Political Roundtable Part XXXII

[Zonkerbl]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

Well, I agree with the last sentence. This is what's wrong with the Republican party right now, there is absolutely no skepticism at all. What the God King Trump says is the absolute truth and everything dirty thieving liberals say is wrong. That's how countries end up voluntarily voting in a dictator.

I find the whole premise of the two paragraphs absolutely nonsensical. Let's consider two groups, one that forms coalitions around whatever a god king says that explicitly rejects science and rationality in favor of believing whatever the god king tells them to believe, and a coalition based around making money from scientific advances. The members of both groups are equally irrational. However, when confronted with data countering their preconceived beliefs, the first group will make no attempt to change whatsoever. Their ability to make change quickly is only in response to the whims of their god king and not likely at all to move in any direction towards the truth. The second group may eventually move closer to the truth, maybe not as quickly as you would like.

Telling people to reject science is something a grifter trying to sell nutritional supplements would say. Don't be a mark for silk tongued snake oil salesmen.

[pancakes3]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

It's shocking why someone who came up with a crackpot theory that mainstream academics rejected would write something like this. Putting aside the premise that evolutionary psychology is at best, a factually deficient attempt to rebrand anthropology and sociology as the intersection of biology and psychology:

Re: coalitional collectives. If he's going to say something, he should come out and say it. What is the coaltiional collective? Are there multiple coalitions? Is it a journal? An academy? The US government? Is there a coalition of coalitions? What subjects do they cover?All of science or just climate science? Is gravity a hoax? Vaccines? What about material science? Do we trust the science that the computers and phones that we're typing this based on is sound science, or is that being suppressed for political reasons as well? Seems complicated. A much simpler interpretation is that he's OBVIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF AND HE'S BUTTHURT THAT NOBODY SERIOUS LIKES HIS STUPID THEORY.

There is no coalitional collective. If you can debunk a theory, and have a published, replicable methodology on the books? That's your ticket to a nobel, if not more. Every working scientist out there is praying for a paradigm-shifting discovery. But sometimes (most times), things just work the way they work. Science isn't fairy dust and a theory doesn't run off the audience believing. Scientific theories are published because the author truly doesn't believe it can be revised. That's the entire point of scientific advancement. The methodology is hypothetized based off math, tested with statistical rigor, the results are analyzed as to whether there's a statistical significance, and there entire sections of the paper dedicated to addressing shortcomings and proposing of new experiments that would rule out potential confounding variables. So when 95% of academics come out one way, and 5% of academics come out another way, there really isn't a "both-sidesing" the theory, especially when in the climate science context, the 5% of academics that come out the other way are: (1) almost entirely backed by questionable funding; and (2) are not publishing papers proving definitively that there is no human-caused climate change, only papers saying that their experiment/modeling could not prove definitively that the observed climate change can be attributed to human causes.

Re: Disagreeing with coalitional precepts. He talks about facts as if they're opinions. You can't/shouldn't disagree with facts; if you think a fact is wrong, your burden is to prove the fact wrong, not just winge about it. He kind of gives away the game when he says "a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members." If we interpret being a coalition member being a diligent and good-faith scientist, that's 100% correct. If you go about revising existing science willy nilly, you are a bad coalition member. If you revise your belief on climate with no scientific proof, you are a bad coalition member, which is exactly what the republican party did between 1990 and today, when they shifted from climate believers to climate deniers because of massive bribes from the fossil fuel industry.

Re: "economics or climate" It's just interesting that conservatives love latching onto climate science as the science that is captured by the "coalitional collective" as they are the ones least replicable via experimentation, and then extrapolate to imply that all sciences are equally captured by the Democrat party, writ large.

[TGW]

uh oh...looks like Russian propaganda has infiltrated the Supreme Court....oh shyt

Watch on YouTube

[dckingsfan]

Looks like your guy got to win one of the cases against him...

[Zonkerbl]

lol I'd forgotten about the Colorado ballot thing. Looks like that was a ... quixotic effort at best

[popper]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

Well, I agree with the last sentence. This is what's wrong with the Republican party right now, there is absolutely no skepticism at all. What the God King Trump says is the absolute truth and everything dirty thieving liberals say is wrong. That's how countries end up voluntarily voting in a dictator.

I find the whole premise of the two paragraphs absolutely nonsensical. Let's consider two groups, one that forms coalitions around whatever a god king says that explicitly rejects science and rationality in favor of believing whatever the god king tells them to believe, and a coalition based around making money from scientific advances. The members of both groups are equally irrational. However, when confronted with data countering their preconceived beliefs, the first group will make no attempt to change whatsoever. Their ability to make change quickly is only in response to the whims of their god king and not likely at all to move in any direction towards the truth. The second group may eventually move closer to the truth, maybe not as quickly as you would like.

Telling people to reject science is something a grifter trying to sell nutritional supplements would say. Don't be a mark for silk tongued snake oil salesmen.

Hmmm. I didn't read it that way. Tooly is obviously a big believer in science (PhD from Harvard in Biological Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at UCSB). I could be wrong but I interpret his position as follows; people throughout history have formed coalitions (for reasons of safety, acceptance, financial advantage, political power, etc.) It's almost a natural instinct.

I will assume that Tooby thinks that all coalitions believe they are acting rationally to achieve their objectives (of course they may be mistaken when all is said and done). It's obvious to me that some coalition members' eschew science and truth for the benefit of remaining on good terms with their chosen coalition. If one considers our current political situation, I see irrational behavior/actions with individuals on all sides of the political spectrum.

But back to Tooby's point. Assume a coalition is formed to pursue actions based on the best science. Members of this coalition determine that science tells us that the benefits of smoking cigarettes far outweigh the health risks. Money starts to flow to scientist that support the coalition's conclusion. Members of the coalition that seek funding to further the science (but in fact may revise in unacceptable ways the aforementioned conclusion) are denied it.
Thus the coalition ceases to be really about the science.

[pancakes3]

lol I'd forgotten about the Colorado ballot thing. Looks like that was a ... quixotic effort at best

with hindsight being 20/20, i think the plaintiffs jumped the gun and should have waited until Jack Smith's verdict came out or filed a case on their own alleging insurrection. Once you have some sort of ruling that Trump engaged in insurrection, then it becomes a lot harder for a court, even a biased court, to remove him from the ballot.

that doesn't change the fact that the Court's opinion (9-0) is really absurd, especially the portion that passed 5-4 saying that Congress needs to pass a law before the clause can be invoked, especially since the other portions of the 14th amendment like due process don't need an independent congressional law for it to be valid (the Constitution IS law), but on a very technical basis, I can potentially see the reasoning in that Congress may need to do so to spell out the procedures and mechanisms of how to disqualify candidates.

so yes, in a word, quixotic.

[popper]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

It's shocking why someone who came up with a crackpot theory that mainstream academics rejected would write something like this. Putting aside the premise that evolutionary psychology is at best, a factually deficient attempt to rebrand anthropology and sociology as the intersection of biology and psychology:

Re: coalitional collectives. If he's going to say something, he should come out and say it. What is the coaltiional collective? Are there multiple coalitions? Is it a journal? An academy? The US government? Is there a coalition of coalitions? What subjects do they cover?All of science or just climate science? Is gravity a hoax? Vaccines? What about material science? Do we trust the science that the computers and phones that we're typing this based on is sound science, or is that being suppressed for political reasons as well? Seems complicated. A much simpler interpretation is that he's OBVIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF AND HE'S BUTTHURT THAT NOBODY SERIOUS LIKES HIS STUPID THEORY.

There is no coalitional collective. If you can debunk a theory, and have a published, replicable methodology on the books? That's your ticket to a nobel, if not more. Every working scientist out there is praying for a paradigm-shifting discovery. But sometimes (most times), things just work the way they work. Science isn't fairy dust and a theory doesn't run off the audience believing. Scientific theories are published because the author truly doesn't believe it can be revised. That's the entire point of scientific advancement. The methodology is hypothetized based off math, tested with statistical rigor, the results are analyzed as to whether there's a statistical significance, and there entire sections of the paper dedicated to addressing shortcomings and proposing of new experiments that would rule out potential confounding variables. So when 95% of academics come out one way, and 5% of academics come out another way, there really isn't a "both-sidesing" the theory, especially when in the climate science context, the 5% of academics that come out the other way are: (1) almost entirely backed by questionable funding; and (2) are not publishing papers proving definitively that there is no human-caused climate change, only papers saying that their experiment/modeling could not prove definitively that the observed climate change can be attributed to human causes.

Re: Disagreeing with coalitional precepts. He talks about facts as if they're opinions. You can't/shouldn't disagree with facts; if you think a fact is wrong, your burden is to prove the fact wrong, not just winge about it. He kind of gives away the game when he says "a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members." If we interpret being a coalition member being a diligent and good-faith scientist, that's 100% correct. If you go about revising existing science willy nilly, you are a bad coalition member. If you revise your belief on climate with no scientific proof, you are a bad coalition member, which is exactly what the republican party did between 1990 and today, when they shifted from climate believers to climate deniers because of massive bribes from the fossil fuel industry.

Re: "economics or climate" It's just interesting that conservatives love latching onto climate science as the science that is captured by the "coalitional collective" as they are the ones least replicable via experimentation, and then extrapolate to imply that all sciences are equally captured by the Democrat party, writ large.

See my response to Zonk.

[Zonkerbl]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

Well, I agree with the last sentence. This is what's wrong with the Republican party right now, there is absolutely no skepticism at all. What the God King Trump says is the absolute truth and everything dirty thieving liberals say is wrong. That's how countries end up voluntarily voting in a dictator.

I find the whole premise of the two paragraphs absolutely nonsensical. Let's consider two groups, one that forms coalitions around whatever a god king says that explicitly rejects science and rationality in favor of believing whatever the god king tells them to believe, and a coalition based around making money from scientific advances. The members of both groups are equally irrational. However, when confronted with data countering their preconceived beliefs, the first group will make no attempt to change whatsoever. Their ability to make change quickly is only in response to the whims of their god king and not likely at all to move in any direction towards the truth. The second group may eventually move closer to the truth, maybe not as quickly as you would like.

Telling people to reject science is something a grifter trying to sell nutritional supplements would say. Don't be a mark for silk tongued snake oil salesmen.

Hmmm. I didn't read it that way. Tooly is obviously a big believer in science (PhD from Harvard in Biological Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at UCSB). I could be wrong but I interpret his position as follows; people throughout history have formed coalitions (for reasons of safety, acceptance, financial advantage, political power, etc.) It's almost a natural instinct.

I will assume that Tooby thinks that all coalitions believe they are acting rationally to achieve their objectives (of course they may be mistaken when all is said and done). It's obvious to me that some coalition members' eschew science and truth for the benefit of remaining on good terms with their chosen coalition. If one considers our current political situation, I see irrational behavior/actions with individuals on all sides of the political spectrum.

But back to Tooby's point. Assume a coalition is formed to pursue actions based on the best science. Members of this coalition determine that science tells us that the benefits of smoking cigarettes far outweigh the health risks. Money starts to flow to scientist that support the coalition's conclusion. Members of the coalition that seek funding to further the science (but in fact may revise in unacceptable ways the aforementioned conclusion) are denied it.
Thus the coalition ceases to be really about the science.

I interpret it as the typical anthropological argument that groupthink literally warps your mind. There's a great example of it in Eastman's "The Anti Politics Machine" where he showed how World Bank economists basically convinced themselves that low income people in Lesotho are primitive savages to justify the livestock project they decided to build there.

My organization's job is to reduce poverty. But it's impossible to prove you've done that, so instead we've decided our job is to build infrastructure in poor countries. Despite all evidence showing that this is nonsense. But we can prove to Congress that we've built a road and we can't prove we reduced poverty, so we've all convinced ourselves that building roads reduces poverty. Collective insanity.

It's because we are fundamentally irrational beings.

So his argument is that even institutions built around promoting science will suffer from a similar type of groupthink irrationality, which ok, is probably true. But what's the alternative. If it's to not value science, where does that leave you.

[dckingsfan]

The argument around coalitions of scientists necessarily move away from science is flawed on two accounts.

1) It isn't "all" coalitions that do this, so an anecdotal example is weak correlation at best.

2) It doesn't take in the timeframe of science. If you look at the short-term, you will/would find examples - but if you look at the longer term (say 100+ years) it doesn't hold. Group think is a short-term resource allocation/problem-solving process that necessarily changes over time.

We then use this to dismiss science and "both sides" the political parties. It is a useful idiot type of argument.

[pancakes3]

Food for thought from John Tooby. He's considered by some the father of evolutionary psychology.


".... Coalition-mindedness makes everyone, including scientists, far stupider in coalitional collectivities than as individuals. Paradoxically, a political party united by supernatural beliefs can revise its beliefs about economics or climate without revisers being bad coalition members. But people whose coalitional membership is constituted by their shared adherence to “rational,” scientific propositions have a problem when—as is generally the case—new information arises which requires belief revision. To question or disagree with coalitional precepts, even for rational reasons, makes one a bad and immoral coalition member—at risk of losing job offers, one's friends, and one's cherished group identity. This freezes belief revision.

Forming coalitions around scientific or factual questions is disastrous, because it pits our urge for scientific truth-seeking against the nearly insuperable human appetite to be a good coalition member. Once scientific propositions are moralized, the scientific process is wounded, often fatally. No one is behaving either ethically or scientifically who does not make the best case possible for rival theories with which one disagrees".

https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-coalitional-instincts

Well, I agree with the last sentence. This is what's wrong with the Republican party right now, there is absolutely no skepticism at all. What the God King Trump says is the absolute truth and everything dirty thieving liberals say is wrong. That's how countries end up voluntarily voting in a dictator.

I find the whole premise of the two paragraphs absolutely nonsensical. Let's consider two groups, one that forms coalitions around whatever a god king says that explicitly rejects science and rationality in favor of believing whatever the god king tells them to believe, and a coalition based around making money from scientific advances. The members of both groups are equally irrational. However, when confronted with data countering their preconceived beliefs, the first group will make no attempt to change whatsoever. Their ability to make change quickly is only in response to the whims of their god king and not likely at all to move in any direction towards the truth. The second group may eventually move closer to the truth, maybe not as quickly as you would like.

Telling people to reject science is something a grifter trying to sell nutritional supplements would say. Don't be a mark for silk tongued snake oil salesmen.

Hmmm. I didn't read it that way. Tooly is obviously a big believer in science (PhD from Harvard in Biological Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at UCSB). I could be wrong but I interpret his position as follows; people throughout history have formed coalitions (for reasons of safety, acceptance, financial advantage, political power, etc.) It's almost a natural instinct.

I will assume that Tooby thinks that all coalitions believe they are acting rationally to achieve their objectives (of course they may be mistaken when all is said and done). It's obvious to me that some coalition members' eschew science and truth for the benefit of remaining on good terms with their chosen coalition. If one considers our current political situation, I see irrational behavior/actions with individuals on all sides of the political spectrum.

But back to Tooby's point. Assume a coalition is formed to pursue actions based on the best science. Members of this coalition determine that science tells us that the benefits of smoking cigarettes far outweigh the health risks. Money starts to flow to scientist that support the coalition's conclusion. Members of the coalition that seek funding to further the science (but in fact may revise in unacceptable ways the aforementioned conclusion) are denied it.
Thus the coalition ceases to be really about the science.

I think you and Toobin are conflating scientific conclusions with political decisions, and also really arguing for different things here.

1) Neither of you have really come out and defined what a coalition is? For Toobin, he defines coalition as a singular, in-group that moralizes science, and an out-group speaking truth to the coalition. In your post, you imply that there are multiple competing coalitions, each twisting science to advance their own political agendas, which is not what Toobin is trying to argue.

2) Your view on coalitions, states that there are coalitions that eschew science and truth for the benefit of remaining on good terms with their chosen coalition. That's explicitly a criticism of politics and political actors, not of science. Toobin is explicitly saying there are scientists that will reject a new theory to remain as a part of the scientist coalition. You are saying that scientists separate themselves and produce research in accordance with their own political views.

3) In your given example about smoking - yes, there are definitely Philip-Morris-backed researchers that come out with some questionable studies, but the scientific community at large (Toobin's coalition) remains objective. The scientific community does not weigh the benefits of smoking vs health risks. Tobacco companies do. The scientific community, as a coalition, would never publish a Philip-Morris backed study that promotes the benefits of smoking, or the non-addicting traits of smoking, because the science doesn't say that. Neither would a medical journal editoralize, or make comparisons between two separate phenomenon, unless there was a scientific link between the two. If a scientist did somehow find a scientific link where it showed that smoking, while carcinogenic, lowered blood pressure, they would publish that study, and it would be the work of journalism to spin the scientific conclusion and editorialize/balance it into a headline stating "smoking linked to better health" because the actual medical journal title would be something like "Preliminary trials in smoking shown to lower blood pressure in certain patients." That's the difference between fact and opinion?

4) And yes, Philip Morris would, and did do that, which is why they got sued. They were publishing in their own journals and other publications that nicotine is not addictive, that "light" and "low tar" cigarettes are somehow healthier for you, and even destroyed their own research when they could not get the results they wanted. Is Philip Morris the coalition? A coalition of one? How fast and loose do we want to play with this "coalition" term?

5) Your point re: how money corrupts the science is also counter to Toobin's point. Again, Toobin is saying there is an in-group, and that in-group pressures members of the scientific community to be on the coalition's side, and then there's everyone else. You continue to describe a world where there are multiple coalitions which is an entirely different discussion, but probably a more accurate description of the political world and how they utilize science.

6) To put a finer point on it, in Toobin's model, you are either a scientist, embraced by the coalition, or you're not, and you're a laughing stock. He doesn't offer any explanation as to why the coalition thinks the way it does, except to imply that it is a social pressure, based off inertia - that old ideas are immutable, and new ideas are not welcome.

In Popper's model, there are two or more groups, each misusing scientific research to advance their own economic gain. This is, again, (a) not what Toobin argues for; and (b) explicitly counters Toobin, because at least Toobin believes that there is scientific truth, whereas in Popper's world, science is prone to be dictated by its funding source, and any given scientific topic in any given political debate is influenced and must be questioned, regardless of it's a coalition opinion or a non-coalition opinion.

To put an even finer point on it, in Toobin's world, new scientific research must be evaluated on its merits, even if it runs contrary to the mainstream view. In Popper's world, scientific research is so affected by funding, and can be manipulated to such extreme ends, there is effectively no science.

In either case, it misunderstands and conflates a number of issues, and misdirects the author's frustration at the incorrect person. Toobin's wrong for accusing the other scientists for acting as part of the in-crowd (an anthropologist really has no business doing research in biology) that runs counter to Toobin's status as the out crowd. Popper, I think you're wrong in both misinterpreting Toobin's conclusions to a political model, misdirect your frustration at the political spin of scientific findings at scientists and not politicians, and really not being honest with yourself re: the both-sidesing of manipulating scientific data.

Time and time again, we have seen republicans being the one to disregard science, whether it's re: abortion, climate science, pandemic/mask/vaccinations, net neutrality, etc.

But, to be fair, I don't think these criticisms are completely unfounded.

I personally believe there's an in-group thinking re: the economy, part of which is related to GOP-funded propaganda. The free market, as it presently exists, is not free, nor is it fair, as reflected in the data. It's funny how there's not a lot of GOP support for overthrowing the group-think when it comes to capitalists, but there is re: scientists.

I personally believe there's an in-group thinking re: immigration, part of which is related to GOP-funded propaganda. The worries about crime, disease, welfare abuse, etc. is not reflected in the data. It's funny how there's not a lot of GOP support for overthrowing this group-think when it comes to xenophobia, but there is re: scientists.

I personally believe that there's an in-group thinking re: race relations, part of which is related to GOP-funded propaganda. The lies that we tell ourselves about bootstrapping, and all lives matter, and that racism no longer exists or is important is not reflected in the data. It's funny how there's not a lot of GOP support for overthrowing this group-think when it comes to racism, but there is re: scientists.

Things like wealth inequality, xenophobia, and racism are MUCH more ripe for someone to assert an argument against incumbent, entrenched, and immutable group think than "SCIENCE" - a discipline where by definition, is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions. It is the LEAST "well that's just what I believe" domestic policy ever?

Just some food for thought.

[Zonkerbl]

anyway I don't think Toobin says scientists move away from the truth, just that they are slow to move towards the truth when it is something the group does not want to be true. Recent examples include the health community's slow response to AIDS, breast cancer, and the idea that COVID is transmitted through aerosols and the six foot buffer zone was not particularly useful advice. Yes, scientists like to believe the process is tough but fair and good scientific evidence will win out eventually, but that is not 100% true. When the germ theory of diseases first came out the recommendation was that you should wash your hands and try not to get blood and guts all over your patients, but doctors at the time believed being covered in blood and guts and smelling nasty was how doctors were supposed to look so they resisted the idea at first. One of those doctors allegedly killed President Garfield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield

"Doctors continued to probe Garfield's wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments, attempting to find the bullet"

Nevertheless in the long run the truth eventually wins out. It's not a perfect process but it's better than worshipping a god king and letting truth be dictated by his whim.

[popper]

I appreciate responses from Zonk and Pancakes on an important issue. In my layman's view, coalitions in the context that I believe Tooby intended (an alliance of individuals for joint action in pursuit of a shared objective/cause) are a normal human response to a host of individual desires as well as perceived threats, both real and imagined. It doesn't surprise me that my views differ somewhat from his, especially as our discussion evolved into the particulars. Bottom line for me, whether we're discussing scientist, or historians, or social media titans or military industrial leaders, they all have the same human inadequacies that are then compounded by a need to remain in good standing within the coalition group.

[dckingsfan]

Nevertheless in the long run the truth eventually wins out. It's not a perfect process but it's better than worshipping a god king and letting truth be dictated by his whim.

Yep and again. Science is generally decided over decades if not longer. Folks die and the science is revisited and improved.

Go figure that there was consensus for the world being flat until it wasn't. Or that ulcers were the psychosomatic, until we found the cause - bacteria. Etc., etc., etc..

Equating the science process and its long tail politics is a fallacy.

[TGW]

Looks like your guy got to win one of the cases against him...

Oh yea. Another loss for you. You Democrats like piling on the L's, huh? Putin is owning you guys, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

[TGW]

Holy crap....nearly half of Democrats are succumbing to Putin's campaign of destruction:

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2024/shock-poll-trump-has-biggest-lead-since-2015-as-nearly-half-of-democrats-dont-want-biden-as-nominee-nyt/

SHOCK POLL: Trump Has Biggest Lead Since 2015 As Nearly HALF Of Democrats Don’t Want Biden As Nominee – NYT
Phillip NietoMar 2nd, 2024, 3:22 pm
2101 comments


The latest New York Times/Siena College poll showed bad signs for President Joe Biden this week, with Donald Trump pulling his biggest lead in the poll since 2015 and the president’s party continuing to lose confidence in his candidacy.

The latest New York Times/Siena College national poll brought bad tidings for Democrats. The results showed 48% for Trump over Biden, who pulled in 43% of respondents — a major and telling five point lead.

“That’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has ever had in a Times/Siena national poll. In fact, it’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has held in a Times/Siena or Times/CBS poll since first running for president in 2015,” writes Nate Cohn at NYT.

It’s a significant blow for Biden as voters question the president’s decisions on immigration and his handling of the Hamas-Israel War in Gaza.

Moreover, Biden faces a lack of support from voters in his own party, with many expressing doubt over whether he should be the party’s presidential nominee at all this November.

Recently during the Michigan Democratic primary, over 100,000 Democrats in the state opted to vote for nobody rather cast support for the president. Michigan is an essential swing state in the upcoming election that Biden won last time by less than 150,000 votes in 2020.

The poll was conducted between February 25th to 28th by polling 980 registered voters via cell phones and landlines. The overall margin of error is 3.8%.

[pancakes3]

i am also frequently fed up with capital D Dems and have the urge to say "screw it, if this is what it takes for Dem leadership to wake up, so be it"

But then I take a breath, recognize that even though I may be insulated from the fallout of a Trump presidency, there will be millions, whether due to immigration status, race, religion, poverty, or political affiliation who will be severely and negatively impacted, and thousands of awful, despicable people, who due to their loyalty to Trump, who will profit immensely, by another 4 years and then I stfu.

i don't even know what you're crapping your diaper about, or how supporting dems is some sort of putin psyop. grow up.

[Fairview4Life]

Holy crap....nearly half of Democrats are succumbing to Putin's campaign of destruction:

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2024/shock-poll-trump-has-biggest-lead-since-2015-as-nearly-half-of-democrats-dont-want-biden-as-nominee-nyt/

SHOCK POLL: Trump Has Biggest Lead Since 2015 As Nearly HALF Of Democrats Don’t Want Biden As Nominee – NYT
Phillip NietoMar 2nd, 2024, 3:22 pm
2101 comments


The latest New York Times/Siena College poll showed bad signs for President Joe Biden this week, with Donald Trump pulling his biggest lead in the poll since 2015 and the president’s party continuing to lose confidence in his candidacy.

The latest New York Times/Siena College national poll brought bad tidings for Democrats. The results showed 48% for Trump over Biden, who pulled in 43% of respondents — a major and telling five point lead.

“That’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has ever had in a Times/Siena national poll. In fact, it’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has held in a Times/Siena or Times/CBS poll since first running for president in 2015,” writes Nate Cohn at NYT.

It’s a significant blow for Biden as voters question the president’s decisions on immigration and his handling of the Hamas-Israel War in Gaza.

Moreover, Biden faces a lack of support from voters in his own party, with many expressing doubt over whether he should be the party’s presidential nominee at all this November.

Recently during the Michigan Democratic primary, over 100,000 Democrats in the state opted to vote for nobody rather cast support for the president. Michigan is an essential swing state in the upcoming election that Biden won last time by less than 150,000 votes in 2020.

The poll was conducted between February 25th to 28th by polling 980 registered voters via cell phones and landlines. The overall margin of error is 3.8%.

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/there-is-something-at-the-new-york-times/

A favorite of poll skeptics is its sampling bias. How did the New York Times come up with a polling sample that included 36 percent rural voters when the 2020 proportion of rural voters was 19 percent? Somehow, the poll’s sample of female voters was equally skewed. The poll found Trump winning the female vote by one percent, when Biden carried women in 2020 by 11 points. The Times wants you to ignore that in between, all three of Trump’s Supreme Court justices quarterbacked the Dobbs decision overturning women’s constitutional right to abortion, followed almost immediately by states banning abortion all over the country, many with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Times doesn’t say how it squares its poll numbers with the fact that women turned out in huge numbers to help win referendums confirming a right to abortion, including in such Republican strongholds as Kansas and Kentucky, and handed every special election to Democratic candidates in the bargain. They just want you to believe there’s been a 12-point swing toward Trump among women, with no evidence except, poof! It happened!

The truly incredible thing is that the New York Times provides the evidence that would cause any other reasonable journalistic enterprise to question the accuracy of its own poll. The poll shows that Trump still has the support of nearly every Republican who voted for him in 2020 — this in the face of the fact that between 30 and 40 percent of primary voters have chosen another candidate than Trump. Those people are not poll respondents. They’re voters. The Times/Siena poll also somehow comes up with 12 percent support among Democrats for Rep. Dean Phillips, who has yet to get more than two percent of the vote in a primary. Even Phillips himself posted a tweet that said “When the NYT/Siena poll shows me at 12%, you better believe it’s flawed. Only 5% even know who I am.” The poll also shows that among respondents who described themselves as unhappy with both candidates, they favor Biden over Trump by 12 points. So Biden has the utterly disaffected vote and carries independents by four points, and he’s losing to Trump by four points?

But sure, the rural population as a % of the country doubled, and Trump is winning the women vote. You should definitely listen to those 980 people.

[TGW]

Holy crap....nearly half of Democrats are succumbing to Putin's campaign of destruction:

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2024/shock-poll-trump-has-biggest-lead-since-2015-as-nearly-half-of-democrats-dont-want-biden-as-nominee-nyt/

SHOCK POLL: Trump Has Biggest Lead Since 2015 As Nearly HALF Of Democrats Don’t Want Biden As Nominee – NYT
Phillip NietoMar 2nd, 2024, 3:22 pm
2101 comments


The latest New York Times/Siena College poll showed bad signs for President Joe Biden this week, with Donald Trump pulling his biggest lead in the poll since 2015 and the president’s party continuing to lose confidence in his candidacy.

The latest New York Times/Siena College national poll brought bad tidings for Democrats. The results showed 48% for Trump over Biden, who pulled in 43% of respondents — a major and telling five point lead.

“That’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has ever had in a Times/Siena national poll. In fact, it’s the largest lead Mr. Trump has held in a Times/Siena or Times/CBS poll since first running for president in 2015,” writes Nate Cohn at NYT.

It’s a significant blow for Biden as voters question the president’s decisions on immigration and his handling of the Hamas-Israel War in Gaza.

Moreover, Biden faces a lack of support from voters in his own party, with many expressing doubt over whether he should be the party’s presidential nominee at all this November.

Recently during the Michigan Democratic primary, over 100,000 Democrats in the state opted to vote for nobody rather cast support for the president. Michigan is an essential swing state in the upcoming election that Biden won last time by less than 150,000 votes in 2020.

The poll was conducted between February 25th to 28th by polling 980 registered voters via cell phones and landlines. The overall margin of error is 3.8%.

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/05/there-is-something-at-the-new-york-times/

A favorite of poll skeptics is its sampling bias. How did the New York Times come up with a polling sample that included 36 percent rural voters when the 2020 proportion of rural voters was 19 percent? Somehow, the poll’s sample of female voters was equally skewed. The poll found Trump winning the female vote by one percent, when Biden carried women in 2020 by 11 points. The Times wants you to ignore that in between, all three of Trump’s Supreme Court justices quarterbacked the Dobbs decision overturning women’s constitutional right to abortion, followed almost immediately by states banning abortion all over the country, many with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Times doesn’t say how it squares its poll numbers with the fact that women turned out in huge numbers to help win referendums confirming a right to abortion, including in such Republican strongholds as Kansas and Kentucky, and handed every special election to Democratic candidates in the bargain. They just want you to believe there’s been a 12-point swing toward Trump among women, with no evidence except, poof! It happened!

The truly incredible thing is that the New York Times provides the evidence that would cause any other reasonable journalistic enterprise to question the accuracy of its own poll. The poll shows that Trump still has the support of nearly every Republican who voted for him in 2020 — this in the face of the fact that between 30 and 40 percent of primary voters have chosen another candidate than Trump. Those people are not poll respondents. They’re voters. The Times/Siena poll also somehow comes up with 12 percent support among Democrats for Rep. Dean Phillips, who has yet to get more than two percent of the vote in a primary. Even Phillips himself posted a tweet that said “When the NYT/Siena poll shows me at 12%, you better believe it’s flawed. Only 5% even know who I am.” The poll also shows that among respondents who described themselves as unhappy with both candidates, they favor Biden over Trump by 12 points. So Biden has the utterly disaffected vote and carries independents by four points, and he’s losing to Trump by four points?

But sure, the rural population as a % of the country doubled, and Trump is winning the women vote. You should definitely listen to those 980 people.

This is funny take. So you have a problem with the polling data...do you also have a problem with the data for the other 10 or so polls that have Trump ahead?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/

Keep grasping for straws buddy.

[Zonkerbl]

Enjoy voting this November. I have no doubt the Republicans will try to make membership in the Democratic party illegal under Trump's next presidency. Not in so many words but people who violate anti-woke thoughtcrimes will be ineligible to vote, and soon enough voting in a Democratic primary will be a thoughtcrime.