[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']OK, let's assume myke's findings are crap.
Where is the data countering his findings?
Data is never perfect, but you work with the best you have OR work even harder to find a new data set that disproves the first data set..[/QUOTE]
Sorry, this is a grammatical sticking point for me: data is a plural word (datum is the singular; I s'pose we culled this shit over straight from Latin - or to use gaming vernacular, it's just a "straight port").
So it's "Where are the data countering..." and "Data are never perfect..."
But, yeah, anyway, you're not going to get anything out of bmulligan. He's like those other cats who can complain about data funding and influence all they want (check out the NYT front page for a timely story as well), but will NEVER offer anything in response outside of discovering the one thing they need to do to confirm their bias that they shouldn't trust anything that doesn't verify what they already believe about the world. It's the same sort of thrustbucket "Oh, I don't trust any of this science crap myke keeps pointing out, while I'll agree with a single allusion to "theory" (with no single source or citation, mind you) that someone else puts out there" approach he had in another thread. Thanks for trying, though.
I wonder what some of these folks think about the validity and reliability of public school standards testing (the "accountability" element) that was part of the NCLB bill. After all, since we are suspicious of any and all data gathering, we should be very suspicious of that particular provision, no?
Ultimately, I'm not angry about these attitudes; I'm disappointed that people are so frightened of confronting facts that run contrary to their worldview that they immediately delve into attacking the source. Me? I've read bad research. In fact, I think I hit a whole new threshold yesterday; my exact reaction to a paper I read was "well, I don't know what the
I just read, but I read somethin'." It won't ever be published in a refereed journal, so I'm not concerned about it polluting the popular discourse. That said, I do read bad/not very good published and refereed research. I confront the data, ask about its limitations, the poor use of proxy data, sloppily applied theoretical reasoning for the project, lousy research methods/statistical tests, or qualitative work that I have little patience for (content analysis can suck a big one, for the record).
But, what it comes down to is something I share in common with people like bmulligan and thrustbucket: we both believe that there are some things not even worth discussing in politics. IMO, there are a number of folks who simply don't deserve to have their points acknowledged: this includes the "pro wrestlers" of the political world (in terms of their substance and style): Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, god only knows how many millions of bloggers on the right and left, etc. Others straddle the line between "newz-ertainment" and having ideas worth debating; I think Neal Boortz is one of those folks, and his consumption tax is a debate worth having. Even bad ideas deserve a seat at the table, while vitriol, screaming, selective truths and "gotcha!" moments do not. So in the end, we agree that there are some things that aren't worth discussing: for me, it's pop-politics. For them, it's science and facts that disagree with their worldview that they are frightened and unprepared to confront. Not exactly a "six of one, half-dozen of the other" scenario, but hey...
soonersfan, do you have a viable resource for more information on New Rome? The wiki entry gives some of the story (like the village leader's group falling apart, the chief resigning and then the police being disbanded - all preceding the village being dissolved into another part of Columbus, OH); but it's told in such a way that it's very hard to really identify the order and causation of each incident (particularly because overt corruption seems to seep through all of it.