One student in particular is a very Type A personality, who insisted that the violent crime rate has been rising (I showed him the numbers from the FBI's UCR data and he dismissed it as "single source data"). He looked me dead in the eye and said, for the whole class to here, "Well, LIEUTENANT COLONEL Dave Grossman did EXTENSIVE RESEARCH and has CONCLUSIVELY PROVEN his point." His emphasis, not mine.
All I could do is say that the hypothesis does not fit the data, therefore the hypothesis must be abandoned. I am not a very persuasive speaker.
The problem with this particular Lieutenant and many of my fellow Captains is that they do not know how to use their brain to sniff out scientific bullshit.
Rank, accolades, or even a Ph.D does not make you right. Let us take a look at a few examples shall we?
THE MACHINE GUN WILL NEVER REPLACE THE HORSE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF WAR”. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
Or how about some of the crazier Nobel Laureates? http://www.cracked.com/article_18638_4-nobel-prize-winners-who-were-clearly-insane.html
Or Neville Chamberlains's "Peace in Our Time" proclamation? Or a Chicago Newspaper Editor who decided that Dewey won?
So I don't feel like a smartass for pointing out that Grossman has backed away from statistical data and is now using "anecdotal evidence" to sell his training products at killology.com. And I don't feel bad at all when I point out that someone's data doesn't back their premise. I have a much more detailed analysis to follow, but I wanted to vent my frustration that "argument from authority" seems to hold water among those who should know better.
5 comments:
I've read Col. Grossman's book and wondered as well about some of his conclusions.
I noticed that he is also using anecdotal observations to back up S.L.A. Marshall's conclusions about the resistance of soldiers to kill. Marshall didn't seem to have a very scientific method to collecting his data. My feeling were also re-enforced when I ran across an account in Major Dick Winter's book, Beyond Band of Brothers, that Maj Winters had met Marshall during WW II. Maj Winters commented that Marshall's "official" account of the assault of the guns on D-Day was wrong and that Marshall seemed more interested in hobnobbing with the West Point graduates than talking to the men in the field.
Leftists have to base their assertions on authoritarian bullying and call it "science" because reality does not support Progressive jingoism: Before video games, it was tv and movies that were blamed. It's a Skinnerian/behaviourism bullshit story, but it jives with the agenda of the "enLIEtened", weakness-promoting, effeminate elements of socialism, so it is propounded because the end justifies the means.
I have been recently reminded that the product of science is testable hypotheses. Hence, your response to the person in your class was correct. He was simply ignorant of the scientific method, making all of his assertions no more worthy than religion.
You did not lose the argument so much as your classmate did not understand that he had to defend his thesis
It's not science, it's the devil. Satan is alive and well on planet earth and he is doing a great job. We don't need stats to tell us that women are afraid to run/walk alone these days. 50 years ago it was safe to take a walk in the evening after dinner. Say "HI" to the neighbors and RELAX. Now days, if you want to take a walk, you better have a gun or a really big dog with you. These are not facts you can argue in class, these are facts that the average American has to live with every day.
You want "proof"? Look in the eyes of the American people!
This is no longer the "United States of America" it is now the "United States of Entertainment" and the best selling entertainment is full of violence.
Currently published crime rates reflecting violent crime for the last 20 years do not reflect Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama executive orders and DOJ policies that suppress actual violent crime rates - with the resulting undereporting of homicides, rape, and assault celebrated as "improvements" by the lamestream media. Finish the research - don't take the numbers at face value.
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