Is it me or is this site in its death throes?

Discussion in 'Site Feedback' started by Bowser, Jul 17, 2017.

  1. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    So now you are disparaging the entire membership of SciForums...

    The fact that you seem to wish to claim to be the "sole sane person in a sea of insanity" speaks volumes...

    The simple fact is, you still have yet to back your claims here, as you were specifically instructed by James to do, rather than your historic (and current) trend of jumping topics as soon as you are cornered.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    You don't need to be accurate to drive your car or eat from your fridge. If you can't tell a bike from a motorcycle that's OK. Just avoid hitting either one; you don't need to know the difference. Likewise, if you can't tell the difference between orange juice and mango juice it doesn't really matter. You can drink either one.

    However, there are some cases where this is NOT true - where it matters what you grab out of your fridge. People with food allergies can be injured or killed by eating the wrong thing out of your fridge. And people do this quite often - ~20,000 people a year are hospitalized and ~200 people die every year from eating something they are allergic to. This is from a pool of ~15 million people with food allergies, of which ~ 1 million have serious (i.e. can be life threatening) allergies.

    So that's actually a good example. Every year about 1 in 5 people who are at risk for serious allergic reaction can't accurately tell what they are eating.
    By repeating them over and over, so the odds of error go down.
    As we've seen, when their lives DO depend on their observations being accurate, humans don't do very well.
    No one assumes all our perceptions are mistakes and errors. That's just as wrong as assuming that all our perceptions are accurate.
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Complete bullshit. Every one who drives is in a situation where their lives depend on the accuracy of their observations. Tens of millions of people successfully drive from one location to the next every day, even in rainy conditions, without having accidents. That screams loudly for the accuracy of eyewitness experience.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2017
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  7. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Demonstrably false... I've personally had to drive when I've lost a contact lens, and it leaves me unable to differentiate if what in front of me is a car, a truck, a bus, or a motorcycle - it's just a blob. I cannot read any street signs.

    yet, every time it has happened, I was able to successfully and safely navigate home.

    Also, real-time observation is not the same as recalling a memory of a potentially traumatic event sometimes weeks or months after the event. You no doubt know this, and are attempting to use straw-man arguments because you cannot successfully argue the actual point.
     
  8. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Kitta... please... implore James R to give you final say in Sciforum moderation for just 6 mounths... an let the results speek for themself.!!!
     
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  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Accurate memory is as much in play while driving as accurate perception is. The driver behind me is about to pass. You put a CD in your CD player. You remember the driver behind you and you change lanes to allow them room. Or you remember you have to get into the right lane to make your exit. Or you remember the directions to the store. Or you remember the speed limit drops to 35 in a certain zone. Or you remember an upcoming chughole and you change lanes for it. Or you remember the I5 backs up at 4:30 and you take an alternate route. ETC ETC ETC..
     
  10. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    First of all - wrong. Short term memory vs long term memory, not to mention that you are conflating "memory" to "observation"... you can observe something, and react to it, without committing it to memory - first and foremost, certainly you are aware of autonomous reactions, right? Certainly you don't think pulling away from a pain stimulus, or closing your eyes in response to an impending impact to the face, requires ANY input from cognitive memory...

    Beyond that, your point is... what, exactly? How does the ability to remember something seconds after an event (working memory) have any bearing on the ability to accurately recall details about an event weeks later (long term memory)? What, pray tell, does any of that have to do with the ability for memory to be oh so easily manipulated?

    https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm
    Face it MR - your entire premise is flawed. The fact that you aren't even attempting to procure facts to back it up is just the icing on the cake.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    So now you're saying eyewitness accounts ARE reliable but just not reliably remembered weeks and months afterwards? Watch those goalposts run!
     
  12. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Where, pray tell, did I say that? Quote me, now. It is you who is twisting quotes AND moving the goalposts:

    You made the claim that the ability to react to changing situations whilst in the situation (such as driving a car) means that memory is inherently trustworthy.

    You are using that to try and claim that same memory is trustworthy for eye-witness testimony, despite the fact that these "eye witnesses" testify days, weeks, or even MONTHS after the event, and it has been categorically and repeatedly PROVEN the differences between short term, long term, and working memory.

    Your intellectual dishonesty knows no bounds, and you are yet again violating forum rules:

    Knowingly posting false or misleading information
    I15. The intentional posting of false or misleading information is unacceptable. This includes posting half-truths, i.e. leaving out relevant and known information to give a false impression.

    Back your claims, MR - you will not be given another verbal warning on this.

    Claims you have yet to support:
    You will quote where I said "eyewitness accounts are reliable but not reliably remembered weeks and months afterwards"

    You will support your claim of "self-righteous outrage", "flaming", and "preaching".

    and
    You will support your claim that eye witness testimony is more often accurate than inaccurate.

    You have made these claims. Back them.
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    All memory is in play while driving. The directions to a store. The memory of a chughole. Driving itself. The backing up of I5. Longterm and shortterm and working memory. All in play while driving and very accurate at getting us safely to our destinations.

    So tell me, is eyewitness testimony moments or even hours after an event reliable or unreliable? You've basically changed the goalposts to memory flaws in accounts weeks and months and years after the event.
     
  14. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    So you wish to claim that witnessing an event AS IT UNFOLDS is somehow the same as attempting to retell it later, despite evidence that they are not equivalent?

    One more claim for you to support. You are at 4 unsupported claims.

    Is it unreliable? Certainly -

    https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue One/fisher&tversky.htm
    Elizabeth Loftus performed experiments in the mid-seventies demonstrating the effect of a third party’s introducing false facts into memory.4 Subjects were shown a slide of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. Experimenters asked participants questions, falsely introducing the term "stop sign" into the question instead of referring to the yield sign participants had actually seen. Similarly, experimenters falsely substituted the term "yield sign" in questions directed to participants who had actually seen the stop sign slide. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image. In the initial part of the experiment, subjects also viewed a slide showing a car accident. Some subjects were later asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "hit" each other, others were asked how fast the cars were traveling when they "smashed" into each other. Those subjects questioned using the word "smashed" were more likely to report having seen broken glass in the original slide. The introduction of false cues altered participants’ memories.

    Courts, lawyers and police officers are now aware of the ability of third parties to introduce false memories to witnesses.5 For this reason, lawyers closely question witnesses regarding the accuracy of their memories and about any possible "assistance" from others in the formation of their present memories. However, psychologists have long recognized that gap filling and reliance on assumptions are necessary to function in our society. For example, if we did not assume that mail will be delivered, or that the supermarkets will continue to stock bread, we would behave quite differently than we do. We are constantly filling in the gaps in our recollection and interpreting things we hear. For instance, while on the subway we might hear garbled words like "next," "transfer," and "train." Building on our assumptions and knowledge, we may put together the actual statement: "Next stop 53rd Street, transfer available to the E train." Indeed, we may even remember having heard the full statement.

    In another part of the Tversky-Marsh study, participants were asked to play prosecutors presenting a summation to the jury.8 Participants first read a murder story, where two men were suspects. Participants were then asked either to prepare a neutral recounting of all they remembered about one suspect, or to prepare a summation to the jury about one suspect. Later, participants were asked to recall the original story. Participants who wrote summations recalled more incriminating details and wrongly attributed details among suspects more often than participants who originally wrote a neutral recounting.

    It goes on and on.

    I believe this argument was had once before...
     
  15. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    Where did I say that? Support it with a quote or admit you are twisting my words.
     
  16. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I already did - I quoted you in the post.

    You are trolling, and refusing to back your claims.
     
  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    So you're claiming both long term and short term memory, which are totally at play in getting millions of drivers to their destinations everyday, are unreliable?
     
  18. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    • Infraction issued for trolling and refusal to support claims made
    Ignored from henceforth..
     
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  19. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that study spoke for itself. The fact that you dislike it because it contradicts your desired narrative is your problem.

    In other words, you are running away because you cannot support your claims. Fair enough - I accept your concession. Perhaps next time you will attempt to argue actual facts?
     
  20. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,607
    I was just infracted by Kittamaru again for nothing. I also pm'd James R and Bells about this bullshit. Warning to all members. This is the only way this moderator can win an argument--by abusing his moderator power. I suggest we all ignore him.
     
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  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Nonsense. No one needs to be able to tell a bicycle from a motorcycle to avoid them both. No one needs to be able to tell an ambulance from a fire truck to avoid them both. All they need to see is an object to be able to avoid it.

    And even then they fail regularly - there are over 5 million motor vehicle accidents a year.
    That screams loudly that people can see obstacles. Doesn't mean they can tell bicycles from motorcycles.

    UFO eyewitnesses see things in the sky. That screams loudly that they saw something. Doesn't mean they can tell alien spaceships from airplanes.
     
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  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Good! The system works.
     
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  23. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Hardly... you were infracted in accordance with established SciForums site rules AND the directive of one of our Administrators. Since he has no responded to my request to publish it, I will do so to illustrate:

     

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