Buffalo**** thinks all Police officers are pigs...do any of

[_Eric]

No, no there isn't. But weren't you trying to deny your obsession with me? Interesting approach, God's Warrior. Demonstrate more obsessiveness. Do you believe that Jesus Christ loves you, Calculus Crusader?

I'm pretty sure Bob posted something along those lines sometime ago.

LOL. At least you stopped denying that you are obsessed. Well, find it then. If it exists, it shouldn't be hard to find it. Unless the Internet is too complicated for someone with an "advanced degree" and absolutely no inbreeding in their lineage. None. I'll be waiting, God's Warrior. Do you or don't you believe that Jesus Christ loves you?

[_Eric]

Bumping for Calculus "I love Jesus and Eric so much" Crusader.

I found your mugshot.

[_JohnStuartMill]

This is what I wrote previously:

Junior is relying on the same prognosticator who predicted the amendment would go down in defeat and put the odds at 5 to 2. (Which is why one should get his statistical analyses from a statistician.)

It is possible that in the near future vapid, callow people like junior will reverse these amendments but it is not certain.

There is nothing wrong with what I wrote.

Yes, there is. It's perfectly analogous to the following situation:

Calculus Crusader: "Hey Mill, I'm about to flip a coin twice. What are the odds I get at least one heads?"

JohnStuartMill: "Uhh, 75%?"

Calculus Crusader: flips coin twice, gets tails both times "Wrong! You suck at statistics, Mill!"

JohnStuartMill: "That's not how that works..."

For starters, you think it's impossible to judge the ethicality of God's (supposed) actions. That's moral authoritarianism right there.

Are you suggesting that I advocate Divine Command Theory?

Don't you? Feel free to tell me what you actually believe if you think I'm misrepresenting you, but I bet that whatever you say as a response here will be intimately related to DCT (i.e., wrong in the relevant way), if not logically reducible to it.

But you've also showed an off-putting obsequiousness to some of the more lettered posters here. Nobody else, for instance, calls Tarski "Professor". In the context of an informal message board, that's pretty weird. The way you defend your arguments on the board is weird in a similar way: you're much more likely to say that your position is identical to that of a famous thinker than to articulate your own reasoning.

I am deferential to Tarski, no doubt, but referring to him as "Professor" is not obsequious. Besides which, I have referred to others as "Professor" on message boards with utmost disdain.

Anyway, let's recap here. You can't think of one mortal religious authority whom I cravenly worship and the only secular authorities you can think of are mathematicians and other "lettered" people, a not insignificant number of whom are dead.

You're right that referring to Tarski as "professor" is not obsequious in itself. But I'm saying something slightly different: that it's part of a pattern of behavior that is best interpreted as obsequious. And I never said you cravenly worship any mortal religious authorities. When I referenced "religious authorities," I had your monstrous deity in mind.

Well, you think Jesus (or God, or whatever nonsensical trinitarian hodgepodge you believe in) can magically read this board, don't you?

Flail away junior.

Don't you?

...

Besides, I'd bet a pretty penny that your acrimony doesn't stop at this message board.

Legitimizing an abuser's power is often the only way a person can cope with pervasive abuse. But I think you'd be much happier if you dealt with your problems by recognizing that relationships are better when they don't involve asymmetries of power.

Yes, I've been horribly abused by mathematicians and other lettered people, including Tarski. Why do I keep legitimizing their abuse?! I mean ****, when I was told that I'd have to take an exam in algebra or topology if I wanted a PhD from UCSD, even though I'm in statistics, I should have fought the power!

You're missing the point here, perhaps intentionally. I think you have a fucked-up view of interpersonal relations generally, and that this is manifested in your authoritarian academic disposition.

I hope you are a better pettifogger than you are a psychoanalyst, junior. Charity forfends me from psychoanalyzing you.

Go for it. My identity is probably more pliable than yours.

[_Calculus Crusader]

There is nothing wrong with what I wrote.

Yes, there is. It's perfectly analogous to the following situation:

Calculus Crusader: "Hey Mill, I'm about to flip a coin twice. What are the odds I get at least one heads?"

JohnStuartMill: "Uhh, 75%?"

Calculus Crusader: flips coin twice, gets tails both times "Wrong! You suck at statistics, Mill!"

JohnStuartMill: "That's not how that works..."

No, it is not, exemplar of Dunning-Kruger. It is indisputable that when a fair coin is tossed, the probability of obtaining a head is 1/2 (or, possibly, something exceedingly close to it, depending on a given coin-tosser.) The hypothetical me in your fiction is manifestly in error. By way of contrast, Nate Silver aggregates polls and assigns various weight to them, which cannot be legitimately compared to a coin toss. Nate Silver highly favored the defeat of SSM opponents in both CA and ME, and both times he ended up wrong. Consequently, I am justified in questioning his Psephological modeling.

From Silver himself re: Maine:

We had given Question 1 about a 70 percent chance of being defeated based on a combination of an analysis of the polling and a statistical model. I don't know how much time I'm supposed to spend defending being on the wrong side of a 70:30 bet -- we build in a hedge for a reason -- but here comes a little self-reflection.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Yes, there is. It's perfectly analogous to the following situation:

Calculus Crusader: "Hey Mill, I'm about to flip a coin twice. What are the odds I get at least one heads?"

JohnStuartMill: "Uhh, 75%?"

Calculus Crusader: flips coin twice, gets tails both times "Wrong! You suck at statistics, Mill!"

JohnStuartMill: "That's not how that works..."

No, it is not, exemplar of Dunning-Kruger. It is indisputable that when a fair coin is tossed, the probability of obtaining a head is 1/2 (or, possibly, something exceedingly close to it, depending on a given coin-tosser.) The hypothetical me in your fiction is manifestly in error. By way of contrast, Nate Silver aggregates polls and assigns various weight to them, which cannot be legitimately compared to a coin toss. Nate Silver highly favored the defeat of SSM opponents in both CA and ME, and both times he ended up wrong. Consequently, I am justified in questioning his Psephological modeling.

How about this: JohnStuartMill highly favored the outcome of at least one heads, and he ended up wrong. Consequently, I am justified in questioning his modeling.

Why does your bolded statement follow logically but not the italicized one? (Hint: yours doesn't.)

Think about it like this, Calc: what if Silver had predicted that the proposition would fail, giving that outcome a probability of 51%, and then the proposition won? Would that prove that Silver is a bad statistician (or as you erroneously implied, no statistician at all)? Of course not. What if he'd given a probability of 60%? This would be better evidence that Silver is a bad statistician, but it would probably still be better to reserve judgment until more data comes in. 70% would be even better evidence, but still, we'd have to weigh the correspondence of Silver's models with the outcome in this instance against the correspondence of Silver's models with the correspondence of his models with the outcomes in other instances.

Silver's prediction in Maine was wrong, yes. But as I've explained to you before, statisticians are not soothsayers. The 70% (i.e., roughly 5:2) figure is a meta-prediction: if he makes predictions like the one about the Maine proposition a hundred times and gets the prediction wrong thirty times, then he's a better statistician than if he got all those predictions right, because the meta-prediction is what's important. To illustrate: if Silver had predicted two other outcomes with a similar model to the one used for the Maine proposition, and got both of those right, then the fact that his model predicted the wrong outcome in Maine would actually be evidence against the idea that he's a bad statistician! (Because predicting outcomes correctly 2/3 [~66.7%] of the time is closer to the the meta-prediction of getting things right 70% of the time, than getting them right all [100%] of the time.) You point to Silver's incorrect prediction in Maine as evidence that he's a bad statistician, but he actually predicted that he'd make incorrect predictions a significant (~30%) proportion of the time!

Honestly, Calc, I've given you a lot of deference on this topic in the past, but I'm starting to wonder if you're actually as good a statistician as you say you are.

[_Some Schmo]

I don't think all cops are pigs; just the ones who eat too much... well, and the ones who eat in the same place they crap.

Seriously, I haven't had much experience with police at all, so my evidence of their behavior is limited, but most of them that I've met seemed like decent enough people. I don't have anything against them. I have no doubt that the profession attracts certain people who would use their position to abuse power, but I imagine the same could be said for many lines of work (politicians and clergymen come to mind right off the bat).

...

by the way, Eric, I didn't realize CC was also obsessed with you. I know he's been fantasizing about my ass for some time now, but had no idea he's been on to you too.

I guess that's what happens when you have an advanced degree in statistics. You play the entire field to increase your chances.

[_Eric]

by the way, Eric, I didn't realize CC was also obsessed with you. I know he's been fantasizing about my ass for some time now, but had no idea he's been on to you too.

I guess that's what happens when you have an advanced degree in statistics. You play the entire field to increase your chances.

[_Calculus Crusader]

Why does your bolded statement follow logically but not the italicized one? (Hint: yours doesn't.)

D-K exemplar,

This is not difficult. It is a fact that the probability of obtaining a head in a fair coin toss is 0.5 (+/- epsilon, possibly). That's objective; the hypothetical you (who also has "just enough of learning to misquote," apparently) isn't modeling anything except in the most trivial sense. Hypothetical you might as well state the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is 1 and refer to that as "modeling" too. By way of contrast, Nate Silver's Psephological modeling really is modeling in a non-trivial sense and it involves subjective approaches. Since he has been wrong in highly favoring the gay marriage side at least twice, I am justified in questioning his modeling on that particular issue.

Think about it like this, Calc: what if Silver had predicted that the proposition would fail, giving that outcome a probability of 51%, and then the proposition won? Would that prove that Silver is a bad statistician (or as you erroneously implied, no statistician at all)? Of course not.

Nate Silver is not a statistician.

What if he'd given a probability of 60%? This would be better evidence that Silver is a bad statistician, but it would probably still be better to reserve judgment until more data comes in. 70% would be even better evidence, but still, we'd have to weigh the correspondence of Silver's models with the outcome in this instance against the correspondence of Silver's models with the correspondence of his models with the outcomes in other instances.

As I see it, candidates and "issues" are not the same and Silver's past success in predictions concerning the former does not "make up" for his underwhelming "gay marriage" predictions.

Silver's prediction in Maine was wrong, yes.

And CA

But as I've explained to you before, statisticians are not soothsayers.

You don't explain things in statistics to me junior; I explain them to you.

The 70% (i.e., roughly 5:2) figure is a meta-prediction: if he makes predictions like the one about the Maine proposition a hundred times and gets the prediction wrong thirty times, then he's a better statistician than if he got all those predictions right, because the meta-prediction is what's important. To illustrate: if Silver had predicted two other outcomes with a similar model to the one used for the Maine proposition, and got both of those right, then the fact that his model predicted the wrong outcome in Maine would actually be evidence against the idea that he's a bad statistician! (Because predicting outcomes correctly 2/3 [~66.7%] of the time is closer to the the meta-prediction of getting things right 70% of the time, than getting them right all [100%] of the time.) You point to Silver's incorrect prediction in Maine as evidence that he's a bad statistician, but he actually predicted that he'd make incorrect predictions a significant (~30%) proportion of the time!

We have two trials that I know of. The last of his predictions re: the disposition of Prop 8 was "55/45" in favor of 'no.' The probability Silver would be wrong in both cases (assuming independence, which is most likely not the case, since Silver was the one making both predictions) is 0.1285714. I would expect at least one outcome favoring "gay marriage" using his odds.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Why does your bolded statement follow logically but not the italicized one? (Hint: yours doesn't.)

D-K exemplar,

This is not difficult. It is a fact that the probability of obtaining a head in a fair coin toss is 0.5 (+/- epsilon, possibly). That's objective; the hypothetical you (who also has "just enough of learning to misquote," apparently) isn't modeling anything except in the most trivial sense. Hypothetical you might as well state the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is 1 and refer to that as "modeling" too. By way of contrast, Nate Silver's Psephological modeling really is modeling in a non-trivial sense and it involves subjective approaches. Since he has been wrong in highly favoring the gay marriage side at least twice, I am justified in questioning his modeling on that particular issue.

(Fundamentally, the distinctions between "subjective approaches" and appeals to "objective facts" are illusory (i.e., facts are theory-laden), but I know you don't know anything about philosophy, so I'll table that for now.)

You're making a slightly different argument than I thought you were, but you're still wrong for the same old reasons. So let's change the scenario slightly: What if I'd flipped the coin, and on the basis of the somewhat unlikely event of two tails showing up, you cried foul, saying I was flipping an unfair coin? That wouldn't make much sense. But that's what you'd have to do to be consistent with your criticism of Silver.

What if he'd given a probability of 60%? This would be better evidence that Silver is a bad statistician, but it would probably still be better to reserve judgment until more data comes in. 70% would be even better evidence, but still, we'd have to weigh the correspondence of Silver's models with the outcome in this instance against the correspondence of Silver's models with the correspondence of his models with the outcomes in other instances.

As I see it, candidates and "issues" are not the same and Silver's past success in predictions concerning the former does not "make up" for his underwhelming "gay marriage" predictions.

"As I see it." Well, isn't that special. The fact of the matter is that Silver uses the same kind of analysis to predict outcomes of elections for both candidates and ballot propositions. The burden is on you to show otherwise, so I'll interpret your reluctance to articulate a meaningful difference in analysis as an admission that you can't find one.

But as I've explained to you before, statisticians are not soothsayers.

You don't explain things in statistics to me junior; I explain them to you.

Huh? You took issue with a science journalist's description of the statistics behind a physics paper, in a way that neither undermined the physicists' claims nor my position regarding them. If you want to think of that as a slam-dunk against me, go ahead, but you should know that your interpretation of events bears no relation to reality.

The 70% (i.e., roughly 5:2) figure is a meta-prediction: if he makes predictions like the one about the Maine proposition a hundred times and gets the prediction wrong thirty times, then he's a better statistician than if he got all those predictions right, because the meta-prediction is what's important. To illustrate: if Silver had predicted two other outcomes with a similar model to the one used for the Maine proposition, and got both of those right, then the fact that his model predicted the wrong outcome in Maine would actually be evidence against the idea that he's a bad statistician! (Because predicting outcomes correctly 2/3 [~66.7%] of the time is closer to the the meta-prediction of getting things right 70% of the time, than getting them right all [100%] of the time.) You point to Silver's incorrect prediction in Maine as evidence that he's a bad statistician, but he actually predicted that he'd make incorrect predictions a significant (~30%) proportion of the time!

We have two trials that I know of. The last of his predictions re: the disposition of Prop 8 was "55/45" in favor of 'no.' The probability Silver would be wrong in both cases (assuming independence, which is most likely not the case, since Silver was the one making both predictions) is 0.1285714. I would expect at least one outcome favoring "gay marriage" using his odds.

We have two trials that I know of.

Translation: "I admit to using a sample size that's almost as small as my penis, and I'm too lazy (or ideologically blinkered) to look for any more."

The probability Silver would be wrong in both cases is .1285714

Translation: "The confidence level for my assertion that 'Silver is bad at statistics' is far lower than those considered significant in any statistics-related field, but I'll make the assertion anyway because I'm more interested in defending my puerile worldview than in ascertaining reality."

Try again.

[_Dr. Shades]

I am not going to take the time...the two "kingdoms" below this one tell me all I need to know about the board and Shades. . . it is here and he allows it.

Am I responsible for everyone else's words?

Isn't God just as responsible for allowing people to type what they typed?

The cops commit perjury all the time. It's part of their function as enforcers of the police state.

A cop who commits perjury will, upon conviction, instantaneously lose his job.