Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:18:12 EDT
Subject: More Sermonising



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Content-Language: en



Subj: ANOTHER SERMON (gag) Date: 05/10/2002 11:57:46 GMT Daylight Time From:
gospode-AT-yahoo.com (Gary C. Moore) Sender:
owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Reply-to:
heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Dear Jud,

THIRD INSTALLMENT Saturday morning sermon (sing Psalm 112)

X: As the tobacco industry repeatedly says, science has not PROVEN that
tobacco causes lung cancer. Statistics and correlation seem MOST OF THE TIME
to point in that direction, but there have also been a number of exceptions
to the rule.

Jud:
 I personally know an old guy of 102 who has smoked like a trooper all his
life and apart from having a facial skin like a smoked herring, he still
wheezes a "Good Morning" to me as I cycle past his house. , but I can recall
at least ten people [as I look at the screen trying to imagine their faces
once more] I knew who have died in agony [suffocated to death] from lung
cancer who were heavy smokers.

X:
The same with tremendous alcohol intake and liver disease and varicosities in
veins in the esophagus. MOST OF THE TIME, yes. SOME OF THE TIME! , no. That
is not real science.

Jud:
I have lost three very good friends from alcoholism who I still grieve for.
There are always exceptions to the rules, unless the full background of
victims/survivors of alcohol abuse are known in minute detail, certain
dietary habits, lifestyle, exercise, general physical condition etc., it is
difficult to explain the exceptions. For me like most people, the stats are
good enough to alert me to control my drinking habits and run a mile at the
sight of a cigarette.

GARY C MOORE:
And that is quite right. But that is practical thinking, i. e., I have seen
this happen with that so many times there must be some connection. One
literally could not survive without it. But its only proper place is in
making choices and committing oneself to action solely. It is when people
start treating stats as knowledge, a whole different ball game, that science
becomes open to wholesale corruption. Statistics is the joining together of
individuals sharing one common predicate.

Jud:
I love the phrase: "Statistics is the joining together of individuals sharing
one common predicate. " and must remember it for future use.

Gary:
This is generalization that joins together as one whole individuals that got
to that common denominator by wholly individual and separate paths so that
the history, present meaning, and future action based on that common
denominator is still fundamentally different from individual to individual so
that, as certainty, that common denominator really has only a trivial value
as certain knowledge at best. An intelligent person understanding both that
it is a generalization that is valid insofar as it is based on the real
experience of individual in completely different contexts (contexts that
still remain fundamentally different even if you narrow down strictly the
definition of that general definition and what it includes. Though that does
present a more plausible standpoint, however much you narrow down a
generalization, you still do not get to the individual in the process of
living with a past, present, and future which totally distorts even a strict
and scientific generalization) and that that generalization must constantly
take into account the changing nature of those individuals, then one can
operate effectively with a great number of correct guesses based on an
intelligent keeping open of that generalization, its only legitimate
validation being in individuals as primary whereas the generalization always
remains secondary, and then one can act effectively

Jud:
I agree with you that some statistical surveys are less reliable than others,
and a lot depends on the nature of the questions asked, as per the TV
discussion today concerning a survey of Americans being in agreement with the
 of attacking of  Iraq, [given as 70% in favour] This has probably been more
widely reported on your TV stations than ours, so I won't bother going into
more details about how the result has been challenged etc.

The gathering of other, more certain information however which compares the
deaths of lung cancer by smokers compared with non-smokers is so overwhelming
that no reasonable person could fail to agree with the findings.

Gary:
Just as Hubert L. Dreyfus described it in his discussion of Aristotles wise
man and Heidegger's discussion of Aristotles phronesis in PLATOS SOPHIST
(available at one of Dreyfus web sites). But all of this, in an honest and
intelligent person is just a plan of action according to rational expectation
that might well turn out otherwise than one expected and one should be
prepared for.

Jud:
Yes, every person should be allowed to make their own choices if they are
armed with the full details that are connected with the pros and cons of a
given course of action. Unfortunately for years the bad effects of drink,
cigarettes and crap food were known by the manufacturers but not passed on
the consumers - so the consumers' "freedom of choice" was in fact
non-existent. Hence the big court cases ongong right now.

Gary:

It is not absolute knowledge which is either ones personal experience that
one may or may not be able to put into generalizing words adequately or it is
the absolute knowledge of consistently holding for a chosen definition as the
sum of degrees of a triangle is always 180. A non-Euclidean could change the
circumstances so that it no longer correct, but one can still maintain the
former as absolute knowledge by merely adding on circumstantial criteria. And
even so, both kinds of such propositions only make sense if they can be
applied to and validated by experience. None of this does statistics have
anything to do with. It is very rarely set up within its legitimate
parameters of something has happened more times than something else and
therefore gives the house edge in your gambling endeavor. People who smoke or
drink too much IF THEY WANT TO LIVE ALONG LIFE IN PLEASANT CIRCUMSTANCES
certainly have thrown away any house edge or advantage they may have had
available before they acquired irrevocable conditions. This strangely applies
equally well if you deliberately want to drink yourself to death. You may
well have a long life of misery and meanness.

Jud:
 I am reminded of the part in Antoine de St Exupery's Petit Prins [Little
Prince] when he meets the dipsomaniac:

=E2=80=9CWhat are you doing there? He said to the tippler whom he found settled down
in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full
bottles.

=E2=80=9CI am drinking," replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
'Why are you drinking?=E2=80=9D demanded the little Prince.
So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
Forget what? inquired the little Prince, who already was sorry for him
=E2=80=9CForget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
" Ashamed' of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking!=E2=80=9D The tippler brought his speech to an end, and shut
himself up in an impregnable silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled
=E2=80=9CThe grown-ups are certainly very, very odd," he said to himself as=20he
continued on his journey.


Gary:
But in no way is statistics knowledge. All statistics does is state a certain
number of this had x and a certain number of that had y. A common denominator
may at first seem obvious, but, if the investigation was done well and as
many different factors as possible that could REASONABLY be handled (which
would mean automatically something has NOT been accounted for), other common
denominators may come to the fore that a hasty, stupid, or illegitimately
motivated scientist may not see, wish to see, deliberately ignore, set up the
parameters of the experiment to deliberately exclude. Usually, as in the cold
fusion debacle, others trying to repeat the experiment MAY demonstrate the
concept was not valid. Or may the original scientists were simply sloppy in
recording their experiment, did not take everything they did and otherwise
accidentally happened into their account, really did achieve cold fusion,
there therefore everyone in the world has lost what truly seems a wonderful
idea. And then again maybe the validity of their experiment was deliberately
sabotaged. This has happened a number of times also. Setting up a statistical
procedure legitimately is costly, complex, and time consuming. The vast
majority of such endeavors are NEVER fully repeated. If it SEEMS to fit, that
nothing obvious falls apart, that satisfies most people. But the people
manipulating statistics know this. There have been numerous scientific
discoveries based on imaginary statistics. If they cause no one serious
problems, they are NEVER found out. If people WANT it to be true, any
discordances will be taken as invalid exceptions. This is exactly what
happened with a famous psychologists statistical experiment on the likenesses
of identical twins in the 1950s. It was found to be totally bogus only about
ten years ago. The man was dead then and got all he could possibly have
wanted from his theorys success. It was something psychologists wanted to
believe because! it validated a mechanical view of human nature and took away
a great deal of the actual ambiguity of having to deal with actual, at-hand,
experienced individual human beings which, again, is very costly, time
consuming, frustrating, and usually failing to have any useful results.

Jud:
You point to genuine and  legitimate criticisms of some scientists and some
science, but all in all science still moves inexorably forward from one
brilliant success to the next - the trickeries and self-deceptions are
usually quickly forgotten in the celebration of their victories..

Gary:
The end result? Practical people have an absolute and desperate need for a
truly philosophical point of view which completely detaches them from the
objects of their concern. Quite literally, they must put their concern during
working hours in a little box and put the box in a closet until it is time to
go home and relax. They do not understand in the slightest when they commit
act A why result B does not correctly and fully follow. I mean, they did
everything they were suppose to, right? So that leaves the answer that
someone is conspiring against them. Maybe because I live in an especially
overly paranoid society my own paranoia is coming out. But at least I know to
look for it. Detachment is actually suppose to be a basic part of scientific
procedure, but I think it has been dropped out of the picture now for a long
while and we are all up shit creek.

Jud:
I have a deep distrust of professionals of any sort. All through my life I
have been let down and have  witnessed others being ripped off by
professional plumbers, dentists, add-men, bankers, lawyers, furniture
manufacturers, teachers, army officers, politicians blah, blah, blah...  Give
me an enthusiastic amateur every time.  When [infrequently] somebody carries
out a professional act or service without any problems I am pleasantly
surprised, and usually the reason for things going wrong is that they HAVE
NOT carried out act A correctly and THAT is the reason that result B does not
correctly and fully follow. In other words they are either negligent, or lazy
and  incompetent - or both My attitude towards life is similar to yours in
that whilst yours is "Intelligently cynical," mine has a Huxlian dimension of
"amused cynicism" which I suppose lightens the cross I have to bear as I
stagger atheistically towards the oblivion that awaits us all.

Jud Evans.





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