These links were not about Officer Crowley, but about other “police”.

Once again, it’s a straw man meant to misdirect the discussion, not advance it. This tactic is no more acceptable than pointing to Jason Blair every time one reads a news account they disagree with, or linking to an instance of scientific fraud every time someone offers a scientific claim.”

You can’t make two five, seven, nine, etc. initial comments that smear by innuendo, and then when the silliness of this approach is pointed out, retroactively fill in the “context” of what you really meant by giving just two links to the unrelated actions of other individuals in other circumstances.

And you can’t say that commenting on the actions of Person A by referencing the actions of Person B is actually a commentary on the actions of Person A. That’s dishonest.

I can re-post this inconvenient fact as many times as necessary. The debate isn’t about what Raymond said after I called him on this despicable practice, it’s about the despicable practice itself.

I rest my case.

Again.

And Again.

And Again.

Oh, well. I’ve already explained that I wasn’t engaging in the “despicable practice” (clarifying intent is not the same as “rewriting history”) and it’s pretty obvious Dr. Jackson’s either unable or unwilling to understand what I do write.

Even about small integers.

“Smearing the actions of Person A by pointing to the practices of an unrelated individual in the same field is a tried-and-true strategy meant to distort a situation, rather than inform a discussion. If someone had contended that police officers never lie, then it’s a valid point to be raised. But in the absence of this claim, or in the absence of additional evidence that shows that the preponderance of all police officers are prone to lying, then it’s a straw man meant to misdirect the discussion, not advance it. This tactic is no more acceptable than pointing to Jason Blair every time one reads a news account they disagree with, or linking to an instance of scientific fraud every time someone offers a scientific claim.”

Once again, this is the sum total of Raymond’s original comments before I offered mine — with the bridge phrase “And, of course, police never ever file false incident reports”:
“[Regarding the statement that] ‘Sgt. James Crowley said quite another in his incident report …’ [here are two links]: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/03/why_the_police_must_be_videota.php http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20090720_Store_video_catches_cop_bullying_woman.html?viewAll=y “

These links were not about Officer Crowley, but about other “police”.

Once again, it’s a straw man meant to misdirect the discussion, not advance it. This tactic is no more acceptable than pointing to Jason Blair every time one reads a news account they disagree with, or linking to an instance of scientific fraud every time someone offers a scientific claim.”

You can’t make two initial comments that smear by innuendo, and then when the silliness of this approach is pointed out, retroactively fill in the “context” of what you really meant by giving just two links to the unrelated actions of other individuals in other circumstances.

And you can’t say that commenting on the actions of Person A by referencing the actions of Person B is actually a commentary on the actions of Person A. That’s dishonest.

I can re-post this inconvenient fact as many times as necessary. The debate isn’t about what Raymond said after I called him on this despicable practice, it’s about the despicable practice itself.

I rest my case.

Again.

And Again.

It’s a particularly naked example here, about something even a five-year-old can confirm. Check the original comment. The word “police” is a link. The word “never” is a separate link to a different story. The word “ever” is another link. The word “file” links to a different story yet. And so on.

I’ve pointed this out above, in plain English. But still according to Dr. Jackson it’s “just two links”. We can’t even get “an honest admission of error” from him on something completely objective (and relatively trivial) like that.

Why point this out again? Because it’s a perfect illustration in miniature of what a ‘debate’ with Dr. Jackson is like. I used to think he just didn’t understand what I was writing. But no, it’s deeper than that. I hope it’s just unwillingness to understand, but I fear that it’s actually understanding, coupled with a deliberate effort to distort. I repeat: “[S]ince you apparently can’t even understand plain English when I tell you that you’ve miscounted, and where, and how, why should anyone trust your evaluation of any of my other points?”

*** So far, we have an example of two personal opinions [one based on a subset of newspapers a person reads, and the second pure conjecture about how frequently this supposed action occurs.] Nothing wrong with this per se, as long as it’s recognized as a generalized opinion based on admittedly incomplete information, and from this basis a statement of pure conjecture is made (vs. someone citing an actual statistical study or other quantifiable research and analysis).

Once again, I have nothing against opinions. But opinions aren’t analysis, and one opinion is as valid as another opinion (that, after all, is what an opinion is all about), so citing opinions adds nothing to a debate.

>… the extent of it causes me to favor the Professor’s version of events …

*** There is no logical follow through here, other than to again express a personal opinion. Since this website is supposedly about more than simple opinions, it ads nothing to the conversation.

From the newspapers I’ve read, it seems to me that Liberals have no morals. I wouldn’t say this is true of every liberal, but based on the newspapers I’ve read, I’m now prepared to say that a specific person [President Obama] is immoral.

No one would accept such a silly equation. Why then should we accept any opinion-generated ‘conclusions’ about the actions of officer Crowley, Professor Gates, etc.? You can’t generate an analysis or dispassionate conclusion about the events of a particular case by citing opinions about (or even ‘evidence’ of) other cases involving other people.

You can’t use generalized information to comment on the veracity of a specific case.

>in the absence of any obviously implausible statement by either man.”

*** “Obviously” needs to be defined in detail, not assumed. There’s nothing inherently “obvious” about your “obvious” conclusion.

Again to an earlier point I made, if your purpose in commenting is to discuss the specific details of a specific incident, you should have a full set of details available before commenting (or as full a set as possible, which requires one to do more than simply read certain newspaper accounts). And if you are then going to uses these facts to comment on the “implausibility” of a statement by a particular individual (“either man”), then it makes absolutely no difference what other people did or didn’t do in other circumstances.

>This would then be attacked as an unsupportable bias, or perhaps as a bias that is the result of another bias (antiAmericanism), or just stupidity. But not as intellectual dishonesty.

*** No, it’s raw intellectual dishonesty. You’ve just said it’s ok to comment on the veracity of a specific individual in a specific case by citing newspaper accounts of what “other policemen” have done in other circumstances. That’s intellectual dishonesty.

If you don’t think that approach is intellectually dishonest, would you like me to comment on your motives and intentions in offering this opinion by citing what other commentators have done/said in other circumstances?

> The debate would then have ensued such as: Mr. “Right”: Your newspaper articles do not prove police are dishonest; they prove that human beings are fallible. This applies equally to the professor.

> Absolutely not! The newspaper articles don’t “prove” anything about police in general, and they certainly don’t “prove” anything about Officer Crowley by citing the actions of other police in other circumstances.

>Mr. “Left”: Then where are the articles about college professors telling their students things that they know are not true, in order to aggrandize themselves? And so on.

*** This is an equally absurd line of reasoning. If the issue is whether Crowley lied, deceived, omitted, misrepresented, etc., it doesn’t matter at all what other people in other circumstances have done.

If the issue is about not smearing people with guilt by association, then it’s a valid point to say not only is a smear against Crowley wrong, but a smear against the other side is wrong too. Which is why I wrote:

“Smearing the actions of Person A by pointing to the practices of an unrelated individual in the same field is a tried-and-true strategy meant to distort a situation, rather than inform a discussion. If someone had contended that police officers never lie, then it’s a valid point to be raised. But in the absence of this claim, or in the absence of additional evidence that shows that the preponderance of all police officers are prone to lying, then it’s a straw man meant to misdirect the discussion, not advance it. This tactic is no more acceptable than pointing to Jason Blair every time one reads a news account they disagree with, or linking to an instance of scientific fraud every time someone offers a scientific claim.”

I learned a great lesson several years ago when I went through a deposition on behalf of a company I worked for. We were owed a half a million dollars that the other company didn’t want to pay us, despite a contract that clearly obligated them. They contended that we hadn’t done our job properly, abrogating their responsibility to pay.

The problem for the other guys was, they wrote a memo to me saying I had done a “great job” on the account. When my attorney asked the author of this email about it, he pounded the table, shouted, refused to answer, brought up other irrelevant information, and tried to direct the conversation to another issue. My attorney patiently waited for him to finish his dissembling, then asked the same question again.

This went on for several rounds. Every time the other guy tried to dodge and weave, instead of simply acknowledge a simple, obvious truth, my attorney returned the discussion to the original issue.

In this instance, if someone genuinely believes that someone may not be telling the truth about a matter, then you look at what the specific person actually did or said they did in that particular circumstance (taking into account their specific background/propensity for lying or acting truthfully), and you challenge or question those actions. You don’t question the credibility of Person A by pointing to the unrelated actions of other individuals in other circumstances. That’s a dishonest way to debate.

Addressing these substantive matters in later comments after you’ve been called on this despicable practice doesn’t negate what you’ve originally done. Saying “my original two comments on this matter were not a fair, honest way to debate the matter” is an honest admission of error, at which point if there’s still interest, the additional arguments that person went on to raise about Person A’s untruthfulness can be discussed.

None of this is even arguable, which makes one wonder why such a straightforward, obvious point continues to be ‘debated’.

Like Dennis Praeger often says, I’m not after agreement in a debate. I’m after clarity. But clarity is impossible when one side dissembles, ignores the silly comments they themselves made when these silly comments are pointed out instead of admitting the point, refuses to acknowledge they made an error when the error is obvious, and so on, and so on.

By the way, we won our half million.

well said, and well done. Your present discussion with Mr Ingles reminds me Leviticus 13,2-3:

2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it become in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests.

3 And the priest shall look upon the plague in the skin of the flesh; and if the hair in the plague be turned white, and the appearance of the plague be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague of leprosy; and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.

Prof Jackson thanks again for exposing the leprosy of some debaters with such clarity and simplicity. I hope Mr Ingles can yet be healed.

“[Regarding the statement that] ‘Sgt. James Crowley said quite another in his incident report …’ [here are two links]: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/03/why_the_police_must_be_videota.php http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20090720_Store_video_catches_cop_bullying_woman.html?viewAll=y “

Now, having offered my comments, Raymond wants to retroactively tell us what he really implied by giving us these two links and a bridge comment, so as to respond to what I actually said about the subject.

It’s an interesting approach. Say nothing of substance, and when challenged, offer the substance we all should have intrinsically understood from the non-substantive comments.

The article I wrote above, where I referenced this strategy of smearing people by pointing to the unrelated actions of other people in other incidents, was a direct reference to Raymond’s two initial comments, which remained just the two links until I pointed out the silliness of this approach, at which point he retroactively filled in the “context” of what he really meant (honest!) by giving just two links to the unrelated actions of other individuals in other circumstances.

I can re-post this inconvenient fact as many times as necessary. The debate isn’t about what Raymond said after I called him on this despicable practice, it’s about the despicable practice itself — namely:

“Smearing the actions of Person A by pointing to the practices of an unrelated individual in the same field is a tried-and-true strategy meant to distort a situation, rather than inform a discussion. If someone had contended that police officers never lie, then it’s a valid point to be raised. But in the absence of this claim, or in the absence of additional evidence that shows that the preponderance of all police officers are prone to lying, then it’s a straw man meant to misdirect the discussion, not advance it. This tactic is no more acceptable than pointing to Jason Blair every time one reads a news account they disagree with, or linking to an instance of scientific fraud every time someone offers a scientific claim.”

I rest my case.

Again.