READ BEFORE COMMENTING: It is possible that you agree with the general content of Zoe’s videos while not necessarily agreeing with the specific ways she presented or phrased certain arguments; i.e., “Zoe said A, but I think argument B is actually a stronger defense of what she’s trying to arrive at.” This is perfectly respectable and I will be happy to consider “B.” What I will NOT be happy to consider is any noise to the effect of, “What Zoe obviously MEANT to say was B, so why didn’t you argue against B?? You just knocked down a strawman!!” If Zoe didn’t explicitly say B, or if B can’t be reasonably inferred from what Zoe actually said, then I am under no obligation to address B, C, D, or any of the many other variations of A that could have potentially been substituted. My responsibility in these kinds of exchanges is to argue against what has actually been said, and not what against what you might wish have been said. And that responsibility, as evidenced by the first 20 minutes of the video in which I carefully lay out her argument and its antecedents, has been satisfied. Therefore, if I see any comments of that sort, my only reply to you will be to read this pinned comment.
I agree, completely. It kind of reminds me of the "Well that's not my feminism/communism/social-justice-ism/etc" response often given to arguing favour of any of the above ideologies. Well, it is the ideology presented by the champion of said ideology, here & now. It is the one we are working with. Furthermore, argument A is usually the standardly given one which is parrotted across multiple mainstream big platforms by big names. Not to mention, I very rarely if ever see people of position B arguing with the champions of position A about the subtle nuances as to why B is better than A. They only seem to complain at us for looking at the champion of position A, to base our responses around. But as we all know "nuance" is internet slang for "Even though you appear to be winning the debate, there's this thing we can't measure, examine or analyse right now, which proves I am right & you are wrong so just shut up and go away." but that's a rant for another time.
@@pickyphysicsstudent201 To be fair though: it is sometimes hard to use certain labels. For instance, I would call myself a liberal and a post-modernist, but there all all sorts of things that _does't_ mean in my case. There are plenty of people going by the same labels which I completely and vocally disagree with, though it's sometimes difficult for people who don't subscribe to them to see the differences. I imagine it might be equally frustrating for some who subscribe to the labels you mentioned.
But you do this constantly. One example is when you say things like because she didn't given a justification for how rational judgments can be made, that somehow implies that she believes no such judgment can be made, and all judgment are some how equally valid. Another is insisting that her saying that beliefs are dependent on certain biases is somehow obviously means that those beliefs are determined by said biases. I find it ironic that in the very clip you use as evidence she literally says that it's not impossible to be convinced be fact, but it can be rather difficult in particular with respect to facts that conflict with one's world view.
@@jeremyhansen9197 The inference that I drew concerned the logical consequences of her argument. My justification for that inference was not predicated *exclusively* on her omission of how unbiased judgements can be made, but also on the things that she *did* say. It was the *conjunction* of her omission of this crucial detail with everything else that she said which informed my inference. As for the supposed difference between "dependence" and "determination," unless you can show me how a belief can depend on a certain bias without also being determined by it, then this is just a distinction without a difference.
This channel is a treasure. Actual thought out arguments backed up with researched facts, not just the usual tribal biases and ideologue rhetoric. It takes a lot more work to make this type of video, so much respect to you Croc. It's heartening to know people like you are still out there in academia. Thanks for bringing this type of debate back to RUclips.
There are a handful of RUclipsrs who produce content (at least free content, to the best of my awareness) seldomly and have not fallen for the superchat virus. You don't post often, but when you do... it's something to cherish for years. Thanks for your hard work, and for making it available to everyone.
@@Sehon13Ultd it's the format of preference for maximizing profit. The content creator sets up a live video, and the viewership pays for interacting. Creators are then rewarded for generating a strong enough reaction, not necessarily for accuracy or utility. It's like clickbait, but for money -- analogous to what e-thots do.
My second year of graduate school, a group of us did a directed study on the philosophy of science. These arguments are so fascinating. In my case, I come from a social science where these competing epistemological frameworks are more salient. I really appreciate your insight and time given on this issue.
I love these types of videos. I'm oftentimes forced to argue against people I would otherwise agree with because they bring up a point in such a way as to give ammunition to people that would argue against it while trying to make a case for it. I'd rather have arguments as solid as possible; weak arguments that lead to conclusions I agree with are still weak arguments, and if those are all I have, it might be time to either look for better ones, or consider changing my own opinion.
I have a formerly vegan friend who once argued that gorillas are big and strong and they don't eat meat. I was like 'thats because different things are DIFFERENT THINGS' and suggested that if he really wanted to be big and strong he should eat krill like a blue whale. He stopped using that argument.
@@ericvulgate that’s how I feel about the “my body, my choice” crowd, because it’s a pretty disingenuous argument that doesn’t rebut the pro life position. Even though I’m vehemently pro choice.
As someone who has done mapping/GIS work with a background in Criminal Justice/Criminology, your work at the end was truly eye opening! It was well done and, while only using the information provided by BJS, was well computed and very clear!
I fortunate enough to be able to losten to them while while working, so these long form analyses are highly appreciated, especially that it's not so laden with jargon that even I can understand about 85% of the content.
Feel like people almost always miss the importance of the quality control part. The fact that it can be so easy to convince people of ideas regardless of their quality if you’re clever or well-learned makes it even more important to check that you’re really, actually right before you go out and do marketing. Otherwise you get people hurt! Science communicators can tell stories to teach science without getting confused that this storytelling is actually how we should try to do science itself
Discovered you from your appearance on Peter Boghossian's channel, and I'm so inspired by the depth of thought and the work that goes into all your content. Looking forward to diving deeper into your stuff soon.
Banger video. Couldn’t be a better continuation of your philosophy of science series imo (which I also loved, despite only holding a masters in Philosophy). Great work, really appreciate this quality of content! 😊
Your humility for some reason reminded me of a pie in the sky desire I had back in the glory days of atheist vs theist, to break down poor arguments, or just bad points made by either side, and publish it in video format. I'm glad I didn't, because at that time I had my own dunning-kreuger delusions that ultimately would have resulted in embarrassing dismantles by...well anyone. Especially after hearing how real philosophers or those educated in address points, reaffirms that my laziness had saved me from some very public very downs.
Always cringey to her people from the humanities to speak about the natural sciences, claiming "all facts are actually products of ideology". She's right in agreeing with the quote that we should not hold opinions on topics we know little to nothing about. But that applies to her as well, as she said at the very begining of the video that she has no experience with science, mathematics, epistemology or philosophy of science... and watching her videos it becomes self evident. Thank you for your refreshing critique, it was illuminating to watch
I think holding opinions on matters we know little about is not only fine, but a necessary part of life. You would need to live an insanely privileged life to never come across a decision where you need to make a personal judgement on something you are not an expert on. Thats even for something as simple as what to eat for breakfast. The only thing i would suggest is, that we keep in mind that we are not that well informed and stay open to change our opinions when we receive more information on these topics.
@@mathis8210 I generally follow the opinions of the majority of the experts in the fields relevant to the topic if I'm not inclined to do the work necessary for understanding the topics. If I'm not qualified to challenge the consensus of the actual experts, I have no business telling them that they are wrong on matters of fact.
@@zemorph42 Sure, go ahead and do that. I didnt specify any opinion that should be held. But keep in mind that expert opinion is also opinion, especially if you dont know the stuff yourself. You should be ready to question it aswell, because "Experts said so" is not really a valid argument by itself.
They simply hope you don't notice the solipsism and are taken in by the assuring tone of their voice and the grains of truth sprinkled throughout the "argument".
There was a neuroscience study that showed that people with a part of the brain damaged, one that seemingly deals with mainly emotion, had extreme trouble making decisions even though they were totally rational and logical. It does seem like we all use emotion when deciding. I think much of my rationality is actually influenced by fear of being wrong, often just for looking foolish to others when wrong, and if that's the case then I'm fine with it, tbh. Rationality and emotion/feelings are not separate, imho--and we will never be robots, or even Vulcans.
Yes, by this evidence, emotion is truly part of cognition. But let's not confuse decisionmaking with factfinding. Evidently, we can't make decisions at all efficiently without gut feelings guiding us. But gut feelings are entirely unnecessary when evaluating data. The people in that study didn't cease to be rational. I'm pretty sure they could still do math and analyze a graph, for example.
@@Zzyzzyx True, but at the end of the day we must decide things or else the data is useless. Only way I can see that not being the case is if they crunch data and pass it to a person with a fully working brain to make the decision. Then it's not that big a problem.
Thank you, While I'm politically closely aligned with zoe and similar content creators, I'm always very sceptical about how they engage with science. I'm happy to see people like you that draw a sceptical eye on them. Only with good criticism can our views get better, no matter what politics they might be.
I can’t help but wonder if Zoe’s argument is “social construct smuggling.”? What always kills me about discussions on this topic is how people fail to communicate that bias is a scaler, not a vector (metaphorically speaking). We can imagine a world in which, say, Astronomy focuses almost exclusively on gas giants and we could investigate the possible reasons for that bias… but the existence of that bias doesn’t taint or invalidate demonstrable facts learned about quasars, black holes, or even gas giants for that matter. A bias towards focus of study is irrelevant and trivial. “Astronomy is biased!” In that world would be an accurate statement, but of little use or concern as it pertains to the quality of scientific knowledge produced. The scaler factor here is minimal if not altogether non existent. A more substantial influence from that bias may come in the form of, say, the discovery of a new unidentified celestial object… in which case one would be cautious and not assume it’s an unknown form of a gas giant. This is all Prima-facie obvious and baked into to scientific best practices. Yet, the social constructionists and post modernists seem to be playing the game of “find the hidden bias whack-a-mole” with no regard to size and significance of each mole.
While anonymity is jealously, and quite understandably, guarded these days, and while I do abhor malicious doxing, the trouble with creators like His Majesty*, is that it is frustratingly difficult to track them down, imprison them in a fully equipped luxury dungeon, and force them to publish at LEAST one video essay per week. I am therefore reduced to impotent fits of plaintive faux-entitlement… MORE! MORE OF THIS BRAIN MUSIC! I DEMAAAAAAAAND IT!
...I didn't catch this the first time I watched this video, but it came up to me this time: her belief that, in essence, facts are just ideology, is dangerous because it can prevent us from finding solutions that our ideology identifies. To use the IQ disparity as an example, if facts were ideology, we would simply ignore it, but if facts inform ideology, we would immediately say (if our ideology were to identify the fact of IQ difference as a problem) "this is a problem, what can we do to fix it?".
I try watching something else on youtube and I always end up on this channel. The thought that keeps me at night is "what do we do with feminism when Zoe, Dr. Fatima and Sandra Harding exist". As a feminist, honestly, I don't know. Just grateful someone is challenging this bs. I really do think politics should not compromise the integrity of science. These people make it harder FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE and academia.
Yes, however just trying to agree on one singular point of fact with someone deeply entrenched is about as easy as pulling teeth, the deluded is happy with muddling the water rather than trying to agree on any fact at all. Reality doesn't speak up on its own what is a fact. I am glad to be in your company here though. One unknown fact to me; DP, what is the cost of the your second edition Soliloqy hardcover and shipping to Germany? Your webpages isn't totally forthcoming.
Good. I've been seeing more of the "old" rational RUclipsrs tackling topics like this lately. I was losing hope. So many people who were such "logical" thinkers years ago when they were taking apart religious arguments have been failing to apply the same standards of evidence when considering current social issues. So happy you posted.
Yeah well, to many of the "old rational" (and mainly American) youtubes, it was never about the principles or reason and evidence, it was always about dunking on the US Christian Right and the conservative social policies they advanced; not that that is not a worthy endeavour in and of itself, but it was always about the target, not the method.
I can't help but notice how her books seem to be arranged in a peculiar 'diverse & inclusive' way, not displaying any kind of subliminal bias whatsoever.
You'll notice a recurring pattern with social constructionists arguing in bad faith where they use lofty language to describe the naturalist position. They'll use phrases like "perfect objectivity that comes from the heavens". This is a strawman.
The more they can portray their opposition as uncritical boobs who are oblivious to their own limitations, they more easily they can supplant robust epistemic standards with self-serving special pleading.
@@KingCrocoduck Living in NYC, I encounter social constructionism and this method of argumentation very frequently. Your Naturalist Nuke concept has been a really useful tool for focusing the conversation when it veers into "everything is a social construct" territory. Introducing the Big Four Operational Criteria is especially effective for pinning them down. Great work, KC 👍
So, she'd rather punish the poor innocent people in Compton to send MORE patrol cars to Beverly Hills? Is she REALLY this disconnected from reality that she thinks poor people would rather feel less discriminated against than SAFE? Holy moly...
I am not quite sure how you could not find a single article about Ben commenting on race and IQ when it took me mere seconds to find an article by him. In it Shapiro has in fact commented on it and made his opinion about it known. The article can be found on "The Sacramento Bee" referencing a science project about race and IQ.
@@KingCrocoduck I tried to link a google dropbox link but YT deleted the post. I am up over 18 hours by now and the headache starts to get serious so I am going to bed for now. I hope I can find a way to give you the link tomorrow.
This video and your lecture is a excercise for the brain - it is extreme scarcity to find experirnce like this here on YT. At some point your brain has just enough, but I continue despite my exhaustion. At 1h mark I lost track. Will be back tommorow for the rest and to analazy content once more.
I always thought the largest driver of crime was poverty. Policing patterns an biases are also a problem ofcourse, but the underlying issue of poverty causing crime can't be fixed though any change in police conduct.
As always i love your videos on the philosophy of science. Each time one comes out i get motivated to start reading up more on the topics, but unfortunately i never got around to it so far. Not enough time is left, while working on my own research topics :(
I know we're talking about beliefs rather than facts or truth, but I'ma tangent just a tiny bit and say that: Truth doesn't care about your feelings but facts certainly do. (psych and phil of sci) Facts being a product of human inquiry into truth necessarily requires at least one motivating factor, and often many motivating factors. Even ideas that spring forth into existence from seemingly nothing can often be scientifically traced back to some trigger when there is proper setup. This is compared to facts which require not only multiple people, but also multiple steps such as noticing and valuing the phenomenon, as well as testing procedures, along with relevant inquiries regarding the phenomenon, including possible alternate explainations and their entire relevancy speel. This is a best case scenario! Then you factor in human error and shit gets even more messy. This is before we even get to selectively picking out facts whether consciously or subconsciously due to bias, both of which could fall into the area of human error but also starts to fall into manipulation without outright lying. I don't find this in conflict with the notion that if a person wishes their beliefs be true, yoloing with stories probably isn't the best method. However, if a person wishes to effectively convince someone of something, then stories is probably the way to do it. This may or may not be a disservice to both the speaker and the listener... I side with 'disservice' but I'm pretty worried that I'm wrong given how most people use political 'facts' to determine not truth, but rather checking to see if you're part of their tribal ingroup. I think teaching good form and mindset is important, but wether or not a person employs those skills is entirely up to them. This makes me a bit sad to say but logic is probably best used as a toolset for when one actually gives a shit rather than for everyday human life. Edit: I don't think people who say they believe something actually believe that thing. We've seen enough christians spouting love to know that's the case so I'm literally just gonna copy and paste onto this new religion. Sometimes I wish I went deeper into psychology so I can study wtf a belief actually is, then compare it to different things like aliefs and split brain personality beliefs, or group beliefs compared to individual beliefs. I think we're using the term 'belief' in the context inadequately.
Well, here is something that should be glaringly obvious to everyone that percieves even the slightest hint of bias from her. She is an english professor, that does not respect the primacy of vocabulary. In any other field, it would be like that professional rejecting the basics of the field their career is built on.
I think we could have simplified your definition of ideology. The root word there is “ideal” which tends to connote a sense of “way the world ought to be.” So in my view, an ideology is more like a bias through which you interpret data such that it promotes your image of an optimal goal/value/world. Just a thought. I’m open to being convinced otherwise.
It's pretty clear the "feelings" Zoe is starting with when choosing her "facts" are that all groups of people are of equal intelligence and no group is more predisposed towards committing crime. I also feel this is correct personally; however, two points: 1. There is no reason to make a definitive statement on this unless you have sufficient data to draw a conclusion (which I don't think we have and would be pretty dang hard to gather, though people have tried) and 2. If we value all people, then it's desirable to understand how to build a world together that best ensures people can live valuable lives. Understanding human psychology will be valuable for this, but these questions about average IQ and crimes will never matter as much as trying to understand how best to successfully educate people or trying to understand the factors involved in why people make anti-social choices (like crime). Truth will never be the enemy of creating a better world because making a better world is a choice that we make. It's what we choose to do in reflection of the truth that matters.
Wow, thank you so much for this thorough and informative video!! I just stumbled across Zoe's channel today and that video and was absolutely shocked. When she brought up Gould's book I literally paused the video and put my head in my hands. I came across your video from another person's comment. I actually just posted a video two days ago where I talk about ideological criticisms of science (Gould and Lewontin against EO Wilson) and how ideological interpretations of facts are subjective, and skewing data for ideological purposes is intellectually dishonest (the video is the anti-intellectual crusade of cancel culture). Your argument that Zoe's beliefs can be used to justify h*locaust deni*l is extremely important. Thank you for your work, and you best believe I subscribed. Keep it up!
I took a peek at your channel and like what you're putting out there, so I subscribed as well. If you liked this video, I think you'll also enjoy my video "The New Lysenkoism," my series "The Science Wars," and my series, "Nuking Social Constructionism."
Hmm. The impression I came away with after watching Zoe’s video was not to disregard facts or to diminish the importance of using facts to determine the validity of one’s beliefs to but simply to acknowledge that we can never be absolutely free of any bias whatsoever. The three salient points she makes are that data points can misrepresent the truth when taken out of their wider context, that collection of data in and of itself is vulnerable to the bias of the people inputting said data (especially in the social sciences), and that interpretation of the results is also vulnerable to the bias of the interpreter. Instead of turning a blind eye to these points of failure, acknowledging these human failings is the best way forward. With that reading of her arguments I don’t really have much disagreement. I do wish, however, that she took more time to parse out the nuances of fact collection and give more examples of bias in data collection and interpretation. I also think she could have been a little bit more systematic/structured in her presentation to make the arguments above clearer.
@@KingCrocoduck I see your point. The way I see it, good experimental methods (double blind, for example), peer review and scientific consensus is generally the mechanism we use to check for bias. In that way, we minimize the potential effect of bias on a study by checking for it and replicating studies. My position is that studies are subject to bias, but not that bias always affects the study. I do think she fails to describe how to deal with bias appropriately, ending on the note that “bias can affect everything” which is technically true but certainly gives the impression that it is difficult to do something concrete to eliminate that. Given that extra point then we do have proper methodology to form beliefs where we have already checked for bias and have determined it to have a negligible effect.
@@KingCrocoduck Finding ways of minimizing bias is indeed a practical challenge, particularly at the scale of individual scientists or insular, siloed research teams. By enlisting the broader participation of competing researchers and teams, there is a reward system offered for correcting the errors and biases committed by other researchers operating under the influence of bias. You have provided two notable examples of this process being pursued successfully within the context of this video. One was your scathing, and probably (?) justified criticism of the biases expressed by Zoë (whoever she is) and Cathy (whoever she is). The second example was your compilation and review of the critical professional opinions regarding Stephen J. Gould’s book, _The Mismeasure of Man_ . One would think you would take some comfort and satisfaction in seeing the scientific process being successful in stripping away biases to expose the kernel of underlying truth, but you seem rather indignant that this process should even be necessary. Have I misread that? It _IS_ necessary. I am new to this channel, but was starting to get an odd feeling about a possible political agenda that might underlie it, and thought I might gain some sense of that from the Comments section. Insufficient data so far, so it’s still an open question. Must return now to watch the remainder of the video.
Look at how her shot is framed. She is still in the foreground, and you are supposed to see her, but she isn't in the center: she's off to one side. And she's really close to that bookshelf. Normally, one puts what you want people to see "front and center", so why be off to the side, and why be so close to a shelf? Unless the shelf is part of what she wants us to see. So why? Well, there's a couple of knick-knacks, a bonsai tree, and those books. Everything else is pretty plain, aside from those books. Even the most muted color of those books - especially on the bottom shelf where it is clear it has been artistically arranged - is eye-catchingly bright. Even that puke-green one on the top shelf is a draw to the eye. We are meant to see those books. And since we culturally associate not just reading in general but reading printed books with intelligence it becomes clear that she wants us to see those books with her so that we associate her with the books and thus imply that she is intelligent. That she actually knows what she's talking about. So that we will believe her without asking too much on our own. It's an old lawyer-ad (I call it that because that's where I first saw it) tactic, and it works, even if you know the trick. But even the lawyers knew that the books had to be backdrop, and not co-star. Which is why you noticed and questioned it. Had she been center-frame with colorful books behind her off to the side, you probably wouldn't have noticed, or been thrown off enough to comment.
@@therealfriday13th I'm pretty sure she reads because she is an English literature professor. However her readings may only be limited to books specific to her field like fiction,poem,history, philosophy,etc. Just because someone reads that doesn't make them an expert at everything.
@@Kevin-cy2dr Like KC. He fails to acknowledge several criticisms and problems with the data he utilize in especially part V. He's a STEM-lord, someone who is fairly cringe at understanding social science, but doesn't understand that he's failing to understand it. Zoe is better grounded on a few issues, and KC attacked her method of conveying it, since she chose a more down to Earth explanation.
I'm not the biggest Ben Shapiro fan but I'll stand with KC and say that Zoey has a very warped view of the guy. He's not a "Dark Web Intellectual" for one, he's a fairly mainstream political commentator with fairly mainstream conservative views. Consequently, he's also not an ethnonationalist or anything of the sort, and being very publicly Jewish, he doesn't associate with the frequently antisemitic ethnonationalist crowd that actually has an interest in the argument. Stephen Molyneux would have been a better candidate for the whole race/IQ argument, as he actually did dabble in it, and is closer to being a Dark Web Intellectual, because he is much less mainstream, but then he didn't coin the meme of "Facts VS Feelings", so... Finally "Dark Web Intellectual" is kind of a stupid deformation of "Intellectual Dark Web". Molyneux is neither an intellectual (he's a commentator) nor does he operate on the Dark Web (that I'm aware of). The same applies to Ben Shapiro.
Clarification: I'm not a fan of Stephen Molyneux and in fact have never watched a whole video of his. I do know from snippets of his content that he engaged in the race/IQ debate, but not his actual positions.
A traditional Marxian approach to epistemology claims that empiricism is better than rationalism and disinterested observation does not necessarily make you more objective than someone with a political agenda. Therefore, you can do research motivated by a political or social agenda that counts as objective so long as you avoid denying facts and treat people who disagree with you and “the data” fairly. Empiricism in this context means that you should prioritize changing your beliefs based on data or observation rather than forcing data or observation to fit into your pre-existing theory. Further, the Marxian view claims that disinterested researchers often produce flawed work that justifies the status quo in society because they are often blind to society’s role in shaping their thinking and prejudices. Marx was one of the first political activists who seriously tried to incorporate empirical sociological research into his work. Other activists before him often simply expressed disgust at society or abuses and proposed alternative political systems or reforms that they thought were more moral. Marx became completely convinced that capitalism would inevitably fail and be replaced by a society without private ownership of the means of production through a workers’ revolution. Marxian epistemology is not the same as communism or Marx’s economic predictions. It’s also fair to disagree with a Marxian view of objectivity if you think research done by disinterested people will yield more accurate and actionable results. A postmodern epistemology is closer to the idea that you should just tell people stories that will change their thinking and behavior so that they will socially construct a better society. This view is more consistent with the beliefs of people called “idealists” in the book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. In Gould’s case, I think his book is good as an overview of the history of thinking about race-based intelligence differences but some of his data analysis is bad. I don’t think there’s that strong of a case that political bias clouded Gould’s judgment or motivated him to skew his analysis. For what it’s worth, there could be motivated reasoning at play when people defend Samuel Morton, since Morton’s skull collection was donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and Morton was an early American physical anthropologist. Cathy O’Neil could have simply argued that fewer black Americans would have criminal records if the police did not arrest them for minor nonviolent offenses. It’s possible her analysis of PredPol was sloppy (she’s a mathematician rather than a criminologist) or her publisher wanted every chapter to talk about machine learning. Of course, this comment oversimplifies issues in multiple ways.
I guess something interesting to note would be that a lot of people in and out of academia today reduce objectivity to empirical facts, such as Zoe Bee. Such a reduction usually leaves the domain of values up to subjective and relativistic attitudes which is obviously problematic for the social sciences and politics where the subject matter of values takes on a more prominent role--a problem that we not only live currently, but exaggerates when we think of how values and an apprehension of facts may determine one another. This is why sometimes a mere appeal to "the facts" might end up legitimating the very thing a Shapiro-esque logic-lord might otherwise wish to combat. The naturalist response seems to be an attempt to save this reduction of objectivity by expanding the standards and methods of the natural sciences to other domains showing that facts in some way inform, necessitate, or even originate adherence to specific values. Some will do what KC does in attempting to provide naturalistic foundations to certain methodological criteria. Some will try to bridge other supposed is-ought gaps depending on how far they wish to take it. This is of course conjecture as a lot of this reduction of objectivity to mere facts seems heavily implied but never outright said, and perhaps I'm just reading too much into it. But if I'm right, then an important question would be: Is this reduction of objectivity to mere empirical facts (and their consistency in a constituted web of belief) justified? For instance, could reason be said to have its own self-sufficient objectivity outside of performing identity confirmations in line with a principle of non-contradiction? Could it be synthetic without having to rely on constant empirical input? I think philosophers today have essentially given up on that question which has lead to some very boring and unambitious books that wish to avoid fundamental philosophical issues like the plague, but that's obviously me digressing.
Zoe's argument is much closer to me, but I fell the need to rephrase it. "Facts", or just knowledge in general, is not dependent on "feelings" or "ideology", but on the sociocultural civilization paradigm in general. That's why I don't buy the neutral criteria for objective knowledge, since the objectie criteria, whatever it may be, will still be based on the assumptions of a European (in our case) civilizational matrix.
16:15 I didn't find this part very convincing. You go on a quest to find out how Zoe justifies her beliefs. How she decides to believe X, instead of Y. Failing to find an answer in the original video, you try finding it in another one. Okay, fine, but the topic of said video is NOT how to pick the right beliefs, it is simply about how to convince others. What you call marketing. Where is your evidence that she thinks substituting justification for marketing, is a valid move? It seems to me she never made the connection, at all. She just made a video about how to convince others, and nothing else, didn't she?
My evidence that she thinks substituting marketing for justification is a legitimate move comes from the things she actually said: Video 1) Beliefs are fundamentally the product of ideology, even if they seem to be fact-based. Video 2) The best way to convince other people of your beliefs (which were established by video 1 to just be ideology) is through marketing techniques.
@@KingCrocoduck How are those two things evidence for the claim, exactly? The conclusion simply doesn't follow in my view. Video 1 is about what beliefs *are* - their ontology if you will. Video 2 is about how best to convince people of a belief, regardless of its truth value. You're missing the epistemology. For example, I could believe that ducks are a species of bird, while also believing that the best way to convince people ducks are birds, is by pointing to their wings, while also acknowledging the mere presence of wings is not sufficient justification for the belief. How I justify my beliefs and how I choose to go about persuading other people are entirely separate. I might use different tactics based on whether I'm talking to a child, a regular person or a biologist. You can make an argument for whether you think they should align or not, but you can't simply infer one from the other. Appreciate the response btw.
Tried to read Gould's book "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" a couple times and bloviate is a good description of his writing style. Ended up donating it to the library since I never could find a coherent explanation with a mechanism for how his "punctuated equilibrium theory" works, which was why I purchased that Bible sized sucker. Think the fossil record shows those sudden changes happen but that is an observation and not an explanation.
Me at the start; "Oooh... I hope he finally brings up Imre Lakatos!" In general though this is really just a breakdown down of the concept of "domain". Why don't I dress in lingerie at work, or put my feet on a restaurant table, or swear like a sailor when talking to my CEO? Because there's a time and a place for and not-for everything. The melding of personal and political, private and public, work and home etc. - the modern obsession for the hybrid - means that marketing, propaganda, politics, science, and philosophy (AND the personal "lived experience") are shmooshed together as one undifferentiated mass. The obvious result is the denial of the very possibility that professional objectivity could possibly exist because it does not exist for THEM in their own personal life.
Wow what a flip. A few years back I would have stated generally people seem to have no clue how powerful belief systems are (in a good way). And how just by shifting beliefs, people can accomplish so much more than they realize. Now it's gone SO far in that other direction, you have to tell people to hold up because beliefs DO have limits set by reality. And while these can always be rationally challenged, they MUST be respected. Especially when any shared reality is concerned. Ironically we still have a problem with the former as well. Instead of learning, we've adopted the WORST of both points of view. 1.) Beliefs can do anything! (Except overturn or examine this new dogma that says beliefs can do anything) 2.) Everything is deterministic.
When I see the right insist that facts don't care about your feelings, they heavily interpret facts (and select them) with ideological filters in place. They insist these distortions and misuse of facts (which they present simply as facts, as truth) make their ideology as immutably true as facts are. It's not surprising that people, while feeling defensive, may back themselves against the wall on the precise opposite side of the room and claim no ideologies can be true (or parts of ideology). It seems to me that ideologies are the result of our inability to reason rationally. Feelings, stories, and ideologies are almost like corrupting influences that blind us to alternative explanations, cause us ignore that there may be facts we don't know (or may never know), and feel more confident than we should regarding the facts that we think we know. It's also striking to me that when I talk a conservative into a corner where they may have to admit an error, they default to a not so dissimilar argument where you have your facts and they have theirs.
@@Pensnmusic Psychology and reality don't operate in the same way at all. Reality will always exist though and is the same for all of us. I can't have a battle of wills with someone else to have water boil at a different temperature, it doesn't work like that. But someone dead set on believing different won't be convinced if I just tell them so. That won't make reality different, it just means they will be stuck in a pseudo reality. And their expectations of things will turn out wrong, frustratingly wrong because they won't be able to come to terms with it. The best balance pushes people to do anything they can (and more) through beliefs INDIVIDUALLY. But also be willing to see, acknowledge and readjust as they bump up against reality. This combination unlocks what people can. really do, which is absolutely amazing.
@@Pensnmusic I suspect that reducing the concept of ideology to that of an irrational mental byproduct, the nature of which being best described as an inexhaustible human resource of bias and error, is unlikely to be a tremendously productive or satisfying exercise. I’d like to suggest that it might be more useful to conceive of ideology as something very much like an individual’s comprehensive, but not necessarily fully explicit, operational model of the world, a functional description of their relationships to it, and that from which they have the potential to consciously derive some number of non-trivial imperatives. As such, I offer that we might most productively each think of our own as ‘a work in progress’; being particularly mindful of the fact that whenever we uncritically absorb great, and seemingly cohesive, chunks from any of the well established camps on offer that have enjoyed longstanding mass appeal, we will also, almost certainly, inherit some of their attendant idiosyncratic blind spots via that same osmosis, and we should attend to them carefully. These hidden traps are equally well established, after all; having evolved various forms of insulation from scrutiny via the well trodden paths left by generations of well intentioned adherents. Together their coalescing mental tracks can result in some enduring structures, often conveying an appealing sense of validity and completeness that they may not be able to maintain under close scrutiny; idea networks that (with an inevitability born of a kind of ‘conceptual natural selection’, or ‘path of least rational resistance’) have developed in directions (without the requirement of any overt intent, or deliberate philosophical malfeasance) which circumnavigate, obscure, and encase, the inconvenient janky knots, empty holes, and ugly nuggets in their ideological fabric. If, in a rare moment of unencumbered applied reason, or scarcer still, in a flash of inspired insight, we accomplish the surgical exposition of one of these little mystery pockets from its cocoon of ideological scar tissue, they can reveal destabilising anomalies that often stubbornly refuse to map neatly onto the data that we painstakingly obtain from that which our models (to the degree that they are coherently constituted) prompt us to call ‘Reality’. Some may contain nothing more than a minor paradox; waiting to be cashed out in terms we may regard to be inconsequential, but others, laying in wait for the unwary, have proven quite capable of concealing and germinating seeds of unimaginable horror. Once such a nodule has been pried apart, and if it admits the full illumination of our reason, the subsequent demands of Reality upon an honest enquirer after truth, will require (and ideally should make apparent) the commensurate modification of the remaining model; leaving the whole more resilient and explanatory than it was before. This modification might be a small matter, or it could prove to be a profound upheaval, the effects of which reach down far enough to dislodge our most foundational, axiomatic or cherished suppositions; leaving us temporarily floundering for meaningful conceptual purchase. Our ideologies are our bags that contains our everythings; not only the substance of the models that we have been charged by fate to construct and optimise (and which we are all, nevertheless, compelled to deploy continually, regardless of their current condition, or else find ourselves incapable of generating even the most perfunctory directives for our own behaviour), but also they comprise the only suitable inventories in which to retain such tools as we may each consider valuable as we move along the course of the endless enterprise to expand and refine our comprehension; ever hopeful of an enduring encounter with something that, in a dim light, might pass for wisdom.
I think you should have a discussion/conversation about Academia, Science, and Meritocracy with Adam Something. I would love to hear you two talk about these topics, from each your own point of view.
I believe the crime thing was more about the creation of a vicious cycle you mentioned at some point. To make an analogy: imagine two equal size populations commit the same amount of graffiti, but one of them gets twice the policing, the chances of people from that population getting arrested would be bigger, so the model would say they should get more policing.
Haven't finished the video, nor finished the section on the predpol software, but it's not a negative feedback loop if there was a reduction of 23% for burglaries, then the map looks different the next year with those crimes not being in the input. It should shift away from any area that had only those crimes, and hopefully continue to monitor the places where those remaining crimes are still being committed. Sounds like it's functioning as intended.
I think as people who enjoy science, it's good to point out that things like denying climate change or the affect of affirming therapy on transgender people is factually wrong. I also agree that we should also do it by applying correct reasoning.
Comparing climate change "denial" with the insane affirmation of gender dysphoria is a feelings based interpretation of facts... You played yourself lol
also want to mention that she does exactly what Gould was criticized for doing in her video--setting up strawmans as if they were reality (like the fact that her entire criticism of Shapiro is on claims he never even made) and then arguing on the basis of those strawmans.
King Crocoduck returns!! Excited for this one. The post-modern mind-rot has just been getting worse and worse - truly a secular religion at this point. We must stamp it out, somehow.
No idea who Zoe is, but based on this thumbnail alone, I'd say that truth itself is not a game, but getting people to accept the truth, or even want to seek it out, can definitely be seen as a game. One where you have to navigate the other person's mind and get passed all of their road blocks to plant that seed or get them to see where they were wrong or misinformed, and you win if you successfully do so.
If its a game, then what rules are we playing by? I would like to use the rules of logic, some however want to use weird rules that I don't agree with, nor understand :D
Interestingly these keywords 'game', 'navigate' and others show up quite a lot in the connected and now well established Engineering fields in practice, such as by way of statistical reasoning, game theory, feedback in control systems theory, and machine learning. In my view, in the face of limited facts/truths/knowns, and some well chosen models of the real world, the fusion of reason proper and these feedback - aesthetically derived 'models', can and does build on what we can call 'State of the Art' (in the Kantt sense perhaps), that can account or correct for said missing/limited facts and biases in ways that are 'spookily effective', but quite scientifically justifiable in making decisions etc. In that sense I think I took King Crocoduck's argument to be that Zoe wasn't providing a great argument, where she could have if she understood the scientific method, bias and feedback a little better as tools for modelling and understanding the world, as opposed to providing absolute determinism.
@@DeconvertedMan the title in the thumbnail isn't particularly eye catching for me, because everyone with an opinion on politics tends to subscribe to some philosophy of politicians being liars and thieves, it's just conveniently always the other guy that is the true villain. But what she does is move on from truth very quickly and begins discussing facts. Doesn't ever say in the video what a fact is or what truth is or what it means for something to be true. She either takes for granted that everyone already knows what they are or has a very folksy naive personal definition of those things, which allows her to make a case of them without citing any official standard describing them, like a dictionary. Which to me is ok if it's just any slob off of the street, but she's an English professor. I wouldnt expect her to be well versed in the metaphysics and philosophical musings on truth or facts, but it's inexcusable that as an English professor she didn't even bother trying to define these terms shes framing an argument around. The rules in my opinion would be the definitions of facts and truth. This is truth and here's how we determine what is true, and this is a fact and here is how we determine that it is a fact. However what she does is prattle on with opinions of what these things are based on how ppl perceived them with emotions. We don't ever say the grass is green or brown based on how it makes us feel. I agree with her that facts can be misused or omitted to make a truth claim to support a bias, but her loosely goosey approach and lack of insight threatens even her own claim that facts are inherently emotional. It's a completely undeveloped assertion that despite her effort doesn't explain anything. I imagine that if a student had submitted a paper using her own logic, she'd have to give it a passing mark, but I doubt she would.
@@HH-ru4bj I've heard people say things like there is no truth or that its subjective and that nonsense, no idea if she is one of those types or not. Regardless, politics is a mess, and a reformting of the whole system would maybe make it better - but doing that might make things worse - plus - who knows if the new system would work, we need small scale experments or something. The only thing I know that I can do is try to spread logic out there - in my own weird way. :D
For people like Zoe and Shapiro it has nothing to do with truth or facts and everything about playing on your emotions to accept their particular ideology.
I don't comment often on anyone's videos, either because I don't have anything to add to the conversation, or because what I have to say will likely fall on deaf ears. What I have to say here, I believe to be important to consider, however. Zoe is an artist and literary communicator. Her views reflect her perspective, biased and half baked as it may be, that how we communicate is sometimes more important than WHAT we communicate. A science minded person, such as the creator of this dense and informative video, has the exact opposite perspective. Both can be valid in different contexts, so long as the person applying whichever tactic understands that truth, REAL, OBJECTIVE truth, does exist, whether or not we know it.
I may watch this video in more detail in future, but I'll offer some preliminary thoughts: For your proposed bias-independent criteria, this is a useful consideration, and I'd say it works quite well in professional science (for example), leading to 99%+ agreement on fundamental issues. But that relies on in-depth knowledge, advanced education and possibly similar goals. I don't think similar success is realistic for public discourse. Something more is needed (not that this means we should appeal to poor tactics, but more on that follows). I also think you may be taking an overly critical view of Zoe's position (or, if what you say is her exact position, then it could be strengthened significantly with one minor tweak). The issue is as follows: by telling a story to evoke emotion, this could be seen as giving them more information. There are the 50 external facts, but both your interpretation and their interpretation of those facts could be said to constitute additional facts. If you evoke emotion to have them see your interpretation, you're giving them additional facts that you may not be able to communicate in any other way. The end result is not that they automatically switch over to your interpretation (if it were, it shouldn't be too hard to get everyone to agree on everything), but they may now be able to compare your interpretation and their interpretation, and they would (ideally) only be convinced if they deem your interpretation to be appropriate. There may still be some cause for concern: in evoking emotion, there is a risk of overriding sound logic, which gets you into the territory of fallacies. But I don't think this could be said to be a fundamental problem with this approach, as much as it's a risk to be aware of.
The motte-and-bailey illustration at 9:15-9:25 is only missing one word in the bailey for it to be perfectly accurate and defensible as the motte. All beliefs are influenced - not products of, but *influenced* by biases. If that was what was said, it would also not be self-defeating, but an injunction to apply standards so we can get closer to understanding the world in ways that actually work. This is a very fine line to tread, just as when books describe "knowledge" as "socially constructed" without even discussing if it is only, primarily, or also.
In other words, if you replace the bailey argument with the motte argument ("I'm only saying that people have biases"), then it ceases to be a motte-and-bailey argument. Good work. 😉
@@MrTTnTT I'm not criticizing, just commenting. The whole point of motte-and-bailey is that you hold two positions, one extreme, one reasonable, and switch between them as is convenient to your current rhetorical needs. I love the "only, primarily, also" bit, by the way. I'm going to remember that.
I like how specific with your words you were when speaking on IQ Explaining it as a successful predictor in life outcomes is essentially how far it goes outside of twins studies, and those are by definition case studies
Can we have a music list, your liege? (noticed some Stellardrone from earlier videos) On topic - nicely done as always. Your videos were among those that helped me on my way out of creationism, and I'm still happy when I see a new one uploaded.
It's never a set of facts that can lead you in different directions, it's by Adding interpretation to those facts or interpreting then badly where you can go awry. Facts speak for themselves.
Hey Crockoduck! Haven't watched the video yet, but I know the user you're responding to made another well recieved video about why grading is bad. It's a sentiment I hear a lot, but I never seem to hear any pushback. Would you give any thought to checking it out?
"Anecdotes are the best way to communicate." Ok, here goes: every woman I've ever met who presents like Zoe does (frumpy clothes, big glasses, dangly earrings, owns cat) has been rather nutty.
I think you and Zoe would both agree that science is an effective way at arriving at objective facts because Zoe did say "we should listen to scientists"
@@KingCrocoduck Decision making breaks down in groups larger than 6 or 7, so unless we're going to be just a bunch of monkeys banging around on coconuts and noting our findings, we do need to take the institutional view VERY seriously.
@@24tommyst I don’t think that follows. “Institutions” are very rarely actually held accountable given sufficient capture. See: WMD’s in Iraq. Of course, we should “take it seriously” only insofar as it’s pushed onto us, but not further. In fact for issues that have a higher political weighting factor, I’d argue that reflexive skepticism is inherently justified.
When she says "facts are determined by ideology" she is making a statement of fact, AND telling you that it is based purely on ideology. This invalidates HER claim, even while she tries to use it to invalidate everyone else's claims about anything.
28:57 No the argument from the bell curve and Shapiro (if Shapiro ever made the quoted claim) is NOT the degree to which IQ differences are hereditary or environmental. It is the fact they exist and the fact they play an important role in life outcomes. Charles Murray is repeatedly explicate about this. The argument about IQ is intended as a partial refutation of the claim that differences in outcomes between races are due to direct racism and it makes the claim that unless you can close the IQ gap you probably wont close the outcome gap between races.
Wait, there's more crime in some area, so in her mind sending cops there is never done to protect the non-criminal population but harm the criminal population. Sigh.
@@speedingatheist Yes we did that. I blame King Crocoduck. Lets all agree he did it. Whatever it was. That way, we have no responciblitys. Cop pulls me over, "You know how fast you were going?" I answer "Kingcrocoduck did it." he lets me go, scott free.
The impression that I get from people like Zoe Bee (and Gould) is that they conflate different definitions of bias: A preference for a belief for reasons not related to truth evaluation. An unfair judgement against marginalized communities. In short, they are against bias because it is bigoted against oppressed people, not because it confounds our ability to evaluate positions on their merits. But they want the implications of the first definition, all the same.
This is irrelevant because of how bigotry is defined. If unfair means that it a false judgement, then that means the latter definition is subsumed by the former, by definition. Bigotry is not “found” to be wrong, it is wrong by definition. The problem with the conflation, then, is that it is too narrow and primes you to look for specific kinds of biases. Which is a bias, in and of itself. In other words, if you want to cut out false judgements, then you should go after preferences unrelated to truth evaluation, not go after a specific subset of these preferences. It’s also worth noting that people often claim that things that are true (or possibly true) are bigoted as a substitute for an argument over a truth value. Think the Trans issue. Basically, defining bigotry this way just opens up the question of what bigotry is.
@@stateofthenihil8352 I'm sorry to tell you this, but the bigotries you personally hold do not have any more validity than the ones you recognise as false. It's just that, for example, your hatred for trans people overrides the common sense realisation that you're falling into the exact same delusions that you'd instantly spot in others.
@@PlatinumAltaria You’re just taking for granted your assumptions. If you want to classify something as bigoted, then you’ll have to provide a definition and demonstrate it. And there you go. Your moral delusions are confounding your ability to evaluate the trans issue objectively. You jumped in with the assumption that your interlocutor is biased by hate not only without justification, but without clarification. That is bias.
@@stateofthenihil8352 Bigotry is, by definition, prejudice against a particular type of people. It's very easy to spot, and pretending that it's a deeply complex and hard to grasp idea is clearly only something you're doing so you can avoid the accusation. "Your honor, can any of us say for certain what murder is? How can I be guilty of a crime that no one can define?" "You were found holding the bloody knife!" "There's no doubt that I stabbed a man to death, but is that murder?" Semantics will not help you. The only "trans issue" is the issue that some people take with other people trying to live their lives. 80th verse is the same as the first: there's always a new minority group whose right to exist is under attack by members of the majority. This will not be the first time in history where hurting people was the right answer, sorry to disappoint you. I didn't assume you were biased, you personally brought up your bias without prompting. So... you caught me in the act of paying attention. And I thought bigotry was a nebulous idea, so why are you so instantly angry that I accused you of it?
The right thing to do is be aware of how superficial traits can push one to dislike and condemn a person without giving their argument fair consideration, and thus proactively encourage the better angels of one’s nature… But fuck me Zoe, placing “Infinite Jest” as a the focal point of a bookshelf arranged in rainbow order is a fucking varsity level You Cringe You Loose challenge. I’ve read David Foster Wallace’s work. Here’s a footnote worth reading: It’s a supposedly fun thing you’ll never do again.
seems, at least to me, could be, or similar to, the problem that you can't trust your mistrust of yourself if you can't trust yourself. if i am not mistaken.
Just so NOBODY can accuse me of hypocrisy and logical contradictions, I AM OPENLY PROUDLY an IDEOLOGUE about ONE ideology only: REDUCTIONISM. Thus, I have NOT stated "all ideologies are bad" and then proceeded to contradict myself by pushing my own pet ideology. I simply say: all other ideologies ARE wrong. You SHOULD listen to mine. You SHOULD take mine seriously. My ideology of reductionism is the ONLY ideology that requires its adherents to NOT make lazy generalizations, because, my ideology of reductionism DOES require that, when one asserts some moral code - e.g. "you should not use curse words to change somebody else's mind" - that you HAVE to follow through with the consequences of that code NO MATTER WTF else happens, no matter how uncomfortable or illegal or negative the consequences. OTHERWISE, then, DON'T make that moral code. Some drunk driver plow through your house at 120mph and kill your family? Does not matter to logic if you made that code: you have to be polite and not curse at that drunk driver. And if that drunk driver fights in court to be free on what you call a legal technicality - i.e. what is called THE LAW - again - does not matter. Now, a person who HAS NOT MADE the (stupid) generalization that "you should not use curse words to change somebody else's mind" does NOT contradict anything by screaming and cursing at the drunk driver who drove through their home and killed their family.
@@KingCrocoduck it's an historical fact. From everything I've been able to research and see. It happened much like the transatlantic slave trade happened.
@@grapeshot Okay, and these historical facts- are they just a reflection of the biases held by whoever promotes them, or are they ideologically neutral? Because if you believe the latter, then you're siding with me over Zoe
She actually made a serious case for propaganda. Your response was incredibly well thought out and delivered, all while expressing the level of charitability I don't think I'm capable of any longer. I lost patience for this gaslighting. Still, someone has to do it so thanks for your hard work in the gutters!
I rather liked this video, but I think the heritability discussion is a red herring for the political discussion so your response sort of confused me. Even you say you withhold judgement on the hereditarn thesis vs the environmentarian thesis, this seems to presuppose either of these theses are coherent. I'm definitely not convinced of either of these theses but that's because I'm not convinced either is coherent not merely that the data betwixt the two is not dispositive. My reason for thinking this is because the sole purpose of heritability studies has to do with variance within populations rather than between, however both theses seem to think that one can use heritability studies to study differences between populations, which is simply contradictory. Now, I'm basically an ignoramus about this topic, so if I've fundamentally misunderstood heritability studies or how hereditarians and environmentarians use these studies, I'd be happy to understand why I'm wrong. Lastly, it's pleasant to propose that Gould is a charlatan. I haven't read the mismeasure of man and I also haven't looked into the claims you made regarding his deliberate mischaracterization if the data, so I obviously won't take your word for it until I do. However your motivations sell honest, so that leads me to think the view is plausible. Good video.
She argues that the police software used to calcuulate best routes to patrol does only use amount of crimes as an indicator. She does not even entertain the idea that the software weighs in the severity of the crimes to do the calculation? she does not show any facts, numbers or proof of this yet bases her statement about how this data is "skewed" based on this.
Its because in her profession theres isnt an emphasis on statistical modeling beyond the credit requirments to become an instructor. What she never mentioned in that video she posted was broken window policing which is the application of being more available to areas with higher crime rates, which would necessarily grant a positive bias toward those ares amd a higher poloce presence. What is seldomly aslo included is those areas are also staged for ambulances because they recieve mkre calls in higher crime areas rhan any other except retirwmwnt communities and high traffic interchanges. The reason is that what is widely known to statisticians across various fields, is that there is a high correlation between poverty, and crime, and medical emergencies, and general stressful living conditions. Each field sees it a different way, but at rhe same time everyone knows there is a link between problems, and economic hardship. Zoe not in any way being educated to properly single out policing, made the claim anyway hiding behind a single interpretation of statistics shes not equipped to honestly approach.
It is hilarious! Your Arguments and your Examples even make a stronger case for the initial claim! Your bias directs how somebody "uses" facts! Case in point! :D
@@KingCrocoduck In your first chapter you state the "Points of Agreement" ( "Facts don't care about your feelings", Everyone has biases and Ethos tend to sway people more than logos ). And in your video you make a very strong case that Zoe Bee, Stephen Jay Gould, Cathy O'Neil cherry-picked their "facts" and appealed to the feelings of their audience. However, the same problems arise in your own video. Zoe Bee claims that Ben Shapiro only reads papers which support his narrative and that he made some comment about IQ. You stated that it is "highly unlikely" that Ben Shapiro made such a comment. How did you reach that conclusion? Did you reach out to Zoe or to Ben? Or did you just assume that it is "highly unlikely"? Did you watch hours upon hours of Ben Shapiro videos? Then there was the argument about interpreting facts or put it in another way "objective truth vs. subjective truth". Instead of making a calm and rational argument, you made a reference to "World war II". Your purpose was to operate on the edge. You tried to show how dangerous such a reasoning could be. But all you achieved was to kill of any debate what so ever. Even nowadays, most people can't talk about "World war II" in a calm and collected manner. In using the "World war II" reference you chose the "better" story over pure and simple facts. You also talked in length about crime statistics. And there are many problems with that kind of "facts". And you also tried to mitigate some of that. The "others" category is just a symptom. How many crimes are in the false category? Are the wrongly convicted cleaned out of the statistics after some time ( highly unlikely, right? :-p )? So there is no quality control for that data and nobody can make even an estimate of how big the error rate really is. You can use this kind of data for rough estimates. But when you start to argue over some percentage, you go wrong. Your argument might just be some noise in the data. Last but not least, the "BJS" data has ideology baked into it. And it is transparent to you and everybody. How many policy changes happend since 1980? How many changes in collecting the data were made during that peroid? Looks kind of strange if you compare the options in the race category, doesn't it ("All races", "White", "Black", "American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN)", "Asian/Pacific Islander (API)")? My guess is, that the cateogies "American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN)", "Asian/Pacific Islander (API)" where added at a later and the categories "White" and "Black" where there from the beginning. Notice that "White" and "Black" are one word categories in comparison to the others. After the new categories were added, did they correct the data? And how exactly is it determined which people belong to which "label"? So i would suggest that you argued upon ideology driven facts without even noticing. Beeing objective, stick to facts, not omitting facts, interpreting in an objective manner is really, really hard!
@@manfredknapp Do you agree with Zoe Bee interpretation regarding collection of crime statistics? King's research may have its limitations but even during the recent years there is definitely a difference between crimes according to race. The disingenuous part was on Zoe Bee and the other side when they tried to claim that a particular group of people are able to hide their crimes because of their race. King crocoduck used the Holocaust example because it is the favourite rhetoric of far left which they use to show how bad other side is and how much they care for Jews so he was attacking the usage of Holocaust rhetoric by asking a simple question that do they think that Holocaust happened or not. Unlike Zoe Bee and others he has kept the crime statistics open for anyone to check and create their own inference. Lastly from which sources would you say people should read about crime statistics since majority of the sources will give the conclusion that is not liked by people of a particular ideology.
I remember once talking about music. I forget how the conversation went but someone tried to make the case that some particular music was better. I said that music is subjective and that you should just like what you like. And he said that to me. "Who cares about the facts when you have your feelings?" I said "Uh yeah. It's music. It is all about your feelings." People are so funny. In any other context it is actually a true statement but I think I know what you mean. Bumper sticker aphorisms don't promote conversation and an exploration of the topic in good faith. It is true that cognitive biases affects human perception but it affects some more than others and many people don't care about the data at all and instead base their conclusions on their spiritual understanding and their psychological tendencies. And science ideally filters out human bias. It could be that the science isn't done very well and that bias has managed to work it's way into the science. But that's why reproduction is important. Good science that's done well should filter out the human element completely. There is a right answer and a wrong answer and the way we can tell is through evidence and critical examination and science. If you want to change someone's mind, it can be very difficult but I think I have a somewhat educated opinion about this. First establish a report. Make sure they know this is going to be a non combative process. "So how are you today?" Small talk. Introduce yourself if that's applicable and ask them about themselves. Don't tell people they're wrong. Instead ask Socratic probing questions in order to encourage deeper thought about a subject. You need to arrive at a reason for the belief. Outsider tests can help lead them toward a better reason. "I believe because of my holy book." "If a Sikh said he believed because of his holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, would that be compelling to you?" Then you can try to force it through a more logical framework. For instance, falsifiability. "So if that wasn't true, you'd doubt?" "No, I'd still believe." "Then that's not why you believe. Can you give me a reason for your belief that if not true, would cause you to doubt?" You're forcing them to think in terms of falsifiability, perhaps for the first time. When you finally arrive at a falsifiable reason, don't tell them it's wrong. Instead say something more like "Now I'm not saying I know the answer to that but if I could produce an expert on the subject and he/she could explain it to you in such a way that you could know the evidence doesn't support it, would that cause you to doubt?" But then it has to be good. Maybe even try to get that expert. If not, make sure it's well researched. This part needs to be done at another time. Get his/her email, cite your sources and get all your ducks in a row. And of course I can't promise this will work. There are always going to be people who just won't change. But that's how you go about circumventing their defense mechanisms and forcing them to think in a deeper and more logical way. If you want to learn more about this, go to a YT channel called Anthony Magnabosco.
Objectivity can never be obtained, but it can be approached. The closer we approach it, the more effective, successfully predictive, and better integrated, our incrementally improving models of the universe become.
@@LAZARUSL0NG Sure. I think I know what you mean there and I agree. But I don't know if objectivity is the best word for it. Unbiased maybe? No one can be truly 100% unbiased but you can try to be and be aware of that fault in human perception and that's pretty close to the definition of being objective. I suppose it's a very subtle distinction so I guess it doesn't really even matter. I just like to follow all the threads and see where it goes.
READ BEFORE COMMENTING:
It is possible that you agree with the general content of Zoe’s videos while not necessarily agreeing with the specific ways she presented or phrased certain arguments; i.e., “Zoe said A, but I think argument B is actually a stronger defense of what she’s trying to arrive at.” This is perfectly respectable and I will be happy to consider “B.” What I will NOT be happy to consider is any noise to the effect of, “What Zoe obviously MEANT to say was B, so why didn’t you argue against B?? You just knocked down a strawman!!”
If Zoe didn’t explicitly say B, or if B can’t be reasonably inferred from what Zoe actually said, then I am under no obligation to address B, C, D, or any of the many other variations of A that could have potentially been substituted. My responsibility in these kinds of exchanges is to argue against what has actually been said, and not what against what you might wish have been said. And that responsibility, as evidenced by the first 20 minutes of the video in which I carefully lay out her argument and its antecedents, has been satisfied.
Therefore, if I see any comments of that sort, my only reply to you will be to read this pinned comment.
I agree, completely. It kind of reminds me of the "Well that's not my feminism/communism/social-justice-ism/etc" response often given to arguing favour of any of the above ideologies. Well, it is the ideology presented by the champion of said ideology, here & now. It is the one we are working with. Furthermore, argument A is usually the standardly given one which is parrotted across multiple mainstream big platforms by big names. Not to mention, I very rarely if ever see people of position B arguing with the champions of position A about the subtle nuances as to why B is better than A. They only seem to complain at us for looking at the champion of position A, to base our responses around.
But as we all know "nuance" is internet slang for "Even though you appear to be winning the debate, there's this thing we can't measure, examine or analyse right now, which proves I am right & you are wrong so just shut up and go away." but that's a rant for another time.
@@pickyphysicsstudent201 To be fair though: it is sometimes hard to use certain labels. For instance, I would call myself a liberal and a post-modernist, but there all all sorts of things that _does't_ mean in my case. There are plenty of people going by the same labels which I completely and vocally disagree with, though it's sometimes difficult for people who don't subscribe to them to see the differences. I imagine it might be equally frustrating for some who subscribe to the labels you mentioned.
I wish more creators would head up their comment sections in this way. I’d really feel that they actually intended to read them, for a start.
But you do this constantly. One example is when you say things like because she didn't given a justification for how rational judgments can be made, that somehow implies that she believes no such judgment can be made, and all judgment are some how equally valid. Another is insisting that her saying that beliefs are dependent on certain biases is somehow obviously means that those beliefs are determined by said biases. I find it ironic that in the very clip you use as evidence she literally says that it's not impossible to be convinced be fact, but it can be rather difficult in particular with respect to facts that conflict with one's world view.
@@jeremyhansen9197 The inference that I drew concerned the logical consequences of her argument. My justification for that inference was not predicated *exclusively* on her omission of how unbiased judgements can be made, but also on the things that she *did* say. It was the *conjunction* of her omission of this crucial detail with everything else that she said which informed my inference.
As for the supposed difference between "dependence" and "determination," unless you can show me how a belief can depend on a certain bias without also being determined by it, then this is just a distinction without a difference.
This channel is a treasure. Actual thought out arguments backed up with researched facts, not just the usual tribal biases and ideologue rhetoric. It takes a lot more work to make this type of video, so much respect to you Croc. It's heartening to know people like you are still out there in academia. Thanks for bringing this type of debate back to RUclips.
There are a handful of RUclipsrs who produce content (at least free content, to the best of my awareness) seldomly and have not fallen for the superchat virus. You don't post often, but when you do... it's something to cherish for years. Thanks for your hard work, and for making it available to everyone.
What is the Superchat virus?
@@Sehon13Ultd it's the format of preference for maximizing profit. The content creator sets up a live video, and the viewership pays for interacting. Creators are then rewarded for generating a strong enough reaction, not necessarily for accuracy or utility. It's like clickbait, but for money -- analogous to what e-thots do.
My second year of graduate school, a group of us did a directed study on the philosophy of science. These arguments are so fascinating. In my case, I come from a social science where these competing epistemological frameworks are more salient. I really appreciate your insight and time given on this issue.
May I ask what are you studying?
This channel is the definition of quality over quantity
Can't wait for this!
Worth the wait, this is criminally under viewed. You're fantastic KC, Please never stop making content, the world needs this.
I love these types of videos.
I'm oftentimes forced to argue against people I would otherwise agree with because they bring up a point in such a way as to give ammunition to people that would argue against it while trying to make a case for it.
I'd rather have arguments as solid as possible; weak arguments that lead to conclusions I agree with are still weak arguments, and if those are all I have, it might be time to either look for better ones, or consider changing my own opinion.
I have a formerly vegan friend who once argued that gorillas are big and strong and they don't eat meat.
I was like 'thats because different things are DIFFERENT THINGS'
and suggested that if he really wanted to be big and strong he should eat krill like a blue whale.
He stopped using that argument.
@@ericvulgate that’s how I feel about the “my body, my choice” crowd, because it’s a pretty disingenuous argument that doesn’t rebut the pro life position. Even though I’m vehemently pro choice.
As someone who has done mapping/GIS work with a background in Criminal Justice/Criminology, your work at the end was truly eye opening! It was well done and, while only using the information provided by BJS, was well computed and very clear!
Finally finished this marathon of a video. That must have been a lot of work to produce. Well done.
Thanks! Took 6 months to make
I wish both your guys videos could get more attention. The quality and substance is so refreshing.
I fortunate enough to be able to losten to them while while working, so these long form analyses are highly appreciated, especially that it's not so laden with jargon that even I can understand about 85% of the content.
Feel like people almost always miss the importance of the quality control part. The fact that it can be so easy to convince people of ideas regardless of their quality if you’re clever or well-learned makes it even more important to check that you’re really, actually right before you go out and do marketing. Otherwise you get people hurt! Science communicators can tell stories to teach science without getting confused that this storytelling is actually how we should try to do science itself
Discovered you from your appearance on Peter Boghossian's channel, and I'm so inspired by the depth of thought and the work that goes into all your content. Looking forward to diving deeper into your stuff soon.
Banger video. Couldn’t be a better continuation of your philosophy of science series imo (which I also loved, despite only holding a masters in Philosophy).
Great work, really appreciate this quality of content! 😊
Your humility for some reason reminded me of a pie in the sky desire I had back in the glory days of atheist vs theist, to break down poor arguments, or just bad points made by either side, and publish it in video format.
I'm glad I didn't, because at that time I had my own dunning-kreuger delusions that ultimately would have resulted in embarrassing dismantles by...well anyone. Especially after hearing how real philosophers or those educated in address points, reaffirms that my laziness had saved me from some very public very downs.
Always cringey to her people from the humanities to speak about the natural sciences, claiming "all facts are actually products of ideology". She's right in agreeing with the quote that we should not hold opinions on topics we know little to nothing about. But that applies to her as well, as she said at the very begining of the video that she has no experience with science, mathematics, epistemology or philosophy of science... and watching her videos it becomes self evident. Thank you for your refreshing critique, it was illuminating to watch
I think holding opinions on matters we know little about is not only fine, but a necessary part of life. You would need to live an insanely privileged life to never come across a decision where you need to make a personal judgement on something you are not an expert on. Thats even for something as simple as what to eat for breakfast.
The only thing i would suggest is, that we keep in mind that we are not that well informed and stay open to change our opinions when we receive more information on these topics.
@@mathis8210 I generally follow the opinions of the majority of the experts in the fields relevant to the topic if I'm not inclined to do the work necessary for understanding the topics. If I'm not qualified to challenge the consensus of the actual experts, I have no business telling them that they are wrong on matters of fact.
@@zemorph42 Sure, go ahead and do that. I didnt specify any opinion that should be held.
But keep in mind that expert opinion is also opinion, especially if you dont know the stuff yourself. You should be ready to question it aswell, because "Experts said so" is not really a valid argument by itself.
@@mathis8210 but how you go about questioning it is important as well. Your logic of questioning applies to flat earthers as well.
@@ambatuBUHSURK Of course it does.
This deserves wayyyy more views, especially considering the effort gone into making it. Well done, man.
I had almost given up on this one. That video has bothered me ever since I first saw it, so I'm looking forward to your response.
got a link to it?
@@Tary88 ruclips.net/video/E8ISzmBBTvo/видео.html
I think it was that one.
@@Tary88 description box
“All facts are products of bias” is just hard solipsism with a special exemption for the solipsist claiming it.
They simply hope you don't notice the solipsism and are taken in by the assuring tone of their voice and the grains of truth sprinkled throughout the "argument".
What's the problem with solipsism?
@@turdferguson3400 The problem is, it's a completely useless philosophical stance, lacking any kind of explanatory power or guidance for action.
@@spectralisation why does explanatory power have to come from solipsism? Why can't explanatory power be a separate assumption alongside solipsism?
@@turdferguson3400 it’s a dead end with nothing but zombies, munchausens, and brains in vats.
There was a neuroscience study that showed that people with a part of the brain damaged, one that seemingly deals with mainly emotion, had extreme trouble making decisions even though they were totally rational and logical. It does seem like we all use emotion when deciding. I think much of my rationality is actually influenced by fear of being wrong, often just for looking foolish to others when wrong, and if that's the case then I'm fine with it, tbh. Rationality and emotion/feelings are not separate, imho--and we will never be robots, or even Vulcans.
Yes, by this evidence, emotion is truly part of cognition. But let's not confuse decisionmaking with factfinding. Evidently, we can't make decisions at all efficiently without gut feelings guiding us. But gut feelings are entirely unnecessary when evaluating data. The people in that study didn't cease to be rational. I'm pretty sure they could still do math and analyze a graph, for example.
@@Zzyzzyx True, but at the end of the day we must decide things or else the data is useless. Only way I can see that not being the case is if they crunch data and pass it to a person with a fully working brain to make the decision. Then it's not that big a problem.
Thank you,
While I'm politically closely aligned with zoe and similar content creators, I'm always very sceptical about how they engage with science.
I'm happy to see people like you that draw a sceptical eye on them. Only with good criticism can our views get better, no matter what politics they might be.
I can’t help but wonder if Zoe’s argument is “social construct smuggling.”?
What always kills me about discussions on this topic is how people fail to communicate that bias is a scaler, not a vector (metaphorically speaking). We can imagine a world in which, say, Astronomy focuses almost exclusively on gas giants and we could investigate the possible reasons for that bias… but the existence of that bias doesn’t taint or invalidate demonstrable facts learned about quasars, black holes, or even gas giants for that matter. A bias towards focus of study is irrelevant and trivial.
“Astronomy is biased!” In that world would be an accurate statement, but of little use or concern as it pertains to the quality of scientific knowledge produced. The scaler factor here is minimal if not altogether non existent.
A more substantial influence from that bias may come in the form of, say, the discovery of a new unidentified celestial object… in which case one would be cautious and not assume it’s an unknown form of a gas giant.
This is all Prima-facie obvious and baked into to scientific best practices. Yet, the social constructionists and post modernists seem to be playing the game of “find the hidden bias whack-a-mole” with no regard to size and significance of each mole.
I thought I was nihilistic but this takes it to whole new level from reality has no subjective value to reality has no objective existence.
While anonymity is jealously, and quite understandably, guarded these days, and while I do abhor malicious doxing, the trouble with creators like His Majesty*, is that it is frustratingly difficult to track them down, imprison them in a fully equipped luxury dungeon, and force them to publish at LEAST one video essay per week.
I am therefore reduced to impotent fits of plaintive faux-entitlement…
MORE! MORE OF THIS BRAIN MUSIC!
I DEMAAAAAAAAND IT!
...I didn't catch this the first time I watched this video, but it came up to me this time: her belief that, in essence, facts are just ideology, is dangerous because it can prevent us from finding solutions that our ideology identifies. To use the IQ disparity as an example, if facts were ideology, we would simply ignore it, but if facts inform ideology, we would immediately say (if our ideology were to identify the fact of IQ difference as a problem) "this is a problem, what can we do to fix it?".
Truth is the opposite of a political game. It's a political game to attempt to treat truth as a political game.
I try watching something else on youtube and I always end up on this channel. The thought that keeps me at night is "what do we do with feminism when Zoe, Dr. Fatima and Sandra Harding exist". As a feminist, honestly, I don't know. Just grateful someone is challenging this bs. I really do think politics should not compromise the integrity of science.
These people make it harder FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE and academia.
Hey, Dr. Fatima is actually pretty good.
If you organise your books by spine colour, your opinions DO actually become objectively wrong.
Given that facts describe reality, facts are required to be biased.
Yes, however just trying to agree on one singular point of fact with someone deeply entrenched is about as easy as pulling teeth, the deluded is happy with muddling the water rather than trying to agree on any fact at all. Reality doesn't speak up on its own what is a fact.
I am glad to be in your company here though.
One unknown fact to me; DP, what is the cost of the your second edition Soliloqy hardcover and shipping to Germany? Your webpages isn't totally forthcoming.
Good. I've been seeing more of the "old" rational RUclipsrs tackling topics like this lately. I was losing hope. So many people who were such "logical" thinkers years ago when they were taking apart religious arguments have been failing to apply the same standards of evidence when considering current social issues.
So happy you posted.
losing*
@@myrpok got it.
Yeah well, to many of the "old rational" (and mainly American) youtubes, it was never about the principles or reason and evidence, it was always about dunking on the US Christian Right and the conservative social policies they advanced; not that that is not a worthy endeavour in and of itself, but it was always about the target, not the method.
@@troelshansen6212 Agree. I see that now.
It's very easy to attract attention by punching down.
I can't help but notice how her books seem to be arranged in a peculiar 'diverse & inclusive' way, not displaying any kind of subliminal bias whatsoever.
Not only do you dismantle arguments. But you literally attempt to better their own argument for their future. Fucking legend
You'll notice a recurring pattern with social constructionists arguing in bad faith where they use lofty language to describe the naturalist position. They'll use phrases like "perfect objectivity that comes from the heavens". This is a strawman.
The more they can portray their opposition as uncritical boobs who are oblivious to their own limitations, they more easily they can supplant robust epistemic standards with self-serving special pleading.
@@KingCrocoduck Living in NYC, I encounter social constructionism and this method of argumentation very frequently. Your Naturalist Nuke concept has been a really useful tool for focusing the conversation when it veers into "everything is a social construct" territory. Introducing the Big Four Operational Criteria is especially effective for pinning them down. Great work, KC 👍
@@DDeCicco It also happens to be extremely useful in formulating an effective epistemology.
So, she'd rather punish the poor innocent people in Compton to send MORE patrol cars to Beverly Hills? Is she REALLY this disconnected from reality that she thinks poor people would rather feel less discriminated against than SAFE? Holy moly...
Never would I have guessed that this channel would upload again
I am not quite sure how you could not find a single article about Ben commenting on race and IQ when it took me mere seconds to find an article by him. In it Shapiro has in fact commented on it and made his opinion about it known. The article can be found on "The Sacramento Bee" referencing a science project about race and IQ.
It's locked behind a paywall so I can't verify this.
@@KingCrocoduck I read the article just fine without paying anything. Not sure why it is different for you.
@@page8301 Would you mind taking some screenshots and linking me to a Dropbox please?
Sure, though it is nothing outrageous.
@@KingCrocoduck I tried to link a google dropbox link but YT deleted the post. I am up over 18 hours by now and the headache starts to get serious so I am going to bed for now. I hope I can find a way to give you the link tomorrow.
This video and your lecture is a excercise for the brain - it is extreme scarcity to find experirnce like this here on YT. At some point your brain has just enough, but I continue despite my exhaustion. At 1h mark I lost track. Will be back tommorow for the rest and to analazy content once more.
I always thought the largest driver of crime was poverty. Policing patterns an biases are also a problem ofcourse, but the underlying issue of poverty causing crime can't be fixed though any change in police conduct.
You can't fix a broken leg just by telling someone to stop sitting on it... but it helps.
Secret mountain of corpses in Suburbia?
Sounds like a Stephen King novel.
Glad you're still active dude. Algorithm hasn't recommended me your stuff in a while.
As always i love your videos on the philosophy of science. Each time one comes out i get motivated to start reading up more on the topics, but unfortunately i never got around to it so far. Not enough time is left, while working on my own research topics :(
When the king uploads, it always hits like a croco truck
I know we're talking about beliefs rather than facts or truth, but I'ma tangent just a tiny bit and say that: Truth doesn't care about your feelings but facts certainly do. (psych and phil of sci) Facts being a product of human inquiry into truth necessarily requires at least one motivating factor, and often many motivating factors.
Even ideas that spring forth into existence from seemingly nothing can often be scientifically traced back to some trigger when there is proper setup. This is compared to facts which require not only multiple people, but also multiple steps such as noticing and valuing the phenomenon, as well as testing procedures, along with relevant inquiries regarding the phenomenon, including possible alternate explainations and their entire relevancy speel. This is a best case scenario! Then you factor in human error and shit gets even more messy. This is before we even get to selectively picking out facts whether consciously or subconsciously due to bias, both of which could fall into the area of human error but also starts to fall into manipulation without outright lying.
I don't find this in conflict with the notion that if a person wishes their beliefs be true, yoloing with stories probably isn't the best method. However, if a person wishes to effectively convince someone of something, then stories is probably the way to do it. This may or may not be a disservice to both the speaker and the listener... I side with 'disservice' but I'm pretty worried that I'm wrong given how most people use political 'facts' to determine not truth, but rather checking to see if you're part of their tribal ingroup. I think teaching good form and mindset is important, but wether or not a person employs those skills is entirely up to them. This makes me a bit sad to say but logic is probably best used as a toolset for when one actually gives a shit rather than for everyday human life.
Edit: I don't think people who say they believe something actually believe that thing. We've seen enough christians spouting love to know that's the case so I'm literally just gonna copy and paste onto this new religion. Sometimes I wish I went deeper into psychology so I can study wtf a belief actually is, then compare it to different things like aliefs and split brain personality beliefs, or group beliefs compared to individual beliefs. I think we're using the term 'belief' in the context inadequately.
Her whole video can be summed up as “I'm not saying I believe this, I just believe this”
Well, here is something that should be glaringly obvious to everyone that percieves even the slightest hint of bias from her. She is an english professor, that does not respect the primacy of vocabulary. In any other field, it would be like that professional rejecting the basics of the field their career is built on.
"my actual opinion is gonna piss all of you off... and here is my actrual opinion, thank you for watching and i hate you all!"
BASED.
I think we could have simplified your definition of ideology. The root word there is “ideal” which tends to connote a sense of “way the world ought to be.” So in my view, an ideology is more like a bias through which you interpret data such that it promotes your image of an optimal goal/value/world.
Just a thought. I’m open to being convinced otherwise.
No I think that's actually pretty good 👍
It's pretty clear the "feelings" Zoe is starting with when choosing her "facts" are that all groups of people are of equal intelligence and no group is more predisposed towards committing crime. I also feel this is correct personally; however, two points:
1. There is no reason to make a definitive statement on this unless you have sufficient data to draw a conclusion (which I don't think we have and would be pretty dang hard to gather, though people have tried) and
2. If we value all people, then it's desirable to understand how to build a world together that best ensures people can live valuable lives. Understanding human psychology will be valuable for this, but these questions about average IQ and crimes will never matter as much as trying to understand how best to successfully educate people or trying to understand the factors involved in why people make anti-social choices (like crime).
Truth will never be the enemy of creating a better world because making a better world is a choice that we make. It's what we choose to do in reflection of the truth that matters.
Wow, thank you so much for this thorough and informative video!! I just stumbled across Zoe's channel today and that video and was absolutely shocked. When she brought up Gould's book I literally paused the video and put my head in my hands. I came across your video from another person's comment. I actually just posted a video two days ago where I talk about ideological criticisms of science (Gould and Lewontin against EO Wilson) and how ideological interpretations of facts are subjective, and skewing data for ideological purposes is intellectually dishonest (the video is the anti-intellectual crusade of cancel culture). Your argument that Zoe's beliefs can be used to justify h*locaust deni*l is extremely important. Thank you for your work, and you best believe I subscribed. Keep it up!
I took a peek at your channel and like what you're putting out there, so I subscribed as well. If you liked this video, I think you'll also enjoy my video "The New Lysenkoism," my series "The Science Wars," and my series, "Nuking Social Constructionism."
@@KingCrocoduck Thank you! Yeah those titles definitely piqued my interest, I will work my way through them!
Hmm. The impression I came away with after watching Zoe’s video was not to disregard facts or to diminish the importance of using facts to determine the validity of one’s beliefs to but simply to acknowledge that we can never be absolutely free of any bias whatsoever.
The three salient points she makes are that data points can misrepresent the truth when taken out of their wider context, that collection of data in and of itself is vulnerable to the bias of the people inputting said data (especially in the social sciences), and that interpretation of the results is also vulnerable to the bias of the interpreter. Instead of turning a blind eye to these points of failure, acknowledging these human failings is the best way forward.
With that reading of her arguments I don’t really have much disagreement. I do wish, however, that she took more time to parse out the nuances of fact collection and give more examples of bias in data collection and interpretation. I also think she could have been a little bit more systematic/structured in her presentation to make the arguments above clearer.
It seems to me that the practical issue is whether we are able to form beliefs in which our biases don't play a nonnegligible role.
@@KingCrocoduck I see your point. The way I see it, good experimental methods (double blind, for example), peer review and scientific consensus is generally the mechanism we use to check for bias. In that way, we minimize the potential effect of bias on a study by checking for it and replicating studies. My position is that studies are subject to bias, but not that bias always affects the study.
I do think she fails to describe how to deal with bias appropriately, ending on the note that “bias can affect everything” which is technically true but certainly gives the impression that it is difficult to do something concrete to eliminate that.
Given that extra point then we do have proper methodology to form beliefs where we have already checked for bias and have determined it to have a negligible effect.
@@KingCrocoduck Finding ways of minimizing bias is indeed a practical challenge, particularly at the scale of individual scientists or insular, siloed research teams. By enlisting the broader participation of competing researchers and teams, there is a reward system offered for correcting the errors and biases committed by other researchers operating under the influence of bias.
You have provided two notable examples of this process being pursued successfully within the context of this video. One was your scathing, and probably (?) justified criticism of the biases expressed by Zoë (whoever she is) and Cathy (whoever she is). The second example was your compilation and review of the critical professional opinions regarding Stephen J. Gould’s book, _The Mismeasure of Man_ .
One would think you would take some comfort and satisfaction in seeing the scientific process being successful in stripping away biases to expose the kernel of underlying truth, but you seem rather indignant that this process should even be necessary. Have I misread that?
It _IS_ necessary.
I am new to this channel, but was starting to get an odd feeling about a possible political agenda that might underlie it, and thought I might gain some sense of that from the Comments section. Insufficient data so far, so it’s still an open question. Must return now to watch the remainder of the video.
@@MendTheWorld I agree that the process is necessary, and am deeply annoyed by that fact.
I notice Zoe sorts her books by color, and not by title, author, subject, or ISBN number. Priorities...
She doesn't actually read. They are there to be backdrop, hence the inefficient but artistic organization.
Look at how her shot is framed. She is still in the foreground, and you are supposed to see her, but she isn't in the center: she's off to one side. And she's really close to that bookshelf. Normally, one puts what you want people to see "front and center", so why be off to the side, and why be so close to a shelf? Unless the shelf is part of what she wants us to see. So why? Well, there's a couple of knick-knacks, a bonsai tree, and those books. Everything else is pretty plain, aside from those books. Even the most muted color of those books - especially on the bottom shelf where it is clear it has been artistically arranged - is eye-catchingly bright. Even that puke-green one on the top shelf is a draw to the eye. We are meant to see those books. And since we culturally associate not just reading in general but reading printed books with intelligence it becomes clear that she wants us to see those books with her so that we associate her with the books and thus imply that she is intelligent. That she actually knows what she's talking about. So that we will believe her without asking too much on our own. It's an old lawyer-ad (I call it that because that's where I first saw it) tactic, and it works, even if you know the trick. But even the lawyers knew that the books had to be backdrop, and not co-star. Which is why you noticed and questioned it. Had she been center-frame with colorful books behind her off to the side, you probably wouldn't have noticed, or been thrown off enough to comment.
@@therealfriday13th I'm pretty sure she reads because she is an English literature professor. However her readings may only be limited to books specific to her field like fiction,poem,history, philosophy,etc. Just because someone reads that doesn't make them an expert at everything.
I can't believe this film set was built with aesthetics in mind, and it's not actually the corner of her living room!
@@Kevin-cy2dr Like KC. He fails to acknowledge several criticisms and problems with the data he utilize in especially part V. He's a STEM-lord, someone who is fairly cringe at understanding social science, but doesn't understand that he's failing to understand it. Zoe is better grounded on a few issues, and KC attacked her method of conveying it, since she chose a more down to Earth explanation.
Great content as always. Just subscribed to your patreon. Much appreciated
I'm not the biggest Ben Shapiro fan but I'll stand with KC and say that Zoey has a very warped view of the guy. He's not a "Dark Web Intellectual" for one, he's a fairly mainstream political commentator with fairly mainstream conservative views. Consequently, he's also not an ethnonationalist or anything of the sort, and being very publicly Jewish, he doesn't associate with the frequently antisemitic ethnonationalist crowd that actually has an interest in the argument.
Stephen Molyneux would have been a better candidate for the whole race/IQ argument, as he actually did dabble in it, and is closer to being a Dark Web Intellectual, because he is much less mainstream, but then he didn't coin the meme of "Facts VS Feelings", so...
Finally "Dark Web Intellectual" is kind of a stupid deformation of "Intellectual Dark Web". Molyneux is neither an intellectual (he's a commentator) nor does he operate on the Dark Web (that I'm aware of). The same applies to Ben Shapiro.
Clarification: I'm not a fan of Stephen Molyneux and in fact have never watched a whole video of his. I do know from snippets of his content that he engaged in the race/IQ debate, but not his actual positions.
A traditional Marxian approach to epistemology claims that empiricism is better than rationalism and disinterested observation does not necessarily make you more objective than someone with a political agenda. Therefore, you can do research motivated by a political or social agenda that counts as objective so long as you avoid denying facts and treat people who disagree with you and “the data” fairly. Empiricism in this context means that you should prioritize changing your beliefs based on data or observation rather than forcing data or observation to fit into your pre-existing theory. Further, the Marxian view claims that disinterested researchers often produce flawed work that justifies the status quo in society because they are often blind to society’s role in shaping their thinking and prejudices.
Marx was one of the first political activists who seriously tried to incorporate empirical sociological research into his work. Other activists before him often simply expressed disgust at society or abuses and proposed alternative political systems or reforms that they thought were more moral.
Marx became completely convinced that capitalism would inevitably fail and be replaced by a society without private ownership of the means of production through a workers’ revolution. Marxian epistemology is not the same as communism or Marx’s economic predictions. It’s also fair to disagree with a Marxian view of objectivity if you think research done by disinterested people will yield more accurate and actionable results.
A postmodern epistemology is closer to the idea that you should just tell people stories that will change their thinking and behavior so that they will socially construct a better society. This view is more consistent with the beliefs of people called “idealists” in the book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.
In Gould’s case, I think his book is good as an overview of the history of thinking about race-based intelligence differences but some of his data analysis is bad. I don’t think there’s that strong of a case that political bias clouded Gould’s judgment or motivated him to skew his analysis. For what it’s worth, there could be motivated reasoning at play when people defend Samuel Morton, since Morton’s skull collection was donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and Morton was an early American physical anthropologist.
Cathy O’Neil could have simply argued that fewer black Americans would have criminal records if the police did not arrest them for minor nonviolent offenses. It’s possible her analysis of PredPol was sloppy (she’s a mathematician rather than a criminologist) or her publisher wanted every chapter to talk about machine learning.
Of course, this comment oversimplifies issues in multiple ways.
I guess something interesting to note would be that a lot of people in and out of academia today reduce objectivity to empirical facts, such as Zoe Bee. Such a reduction usually leaves the domain of values up to subjective and relativistic attitudes which is obviously problematic for the social sciences and politics where the subject matter of values takes on a more prominent role--a problem that we not only live currently, but exaggerates when we think of how values and an apprehension of facts may determine one another. This is why sometimes a mere appeal to "the facts" might end up legitimating the very thing a Shapiro-esque logic-lord might otherwise wish to combat. The naturalist response seems to be an attempt to save this reduction of objectivity by expanding the standards and methods of the natural sciences to other domains showing that facts in some way inform, necessitate, or even originate adherence to specific values. Some will do what KC does in attempting to provide naturalistic foundations to certain methodological criteria. Some will try to bridge other supposed is-ought gaps depending on how far they wish to take it.
This is of course conjecture as a lot of this reduction of objectivity to mere facts seems heavily implied but never outright said, and perhaps I'm just reading too much into it. But if I'm right, then an important question would be: Is this reduction of objectivity to mere empirical facts (and their consistency in a constituted web of belief) justified? For instance, could reason be said to have its own self-sufficient objectivity outside of performing identity confirmations in line with a principle of non-contradiction? Could it be synthetic without having to rely on constant empirical input? I think philosophers today have essentially given up on that question which has lead to some very boring and unambitious books that wish to avoid fundamental philosophical issues like the plague, but that's obviously me digressing.
Zoe's argument is much closer to me, but I fell the need to rephrase it. "Facts", or just knowledge in general, is not dependent on "feelings" or "ideology", but on the sociocultural civilization paradigm in general. That's why I don't buy the neutral criteria for objective knowledge, since the objectie criteria, whatever it may be, will still be based on the assumptions of a European (in our case) civilizational matrix.
See my video series, "Nuking Social Constructionism" for an argument for how these criteria can plausibly be said to issue from a pre-social context.
16:15 I didn't find this part very convincing. You go on a quest to find out how Zoe justifies her beliefs. How she decides to believe X, instead of Y. Failing to find an answer in the original video, you try finding it in another one. Okay, fine, but the topic of said video is NOT how to pick the right beliefs, it is simply about how to convince others. What you call marketing. Where is your evidence that she thinks substituting justification for marketing, is a valid move? It seems to me she never made the connection, at all. She just made a video about how to convince others, and nothing else, didn't she?
My evidence that she thinks substituting marketing for justification is a legitimate move comes from the things she actually said:
Video 1) Beliefs are fundamentally the product of ideology, even if they seem to be fact-based.
Video 2) The best way to convince other people of your beliefs (which were established by video 1 to just be ideology) is through marketing techniques.
@@KingCrocoduck How are those two things evidence for the claim, exactly? The conclusion simply doesn't follow in my view. Video 1 is about what beliefs *are* - their ontology if you will. Video 2 is about how best to convince people of a belief, regardless of its truth value. You're missing the epistemology.
For example, I could believe that ducks are a species of bird, while also believing that the best way to convince people ducks are birds, is by pointing to their wings, while also acknowledging the mere presence of wings is not sufficient justification for the belief. How I justify my beliefs and how I choose to go about persuading other people are entirely separate. I might use different tactics based on whether I'm talking to a child, a regular person or a biologist. You can make an argument for whether you think they should align or not, but you can't simply infer one from the other.
Appreciate the response btw.
Tried to read Gould's book "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" a couple times and bloviate is a good description of his writing style. Ended up donating it to the library since I never could find a coherent explanation with a mechanism for how his "punctuated equilibrium theory" works, which was why I purchased that Bible sized sucker. Think the fossil record shows those sudden changes happen but that is an observation and not an explanation.
Me at the start; "Oooh... I hope he finally brings up Imre Lakatos!"
In general though this is really just a breakdown down of the concept of "domain". Why don't I dress in lingerie at work, or put my feet on a restaurant table, or swear like a sailor when talking to my CEO? Because there's a time and a place for and not-for everything. The melding of personal and political, private and public, work and home etc. - the modern obsession for the hybrid - means that marketing, propaganda, politics, science, and philosophy (AND the personal "lived experience") are shmooshed together as one undifferentiated mass. The obvious result is the denial of the very possibility that professional objectivity could possibly exist because it does not exist for THEM in their own personal life.
Wow what a flip. A few years back I would have stated generally people seem to have no clue how powerful belief systems are (in a good way). And how just by shifting beliefs, people can accomplish so much more than they realize.
Now it's gone SO far in that other direction, you have to tell people to hold up because beliefs DO have limits set by reality. And while these can always be rationally challenged, they MUST be respected. Especially when any shared reality is concerned.
Ironically we still have a problem with the former as well. Instead of learning, we've adopted the WORST of both points of view.
1.) Beliefs can do anything! (Except overturn or examine this new dogma that says beliefs can do anything)
2.) Everything is deterministic.
When I see the right insist that facts don't care about your feelings, they heavily interpret facts (and select them) with ideological filters in place. They insist these distortions and misuse of facts (which they present simply as facts, as truth) make their ideology as immutably true as facts are. It's not surprising that people, while feeling defensive, may back themselves against the wall on the precise opposite side of the room and claim no ideologies can be true (or parts of ideology).
It seems to me that ideologies are the result of our inability to reason rationally. Feelings, stories, and ideologies are almost like corrupting influences that blind us to alternative explanations, cause us ignore that there may be facts we don't know (or may never know), and feel more confident than we should regarding the facts that we think we know.
It's also striking to me that when I talk a conservative into a corner where they may have to admit an error, they default to a not so dissimilar argument where you have your facts and they have theirs.
@@Pensnmusic Psychology and reality don't operate in the same way at all.
Reality will always exist though and is the same for all of us. I can't have a battle of wills with someone else to have water boil at a different temperature, it doesn't work like that.
But someone dead set on believing different won't be convinced if I just tell them so. That won't make reality different, it just means they will be stuck in a pseudo reality. And their expectations of things will turn out wrong, frustratingly wrong because they won't be able to come to terms with it.
The best balance pushes people to do anything they can (and more) through beliefs INDIVIDUALLY. But also be willing to see, acknowledge and readjust as they bump up against reality.
This combination unlocks what people can. really do, which is absolutely amazing.
@@Pensnmusic I suspect that reducing the concept of ideology to that of an irrational mental byproduct, the nature of which being best described as an inexhaustible human resource of bias and error, is unlikely to be a tremendously productive or satisfying exercise.
I’d like to suggest that it might be more useful to conceive of ideology as something very much like an individual’s comprehensive, but not necessarily fully explicit, operational model of the world, a functional description of their relationships to it, and that from which they have the potential to consciously derive some number of non-trivial imperatives.
As such, I offer that we might most productively each think of our own as ‘a work in progress’; being particularly mindful of the fact that whenever we uncritically absorb great, and seemingly cohesive, chunks from any of the well established camps on offer that have enjoyed longstanding mass appeal, we will also, almost certainly, inherit some of their attendant idiosyncratic blind spots via that same osmosis, and we should attend to them carefully.
These hidden traps are equally well established, after all; having evolved various forms of insulation from scrutiny via the well trodden paths left by generations of well intentioned adherents.
Together their coalescing mental tracks can result in some enduring structures, often conveying an appealing sense of validity and completeness that they may not be able to maintain under close scrutiny; idea networks that (with an inevitability born of a kind of ‘conceptual natural selection’, or ‘path of least rational resistance’) have developed in directions (without the requirement of any overt intent, or deliberate philosophical malfeasance) which circumnavigate, obscure, and encase, the inconvenient janky knots, empty holes, and ugly nuggets in their ideological fabric.
If, in a rare moment of unencumbered applied reason, or scarcer still, in a flash of inspired insight, we accomplish the surgical exposition of one of these little mystery pockets from its cocoon of ideological scar tissue, they can reveal destabilising anomalies that often stubbornly refuse to map neatly onto the data that we painstakingly obtain from that which our models (to the degree that they are coherently constituted) prompt us to call ‘Reality’.
Some may contain nothing more than a minor paradox; waiting to be cashed out in terms we may regard to be inconsequential, but others, laying in wait for the unwary, have proven quite capable of concealing and germinating seeds of unimaginable horror.
Once such a nodule has been pried apart, and if it admits the full illumination of our reason, the subsequent demands of Reality upon an honest enquirer after truth, will require (and ideally should make apparent) the commensurate modification of the remaining model; leaving the whole more resilient and explanatory than it was before.
This modification might be a small matter, or it could prove to be a profound upheaval, the effects of which reach down far enough to dislodge our most foundational, axiomatic or cherished suppositions; leaving us temporarily floundering for meaningful conceptual purchase.
Our ideologies are our bags that contains our everythings; not only the substance of the models that we have been charged by fate to construct and optimise (and which we are all, nevertheless, compelled to deploy continually, regardless of their current condition, or else find ourselves incapable of generating even the most perfunctory directives for our own behaviour), but also they comprise the only suitable inventories in which to retain such tools as we may each consider valuable as we move along the course of the endless enterprise to expand and refine our comprehension; ever hopeful of an enduring encounter with something that, in a dim light, might pass for wisdom.
I think you should have a discussion/conversation about Academia, Science, and Meritocracy with Adam Something.
I would love to hear you two talk about these topics, from each your own point of view.
Ask him to invite me
@@KingCrocoduck
I did comment on his latest video that you two shoul have a discussion.
I believe the crime thing was more about the creation of a vicious cycle you mentioned at some point.
To make an analogy: imagine two equal size populations commit the same amount of graffiti, but one of them gets twice the policing, the chances of people from that population getting arrested would be bigger, so the model would say they should get more policing.
Herbert Marcuse's "repressive tolerance" meets Michel Foucault's "Post Structuralism". These people really have lead VERY sheltered lives
dgmw I don't know enough about this, but I'm pretty sure Derrida's the post-structuralist - I think he and Foucault fell out from that disagreement.
Haven't finished the video, nor finished the section on the predpol software, but it's not a negative feedback loop if there was a reduction of 23% for burglaries, then the map looks different the next year with those crimes not being in the input. It should shift away from any area that had only those crimes, and hopefully continue to monitor the places where those remaining crimes are still being committed. Sounds like it's functioning as intended.
I think as people who enjoy science, it's good to point out that things like denying climate change or the affect of affirming therapy on transgender people is factually wrong. I also agree that we should also do it by applying correct reasoning.
Comparing climate change "denial" with the insane affirmation of gender dysphoria is a feelings based interpretation of facts...
You played yourself lol
The transgender craze will be looked back at like we do lobotomies, bet on it. The whole field is quackery, and dangerous quackery at that.
also want to mention that she does exactly what Gould was criticized for doing in her video--setting up strawmans as if they were reality (like the fact that her entire criticism of Shapiro is on claims he never even made) and then arguing on the basis of those strawmans.
I've truly missed these videos! Quality.
He's alive!
King Crocoduck returns!! Excited for this one. The post-modern mind-rot has just been getting worse and worse - truly a secular religion at this point. We must stamp it out, somehow.
What is post-modern about this, according to you?
No idea who Zoe is, but based on this thumbnail alone, I'd say that truth itself is not a game, but getting people to accept the truth, or even want to seek it out, can definitely be seen as a game.
One where you have to navigate the other person's mind and get passed all of their road blocks to plant that seed or get them to see where they were wrong or misinformed, and you win if you successfully do so.
If its a game, then what rules are we playing by? I would like to use the rules of logic, some however want to use weird rules that I don't agree with, nor understand :D
Interestingly these keywords 'game', 'navigate' and others show up quite a lot in the connected and now well established Engineering fields in practice, such as by way of statistical reasoning, game theory, feedback in control systems theory, and machine learning. In my view, in the face of limited facts/truths/knowns, and some well chosen models of the real world, the fusion of reason proper and these feedback - aesthetically derived 'models', can and does build on what we can call 'State of the Art' (in the Kantt sense perhaps), that can account or correct for said missing/limited facts and biases in ways that are 'spookily effective', but quite scientifically justifiable in making decisions etc. In that sense I think I took King Crocoduck's argument to be that Zoe wasn't providing a great argument, where she could have if she understood the scientific method, bias and feedback a little better as tools for modelling and understanding the world, as opposed to providing absolute determinism.
@@DeconvertedMan the title in the thumbnail isn't particularly eye catching for me, because everyone with an opinion on politics tends to subscribe to some philosophy of politicians being liars and thieves, it's just conveniently always the other guy that is the true villain. But what she does is move on from truth very quickly and begins discussing facts. Doesn't ever say in the video what a fact is or what truth is or what it means for something to be true. She either takes for granted that everyone already knows what they are or has a very folksy naive personal definition of those things, which allows her to make a case of them without citing any official standard describing them, like a dictionary. Which to me is ok if it's just any slob off of the street, but she's an English professor. I wouldnt expect her to be well versed in the metaphysics and philosophical musings on truth or facts, but it's inexcusable that as an English professor she didn't even bother trying to define these terms shes framing an argument around.
The rules in my opinion would be the definitions of facts and truth. This is truth and here's how we determine what is true, and this is a fact and here is how we determine that it is a fact. However what she does is prattle on with opinions of what these things are based on how ppl perceived them with emotions. We don't ever say the grass is green or brown based on how it makes us feel. I agree with her that facts can be misused or omitted to make a truth claim to support a bias, but her loosely goosey approach and lack of insight threatens even her own claim that facts are inherently emotional. It's a completely undeveloped assertion that despite her effort doesn't explain anything. I imagine that if a student had submitted a paper using her own logic, she'd have to give it a passing mark, but I doubt she would.
@@HH-ru4bj I've heard people say things like there is no truth or that its subjective and that nonsense, no idea if she is one of those types or not.
Regardless, politics is a mess, and a reformting of the whole system would maybe make it better - but doing that might make things worse - plus - who knows if the new system would work, we need small scale experments or something.
The only thing I know that I can do is try to spread logic out there - in my own weird way. :D
For people like Zoe and Shapiro it has nothing to do with truth or facts and everything about playing on your emotions to accept their particular ideology.
I don't comment often on anyone's videos, either because I don't have anything to add to the conversation, or because what I have to say will likely fall on deaf ears. What I have to say here, I believe to be important to consider, however. Zoe is an artist and literary communicator. Her views reflect her perspective, biased and half baked as it may be, that how we communicate is sometimes more important than WHAT we communicate. A science minded person, such as the creator of this dense and informative video, has the exact opposite perspective. Both can be valid in different contexts, so long as the person applying whichever tactic understands that truth, REAL, OBJECTIVE truth, does exist, whether or not we know it.
I may watch this video in more detail in future, but I'll offer some preliminary thoughts:
For your proposed bias-independent criteria, this is a useful consideration, and I'd say it works quite well in professional science (for example), leading to 99%+ agreement on fundamental issues. But that relies on in-depth knowledge, advanced education and possibly similar goals. I don't think similar success is realistic for public discourse. Something more is needed (not that this means we should appeal to poor tactics, but more on that follows).
I also think you may be taking an overly critical view of Zoe's position (or, if what you say is her exact position, then it could be strengthened significantly with one minor tweak). The issue is as follows: by telling a story to evoke emotion, this could be seen as giving them more information. There are the 50 external facts, but both your interpretation and their interpretation of those facts could be said to constitute additional facts. If you evoke emotion to have them see your interpretation, you're giving them additional facts that you may not be able to communicate in any other way. The end result is not that they automatically switch over to your interpretation (if it were, it shouldn't be too hard to get everyone to agree on everything), but they may now be able to compare your interpretation and their interpretation, and they would (ideally) only be convinced if they deem your interpretation to be appropriate.
There may still be some cause for concern: in evoking emotion, there is a risk of overriding sound logic, which gets you into the territory of fallacies. But I don't think this could be said to be a fundamental problem with this approach, as much as it's a risk to be aware of.
That end music comment gave me a chuckle, bit of light heartedness after a heavy topic. :)
The motte-and-bailey illustration at 9:15-9:25 is only missing one word in the bailey for it to be perfectly accurate and defensible as the motte. All beliefs are influenced - not products of, but *influenced* by biases. If that was what was said, it would also not be self-defeating, but an injunction to apply standards so we can get closer to understanding the world in ways that actually work.
This is a very fine line to tread, just as when books describe "knowledge" as "socially constructed" without even discussing if it is only, primarily, or also.
In other words, if you replace the bailey argument with the motte argument ("I'm only saying that people have biases"), then it ceases to be a motte-and-bailey argument. Good work. 😉
@@davidh.4944 My point is how extremely close it already is.
@@MrTTnTT I'm not criticizing, just commenting. The whole point of motte-and-bailey is that you hold two positions, one extreme, one reasonable, and switch between them as is convenient to your current rhetorical needs.
I love the "only, primarily, also" bit, by the way. I'm going to remember that.
Thank you for the video!
I like how specific with your words you were when speaking on IQ
Explaining it as a successful predictor in life outcomes is essentially how far it goes outside of twins studies, and those are by definition case studies
Has society structured itself to make measurements in such tests predictable? If yes, then it's pointless.
Can we have a music list, your liege? (noticed some Stellardrone from earlier videos)
On topic - nicely done as always. Your videos were among those that helped me on my way out of creationism, and I'm still happy when I see a new one uploaded.
It's never a set of facts that can lead you in different directions, it's by Adding interpretation to those facts or interpreting then badly where you can go awry. Facts speak for themselves.
Man, you're very generous.
Hey Crockoduck! Haven't watched the video yet, but I know the user you're responding to made another well recieved video about why grading is bad. It's a sentiment I hear a lot, but I never seem to hear any pushback. Would you give any thought to checking it out?
"Anecdotes are the best way to communicate."
Ok, here goes: every woman I've ever met who presents like Zoe does (frumpy clothes, big glasses, dangly earrings, owns cat) has been rather nutty.
Yep. Makes me feel bad for the cats.
Look. It's a cat lady lecturing us on how not to think.
I think you and Zoe would both agree that science is an effective way at arriving at objective facts because Zoe did say "we should listen to scientists"
I think she takes an institutional, rather than methodological, view of science.
@@KingCrocoduck Decision making breaks down in groups larger than 6 or 7, so unless we're going to be just a bunch of monkeys banging around on coconuts and noting our findings, we do need to take the institutional view VERY seriously.
@@24tommyst I don’t think that follows. “Institutions” are very rarely actually held accountable given sufficient capture. See: WMD’s in Iraq.
Of course, we should “take it seriously” only insofar as it’s pushed onto us, but not further. In fact for issues that have a higher political weighting factor, I’d argue that reflexive skepticism is inherently justified.
When she says "facts are determined by ideology" she is making a statement of fact, AND telling you that it is based purely on ideology. This invalidates HER claim, even while she tries to use it to invalidate everyone else's claims about anything.
28:57 No the argument from the bell curve and Shapiro (if Shapiro ever made the quoted claim) is NOT the degree to which IQ differences are hereditary or environmental. It is the fact they exist and the fact they play an important role in life outcomes. Charles Murray is repeatedly explicate about this. The argument about IQ is intended as a partial refutation of the claim that differences in outcomes between races are due to direct racism and it makes the claim that unless you can close the IQ gap you probably wont close the outcome gap between races.
THE KING HAS RETURNED!
So what you're essentially saying, is that all I need to do is to buy a new white Toyota Supra in order for my dad to come back??
17:43 When your video recording session gets irrupted by your cat
Wait, there's more crime in some area, so in her mind sending cops there is never done to protect the non-criminal population but harm the criminal population. Sigh.
O_o we would want to harm the criminals by stopping them from crime. But that is bad?????? UwU ;;;
@@DeconvertedMan Sarcasm, my friend, sarcasm.
@@speedingatheist Oh I know. I'm just remarking on her insanity. XD
@@DeconvertedMan Damn you, English language! I thought you misunderstood me but I misunderstood you! ;)
@@speedingatheist Yes we did that. I blame King Crocoduck. Lets all agree he did it. Whatever it was. That way, we have no responciblitys. Cop pulls me over, "You know how fast you were going?" I answer "Kingcrocoduck did it." he lets me go, scott free.
The impression that I get from people like Zoe Bee (and Gould) is that they conflate different definitions of bias:
A preference for a belief for reasons not related to truth evaluation.
An unfair judgement against marginalized communities.
In short, they are against bias because it is bigoted against oppressed people, not because it confounds our ability to evaluate positions on their merits. But they want the implications of the first definition, all the same.
It's both; it's not a coincidence that bigotry has ALWAYS been found to be wrong when free and evidence-based examinations are taken.
This is irrelevant because of how bigotry is defined.
If unfair means that it a false judgement, then that means the latter definition is subsumed by the former, by definition. Bigotry is not “found” to be wrong, it is wrong by definition. The problem with the conflation, then, is that it is too narrow and primes you to look for specific kinds of biases. Which is a bias, in and of itself.
In other words, if you want to cut out false judgements, then you should go after preferences unrelated to truth evaluation, not go after a specific subset of these preferences.
It’s also worth noting that people often claim that things that are true (or possibly true) are bigoted as a substitute for an argument over a truth value. Think the Trans issue.
Basically, defining bigotry this way just opens up the question of what bigotry is.
@@stateofthenihil8352 I'm sorry to tell you this, but the bigotries you personally hold do not have any more validity than the ones you recognise as false. It's just that, for example, your hatred for trans people overrides the common sense realisation that you're falling into the exact same delusions that you'd instantly spot in others.
@@PlatinumAltaria
You’re just taking for granted your assumptions. If you want to classify something as bigoted, then you’ll have to provide a definition and demonstrate it.
And there you go. Your moral delusions are confounding your ability to evaluate the trans issue objectively. You jumped in with the assumption that your interlocutor is biased by hate not only without justification, but without clarification. That is bias.
@@stateofthenihil8352 Bigotry is, by definition, prejudice against a particular type of people. It's very easy to spot, and pretending that it's a deeply complex and hard to grasp idea is clearly only something you're doing so you can avoid the accusation. "Your honor, can any of us say for certain what murder is? How can I be guilty of a crime that no one can define?" "You were found holding the bloody knife!" "There's no doubt that I stabbed a man to death, but is that murder?" Semantics will not help you.
The only "trans issue" is the issue that some people take with other people trying to live their lives. 80th verse is the same as the first: there's always a new minority group whose right to exist is under attack by members of the majority. This will not be the first time in history where hurting people was the right answer, sorry to disappoint you. I didn't assume you were biased, you personally brought up your bias without prompting. So... you caught me in the act of paying attention. And I thought bigotry was a nebulous idea, so why are you so instantly angry that I accused you of it?
The right thing to do is be aware of how superficial traits can push one to dislike and condemn a person without giving their argument fair consideration, and thus proactively encourage the better angels of one’s nature…
But fuck me Zoe, placing “Infinite Jest” as a the focal point of a bookshelf arranged in rainbow order is a fucking varsity level You Cringe You Loose challenge.
I’ve read David Foster Wallace’s work. Here’s a footnote worth reading: It’s a supposedly fun thing you’ll never do again.
seems, at least to me, could be, or similar to, the problem that you can't trust your mistrust of yourself if you can't trust yourself. if i am not mistaken.
What background music did you use for this??? I love it!!!!!!
Just so NOBODY can accuse me of hypocrisy and logical contradictions, I AM OPENLY PROUDLY an IDEOLOGUE about ONE ideology only: REDUCTIONISM.
Thus, I have NOT stated "all ideologies are bad" and then proceeded to contradict myself by pushing my own pet ideology.
I simply say: all other ideologies ARE wrong. You SHOULD listen to mine. You SHOULD take mine seriously.
My ideology of reductionism is the ONLY ideology that requires its adherents to NOT make lazy generalizations, because, my ideology of reductionism DOES require that, when one asserts some moral code - e.g. "you should not use curse words to change somebody else's mind" - that you HAVE to follow through with the consequences of that code NO MATTER WTF else happens, no matter how uncomfortable or illegal or negative the consequences. OTHERWISE, then, DON'T make that moral code. Some drunk driver plow through your house at 120mph and kill your family? Does not matter to logic if you made that code: you have to be polite and not curse at that drunk driver. And if that drunk driver fights in court to be free on what you call a legal technicality - i.e. what is called THE LAW - again - does not matter.
Now, a person who HAS NOT MADE the (stupid) generalization that "you should not use curse words to change somebody else's mind"
does NOT contradict anything by screaming and cursing at the drunk driver who drove through their home and killed their family.
Yes like they say we all have our biases. Gives new meaning to, I'll stand my ground and I won't back down.
Can we arrive at any beliefs in which our biases don't play a nonnegligible role?
@@KingCrocoduck I don't know after all humans are quite tribalistic with an in-group out-group mentality.
Okay, so let's take the belief that the Holocaust happened. Is that an objective fact, or is it ultimately just a matter of opinion?
@@KingCrocoduck it's an historical fact. From everything I've been able to research and see. It happened much like the transatlantic slave trade happened.
@@grapeshot Okay, and these historical facts- are they just a reflection of the biases held by whoever promotes them, or are they ideologically neutral? Because if you believe the latter, then you're siding with me over Zoe
She actually made a serious case for propaganda.
Your response was incredibly well thought out and delivered, all while expressing the level of charitability I don't think I'm capable of any longer. I lost patience for this gaslighting.
Still, someone has to do it so thanks for your hard work in the gutters!
I rather liked this video, but I think the heritability discussion is a red herring for the political discussion so your response sort of confused me. Even you say you withhold judgement on the hereditarn thesis vs the environmentarian thesis, this seems to presuppose either of these theses are coherent. I'm definitely not convinced of either of these theses but that's because I'm not convinced either is coherent not merely that the data betwixt the two is not dispositive. My reason for thinking this is because the sole purpose of heritability studies has to do with variance within populations rather than between, however both theses seem to think that one can use heritability studies to study differences between populations, which is simply contradictory.
Now, I'm basically an ignoramus about this topic, so if I've fundamentally misunderstood heritability studies or how hereditarians and environmentarians use these studies, I'd be happy to understand why I'm wrong.
Lastly, it's pleasant to propose that Gould is a charlatan. I haven't read the mismeasure of man and I also haven't looked into the claims you made regarding his deliberate mischaracterization if the data, so I obviously won't take your word for it until I do. However your motivations sell honest, so that leads me to think the view is plausible.
Good video.
Thanks nihilist, I agree with your remarks about within vs between group heritability.
Ideology, why I use the phrase mental model of reality, I prefer my mental model of reality aligns as much as possible with physical reality
Hi KC, can I ask you what music you use in your videos?
See description
@@KingCrocoduck I can't find it.
Keep on gunning after the lysenkoists KC. You are appreciated.
She argues that the police software used to calcuulate best routes to patrol does only use amount of crimes as an indicator. She does not even entertain the idea that the software weighs in the severity of the crimes to do the calculation? she does not show any facts, numbers or proof of this yet bases her statement about how this data is "skewed" based on this.
Its because in her profession theres isnt an emphasis on statistical modeling beyond the credit requirments to become an instructor. What she never mentioned in that video she posted was broken window policing which is the application of being more available to areas with higher crime rates, which would necessarily grant a positive bias toward those ares amd a higher poloce presence. What is seldomly aslo included is those areas are also staged for ambulances because they recieve mkre calls in higher crime areas rhan any other except retirwmwnt communities and high traffic interchanges. The reason is that what is widely known to statisticians across various fields, is that there is a high correlation between poverty, and crime, and medical emergencies, and general stressful living conditions. Each field sees it a different way, but at rhe same time everyone knows there is a link between problems, and economic hardship.
Zoe not in any way being educated to properly single out policing, made the claim anyway hiding behind a single interpretation of statistics shes not equipped to honestly approach.
BRO!!!....i see u have debate on MDD comin up!....badass!...ive been waiting to hear debates from you since ur dismantling of kent hovind
It is hilarious! Your Arguments and your Examples even make a stronger case for the initial claim! Your bias directs how somebody "uses" facts! Case in point! :D
Examples and explanations might add some weight to your otherwise weightless claims.
@@KingCrocoduck In your first chapter you state the "Points of Agreement" ( "Facts don't care about your feelings", Everyone has biases and Ethos tend to sway people more than logos ).
And in your video you make a very strong case that Zoe Bee, Stephen Jay Gould, Cathy O'Neil cherry-picked their "facts" and appealed to the feelings of their audience.
However, the same problems arise in your own video.
Zoe Bee claims that Ben Shapiro only reads papers which support his narrative and that he made some comment about IQ.
You stated that it is "highly unlikely" that Ben Shapiro made such a comment. How did you reach that conclusion?
Did you reach out to Zoe or to Ben? Or did you just assume that it is "highly unlikely"? Did you watch hours upon hours
of Ben Shapiro videos?
Then there was the argument about interpreting facts or put it in another way "objective truth vs. subjective truth".
Instead of making a calm and rational argument, you made a reference to "World war II". Your purpose was to operate on the edge.
You tried to show how dangerous such a reasoning could be. But all you achieved was to kill of any debate what so ever.
Even nowadays, most people can't talk about "World war II" in a calm and collected manner.
In using the "World war II" reference you chose the "better" story over pure and simple facts.
You also talked in length about crime statistics. And there are many problems with that kind of "facts".
And you also tried to mitigate some of that. The "others" category is just a symptom. How many crimes are in the false category?
Are the wrongly convicted cleaned out of the statistics after some time ( highly unlikely, right? :-p )?
So there is no quality control for that data and nobody can make even an estimate of how big the error rate really is.
You can use this kind of data for rough estimates. But when you start to argue over some percentage, you go wrong.
Your argument might just be some noise in the data.
Last but not least, the "BJS" data has ideology baked into it. And it is transparent to you and everybody.
How many policy changes happend since 1980? How many changes in collecting the data were made during that peroid?
Looks kind of strange if you compare the options in the race category, doesn't it ("All races", "White", "Black", "American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN)", "Asian/Pacific Islander (API)")?
My guess is, that the cateogies "American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN)", "Asian/Pacific Islander (API)" where added at a later and the categories "White" and "Black" where there from the beginning.
Notice that "White" and "Black" are one word categories in comparison to the others.
After the new categories were added, did they correct the data?
And how exactly is it determined which people belong to which "label"?
So i would suggest that you argued upon ideology driven facts without even noticing.
Beeing objective, stick to facts, not omitting facts, interpreting in an objective manner is really, really hard!
@@manfredknapp Do you agree with Zoe Bee interpretation regarding collection of crime statistics? King's research may have its limitations but even during the recent years there is definitely a difference between crimes according to race.
The disingenuous part was on Zoe Bee and the other side when they tried to claim that a particular group of people are able to hide their crimes because of their race.
King crocoduck used the Holocaust example because it is the favourite rhetoric of far left which they use to show how bad other side is and how much they care for Jews so he was attacking the usage of Holocaust rhetoric by asking a simple question that do they think that Holocaust happened or not.
Unlike Zoe Bee and others he has kept the crime statistics open for anyone to check and create their own inference. Lastly from which sources would you say people should read about crime statistics since majority of the sources will give the conclusion that is not liked by people of a particular ideology.
I remember once talking about music. I forget how the conversation went but someone tried to make the case that some particular music was better. I said that music is subjective and that you should just like what you like. And he said that to me. "Who cares about the facts when you have your feelings?" I said "Uh yeah. It's music. It is all about your feelings." People are so funny. In any other context it is actually a true statement but I think I know what you mean. Bumper sticker aphorisms don't promote conversation and an exploration of the topic in good faith.
It is true that cognitive biases affects human perception but it affects some more than others and many people don't care about the data at all and instead base their conclusions on their spiritual understanding and their psychological tendencies. And science ideally filters out human bias. It could be that the science isn't done very well and that bias has managed to work it's way into the science. But that's why reproduction is important. Good science that's done well should filter out the human element completely. There is a right answer and a wrong answer and the way we can tell is through evidence and critical examination and science.
If you want to change someone's mind, it can be very difficult but I think I have a somewhat educated opinion about this. First establish a report. Make sure they know this is going to be a non combative process. "So how are you today?" Small talk. Introduce yourself if that's applicable and ask them about themselves. Don't tell people they're wrong. Instead ask Socratic probing questions in order to encourage deeper thought about a subject. You need to arrive at a reason for the belief. Outsider tests can help lead them toward a better reason. "I believe because of my holy book." "If a Sikh said he believed because of his holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, would that be compelling to you?" Then you can try to force it through a more logical framework. For instance, falsifiability. "So if that wasn't true, you'd doubt?" "No, I'd still believe." "Then that's not why you believe. Can you give me a reason for your belief that if not true, would cause you to doubt?" You're forcing them to think in terms of falsifiability, perhaps for the first time. When you finally arrive at a falsifiable reason, don't tell them it's wrong. Instead say something more like "Now I'm not saying I know the answer to that but if I could produce an expert on the subject and he/she could explain it to you in such a way that you could know the evidence doesn't support it, would that cause you to doubt?" But then it has to be good. Maybe even try to get that expert. If not, make sure it's well researched. This part needs to be done at another time. Get his/her email, cite your sources and get all your ducks in a row. And of course I can't promise this will work. There are always going to be people who just won't change. But that's how you go about circumventing their defense mechanisms and forcing them to think in a deeper and more logical way. If you want to learn more about this, go to a YT channel called Anthony Magnabosco.
Objectivity can never be obtained, but it can be approached. The closer we approach it, the more effective, successfully predictive, and better integrated, our incrementally improving models of the universe become.
@@LAZARUSL0NG Sure. I think I know what you mean there and I agree. But I don't know if objectivity is the best word for it. Unbiased maybe? No one can be truly 100% unbiased but you can try to be and be aware of that fault in human perception and that's pretty close to the definition of being objective. I suppose it's a very subtle distinction so I guess it doesn't really even matter. I just like to follow all the threads and see where it goes.
TL;DR
@@unduloid Yeah. It was long. I tend to do that. I don't blame you for reading all that.