Author Topic: Google facing multiple lawsuits  (Read 49507 times)

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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #165 on: October 16, 2017, 08:04:10 pm »
Dynamic Paragon?  Ultimate Dragon?

Ironbite-Anal Reverse?

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #166 on: October 17, 2017, 02:10:55 am »

Then take a break from building strawmen. Nobody's forcing you to do it.

I'm building strawmen? Then surely you can show me where you answered Murdin's long list of points he raised in his post!

C'mon Lana, I'm the only one left in the thread asking you to answer the science points from the poster in the thread who knows his science at a level above "interested amatuer" and here you are wanting to trade insults.

Or...would you prefer to go back to shouting about Quinn and Antifa? Maybe speculating about your identity does it for you?

Because I saw a very detailed post challenging your reading of the science from someone who obviously knows their shit and here's you wanting to discuss anything but.

So, about Murdin's post:

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Askold already pointed out how the article resorts to lowbrow nitpicking to make its lame points. That's certainly true, but it won't be the focus of my criticism. There's worse, so much worse than that to be found in this Gish gallop, and this time our buddy will NOT be able to hide behind weak as shit reservations such as "there are a few things I'd have liked for it to cover in more depth, but overall, I think I agree with it". I wasn't lying when I said it was a very interesting read. There's a lot to learn here about the so-called "rationalist" mindset, and how it can become so utterly detached from the scientific enterprise.

And what better way to introduce this assassination of science, than with this audacious dismissal of the idea that correlations made by people the author agree with do not imply causation?

Quote
This is a case of what Garett Jones calls the Everest regression. He says that controlling for height, the atmospheric pressure there is not low. Or as I say, controlling for latitude, the Sahara desert has good weather.

The error here is that HDI and gender equality are substantially linked. Controlling for HDI or GDP is like controlling for gender equality. As a general case, all good things are correlated: technology, moral progress, GDP, country IQ, industrialisation tend to be coupled. We don’t need power to explain those differences.

Okay, let's follow his reasoning through. After controlling for height, the atmospheric pressure at the summit of the Everest is normal. This is obviously because altitude is the only factor (it actually isn't but w/e) that affects pressure at this position on the surface of Earth ; there's no need for an alternate explanation. Therefore, if after controlling for HDI the gender differences are normal for any set of gender-equality factors, it means... OH SH-

This would also be a questionable cause fallacy, of course. The entire point of Dr. Sadedin was to give an alternative interpretation of the same results (high HDI causes men to act more stereotypically masculine) that makes at least as much sense as the one this study was clearly designed around (gender equality causes people to act more stereotypically gendered), just to show that you can't easily conclude any causation from a mess of correlations that are also correlated with each other. The same mess of correlation that the blog's author actually mention while completely ignoring its actual implications. Science is fucking hard, guys.

The concept behind the "Everest regression" itself is a massive fallacy. Its implication that controlling for known external factors is fallacious is... beyond insane. You can't even argue that it denounces somehow "abusive" or "illegitimate" forms of control, either, because its textbook case IS logically sound and scientifically meaningful. We can evaluate the correlation between pressure and height (and maybe also temperature...) from other measurements. If the pressure at Mt Everest is NOT normal controlling for height, then there has to be an additional factor to explain this discrepancy.

Jones is an associate professor in economics at the Koch-funded George Mason University. From what I can guess, he invented his fallacy in order to defend IQ as some essential measurement of man, against trained psychologists who mostly see it as a tool which nicely correlates with many factors of social success. I'll let you make your own opinion of the man, his works, and whether his layman's stances on natural sciences are worth your consideration. Besides Googling his name, his Twitter is a good source of information ; Here's a reblog demonstrating his vision on what makes good science.

Incidentally, cursory knowledge of world geography would tell you the Sahara's weather is, in fact, particularly inhospitable even when accounting for latitude. Unless you define "good weather" as "sunny", in which case the Sahara has excellent weather regardless of latitude.

Quote
The paper says that initially, mental rotation differences were moderaly large, d=.59, for men primed male and women rimed female. (p=0.01).  For men and women both primed male, the effect was d=0.01. But what is the p-value or that? Well, p=0.94. Yes, 19 times larger than the standard 0.05 cutoff commonly accepted for statistical significance. For the whole set they report statistical significant results, but no effect size. We can also study statistical significance in the extreme case: female primed men and male primed women. If we plug in their data in a Welch’s t-test calculator, we get a p-value of 0.61. Again, not statistically significant.

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Like David Silverman in his interview by Bill O'Reilly, I... genuinely can't explain what I have in front of me. This is faux-scientific fetishism of the dumbest fucking kind, the end result of years of smug rationalist cargo cult enabled by the likes of Scott Alexander. That man's understanding of p-values is apparently limited to "low good, high bad".

The difference in test results between men and women both primed male is tiny. This results in a very high p-value. A valid interpretation of this p-value is that this kind of result would be very likely to be found if there was no difference between the two studied groups with regard to the studied characteristic. Or, to use a handy "Everest regression": when controlling for male priming, there's no observed difference in tests results between men and women. This tends to corroborate Dr. Sadedin's hypothesis that gender priming, not biological sex, is to blame for the widely measured disparity between men and women on spatial reasoning skills.

Meanwhile, I'm calculating a p-value around 0.014 for women primed female vs women primed male. I can't get the exact value without the group sizes, but my other calculations fit quite well with the blog author's numbers. In any case, that's actually quite significant. Obviously, this is also good for Dr. Sadedin's claim that gendered priming has an influence on test results.

I'm aware this study cannot be the be-all end-all on the subject. In fact, I'm almost certain more data will come out or already exist, that directly contradicts these results. It doesn't matter. Even if the scores behind this study were found to be completely forged, it does not excuse or justify the blog author's hatchet job in any way whatsoever.

Quote
There is a significant overlap, yes. But if we look at the tails, as I’ve been stressing over and over, one can still see massive differences.

The defilement of science is less eye-gouging than in the two previous exhibits, but there's a lot of different wrongs in this single point.
  • The linked article was written by an economist. Incidentally, the same economist with no background in natural sciences that pulled the Everest regression out of his ass.
  • It is, in fact, a libertarian political tract poorly disguised as a scientific study. Which is admittedly par for the course for an economist.
  • The blog author was trying to address the differences in software engineering skill between men and women. The relevant part of the article is about IQ instead.
  • Said part is based on a survey from Scotland, made in... 1932. That's right, 85 year old data from a fairly small and culturally homogeneous population.
  • On 11 year old kids.
  • The "massive differences" touted by the blog author... simply aren't that massive. Even at the very tail end of the chart, we have 277 boys for 203 girls, which is a bit over four boys for every three girls.
  • Inflated claims and abusive use of IQ as a measure for skill notwithstanding, this number does not even come close to explaining the truly massive gender disparities in software engineering.
From a more personal perspective, as a software engineer myself, I'm highly skeptical of the underlying claim that doing my job competently actually requires such extraordinary mental prowess.

As for the rest of the article past this point... it becomes pretty boring, to be quite honest. The author keeps talking past Dr. Sadedin's points, often rephrasing what she just said in a marginally more favorable way and then calling it a win. For a while, he just quotes relevant studies from actual scientists, wisely abstaining himself from adding his own commentary or conclusions. Then both the original response and the blog post drift into politics and I can finally be excused for not giving a shit. There isn't much to say about the author's self-congratulating conclusion, either.


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Obviously not a direct question this time, buddy, but... why do you hate science so much? Why do you keep using it as a blunt weapon against your rhetorical opponents, without showing any respect to its most fundamental principles? Why do you spew self-righteous bullshit like "I guess science is sexist now" or "rather than approaching this ideologically, let's look at it scientifically", only to effectively disown it by including such enormities in your narrative?

I mean... is it really worth it? What are you even trying to achieve here, and I actually do mean, here? You've already claimed Religion and Philosophy, Politics and Government, Society and History, was that not enough for you? Did you really have to bring your usual drivel to Science&Tech, incidentally the only place where I would give a fuck about it in in the first place, and then gloat openly over Queen taking the bait? And then take a blatant bait yourself, deliberately or not? Did you think you were the only one "clever" enough for that kind of dirty trick, or did you just decide to go along with the ride?

Because, unless making people exhaust themselves was somehow actually part of your goal, I'm pretty sure you haven't achieved anything here.

I'd love to hear your opinion on all this, please do elucidate us!

Offline The_Queen

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #167 on: October 22, 2017, 09:19:57 pm »
Yo, straight up. Just tell me and it stays between us. I don't bring it up again. Are you Ultimate Paragon?

And as a footnote, I am many things: a dirty tranny, a miscreant, a heretic... But, I am not a liar. If you say yes I don't tell peeps, and any accusation of paragon-ness is done. If you say no, I may not trust you, but it stays between us. I just believe that you are ultimate paragon, and the third incarnation of Dynamic dragon, and I just want to know what your up to; what is your endgame?

* The_Queen looks at date and time
* The_Queen looks through phone

Well, it's official: I had too much to drink that night.

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« Last Edit: October 22, 2017, 09:21:31 pm by The_Queen »
Does anyone take Donald Trump seriously, anymore?

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #168 on: October 29, 2017, 05:04:57 pm »
Lana, why don't you just accept that nobody here is liable to be "converted" to believing the google dudebro did nothing wrong.

Maybe not, but then again, you can't reason somebody out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. To me, it seems like a lot of you decided Damore was sexist and then found reasons to support the conclusion you already made. I find this quote from Askold particularly telling:

If you read between the lines you see that his messages are incomprehensible non-sequitors unless you look at them with the assumption that the subtext is "KKK is cool." Same as his "scientific manifesto" that only makes sense if his point is to claim that women are bad at tech jobs and it's their own fault.

I said "long", not "perfect".

It's a very convenient thing to be forgetting though.  Reminds me of another person who was here before who always made such mistakes.  Like when he made a "typo" that his brother was trans that he "forgot" to correct.  Gee what was his name again?

Okay, seriously. What did this guy do to you? Did he steal your money? Burn down your house? Kill your blood brother? Why are you so fixated on him?
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #169 on: October 29, 2017, 05:41:21 pm »
Cause you keep coming back even after it's clear you wore out your welcome.

Ironbite-you know, it's how we chew through toys.

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #170 on: October 29, 2017, 05:53:02 pm »
Cause you keep coming back even after it's clear you wore out your welcome.

Ironbite-you know, it's how we chew through toys.

I'm pretty sure making this kind of accusation based on no evidence violates the "don't be a dick" rule.

And why are you letting this guy get under your skin so badly? How long has he been living rent-free in your head? I get that this guy was annoying. But most of us are able to move on from an annoyance and not let it get to us after it's gone. What's more pathetic: being a lolcow, or having a chip on your shoulder about a lolcow?

I'd ask how I can prove I'm not him, but I'm increasingly sure that nothing would ever put this idiocy to rest. You want to believe that I'm this guy.
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Offline Skybison

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #171 on: October 30, 2017, 02:39:15 am »
Okay, seriously. What did this guy do to you?

You know full well what you did.

I admit I do fund it hilarious how your calling us fixated on your what fifth sock puppet account?

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #172 on: October 30, 2017, 03:03:46 pm »
Okay, seriously. What did this guy do to you?

You know full well what you did.

I admit I do fund it hilarious how your calling us fixated on your what fifth sock puppet account?

"I'm going to keep making this accusation I can't prove, because repeating something enough makes it the truth."

Direct question, why do you think I'm this idiot?
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #173 on: October 30, 2017, 03:39:52 pm »
Because you post in his style, you know how to tweek us and, oh yeah, you carry water for Nazis.

Ironbite-that about sums it up.

Offline Skybison

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #174 on: October 31, 2017, 12:55:28 am »
Direct question, why do you think I'm this idiot?

Because you asked that question.

No really that might have just killed any remaining doubts I had.  Something Paragon did on multiple occasions was ask "Why do you think I'm sexist?" after he was called sexist.  Then it would be explained to him why what he had said was sexist (or transphobic or bigoted etc).  Then after that had been explained, if he was called sexist again, he would repeat all innocent like "Why do you think I'm sexist?" as if it had not already been explained.

You have asked multiple times why I think you are Paragon.  And I have answered multiple times.  And yet you still ask "Why do you think I'm this idiot?" as if we haven`t already said why.

You act the same way, use the same words and phrases about the same issues.  We know it's you.

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #175 on: October 31, 2017, 10:47:15 am »
Direct question, why do you think I'm this idiot?

Because you asked that question.

No really that might have just killed any remaining doubts I had.  Something Paragon did on multiple occasions was ask "Why do you think I'm sexist?" after he was called sexist.  Then it would be explained to him why what he had said was sexist (or transphobic or bigoted etc).  Then after that had been explained, if he was called sexist again, he would repeat all innocent like "Why do you think I'm sexist?" as if it had not already been explained.

You have asked multiple times why I think you are Paragon.  And I have answered multiple times.  And yet you still ask "Why do you think I'm this idiot?" as if we haven`t already said why.

You act the same way, use the same words and phrases about the same issues.  We know it's you.

The reason I keep asking is because I want to see if you have anything of substance. Since you haven't given me anything yet, I have to assume that you only have your biases to go on. Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you're the problem? Here's my theory: you still have a score to settle with your little white whale, so you convince yourself that any poster even vaguely similar is actually him with a new face.

So for the umpteenth time: put up or shut up. Because I think making accusations of dishonesty without a single shred of even circumstantial evidence constitutes being a dick. I wouldn't harp on about that so much, except there's a rule specifically against it:

Don't be a dick: Guidelines to make sure we don't piss each other off too much. You might be given a pass for breaking these, depending on context. Note: The list is not exhaustive, try to be guided by the general spirit rather than specific rules alone.

I'd prefer to shut you up by proving you wrong, but since it's increasingly clear you think I'm a ban-dodger because you want to, I know you'll never accept that you're wrong. So it looks like the only way to stop you from making these unsubstantiated accusations is to point out that you're breaking the rules.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #176 on: October 31, 2017, 03:17:02 pm »
Right out of the Dynamic Paragon playbook.

Ironbite-good jorb.,

Offline davedan

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #177 on: October 31, 2017, 04:38:52 pm »
You know while I think a certain posting style is   evidence I  mean that is how they do textual analysis on ancient texts like the  bible it would be pretty hard for Lana to prove she's not paragon. I'm not sure how you would do it       .

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #178 on: October 31, 2017, 04:54:08 pm »
Hi Lana, nice to see you back and here you are back doing exactly what I predicted. Focussing entirely on speculations about your identity and politics in this alleged science and technology thread.

Direct question: Why didn't you respond to any of the points in Murdin's post that I quoted above?

I put it to you that you know that Damore has no scientific credibility so you prefer to bang on about politics and drama! It's safer.

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #179 on: November 03, 2017, 08:12:27 pm »
Hi Lana, nice to see you back and here you are back doing exactly what I predicted. Focussing entirely on speculations about your identity and politics in this alleged science and technology thread.

Direct question: Why didn't you respond to any of the points in Murdin's post that I quoted above?

I put it to you that you know that Damore has no scientific credibility so you prefer to bang on about politics and drama! It's safer.

Two reasons:

1. Murdin isn't annoying me or making accusations he can't prove.

2. I want to deal with the "politics and drama" so that it doesn't derail a more productive conversation.

Speaking of annoyances, let me deal with some of Cloud's bullshit:

A blatantly right wing source that has articles that call "leftists" hypocrites regarding Islam,

Maybe you're not, but some leftists are.

rails against "SJWs,"

You mean the people who dox over Halloween decorations? That's a point in their favor, IMO.

calls the gender pay gap a first world problem and argues against it with typical reductionism, [/quote]

And accurately points out that it's not always a result of sexism:

Quote
As of December 2016, only 30 per cent of the funded chair positions were held by women. However, between 2000 and 2015, 31 per cent of applicants for the jobs were from women. Based on these numbers it would be impossible to argue that sexist hiring practices are the cause of the gender imbalance in research chairs. Fewer women hold research chair positions because fewer women apply; it’s that simple.

full on denies the existence of white priveledge

Considering the theory is heavily based on a paper that admits to not being a scholarly analysis, I'd say skepticism is warranted.

and takes the term "regressive left" seriously.

When Muslim reformers get labelled "anti-Muslim extremists", maybe they have good reasons for it.

Hell, three of the four writers of the article you linked to are white men.

And that matters because...?

A quick look at Geoffrey Miller's Twitter account shows him regularly making typical alt-right statements about free speech,

Maybe this is just my left-libertarian leanings talking, but I don't see how being against corporate censorship makes somebody "alt-right".

"western civilization"


Since when does praising the West make somebody "alt-right"?

and "SJWs.

It's not just the alt-right that dislikes SJWs. That's a common claim made by SJWs with an "us vs. them" mentality.

He also agreed with comparing Damore's firing with being a victim of a terror attack

I actually agree with you on this one. Getting fired isn't the same thing as getting murdered.

and has shown pride in being featured on Breitbart. (So. Many. Links.)

Where's the pride?

David Schmitt didn't see a red flag from Damore being interviewed by Stephen Molyneux.

...Really reaching with this one.

He also accuses "the political left" of being anti-science in regards to evolution
and regularly excuses regressive views on women as the result of evolution.

Suggesting that differences between men and women might be at least partly biological is hardly "regressive".

He also retweeted this fucking meme.

Now you're just grasping at straws.

Lee Jussim regularly writes blog posts repeating the claim that free speech is under attack on college campuses.

That would be a strike against him if it wasn't true.

He also regularly posts right wing blogs about gender gaps, feminism and liberal bias.

He didn't even write one of those posts. And the two he did write are nowhere near as bad as you're implying they are.

He also used this image in multiple articles.

Kinda proving him right, aren't you?

Debra Soh thinks gender neutral parenting is bad.

Maybe we're reading the article differently, but I don't see it. From my reading, she's not condemning it, just saying there's not much point to it. She's not saying it's harmful to kids or anything.

She has also repeated the bullshit about free speech being under fire on college campuses

It's not "bullshit", it's true. What do you call speakers being deplatformed?

and has stated that she thinks "identity politics" is attacking science.

You're implying a more alarmist tone than what the article actually says. I don't know if you meant to or not, just thought I'd point that out.

Besides, she's not wrong.
[/quote]

There, I finally dealt with your little gish gallop. It feels good to get that out of the way.
Beware those who hate the rich more than they love the poor.