How much confidence do you have in the correctness of a given allegation?

[Boojatta]

[edhopper]

1. Real world examples,

please.

[Occam Bandage]

2. What's the purpose of this thread?

[Silent3]

3. Depends on how loudly the accusation is made.

If it's made loudly enough, and repeated often enough, it has to be true.

[Boojatta]

4. The word "allegation" occurs in the Original Post.

Whence didst thou chance upon the word "accusation"?

[Random_Australian]

5. Hi. I'm Booj. Not only do I deliberately obscure whatever posts I make, but I decry it when

people use a synonym that I didn't have in mind when thinking about whatever issue I later decided to obscure and post about.

Booooooooooooj! Do us a favour and actually give us something to argue about. Y'know, meaningful things, not games of "guess the meaning from the couple of words without context".

[Boojatta]

6. "decry it when people use a synonym"

In ordinary English, "accusation" seems to mean something like "allegation of wrongdoing."

I cannot accept credit for adding the idea of wrongdoing.

The question is simple and general. I see no reason to put forward specific examples containing irrelevant details. If I have three almonds in box A and I have four almonds in box B, then I have a total of seven almonds among the two boxes A and B. However, a similar conclusion would be warranted even in a different context, such as a context involving boxes that contain cashews.

[Random_Australian]

14. Line by line:

"In ordinary English, "accusation" seems to mean something like "allegation of wrongdoing." "

Correct!

"I cannot accept credit for adding the idea of wrongdoing."

You also didn't give enough information for anyone to test whether or not you were positing a meaningful idea, but more importantly you didn't relate anything you said in your post to anything ever.

No, you don't need to go to specific examples or real examples to do that.

You might ask something as trivial as "what is six plus seven?", which has the normal answer "thirteen", but the more general answer "thirteen in our field minus the mod of the ring we are looking at, if it is equal to or larger than thirteen"

The second answer takes a lot of work to think about. Here, I have abused mathematical terminology a bit to save time, in fact.

When you are asking something that is not as constricted as mathematics, ie. something that can be answered on very many levels, you need to specify each one, as the brainpower needed to search and answer them all is a bit much.

So, you need to give 'context' - what led you to a problem would be great. If you want something more general, just ask people to give the principles they used to come to their decision.

[Boojatta]

13. Okay, consider an accusation.

Suppose that I walk into a police station and announce: "My aunt Mabel is a cold-blooded killer."

A police officer listens to me and then politely says, "Thank you very much for that information. Please enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye now."

I ask, "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

The police officer says, "Frankly, nothing. Imagine reversing our roles. I walk in here and make an accusation. How much confidence would you have in the correctness of my accusation?"

I say, "Well, of course that depends. What do you have in mind?"

The police officer says, "Okay, let's begin with an ideal case. Suppose that I provide strong evidence to support the accusation. What then?"

I say, "Now hold it right there. Do me a favor and actually give me something to work with. You know, something meaningful rather than a couple of words designed to begin a guessing game. I shudder when I try to imagine the kind of education and training that you probably received. You begin with some unspecified accusation and then suddenly you're talking about evidence as though it had any relevance to the discussion."

The police officer says, "Sorry. Be a good sport and give me another try. Suppose that I make the following accusation. Your aunt Mabel is a cold-blooded killer. How much confidence would you have in the correctness of my accusation?"

I exclaim, "I'm pleasantly surprised! Why did I doubt you? You're absolutely right. That Mabel! She's a real killer. Officer, I really owe you an apology. I have a great deal of confidence in what you say. Now, what are you going to do about Mabel?"

[Random_Australian]

15. Well, that may not be that elucidating, but if you're trying the least I can do is

reciprocate effort.


Well, the main problem I have with the way it is set out is terming it "confidence", which is to me an emotional association. However, since "do you ever conclude that something is correct without strong evidence for it" is a little clunky, I'll have to assume that is what you meant.

My answer: Yes, sometimes I believe things for which there is not strong evidence. However, each instance is more a matter of pragmatism - that is, when I have insufficient time and energy to search for a more exact solution.

For instance, had I been the police officer in your story, I would have gone checking. Not because I believed the assertion was true, but I know that (social obligations aside) there is no better way of finding murderers than investigating leads. Furthermore, the probability that someone is involved in a crime is, as far as I am aware, higher if that person is accused of being a murderer. Therefore the most efficient use of resources is to investigate.

That may sound like off-the-point waffle, but the important part is this: at no point in the justification did I ever use belief in them being the killer or absence thereof.

[rug]

7. I believe in the presumption of impossibilty.

[Boojatta]

8. Impossibility arises here, but only in connection with getting strong supporting evidence.

The focus of the question is on your confidence. It's confidence that a particular allegation is true or confidence that a particular allegation is false. All of the disputation has its source in different opinions of the correct way to make that simple binary choice.

[knitter4democracy]

9. None of the above.

nt

[Boojatta]

10. Would you have preferred an additional option "Emphatically none of the above"?

[knitter4democracy]

11. Nothing to be emphatic about.

The premise leaves out many possibilities. When you use such horribly generalized terms and refuse to give examples or specify anything, the poll becomes meaningless. If it's meaningless, why get emphatic about any of the options?

[Boojatta]

12. I observe emphasis in posting exactly what could be simply voted for.

The premise leaves out

After those words, I would expect to read something like "essential information, such as ..." followed by a description in general terms of some kinds of omitted information that is required.

However, you actually finished that sentence with these words:

many possibilities.

Amusingly, you also complained that I

refuse to give examples

Actually, I have already given two examples in this thread. Specifically, almonds and cashews are examples of nuts.

[knitter4democracy]

16. Emphatic means more than just emphasis.

Yes, they share a root, but when you write using the adverbial ("emphatically") you change the meaning to the more usual usage of "with great emotion, with more force". There was nothing to get emotional or forceful about.

When you use such general nouns ("allegation"), it is difficult to understand the concept you're going after. You could mean something as simple as any and all factual statements or you could be aiming for something more like any and all theories. "Allegations" is used both for fact-based theories, such as in court, and for more esoteric theories, as in physics. I can agree that if a fact-based theory is backed up by facts I would agree with it, but if you're aiming for the esoteric theories that cannot be proven or disproven at this point in time, then I have to use other bases for my opinion.

The problem is that you use generalized wording and then wonder why no one understands you. Most people here seem to be leery of making any sort of general statement without knowing more about the underlying assumptions and definitions.

[Silent3]

17. "Specifically, almonds and cashews are examples of nuts."

Yes, indeed the are. At least you know your nuts.

[Boojatta]

18. Kick

[EvolveOrConvolve]

19. I have strong confidence in and evidence of the fact that

you are a blowhard.

Jaysus your posts are some of the strangest wastes of time I've ever seen on a message board. At first glance they appear to have substance, but a closer inspection shows them to be nothing more than fluff.

[Boojatta]

20. Did you expect that your procedures for classifying a given post

as either fluff or non-fluff would indicate that the number of fluff posts on DU is less than the number of posts that I have posted? Since January 2001, there have been 41,645,729 posts on DU.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

21. I rest my case.