US Officially Blames Russia

[Belz...]

I don't really see how this is relevant. The point is that the evidence is not available, whether that is for "good" or "bad" reasons has no bearing on that.

Of course it does! You are using the lack of evidence as a reason to reject the claim, even though in this case it might be a very good thing that the evidence isn't publicly available. You might even agree with the reasons, which then would raise another question: could you ever trust other people, among them experts on the matter, to determine whether the claim is true in your stead?

It would be available for independent review and I would be able to also review it for myself.

And what happens if you can't make heads or tails of it because of your lack of knowledge on the matter?

Do you ever bring yourself to trust another person on any topic? Your dentist, maybe? He sees things on those X-rays that you can't even notice.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

If I may edit your post, it was a good rejoinder up until the part I struck out. The Animus was advocating agnosticism, not arbitrary judgment.

Others will try to claim there's a difference with science, but there really isn't for the great bulk of us. You and I either cannot or have very, very good reasons not to try to replicate experiments. How many years work before I gain access to an electron microscope? So, even for most scientists, the great bulk of scientific claims come down to appeal to authority, at some level.

The "authority" in scientific contexts is the data, not necessarily the scientist who publishes the data.

If I were to analogize the current state of the Russian hacking claim, it would be that a journal with a spotty history has just published a submission from a group of anonymous authors who will not make their data or methodology open to peer review.

Additionally, a number of general interest magazines, popular opinion websites, and clickbait factories would have us believe 'their conclusions will amaze you!' or 'this will change everything about how our world works.'

Even if I am personally not capable of repeating the methodology of the experiment to test the validity of the data, I am going to provisionally give more consideration to data and methodology that can be challenged than an insistence that data exists which others cannot see and was produced by a method we may not be informed about.

 

[caveman1917]

Look, I can see that you have some familiarity with formal and probabilistic methods (and your familiarity with the latter exceeds mine). But it is clear that you haven't a clue when it comes to norms about actual reasoning of actual (non-idealistic) humans. Hell, I have only half a clue, but at least I don't pretend that if it's not Bayesian (or similar) then it's not "meaningful".

I appreciate your technical background, but not your utter ignorance on how real persons living real lives must make decisions, nor on your ridiculous impression of the meaning of "fallacy" in the non-formal world.

I'm not all that interested in how real persons living real lives must make decisions, I'm interested in good arguments in support of claims. When such arguments are presented in a venue that prides itself on skepticism I will hold them to a higher standard than "let's use a quick-and-dirty heuristic". This is a forum with all the space and time for making good arguments, it's not someone who's running late for work who finds their car won't start.

 

[caveman1917]

Unholy mother of Hell, man, this is one of the founding principles of rational thinking.

No it ain't. It really, really ain't. This entire thing started when some scientist got annoyed at people trying to shift the burden of proof and gave them a response at a level they would be able to understand, which then started leading a life of its own. It is no more a "founding principle of rational thinking" than that the rubber-sheet analogy is a "founding principle of general relativity".

 

[Belz...]

No it ain't. It really, really ain't. This entire thing started when some scientist got annoyed at people trying to shift the burden of proof and gave them a response at a level they would be able to understand, which then started leading a life of its own.

My question was in response to your apparent ignorance of the very basic rational principle of the burden of proof being on the positive claim, since negative claims are generally impossible to prove.

 

[caveman1917]

My question was in response to your apparent ignorance of the very basic rational principle of the burden of proof being on the positive claim, since negative claims are generally impossible to prove.

There is no difference between proving a positive and proving a negative, which should be obvious to anyone who's ever heard of a thing called "negation".

What that "you can't prove a negative" was supposed to convey was that one shouldn't posit the existence of entities (gods, fairies, teapots orbiting Mars, ...) and then requiring the other side of the argument to disprove it. That's as far as it goes really.

 

[Belz...]

There is no difference between proving a positive and proving a negative

Ok, then. Prove to me that there isn't a small stealth alien spaceship orbiting Neptune. Good luck.

The problem with negative claims is that you have to observe all of the universe all at once, for the claim above.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The "authority" in scientific contexts is the data, not necessarily the scientist who publishes the data.

If I were to analogize the current state of the Russian hacking claim, it would be that a journal with a spotty history has just published a submission from a group of anonymous authors who will not make their data or methodology open to peer review.

Additionally, a number of general interest magazines, popular opinion websites, and clickbait factories would have us believe 'their conclusions will amaze you!' or 'this will change everything about how our world works.'

Even if I am personally not capable of repeating the methodology of the experiment to test the validity of the data, I am going to provisionally give more consideration to data and methodology that can be challenged than an insistence that data exists which others cannot see and was produced by a method we may not be informed about.

Of course that would be weighed against one crank who disagrees with them and has a long history of making claims proven to be false.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... I support the publication of the evidence. The furthest I'm willing to go is to have the evidence given for independent review to randomly selected computer scientists who may be required to sign a NDA. I have absolutely no interest in your "congressional investigation"....

I looked back a bit in the thread to find this, which seems to be fairly representative of the disagreements under current discussion. To respond, I decided to recover some text from my "post overflow" file (60,000 words and counting), which I created for the very many posts I end up deciding against for any one of several possible reasons.

***
Sorry to the RT apologists having fun, but while I cannot say much, I will say I have had (legal, mega-heavy NDA) access to the full, detailed technical specs for a typical modern telecom/ISP, including all voice and data switching infrastructure (HW & SW) that is required. Let's just say there are many mechanisms for tracking supposedly anonymous traffic: think of the internet as similar to a downtown urban environment, with cameras you can replay at will to see what happened where and when. Whereas encryption may mask content (and not always), the routing is there to be found, making senders almost as identifiable as receivers (with some diligence) by backtracking to the source ISP (nominally requires time requesting data and getting legal approvals for the whole routing chain). Beyond that I am guessing there are more things that can be done, but I cannot vouch for them. However, it would be trivial, say, to identify the hackers as having worked from a certain area of Moscow.

We then have the type of tools used, which may exhibit qualities that either flag them as part of a known toolkit, or as requiring significant resources. Finally, we have human intel that can involve sources within groups using such tools. For all three reasons, it is completely understandable why all of the information cannot be published. For the last two reasons, especially the last, it is clear why giving the information to, say, a group of computer scientists is not possible. Besides, putting together intel from disparate sources and working through the logic does involve a skill set that requires training or experience. It could still be true that there is amateurism involved in the accusations, so it is still wait and see, and/or go with what we've got. I personally don't think the intel is flawed, but rather than for a technical reason I cannot prove, for another: what it took for Comey's Trump-gazing-in-awe FBI to come around on the topic of Russian hacking must have been epically, arm-twistingly convincing.

As to the fave GOP meme (for public consumption) of the data release being a public service and no scandal, the other shoe that has yet to drop is if any compromising information was also found on GOP servers by the same group(s) and not released, making the entire operation transparently partisan. This, and not "good intentions," may be what has some Republican Senate leaders still pushing for hearings they can control up front. Let's recall: this is the GOP of Abramoff fame, the Indian Affairs Bureau scandal, and myriad others, including Reagan's record of 138 administration officials indicted. You know, the same, "honest" good ole boys who just tried to nix all effective oversight of their misdeeds.*

Oh, and Assange is an obvious shill with an agenda.
***

*I guess I wrote this the day after the Reps tried to kill the independent ethics committee. The reason I hesitated to post it in the first place is obvious: given my own forced lack of transparency, trust is the only basis for accepting the first point.

 

[Childlike Empress]

^dude, you've unloaded an earlier remix of this stuff on us already in #204 to which I gave a brief appropriate answer. Try not to forget your own posts while "looking back in the thread".

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

In Soviet Russia, Putin blames YOU!

 

[Childlike Empress]

There was a senate intelligence committee hearing about the "Russia hacked us" idiocy with all the usual suspects a few hours ago. C-SPAN recording should be here. Not sure if I can stand watching it without killing some small, fluffy animals to blow off steam, so maybe I better wait for summaries.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Of course that would be weighed against one crank who disagrees with them and has a long history of making claims proven to be false.

One crank disagreeing with the conclusions has nothing to do with my saying that I lack a sufficient level of evidence to agree or disagree.

There are more than two possible takes on this (other than agree or disagree).

The arguments other people make, their reasons for making them, and the prevailing attitudes about people who make those claims are all irrelevant to my position.

 

[phiwum]

The "authority" in scientific contexts is the data, not necessarily the scientist who publishes the data.

If I were to analogize the current state of the Russian hacking claim, it would be that a journal with a spotty history has just published a submission from a group of anonymous authors who will not make their data or methodology open to peer review.

Additionally, a number of general interest magazines, popular opinion websites, and clickbait factories would have us believe 'their conclusions will amaze you!' or 'this will change everything about how our world works.'

Even if I am personally not capable of repeating the methodology of the experiment to test the validity of the data, I am going to provisionally give more consideration to data and methodology that can be challenged than an insistence that data exists which others cannot see and was produced by a method we may not be informed about.

You and I learn about the data from the mouths of the scientists themselves, so being given the data doesn't add a lot.

Having the data and methodology helps, because we figger that others (if not we) can replicate the experiment. So, yes, some testimony is better than others. Telling me how you came by the result in a way that others can also come by it is better than just telling me the result.

 

[phiwum]

I'm not all that interested in how real persons living real lives must make decisions, I'm interested in good arguments in support of claims. When such arguments are presented in a venue that prides itself on skepticism I will hold them to a higher standard than "let's use a quick-and-dirty heuristic". This is a forum with all the space and time for making good arguments, it's not someone who's running late for work who finds their car won't start.

In this very forum, there's not a single person who is trying to use Bayesianism in order to reason about the trustworthiness of this or that authority, including you.

Informal logic is what we use, and hence the tools of evaluating informal arguments are obviously *********** relevant.

 

[phiwum]

My question was in response to your apparent ignorance of the very basic rational principle of the burden of proof being on the positive claim, since negative claims are generally impossible to prove.

No, please, don't say that. There is no logical difference between positive and negative claims in terms of burden of proof. This is a common myth that just doesn't correspond to any rule of logic.

(There is a reason why the myth seems common, but this reason has to do with theory-making and not with burden of proof in arguments.)

 

[logger]

How would you even know that?

It's not about me, but many saw hillary get off without even a slap and felt like the fix was in.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

You and I learn about the data from the mouths of the scientists themselves, so being given the data doesn't add a lot.

Having the data and methodology helps, because we figger that others (if not we) can replicate the experiment. So, yes, some testimony is better than others. Telling me how you came by the result in a way that others can also come by it is better than just telling me the result.

We're basically on the same page, then.

Because I can be convinced that a guy who lived in Spain most of his life decided to take elephants from Africa on a journey through the Alps into Italy. It did take a bit more convincing than 'just trust us', however.

:9

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him

These senior intelligence officials also included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats. This synopsis was not an official part of the report from the intelligence community case about Russian hacks, but some officials said it augmented the evidence that Moscow intended to harm Clinton's candidacy and help Trump's, several officials with knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

^dude, you've unloaded an earlier remix of this stuff on us already in #204 to which I gave a brief appropriate answer. Try not to forget your own posts while "looking back in the thread".

I'd obviously forgotten. This version is nevertheless improved. The accusation made in the earlier reply, of being a shill, is ridiculous. Your vision is limited to people under the thrall of one camp and those of another. Binary, and limited. Further, that all motive is suspect when you are projecting is telling.

I've now reviewed your first few posts, and they are all click bait to trash. Do you have any substance of your own to offer? Let's have it, in your words.