Posts by Some Beggar 882 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2009
Oh I see. You can't provide a single verifiable example of somebody being labelled a racist for making a reasonable criticism of Islam and yet I'm the one whose experience is atypical? That makes absolutely perfect sense.
Apologies if I haven't addressed any of your points. Perhaps you could repeat them.
"Hey, you said it was "nothing more than a straw man" and demanded examples"
And I'm still waiting for an example of "people leaping to label you racist". Whenever you're ready. Take your time.
"It will happen unless you happen to be of a non-White race yourself."
Re-read my original post. I'm a hard atheist and secularist and have been involved in public face-to-face discussions about the dangers of conservative religion - including Islam - for about thirty years. I've never been labelled a racist. Because I'm not a racist. Which part of this is confusing you?
He feels so strongly about islam, immigration and welfare in the UK that he's move to a country over TWENTY miles away that has more muslims, more immigrants, and a larger welfare state.
Il est pas tombé de Charybde en Scylla. Il a sauté.
"But it's certainly the case that when you criticize Islam, you will find people leaping to accuse of racism,"
If this is "certainly the case" then perhaps you can give some examples? It appears to be nothing more than a straw man.
I'm a secularist and a hard atheist. I criticize Islam quite regularly. I have a very simple trick to avoid being labelled a racist ... it's called not being a racist.
The reason groups like the EDL are labelled racist is because their members are overwhelmingly racist. It's not rocket salad.
The EU has recently ruled that you cannot discriminate against employees or potential employees on the basis of their political affiliation - there was an unfair dismissal case involving a BNP councillor.
There's obviously a small irony in a strongly anti-EU party using EU law to defend themselves. But the basic principle should apply regardless of which barmy fringe party one supports. If it isn't pertinent to your ability to do a job then it can't be used as a criterion for employment.
Counter productive too. A lot of them seem to be suffering from a persecution complex - all the rhetoric is about the poor white man and the two tier legal system and benefit favouritism for foreigners and immigrants stealing our jobs - the last thing we want to give them is a genuine reason to feel persecuted.
Fortunately, a quick look at the diminishing numbers attending their protests demonstrates that they're in the process of collapse. They lured in a number of relatively normal people with their moderate-sounding original aims. Then these normal people noticed that they were marching alongside unrepentant neo-nazis and lager-swilling football hooligans and left.
All main stream media refer to the EDL as far right or extreme right. The term is dubious if you take it literally to mean "an exaggerated version of centre right politics". But nobody uses it to mean that. The term "far right" has been common and perfectly well understood for about eighty years. Even the centre right parties refer to the EDL as far right. Arguing that it is inappropriate is semantic guff.
The EDL are the natural inheritors of the BFP/NF/BNP: their membership is the same, their rhetoric is the same, their propensity for drunkenness and violence is the same. Their complete inability to ever form a coherent political movement or achieve any consistent electoral success is the same.
I have no idea if they have a policy on whales. I suspect it would depend on the colour or cultural background of the whale.
I quite like the idea of a personalized SCIENCE who'll defend us all from wickedness. I'm picturing a chap in a classic hands-on-hips superhero pose with a conical flask logo on his chest and a pair of silvered protective goggles. And a hair net. And weilding a Pipette of Justice. With his dweebish lab-coated assistant. And their faithful mutant lab rat, George.
Andy The Hat
You're describing the system they used in the Netherlands before these new 'intelligent' bins. The new bins are designed to resolve the issues of neighbours abusing the system.
(again ... might have been better to read the article before commenting ... am I being old-fashioned here? Is it the done thing to just take a brief glance at the first paragraph and then dive in with a bunch of assumptions and a loosely related personal anecdote?)
@dotdavid
In the UK, council expenditure is public and local councils are elected on a rolling rosta. They're far more accountable than the westminster buffoons who are responsible for national spending. Taxes will go up, of course... them's the rules. But you'd be surprised how easy it is to point out specific financial waste and have it addressed.
I think this just illustrates the difference in the understanding of the word 'expert' in a court of law and a scientific discussion. Dedekind's general competence in statistics clearly qualifies him to make statements in a scientific discussion about the use and abuse of statistics. It doesn't (at least according to this judge) qualify him as an expert witness on the specific subject in a court of law.
I've acted as an expert witness in a court of law on the basis that my academic qualifications were in an area directly related to the specific circumstances of the case. But the actual question I had to answer could have been explained by anybody with a degree in mathematics. Or even a bright 'A' level student. A court of law is content with an argument from authority.
Irrespective of the merits of either side of the debate, a court of law is categorically not the place to continue a scientific discussion. I think the best way to read the judge's verdict is as a sharp kick up the arse for the people who thought it was a good idea to attempt to involve the law in something it cannot and should not decide.
The approach of Carter et all is barely a skinny step above that of the chiropracticizers who sued Simon Singh. It smacks of desperation.
@harmony
That's an awful lot of words. Unfortunately, the first few lines of the third paragraph are nonsense so I didn't bother reading the rest. It simply isn't true that a small subset of a larger sample immediately qualifies as "too small". Sticking an "any fule kno" clause in there doesn't magically make that the case. As I said in my previous post, the relevant figures and calculations are all detailed in the full paper - which is available as a pdf linked to in the article. I can't see anything unusual in there. Can you point out the problem you see with the statistics in the actual paper?
The valid criticisms of the paper are that the questions are arguably loaded and the headline conclusions don't seem to represent the detailed conclusions. Those are valid criticisms of a disturbingly large proportion of this sort of survey. The statistics themselves seem fairly uncontroversial.
I agree that the headline bears little similarity to the actual conclusions, but I'd question your reasons for doubting the statistics. 1100 responses is a perfectly reasonable number for a survey like this. The fact that 10 thought the moon landing was a hoax is a depressingly large proportion but that is not in itself a reason to assume the 1100 sample was somehow skewed. The correlation between doubt about the moon landings and doubt about climate science depends _not_ on the raw number of climate change doubters in the subset of 10, but on the difference between this ratio and the ratio in the other 1090 samples. If I had a spare envelope I could knock up some confidence figures for the hypothesis ... but I'd be surprised (or rather "appalled") if these aren't given in the full paper.
(in fact, I just checked the paper itself and all the pertinent figures and calculations are included)
"The level of corruption of medical scientists, peer review media, and regulators, by chemical and genetics corporations has become really quite shocking"
Can you give any specific figures for this alleged mass corruption? Or any citations for your claim that organic vegetables have a different nutrient content. Thanks.
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