06-12-2024, 04:06 PM
(06-12-2024, 03:33 PM)Dill Wrote: Responding to three issues regarding your assessment of my sources and their data should be enough here. (As I promised in #43)
1. I gave you TWO different sources, each drawing on a DIFFERENT data collection project, which separately reached similar conclusions about ratio of non-volent to violent protests. The CNN article was using the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/
The Christian Science Monitor article was based upon a different data collection group--the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) at Harvard's Ash Center. https://ash.harvard.edu/programs/crowd-counting-consortium/
Newspaper reports are not research articles. While it is their job to report data and cite sources, it is not necessarily their job to explain their sources' methods of collection. People with questions about the source can then go directly to the source and evaluate, as I demonstrate in #3 below.
Wait, so you didn't respond to my points about one source because I didn't respond to both of your sources? That seems like a poor argument. As to your assertion that it's not the newspaper's job to address sources; first, I'd say that's a horrible standard for any journalist to practice, and 2. flies directly in the face of your literal next point.
Quote:2. I do indeed "notice." And they don't simply "attempt."
Sen. Johnson's hyperbolic anti-BLM claims align with yours and are debunked by the same ACLED data sourced in my CNN link.
E.g., Johnson jumped to the conclusion that the violent riots were the fault of BLM or antifa protesters. But that’s not the case either. ACLED’s data does not say that at all. In fact, the violence may have been more the result of police behavior than the actions of demonstrators. Thus it is misleading to frame all of these events as “BLM riots,” Jones said. etc. etc.
So that's basically what I've been doing with your BLM whattabout--correcting disinformation. Why would you mistake an article which further develops my position and affirms my sources as one which refutes them?
So, they can investigate this guy's claims but not ask any questions on either of your sources because, "it's not necessarily their job?" What an amazing double standard you've set for yourself.
Quote:3. Your questions can be rather easily answered. Two examples:
The Crowd Counting Consortium collects and complies public data about demonstrations and displays them on spreadsheets so anyone can follow up their data. Here is the spreadsheet for June 2020. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-HM-bFsnTd9omYOrB8JOMeQ0XzPvCaVaADKqXQ_RpXg/edit#gid=0.
Notice the number for Alton, NH, is very precise--"7." While that for Madison, IL, is less so--"over 150." After compiling such numbers from every community reporting a protest, they then add them together. That's how the result becomes "oddly specific."
Adding crowd estimations together and reporting them as 100% empirical fact and then amalgamating all said numbers seems to me to be poor practice. A more scientifically robust, and infinitely more honest, practice would be to put an estimate on that number and round it off. So, yes, it is an oddly specific number and immediately raises concerns about the source's honesty.
Quote:Then regarding your question "why injured" and not "assaulted." A "thinking person" should quickly see that the CCC is relying on public data, whose criteria of selection are set by a number of different sources, such as local newspapers relying on local police and hospitals and reporters. Your own description of the vagaries of what counts as assault already suggest why assessing scale of violence might make "injuries" the more reliable guide. Yet you rush to speculate whether those at CCC collecting data already categorized as "injury" themselves DECIDED to use numbers of injured rather than assaulted--i.e., data which no one has compiled--to "manipulate data."
A "thinking person?" Yet you hold yourself up as this paragon of polite debate and intellectual rigor. Either your standards are slipping quite a bit or you were never what you claimed to be. But I'll move on from your insult and address your actual response. There are no vagaries as to what legally constitutes an assault. It is codified into law and laws have to be specific, especially criminal law. There are vagaries as to what constitutes an "injury", especially as your source provides no explanation of their criteria. In addition to what they consider an injury, how were these injuries reported and by who? Also, why can they compile data on injuries but not assaults? You're actually raising more concerns about your sources credibility, not lessening them
Quote:Looks as if you read my sources looking for anything you could regard as suspicious, and checked no fuirther. I.e., looks like you were starting from conclusions and stopping with their first confirmation.
No, I gave it a "thinking persons" perusal and immediately identified ways they could have fudged numbers and flaws in their process. Working in a deep blue jurisdiction I am intimately familiar with the way wording is used to manipulate and hide unpalatable data. Your source had several immediate red flags in that regard. I started with no conclusion, unlike yourself in this sentence, I examined your source and what I spoke on stood out to me.
Quote:Had you made clear from the beginning that you were going to disregard external evidence and data that conflict with your impressions you'd have saved us both a lot of trouble.
How is directly addressing the claims of your source and raising legitimate questions disregarding anything? It would be more accurately described as paying it intense attention.
Your entire post only addressed a single point I raised, and I'm afraid it did so rather poorly. In fact, as I already stated, your poor attempt actually raised more concerns while alleviating or addressing any. I understand your desire to dismiss this out of hand, despite it being rather in conflict with your self assertion of being a logical and fact based debater of topics. But you're going to have to do a little bit better if you're hoping to convince anyone but yourself that you posted anything of substance here, or that I am making a disingenuous argument.
