Actually, several of the chapters of this book are very likely completely wrong and the rest are on shakier foundations than I believed 9 years ago (similar to other works of social psychology that accurately reported typical expert views at the time). See here for further elaboration.
I’m on the fence about recommending this book now, but please read skeptically if you do choose to read it.
I agree with your point about there being at least two distinct ways to interpret the non-central fallacy, and also the OPs point that while ad hominem arguments are technically invalid, they can be of high inductive strength in some circumstances. I’m mostly critiquing Scott’s choice of examples for introducing the non-central fallacy, since mixing it with other fallacious forms of reasoning makes it harder to see what the non-central part is contributing to the mistake being made. For this reason, the theft example is preferred by me.
I think the Martin Luther King scenario is a particularly bad example for explaining the non-central fallacy, because it depends on a conjunction of fallacies, rather than isolating the non-central part. The inference from (1) MLK does/doesn’t fit some category with negative emotional valence, to (2) his ideas are bad just is the ad hominem fallacy (which is distinct from the non-central fallacy). The truth (or falsity) of Bloch’s theorem is logically independent of whether or not André Bloch was a murder (which he was).
Does this add you to an email list where discussion is happening, or merely put you on a map so that others in the area can reach out to you on an ad hoc basis?
I asked around about this on the ##hplusroadmap irc channel:
15:59 < Jayson_Virissimo> Yeah, sorry. Was much more interested in the claim about peptide sourcing specifically.
16:00 < Jayson_Virissimo> Is that 4-5 weeks duration normal? How flexible is it, if at all?
16:01 < yashgaroth> some of them might offer expedited service, though I’ve never had cause to find out when ordering peptides and am not bothered to check...and it’d save you a week or two at most
16:02 < Jayson_Virissimo> What would you guess as to the main cause? Does it really take that long to manufacture or is it slow to ship, or is there some legal check that happens that isn’t instantaneous?
16:04 < yashgaroth> the legal check isn’t an issue, though I’m sure all the major synthesis houses are aware of the Radvac peptide sequences and may hassle you about them—especially if you’re not ordering as a company...shipping’s not a problem since overnight is standard, so I’d say manufacturing time combined with the people ahead of you in the queue
16:04 < yashgaroth> and manufacturing includes purification, which is an important step for something you’re ingesting, even if you’re just snorting a line of it
16:07 < Jayson_Virissimo> yashgaroth: do the labs have any legal risk of their own if you are ordering something like Radvac sequences as a private person, or are they “hassling you for your own good”?
16:09 < yashgaroth> nah they’re usually okay legally on their end, though most of them won’t risk selling a small quantity to an individual since ‘plausible deniability’ wears a little thin on their end when you’re buying sequences that match the Radvac ones
Are there any English language sources where I could learn more about the legal issues surrounding human experimentation in Russia such as the one you mentioned?
What explains the 4-5 weeks delivery time for special lab peptide synthesis?
A similar “measure function is non-normalizable” argument is made at length in McGrew, T., McGrew, L., & Vestrup, E. (2001). Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument: A Sceptical View. Mind, 110(440), 1027-1037.
I’ve been working on an interactive flash card app to supplement classical homeschooling called Boethius. It uses a spaced-repetition algorithm to economize on the students time and currently has exercises for (Latin) grammar, arithmetic, and astronomy.
Let me know what you think!
Do you happen to know where he discusses this idea?
Good call, I’ll link to it from the poll.
Ah, yes: their headline is very misleading then! It currently reads “The coronavirus did not escape from a lab. Here’s how we know.”
I’ll shoot the editor an email and see if they can correct it.
EDIT: Here’s me complaining about the headline on Twitter.
Not sure if you have seen this yet, but they conclude:
Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus...
Are they assuming a false premise or making an error in reasoning somewhere?
No, lying seems to have a short term cost as well, since in the places where mask wearing is encouraged people are creating homemade masks (and donating their N95s to hospitals).
flattenthecurve.com is an informational website about the coronavirus with (as of this comment) over one million visitors. It has since become open source and is hosted on GitHub here.
Consider contributing to the project.
See here for a successful interaction involving the removal of an anti-mask wearing section (partially inspired by information obtained here on LessWrong).
Whoops, I already created another “answer”. Thanks, did not know about that feature.
My co-worker and her husband, partially backed by my current employer, have modified the design of a device invented in Taiwan for reducing the exposure of ER doctors/nurses to COVID-19. If you have basic fabrication skills you can build your own using the instructions here or else donate here to help them manufacture more to ship to hospitals already on their waiting list.
EDIT: Signal boosted by @RealSexyCyborg here.
This is more-or-less Aristotle’s defense of (some cases of) despotic rule: it benefits those that are naturally slaves (those whose deliberative faculty functions below a certain threshold) in addition to the despot (making it a win-win scenario).