So, how does this sound to other people? Do you think Dante's admonition is reasonable? Think about it a bit.

Yes, it is reasonable.

I have been in political campaign war rooms. And this standard of evidence would be a routine and mundane demand there. Nobody would bat an eyelash.

Indeed, when you added...

In response to the objection that I'm telling other people what they think, I replied just yesterday, My assertion there is not that I have the right to interpret what people mean. I am saying that if we got a hundred people who said that and explained to them the alternatives and asked them which they really meant, the large majority would interpret it the way I predict. It's an empirical assertion.

This would be considered leading, and it would immediately invalidate any results of the poll you have. Because you are leading your respondents towards a particular view.

This is why, ideally, questions are formulated by people who don't know who is commanding the poll (Pepsi or Coke, Burger King or McDonalds, Republicans or Democrats)? or if this isn't possible (and in politics usually it isn't possible because pollsters become long term business relations with parties or candidates) at least are audited externally by people who are not in the same payroll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll#Wording_of_questions

So, yes, by this point you have been fired twice from the campaign...




Women (and men) claim they were harmed by past sexual activity even if they didn't object at the time, but you claim they are overwhelmingly mistaken. The claim isn't even as simple as they don't mean what they say. I think most of you would agree that if you surveyed them and presented the idea that they were actually harmed as opposed to society's having just convinced them that they were harmed when they weren't, they would say they were harmed. (If you don't agree, then the structure is exactly as in the case Dante criticized me for.)

It's not as bad as saying they didn't say what they meant, it's saying that they didn't really mean what they meant! That they (at least the vast preponderance of them) are wrong about why they believe what they believe.

Actually, no.

The claim is not to doubt of their sincerity today when they say they feel harmed.

It isn't even that the respondents are ill-defining harm and a new ("better)" definition would change their response.

The claim is that the respondents adjusted their remembrance of a sexual experience lived as a child, from positive or neutral, to negative.

That is a very different claim, and since it is an intertemporal claim it can only be answered with intertemporal methodologies, which by nature cannot include single surveys at one and only one given moment.

Actually, if the actual claim was what you are saying here, it would not be that "all/most harm is iatrogenic" - it would be that "there is no harm at all and all those people are crazy/lying". That is a much different assertion.

And what empirical study can you cite in support of that? A few anecdotal reports aren't enough. It should be very convincing indeed to warrant such a claim.

At least Kinsey, Sandfort and Rind.

Want to replicate? Take a city or three, poll every victim in a child sex case (even better, every victim in a child sex case which is not based on forcible rape) as soon as they arrive into the precinct, and track them down at specific intervals after your t=0 of increasing lengths based on a Fibonacci series.

As applicable, also investigate other specific outcomes derived from the case: therapy, but also the legal outcome of the case, and other disruptions in life: family breakups, school disruptions, and so on...

Thank you.


I, Ethan, claim that when someone says a child can't consent, most mean it isn't informed, valid consent. Dante claims this claim should not be made without empirical support. If so, then the entire idea that most harm is iatrogenic should vanish from discourse.

I really don't understand how you can see the two claims as equivalent.

One claims to know the existence of an opinion which has not been expressed. The other only claims to know the origin of an expressed opinion.

Your claim is that when people say "I believe in God" they mean they believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster who created everything.

The iatrogenic harm hypothesis is that when people say "I believe in God" it is because they were raised in a religios environment.

Even though both are saying things about other people's beliefs, each is considering the statements and evaluating them in very different ways.

My conclusion is that Dante's standard of evidence is unreasonable. It is convenient to hold your opponent to standards of evidence far beyond what you require of yourself, but it is profoundly dishonest.

Meanwhile, political campaigning and commercial marketing continue to work under the standards you find unreasonable.

And since Dante never made the claim that people who claim to have been harmed are crazy or liars, he shouldn't have to prove it or "admit" to it being refuted.

I am not saying that iatrogenic harm should vanish from discourse

the entire idea that most harm is iatrogenic should vanish from discourse. -- Ethan Edwards, https://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/602132.htm, Friday, September 12 2014 at 09:07:16pm

Hmmmm.

I am saying that speculation without hard evidence is in general justified.

Well of course we would expect that from you. All it will cause is that I will mark you more harshly.

If you still want to talk about iatrogenic harm, your claim should not be, "Don't say it if you don't have a survey to cite", it should be an argument that I'm wrong about the substance of the matter.

Sneaky way to try to lower us to your level.

"Don't push for hard evidence; instead come and speculate without hard evidence with me"!

No wonder you worship the pedophilia "researchers" you worship.

I have good friends who are econometrists, marketers, medical researchers, and political campaigners (and as I have said, I have been into campaigns myself) -- each and every one of them would consider you an idiot for this post; and would certainly fire you if they were your bosses.

Claim the survey would come out differently.

Which is as simple as quoting Ethan Edwards recognizing that he has to rig the wording to get the answer he requires.