Proof of Immortality, the IV league

[Hokulele]

Jay,
- If I understand your question, I haven't done much.
- Would seeing what I could find out about the various authors and researchers count?

That would certainly be a step forward. However, it wouldn't be complete. What else do you think you would need to do to answer JayUtah's question?

 

[Jabba]

How did they rule out lucky guesses?

Mojo,
- Mostly, how unlikely the guesses would be. For instance, the penny on top of the cabinet.

 

[Hokulele]

Mojo,
- Mostly, how unlikely the guesses would be. For instance, the penny on top of the cabinet.

Why are you so sure this anecdote is even accurate?

 

[Jabba]

Oh, for the love of Anne Hathaway's Oscar ...

NO!

Does an anecdote make a hypothesis necessarily true or necessarily false? Is it repeatable? Did it set out what was or was not a hit beforehand? Does it control for confounding variables?

No, no, no, no, no.

For this purpose it is not evidence - neither weak, tepid, provisional nor anything else.

LL,
- Repeating myself, but just to make sure -- you're claiming that anecdotes cannot affect the probability of an hypothesis. Correct?

From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/anecdote.
noun, plural anecdotes or for 2, anecdota [an-ik-doh-tuh] (Show IPA)
1.
a short account of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
2.
a short, obscure historical or biographical account.

 

[Loss Leader]

LL,
- Repeating myself, but just to make sure -- you're claiming that anecdotes cannot affect the probability of an hypothesis. Correct?

From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/anecdote.
noun, plural anecdotes or for 2, anecdota [an-ik-doh-tuh] (Show IPA)
1.
a short account of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
2.
a short, obscure historical or biographical account.

Correct. Only cases that are part of a repeatable, properly controlled experiment of a falsifiable hypothesis are evidence in these instances.

 

[JayUtah]

No.

Yes. You asked the questions the answers to which were in posts I have made recently. if you had actually been paying attention to the debate, you wouldn't need to waste my time repeating things for you. Since you willfully ignore what others post, your penance is to go back and catch up to what they said, if you belatedly want to engage them.

I told you long ago I would not repeat things for you anymore. Now get to it, chop-chop.

Give me one question or comment at a time, and I'll try to answer it.

Nobody is falling for this anymore. You ignored dozens upon dozens of my posts over the past several weeks that contained only simple statements or questions. Then when you thought it suited you, you cross-posted one of the lengthiest and meatiest of my posts, on the nature of probability. It wasn't even directed to you; it was directed to another poster who had a question. Now that the evidence shows you can read and handle substantial posts, Befuddled Old Man isn't the compelling character he used to be.

The question that was on the table before you attempted this latest reversal was what you had done personally to vet the accounts in the book you're using. I have presented ample justification for asking it, so I would appreciate your answer at your earliest convenience.

 

[JayUtah]

Mojo,
- Mostly, how unlikely the guesses would be. For instance, the penny on top of the cabinet.

You do realize that "thing on top of the cabinet" is a common plot element in NDE anecdotes. It seems popular to latch onto it as "verified" proof they were really floating. That's because it's part of the empirical controls, in scientific circles, that is sometimes used to test the claim. Experimenters deliberately place things on top of shelves etc. and ask subjects whether they were able to identify them. In controlled studies this never succeeds, but for "some reason" it's a feature of many uncontrolled anecdotes put forward as proof. No one ever asks why there should be a penny or a calling card accidentally on top of a tall cabinet in the accidental, anecdotal occurrences. And in the anecdotal versions the presence of the telltale is verified only by yet another anonymous witness -- that's the problem.

 

[JayUtah]

LL,Repeating myself, but just to make sure -- you're claiming that anecdotes cannot affect the probability of an hypothesis. Correct?

Incorrect. Loss Leader gave you a list of specific criteria that anecdote would have to be able to answer in order to be considered evidence, in the scientific sense, that a hypothesis was necessarily true or necessarily false. That is is claim.

Once again you've inappropriately reworded his statement to widen the goalposts. Do not equivocate, Jabba, even if the dictionary makes it seem like you should be able to.

 

[Mojo]

Mojo,
- Mostly, how unlikely the guesses would be. For instance, the penny on top of the cabinet.

That doesn't rule out a lucky guess.

 

[Jabba]

LL,
- Repeating myself, but just to make sure -- you're claiming that anecdotes cannot affect the probability of an hypothesis. Correct?

From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/anecdote.
noun, plural anecdotes or for 2, anecdota [an-ik-doh-tuh] (Show IPA)
1.
a short account of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature.
2.
a short, obscure historical or biographical account.

Correct. Only cases that are part of a repeatable, properly controlled experiment of a falsifiable hypothesis are evidence in these instances.

LL,
- I don't see how you can believe that. Say that 3 different nurses claim that Joe is over 200 lbs because they each claim to have weighed him recently, on 3 different scales -- but Joe is no longer around to defend his claim to you, over the phone, that he was less than 200 lbs. Wouldn't the nurses' claims affect the strength of your belief that Joe was under 200 lbs?
- Should the nurses' claims not be considered anecdotes?

 

[JayUtah]

Wouldn't the nurses' claims affect the strength of your belief that Joe was under 200 lbs?

You're equivocating again. You're trying to widen the goalposts to sneak in anecdotal evidence where it doesn't belong. Loss Leader gave you specific criteria. Show how this contrived analogy would meet his criteria.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Mojo,
- Mostly, how unlikely the guesses would be. For instance, the penny on top of the cabinet.

Assuming everybody in the anecdote is telling the truth and that it accurately represents the truth of what happened - how do you know that salient details weren't omitted? Like, for example, Penny the nurse hearing the story and thinking it funny to take a penny out of her pocket and flick it up onto the top of the cabinets before anybody goes to check. How do you know that wasn't what happened?

That's why you need protocols in place before hand to ensure that you're really testing what you think you're testing.

 

[Mojo]

LL,
- I don't see how you can believe that. Say that 3 different nurses claim that Joe is over 200 lbs because they each claim to have weighed him recently, on 3 different scales -- but Joe is no longer around to defend his claim to you, over the phone, that he was less than 200 lbs. Wouldn't the nurses' claims affect the strength of your belief that Joe was under 200 lbs?
- Should the nurses' claims not be considered anecdotes?

You're still failing to appreciate the problem with anecdotal evidence.

The nurses are providing eyewitness evidence that he weighed over 200lbs. The sort of testimonials that homoeopaths use to advertise their services are evidence that some of their patients improved after treatment. Your NDE anecdotes are evidence that some people have odd experiences associated with NDEs.

The problem arises when you try to use them to establish causal relationships. The homoeopaths' anecdotes don't establish that the recovery was caused by the treatment, and your NDE anecdotes don't establish that consciousness can leave the body.

 

[wea]

LL,
- I don't see how you can believe that. Say that 3 different nurses claim that Joe is over 200 lbs because they each claim to have weighed him recently, on 3 different scales -- but Joe is no longer around to defend his claim to you, over the phone, that he was less than 200 lbs. Wouldn't the nurses' claims affect the strength of your belief that Joe was under 200 lbs?
- Should the nurses' claims not be considered anecdotes?

Three different professionals have been trained to use weighting scales. The scales have been calibrated recently from skilled personnel. They had Joe step up onto the scale and down a couple times and the measure was the same (repeatability). Three independent measurements on three different scales by three different people give compatible results (reproducibility). As I see it, this is an experiment and not an anecdote (except in annnnoid vocabulary maybe) and you have now some evidence that Joe's weight and the lead bricks he was hiding in his hands and underwear summed over 200 lbs.

 

[jt512]

One of the best examples of this kind of selection bias I've come across was in a documentary I saw about the era of exploration, in which the story was told of how an intrepid explorer ventured into a desert, almost perished of thirst, but then by an amazing stroke of luck came across an oasis and lived to tell the tale. "Many such stories are told by those who come out of the desert" remarked one of the talking heads, somewhat portentously. Then he thought for a moment and added "Of course those who don't find water don't come out of the desert ... ".

Good story. Bad tactic. Countdown to Jabba saying "Sure, but do you agree that those who come out of the desert support the idea of water there?

I think that if that were Jabba's reply, then, for once, he'd have a good point.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Great. You just gift wrapped him another sub-argument for him to not argue for month.

I can't wait for "So do you agree that anything I've said in any way supports my 34rd hair split argument about why an anecdote is some kind of evience? I'll be back."

LL,
- Do you now accept that anecdotes can be weak evidence?

Oh, for the love of Anne Hathaway's Oscar ...

*Tommy Lee Jones looking over newspaper image*

 

[Jedi]

In a way, Mojo's die coming up 6 example is a little like how you are trying to use this thread Jabba. The way you are desperately probing for anyway you can claim someone agreed with you while ignoring the thousands of points against you is just like Mojo's die. Ignoring every hit that isn't a 6, and only accepting the times a 6 comes up, then making yourself believe that the die prefers coming up as a 6.

IIRC, there was an 'anecdote' in shermer's book, 'why people believe weird things' where he confronted a woman who claimed she had the 'power' to know, moments beforehand, when she would receive a call from a friend. he asked her if there were times when she thought her friend would call and the phone didn't ring and she said 'yes, but those were times when my powers weren't working.'

 

[The Sparrow]

IIRC, there was an 'anecdote' in shermer's book, 'why people believe weird things' where he confronted a woman who claimed she had the 'power' to know, moments beforehand, when she would receive a call from a friend. he asked her if there were times when she thought her friend would call and the phone didn't ring and she said 'yes, but those were times when my powers weren't working.'

Ugh! Makes me want to gouge out my brain with a hook.

 

[jt512]

Three different professionals have been trained to use weighting scales. The scales have been calibrated recently from skilled personnel. They had Joe step up onto the scale and down a couple times and the measure was the same (repeatability). Three independent measurements on three different scales by three different people give compatible results (reproducibility). As I see it, this is an experiment and not an anecdote (except in annnnoid vocabulary maybe) and you have now some evidence that Joe's weight and the lead bricks he was hiding in his hands and underwear summed over 200 lbs.

Why would three nurses taking repeated measurements be required? Why wouldn't a single nurse taking a single measurement be legitimate evidence that Joe weighed over 200 lb? If Joe told me he weighed 195 lb, and the nurse told me that (on the same day) he weighed 205 lb. I would gladly accept an even-money bet that his actual weight was over 200 lb.

 

[wea]

Why would three nurses ...

have you read Jabba's post I was responding to?