But you didn’t appeal to the data. You appealed to a single data point.
In any subject that’s not politically charged, people don’t argue that they can see a weak effect in a single data point.
In health science a lot of observational studies that gather way more data don’t replicate. You can’t simple throw out everything we learned in statistics out of the window just because we are talking about a political charged issue.
I am not claiming to see an effect. I am claiming not to see a stro.ng effect. I have stated that I am neutral on AA. I have also stated that that even if AA has a weak negative effect, that proves nothing about the wider points. To do that,I have entertain the hypothesis that AA has a negative effect. Are you still going to call that mindkilled?
The problem is that you shouldn’t expect to see an effect in the case that a meaningful effect exists that isn’t outlandishly high.
I don’t see the weather in Wyoming at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s sunny or cloudy. I wouldn’t make an argument based on my ignorance about the californian weather in most cases.
I would have probably noticed if Yellowstone went of, but apart from that the fact that I don’t know the weather is not meaningful information from which to draw conclusions.
It might be possible that someone did study the issue academically and investigated how affirmative action legislation that passed in different states and countries at different times has an effect on the economy.
that proves nothing about the wider points.
That’s the point. The argument that you made proves nothing at all about the wider points. In political discussions people frequently make arguments that prove nothing at all because they aren’t focusing on the arguments but on the conclusions they want to draw.
I don’t have many stakes in whether or not to have affirmative action legislation. I do have stakes into not making statistical unsound arguments when discussing politics.
I know a single country that used policy X at time Y and the country is not collapsed as a result is not a very useful argument. Of course I’m exaggerating when I say “collapsed” and the US having a worse economy than Western Europe wouldn’t be “collapse”, but it still goes into that direction.
The argument I made was that AA proves nothing about the wider point namely the allegation of growing irrationality. Since that argument is explicitly meta, it is not supposed to address the wider point at object level.
That’s not what you claimed before . .. before you claimed that it was not obviously harmful
It’s not obviously harmful: the US, with its AA , has higher per capita GDP than Western countries without it.
. Now you are claiming that it’s not strongly harmful, which is a much easier claim to defend. Changing your position is perfectly fine, but there is more than one way to go about doing it. If you say “I now see that I overstated my case,” that’s one way. On the other hand, if you just do it without acknowledgment, it strongly suggests to me that you are in battle-mode so to speak, i.e. that you are mind-killed.
Which again shows why it’s a bad idea to assess peoples’ rationality based on their agreement with one or another side of a politically controversial issue. For one thing, most people are too mind-killed to determine which side is the rational side. (I, of course, am an exception :)).
For another, most people choose their beliefs on these issues based on what they are supposed to believe and what favors their interests. Even if they come down on the rational side, they are very likely not doing it for rational reasons. (Again, I, of course, am an exception :)).
If US AA had weak negative effect, as you claim, that would match the data.
If US AA had a weak positive effect, that would match the data.
If US AA had no effect,that would match the data.
But you didn’t appeal to the data. You appealed to a single data point.
In any subject that’s not politically charged, people don’t argue that they can see a weak effect in a single data point.
In health science a lot of observational studies that gather way more data don’t replicate. You can’t simple throw out everything we learned in statistics out of the window just because we are talking about a political charged issue.
I am not claiming to see an effect. I am claiming not to see a stro.ng effect. I have stated that I am neutral on AA. I have also stated that that even if AA has a weak negative effect, that proves nothing about the wider points. To do that,I have entertain the hypothesis that AA has a negative effect. Are you still going to call that mindkilled?
The problem is that you shouldn’t expect to see an effect in the case that a meaningful effect exists that isn’t outlandishly high.
I don’t see the weather in Wyoming at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s sunny or cloudy. I wouldn’t make an argument based on my ignorance about the californian weather in most cases.
I would have probably noticed if Yellowstone went of, but apart from that the fact that I don’t know the weather is not meaningful information from which to draw conclusions.
It might be possible that someone did study the issue academically and investigated how affirmative action legislation that passed in different states and countries at different times has an effect on the economy.
That’s the point. The argument that you made proves nothing at all about the wider points. In political discussions people frequently make arguments that prove nothing at all because they aren’t focusing on the arguments but on the conclusions they want to draw.
I don’t have many stakes in whether or not to have affirmative action legislation. I do have stakes into not making statistical unsound arguments when discussing politics.
I know a single country that used policy X at time Y and the country is not collapsed as a result is not a very useful argument. Of course I’m exaggerating when I say “collapsed” and the US having a worse economy than Western Europe wouldn’t be “collapse”, but it still goes into that direction.
The argument I made was that AA proves nothing about the wider point namely the allegation of growing irrationality. Since that argument is explicitly meta, it is not supposed to address the wider point at object level.
That’s not what you claimed before . .. before you claimed that it was not obviously harmful
. Now you are claiming that it’s not strongly harmful, which is a much easier claim to defend. Changing your position is perfectly fine, but there is more than one way to go about doing it. If you say “I now see that I overstated my case,” that’s one way. On the other hand, if you just do it without acknowledgment, it strongly suggests to me that you are in battle-mode so to speak, i.e. that you are mind-killed.
Which again shows why it’s a bad idea to assess peoples’ rationality based on their agreement with one or another side of a politically controversial issue. For one thing, most people are too mind-killed to determine which side is the rational side. (I, of course, am an exception :)).
For another, most people choose their beliefs on these issues based on what they are supposed to believe and what favors their interests. Even if they come down on the rational side, they are very likely not doing it for rational reasons. (Again, I, of course, am an exception :)).