That's not *Ben's* reasoning

Post #227,363 by drewk 9/30/05 2:29:28 PM Reply	That's not Ben's reasoning I'm sure he can defend himself, but Ben never said he agreed with that line of reasoning. He's just laying out the argument that Bennett was aluding to. The whole issue, without getting into the specifics that keep derailing this, is: Statistics sometimes point to facts that we wish weren't true. If we base policy decisions solely on a pragmatic analysis of these statistics, we end up doing things that are simply unacceptable. Bennett used a clumsy analogy to try to make this point. The specific analogy may have had some racist assumptions built in. It also controlled for the wrong factor, rendering the analogy invalid in any case. And it was in service of discriditing a policy that the majority of the population supports. For his argument to work, he would first have to convince that majority that their position was as morally unacceptable than the straw man he set up. His whole chain or reasoning has more assumptions than the rapture. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #227,373 by mmoffitt 9/30/05 3:49:39 PM Reply	You should read him in his posts. The statement was a correct statement. You may dislike the speaker and suspect the motives of the speaker for picking that example. But when you say that people cannot say the truth because you don't like to hear it, that's called censorship. [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=227184\|http://z.iwethey.org...?contentid=227184] The statement he was defending as a "correct, true" statement was this: But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. Now, I know it's impossible that coming to the conclusion that aborting every black pregnancy would result in a lowered crime rate involved much in the way of reason, but I'm not the one who said the statement was a "correct, true" statement. If, as you say, Ben's reasoning is different, why did he claim the statement was true and correct? bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #227,376 by drewk 9/30/05 3:52:59 PM 9/30/05 5:13:10 PM Reply	Because it is To the extent that any prediction based on statistics can be called "true", that statement is true. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com] Edited by drewk Sept. 30, 2005, 05:13:10 PM EDT Expand All History

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