What's the Harm Website

[Crocoshark]

Crocoshark: again, please read the FAQ question about proximate cause (#3).

You read your OP in the original JREF thread where whatstheharm was discussed. There you say you do not include hate crimes. Half the four entries in the evolution denial section I'd class as hate crimes. They could just as easily be cut and pasted onto a creationist website to discourage people from believing in evolution as both examples have "evolutionists" on the receiving end of harm.

I've read your FAQ multiple times and read the wiki entry on proximate cause, and stand by my post. I believe the example you give in the FAQ is poor as someone choosing the wrong method to treat their cancer is not in the same causation ballpark as someone having an unrelated lapse of judgment in the same time period as partaking in woo.

Lastly, and please address this as well as the rest of my post, proximate cause does not cover cases where I can see no demonstrated cause at all, proximate or otherwise. If your going to include "someone was killed while they were on a scientology vacation" then shouldn't you also include ever incident of church collapse or church lightning strike you can find? (Hell, that even falls under proximate cause since partaking in church increased the chances of dying in any given church lightning strike. And churches can be held partially responsible for having tall bell towers).

I don't see examples of people tripping over e-meters in the scientology section, perhaps because, while that would be happen on scientology premises, it's not as spooky as a murder or suicide. I'll repeat again that the examples I cited from that section sound like rumor-mongering to me.

 

[Rodney]

The purpose of the site is to show concrete harms that can be documented.

All harms, including harms inflicted by the authorities being suspicious that an alleged dream is a fabrication?

 

[Crocoshark]

The site could use urban legend or popular wisdom sections to. I have no citations for this, it being a personal experience, but one time I found to bird eggs on the ground during a hike. After thoughtlessly handling them I believed they would then be abandoned by their mothers for smelling like a human so I took it back to the hotel I failed to keep them at the right temperature that night so they died.

The "abandon their eggs if it smells human" thing is a myth.

Sure they're just bird eggs, and they'd probably fallen out of their nest and been lost by the mother anywa, but it's still a sort of harm.

 

[Trent Wray]

Exactly. It's just coincidence.

I'd be willing to bet that if we had access to the dreams of all 6,000,000,000 people on the planet in any given night, a fair number of them would line up closely with some crimes, somewhere.

Even if someone were capable of producing dreams which were consistently accurate, in detail, 99% of the time ... they are still not evidence. Even 100% of the time .... making any kind of choices or decisions off them would always amount to "acts of faith" on part of the investigators, etc.

 

[Joey McGee]

I see your point, but that's beyond the scope of the site. The purpose of the site is to show concrete harms that can be documented. If you can take that "opportunity cost to society" idea and put a number on it, I'll add it to the site. But I'm not sure how one would go about doing that.

Ok, I see the point of what you are saying, and I have to say, I've rethought my appraisal and I'm seeing it from a different fundamental and that's ok, yours is still a good fundamental.

With the "evolution denial causes opportunity cost in psychology and medicine" claim it's kind of too easy back up, kind of like saying well, if everyone ate properly the world would be a better place. If you wanted easy, specific examples, you could point to creationists doubting pollution and AGW because God wouldn't make Earth that way, pointing to how that influences politicians. But doctors and psychologists refusing to accept evolutionary medicine/psychology when those approaches lead to greater success is a real, palpable crime on the same level of vaccine denial. Realizing it could take a book to describe this belief of mine I realize you have a great point with your inclusion requirements.

But just imagine if every psychologist and medical doctor had a firm grasp of evolutionary theory. Dawkins did two amazing interviews with leaders of evo psych and evo med that will give a good grasp of this argument.

Will you still update the site? Do you want people to email you stuff still? Have you thought about ugrading it at all? There's so much to be done with such a great premise.