FACT vs OPINION

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

[Our corporate research group] had a very rigorous journaling system , and material was regularly contributed to various well know peer reviewed journals

The people on the teams were highly qualified and of world renown in their field, in my opinion their integrity was above reproach , the company never ever tried to influence their opinions and in fact these people would quit before that would be accepted and the company knew it.

There are only two major funding sources for academic style research , government sources and corporate sources .

To people with similar opinions as expressed above , both are biased , which leaves you with effectively with nothing to trust , into that gap goes all sorts of crackpot science and airtime to charlatans

At the end of the day the average person can’t be an expert in everything ( or anything ) , so you have trust other people ( in fact human society is largely built on trust ) . I have no issue in trusting respected corporate funded research and I’m the type that reads peer reviewed journal submissions, the quality of which is way better then foxnews or globalresearch.ca lol

No one can deny that we've all benefited greatly from research conducted by corporations. But it is possible to differentiate between the sort of honest directed research you describe above, and the sort of "science" propaganda efforts that some industries (eg tobacco, fossil fuel) have undertaken to blunt or counter findings that threaten their bottom line.

Perhaps the best example is Exxon. Their own research pointed to man-made climate change, yet they still ploughed millions into efforts to downplay and deny the findings of AGW from most climate scientists, and the deep concerns that led to the IPCC.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Jason Flare

“And books which told me everything about the wasp, except why.”
— Dylan Thomas

One word: kinematics. To know the how is to understand the why and face genuinely more profound questions. But horses for courses.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I’m reminded of the old riddle: "Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"
You know it’s a trick. But we probably felt a little inner tug toward answering “gold”. That feeling is our intuitive (common sense) theory about heft and bulk, learned as a baby, or maybe hardwired, interfering with our intellectual understanding of weight & mass.

This riddle is indeed a trick, but Gord hasn't explained it very well, being side-tracked by "hardwired" concepts of heft and bulk and intellectual concepts of weight and mass ... makes me wonder whether Gord was on the verge of promoting an alternative fact, that the two weigh the same.

The pound of feathers will be heavier ... gold is measured in troy pounds, which weigh about 20% less than the "normal" pounds used to measure feathers.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

The pound of feathers will be heavier ... gold is measured in troy pounds, which weigh about 20% less than the "normal" pounds used to measure feathers.

False assumption. Gord said "a pound" without any such qualifiers.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

False assumption. Gord said "a pound" without any such qualifiers.

Gord also didn't add any DISqualifiers, so nothing false about it. Since the original question was intentionally a trick question, it's a perfectly valid to respond with a trick answer.

You are the one making the assumption about what Gord meant and then making claims that the response was false based on your assumptions, not the facts of the discussion.

Makes a perfect point about the facts can be used to make completely different points and everyone is using factual information.

PS: I assume Gord meant to use the exact same definition of Pound measured under an otherwise identical situation but unless he comes back and states that was what he meant, we are still assuming.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

False assumption. Gord said "a pound" without any such qualifiers.

But supposing I decided to verify the experiment, and went to buy a 'pound' of each without qualifiers ... how much gold would I be sold?


That is the subject of this thread ... All those qualifiers would meticulously be included in the scientific research and understanding them is key to correct interpretation of the results ... they then get left out when reported in the popular press and people start to form incorrect opinions, and then one day somebody sinks a ship because they overloaded a gold-carrying ship by using it to carry compressed feathers ... and there is a public outcry that "science is all lies".

[Thumbs Up]

Originally Posted by GordMay

In ‘The Ethics of Belief’, William Clifford gives three arguments as to why we have a moral obligation to believe responsibly, that is, to believe only what we have sufficient evidence for, and what we have diligently investigated.
If you believe this is an exaggeration, think about how beliefs, fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan, lead to acts that ended lives in New York, Paris and London.
If there was ever a time, when critical thinking was a moral imperative, and credulity a calamitous sin, it may be now.

“THE ETHICS OF BELIEF” ~ William K. Clifford
➥ http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf

I believe that. In fact that is perfectly aligns with my own philosophy. Somehow, I am being accused of believing the opposite because I like to talk about conspiracies.

"No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of
station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe."

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything
upon insufficient evidence.
If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of
afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind,
purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or
discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without
disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind."

" if there is any special reason to suspect the character of the persons who wrote or transmitted certain books, the case becomes altered"

[Thumbs Up]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

At the end of the day the average person can’t be an expert in everything ( or anything ) , so you have trust other people ( in fact human society is largely built on trust ) . I have no issue in trusting respected corporate funded research and I’m the type that reads peer reviewed journal submissions, the quality of which is way better then foxnews or globalresearch.ca lol

" if there is any special reason to suspect the character of the persons who wrote or transmitted certain books, the case becomes altered"

Of course not all corporate funded research is un trustable. But when you start looking into the history, motivation, and ethics of many of these entities (and with the internet we have the tool to do that but must be able to navigate through their propaganda). The peer-review/publishing process itself is corrupted (as admitted by some editors of top journals). How much scientific knowledge is actually buried by these corporations? (what do they know that they aren't telling us?) Why should we trust corporations that are convicted felons?

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by GordMay

In ‘The Ethics of Belief’, William Clifford gives three arguments as to why we have a moral obligation to believe responsibly, that is, to believe only what we have sufficient evidence for, and what we have diligently investigated.

If you believe this is an exaggeration, think about how beliefs, fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan, lead to acts that ended lives in New York, Paris and London...

One of the reasons I like cruising is that it exposes me to different cultures, beliefs, and worldviews. Once you've been exposed to them (and absorbed them at least a little) you see that what we consider "facts" and "truth" are mutable and shaped by our own culture.

Mary Clark defines worldviews as:

beliefs and assumptions by which an individual makes sense of experiences that are hidden deep within the language and traditions of the surrounding society.

The statement "think about how beliefs, fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan" shows the clear bias in the writer's mind toward their own particular worldview. Just using the phrase "fashioned in a cave" is intended to color the thinking of the western reader toward a less-informed, "backward" society.

The worldview in that cave in Afghanistan viewed the governments in the US, Britain, and France as hegemonistic - there's some pretty strong evidence, even "facts" supporting that view, and certainly within the framework of that culture it is "true" - something for which "[they] have sufficient evidence, and what [they] have diligently investigated" - which in Mr. Clifford's view means there was a moral obligation to believe, and even to act. That same framework views individual human life at a different value level than in the western world and fully understood that difference - hence 19 people were willing to take their own lives. Even at a 1:1 cost in lives the effect would have been significant because of the value differences between cultures.

The culture here on CF seems to believe that "facts" come from science, but even the facts derived from science are influenced by culture. A simple example, most western culture views time as a linear concept and has a hard time escaping that view. Many eastern and indigenous cultures view time as something more fluid, cyclic, or circular. And certain theories in science support that view. Which one is "fact" or "truth"?

Facts and truth are greatly influenced by culture and by our own experience even if we think (believe) they are objective facts.

How's that for opinion....

[Thumbs Up]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I don't see how jackdale took Asimov out of context.......

Mostly because he was trying to refer to me being as being anti-intellectual and belonging to this cult of ignorance. Asimov was referring the category of people who are willfully illiterate.

I think that there is a separate cult of ignorance category made up of pseudo-intellectuals who won't question the narrative just because they would rather be on the side that is winning.

[jackdale]

[QUOTE=Thumbs Up;3284986 the narrative [/QUOTE]

I see the phrase bandied about regularly. Please elucidate. What is "the narrative."?

[Manateeman]

Gentlemen and women. Please read “The Conditions of Knowledge” by Israel Scheffler. A true Harvard man whose writings on logic will no doubt clarify this discussion.
He followed in the footsteps of Charles Sander Peirce and might I suggest this as another source for excellent readings in the field of logic.
Peirce predicted Boolean calculations might be carried out by electrical circuits.
He wrote this in 1886.

Happy trails to you
Captain Mark and “Boston...throw the tea in the sea” manatees

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Singularity

One word: kinematics. To know the how is to understand the why and face genuinely more profound questions. But horses for courses.

If we can sometimes discern (or infer) human motives, from their actions (or words), does the same actually hold true for physics?
I just ask out of passing curiosity - the subject of kinematics is too deep, for me.

[Thumbs Up]

By the way, even though a pound of feathers is heavier than a pound of gold, an ounce of gold is heavier than an ounce of feathers.

[Thumbs Up]

Originally Posted by jackdale

I see the phrase bandied about regukarly. Please elucidate. What is "the narrative."?

The narrative that is being perpetuated by the corporate controlled media.