the market. The authors had to undertake their own original research.

Ah yes, Darkness Descending. Co-authored by Graham Johnson. The same guy who wrote Hack: Sex, Drugs, and Scandal from Inside the Tabloid Journal. Here is the summary of the book:

Graham Johnson was a fresh-faced journalist with an ambition to break the big news stories and make his name as a star reporter when an offer came in to work at a leading tabloid… he couldn't say no. Instantly, he found himself drawn into a world of sleaze, spin and corruption - where bending the law was justifiable in the hunt for the big-selling story and bending the truth was the norm.
Against his better judgement, Graham found his niche in this new world and, what's more, he found that he was good at it. In his time at first the News of the World then the Sunday Mirror, he made a name for himself as a man who could deliver the story, no matter what - a kind of tabloid terrorist who rifled through celebrity's rubbish bins, staked out politicians' hotel rooms, and paid-up page three girls to seduce Premiership footballers, all in the name of scoring a front-page story.

Yes, sounds like this Graham Johnson fellow does top notch original research. I wonder what he found in Amanda Knox's rubbish bin? It is good we have tabloid journalists writing true crime books with made up dialogue to make a quick buck. Need to keep those hacks and charlatans like Peter Gill and Forensic Science International in check. You know, those whores (or scientific researchers... whatever term you prefer) for the defense.

At least you have a talent for identifying reliable vs unreliable sources, Vixen. They may have been wrong about facts the first thousand times, but there is no way they are wrong the thousand and first time. So we should clearly trust the tabloid journalist true crime author over the top forensic geneticist on the planet. (Vixen's scientific mind in action, folks.)

 

[acbytesla]

Would this be the same tolerant country wherein Ted Cruz said he'd flatten Islam, and, on retiring from the presidential race said , 'May the USA long be Judeo-Christian'? The same country where the other main Republican candidate, whose name we are not allowed to mention, goes on and on about his 'grandmother's Bible', wants to ban Muslims from entering the States and plan to build a mother of a wall 'to stop those pesky Mexicans coming in"?

Put your own house in order...

You are ignoring some very salient facts.
The US Constitution, the foundation for all laws in the US strictly forbids any laws that aids or restricts religion. Contrast that to Britain which has a National religion and the Queen is not only the head of state but the leader of that Church.

That America has more than its share of religious buffoons like lying Ted Cruz who would like nothing more to change that is of constant concern. They are like roaches. Damn hard to eradicate. I'd be thrilled if another church was never built again. But I would be against laws restricting them too.

As much as I can't stand the religious right in the US they are not tying up young girls and setting them on fire. But I speak out against all atrocities. It's amazing how many have religious components. One of my favorite sayings on this subject is this. "Good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things but to get a good person to do bad things you need religion."

 

[sept79]

You are ignoring some very salient facts.
The US Constitution, the foundation for all laws in the US strictly forbids any laws that aids or restricts religion. Contrast that to Britain which has a National religion and the Queen is not only the head of state but the leader of that Church.

That America has more than its share of religious buffoons like lying Ted Cruz who would like nothing more to change that is of constant concern. They are like roaches. Damn hard to eradicate. I'd be thrilled if another church was never built again. But I would be against laws restricting them too.

As much as I can't stand the religious right in the US they are not tying up young girls and setting them on fire. But I speak out against all atrocities. It's amazing how many have religious components. One of my favorite sayings on this subject is this. "Good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things but to get a good person to do bad things you need religion."

Hope that you, acbytesla, are not my neighbor here in the midwest. Nevermind, I just remembered that you live in the Pacific Northwest, the bastion of atheism . . .

 

[acbytesla]

Hope that you, acbytesla, are not my neighbor here in the midwest. Nevermind, I just remembered that you live in the Pacific Northwest, the bastion of atheism . . .

I'm from Iowa but yes I live in Seattle. I would love to spread the gospel of Atheism everywhere including the buckle of the Bible Belt. But I believe that we should love our neighbor and the Golden rule. I'd bet we would get along famously until someone mentioned religion. Now, I wouldn't let that divide us but it seems by your post that you would.

Do you really have a problem with that?

 

[Bill Williams]

I'm from Iowa but yes I live in Seattle. I would love to spread the gospel of Atheism everywhere including the buckle of the Bible Belt. But I believe that we should love our neighbor and the Golden rule. I'd bet we would get along famously until someone mentioned religion. Now, I wouldn't let that divide us but it seems by your post that you would.

Do you really have a problem with that?

Yikes - you imply you have not mentioned "religion", but the highlighted part is 98.4% of ALL decent religion, without which nothing. Also probably 98.4% of all decent atheism......

 

[acbytesla]

Yikes - you imply you have not mentioned "religion", but the highlighted part is 98.4% of ALL decent religion, without which nothing. Also probably 98.4% of all decent atheism......

Huh? Sorry Bill, you lost me.

 

[Bill Williams]

But I believe that we should love our neighbor and the Golden rule. I'd bet we would get along famously until someone mentioned religion.

Yikes - you imply you have not mentioned "religion", but the highlighted part is 98.4% of ALL decent religion, without which nothing. Also probably 98.4% of all decent atheism......

Huh? Sorry Bill, you lost me.

The irony is that the highlighted part is 98.4% of every religion, yet you claim that it is only until someone mentions religion that the conversation breaks down. But you have just mentioned 98.4% of all religion!!!!!! At least what's important about it!

Heck, even Jesus says that that is the perfect summary of all the law and the prophets. To me this means that, essentially, religion that deifies the law and prophets but omits that 98.4% of what they are about is an empty, violence-prone religion.

It would be better to practice that 98.4% and not get your knickers in a knot about the 1.6% which is, perhaps, where the rest comes from.

If you arrive at the 98.4% via an atheistic route there is a Bible verse for that as well.....

Luke 9:50.

Or put another way, which is more important - memorizing Luke 9:50, or actually practicing that highlighted phrase, and NOT getting into a fight about where it came from?