What new information am I bringing in? Please tell me.
You’re the one who is identifying women who claim rape. To assume that this is not new information, I would have to assume that women claim to be raped at random. Otherwise, you have specified a different group of people, but have given no stats regarding that group.
So, is claiming rape a random event among in the general population? That is to say, are you proposing that saying you are raped is completely independent of whether or not you actually were? Because then you have gotten down to a situation where the claim is actually irrelevant, and you are back to the point of random selection from the general population.
In that case, your general population statistics will apply, and your best bet at guessing whether the event occurred for them would be the probabilities based on the categories within overall population. (But note, their credibility would be perfectly equal.)
But please stop telling me I am introducing new information. I am not. You are the one defining the two representatives by saying that they claim rape.
For instance, if you derived a random sample of 100 people and tested them for tuberculosis, you’d get a fairly low rate of cases of tuberculosis, right? Would the rate be the same, or would it be higher if you derived a sample of people who claim to have tuberculosis?
Are those two different populations? How does your hypothetical differ from that?
Hmm, I’m pretty sure I saw a series of photographs of the incident. So it was caught on film. I guess the controversy must have sprung from the nature of the bunny rabbit’s rampage?
UFO claims are viewed skeptically because we don’t have firm evidence of alien lifeforms, not because they don’t show up often in the statistics.
Hot air balloons are not something most people see everyday. Many people go years without seeing one. However, if I told you I saw a hot air balloon, would you disbelieve me?
What if your priest/pastor/rabbi/imam told you he saw a hot air balloon? Would you disbelieve him?
I don’t go around disbelieving people just because they make a claim about a rare event. For most individuals, car accidents are rare occurrances, but I’m not going to doubt someone who tells me he was in a car accident. For most individuals, having a cancerous tumor is a rare occurrance. But I’m not going to look askance at someone who claims to have cancer…unless this person has a history of lying or exaggerating illnesses. A skeptic doesn’t have to consult statistical databases to evaluate a case. All they have to do is ask how plausible a claim is. Cancer, hot air balloons, car accidents…all plausible claims. Late night ride with a Martian…not so plausible because there are no substantiated reports of this happening before.
So to answer your question: no. “Likely to happen” does not translate into “likely to be true”.
[quote]
Claim A: if I let go of the ball it will fall.
Claim B: If I let go of the ball it will rise.
So, without any other information, Claim A. is more credible.[/qoute]
That’s your claim. The reason why A is more credible than B is because of gravity, yet you didn’t list it as a given, did you? You assumed that I understand certain laws of physics, right? How else am I to determine which is more credible, unless you and I agree on certain givens, even if they’re unspoken?
Yet when I suggest that the same level of understanding, of common knowledge be used to answer your rape scenario, I’m wrong.
I don’t see the difference. Without a common understanding of what makes red rape different from blue rape, both claims are credible.
a=actual number of blue women raped
b=total number of claims of blue women raped
c=actual number of red women raped
d=total number of claims of red women raped
a=99 * c
which is bigger:
(99 * c)/b or c/d
Because we have exactly zero information regarding “b” or “d” we cannot use math or logic to extract any more valuable information. All values are equally possible.
Okay. That’s fair. Unless stated otherwise, the laws of the universe are usually assumed to be a constant. But you are correct. I should have been more explicit. Therefore, my conclusion was wrong. But this leads to what may be a good opportunity for getting on the same page. Here it is (please bear with me) again:
I make two claims:
Claim A: if I let go of the ball it will fall.
Claim B: If I let go of the ball it will rise.
Do you think A is a more credible claim (as in, more likelyt ot happen) or B?
As you pointed out, without any other givens, we cannot tell what will happen. But if I add: These events take place on earth with the laws of the universe operating as we currently understand them. Then we can then make a best guess and a worse guess. Obviously, gravity will now be taken into account. But it doesn’t make Claim A automatically correct, right? I could be holding a ball filled with helium, or holding a ping pong ball standing on top of an exhaust fan or I could be an astronaut in an anti-gravity chamber.
So if you opened your eyes and saw that I was in an astronaut suit, Claim B might be as, or more, reasonable. But barring any information that any of these special situations are in play, you would have to logically assume that they weren’t. So you would be able to make a best guess and a worse guess. The best guess being that Claim A is more credible. Right?
In the rape example, the reason I put it on Gork is to point out that we don’t know anything else except what is offered as a given. So similar to the ball hypothetical, the rape hypothetical is constructed the same elements.
A man makes Two claims:
Claim A: a blue woman was raped.
Claim B: a red woman was raped.
Givens
For every 1 red rape that occurs, 99 blue rapes occur.
Question
Everything else remaining equal, can we make a best guess and worse guess as to which claim is more credible (more likely to be true)? Keep in mind, the claims are made by the same person, so the credibility of the person making the claims is not an issue.
Why is that? If an event occurs only 20 times in 100, are you saying that people would accurately report it happening only 20% of the time? 80% of the time their report could not be trusted?
Let’s say people never ever misreport an event happening, so that when they say it happened, it happened. Now if someone tells you that they won $1 million in the lottery, and a second person tells you that they have milk in the fridge at home, are you going to tell me that the first one is more credible? How could that be if people were inerrant reporters? If, on the other hand, their credibility is actually equal in that hypothetical, then isn’t it the case that the veracity or accuracy of the reporters is what made the difference, and not the frequency or likelihood of the event?
So why should we assume that the relationship between credibility and frequency of a given event is linear?
Again, it would be more helpful to discuss some sort of example of a contrast condition that is not confounded by impossibility or singular implausibility.
By credible, I mean something along the lines of Merriam-Webster: “offering reasonable grounds for being believed <a credible account of an accident> <credible witnesses>”.
I may have been confusing you with others. If so, I apologize. But here is one I found quickly (emphasis mine):
This information is noise to out hypothetical. The information you’re getting at would be terrific to have, but we simply don’t have it. And you bring it up again here:
That is precisely the point. We have no other information.
It doesn’t matter if it’s random or blue woman are super, super hot. Regardless of the reason, we are provided with a given, for every 1 red rape, there are 99 blue ones.
I’m not sure I’m following you here. If the event of rape has a blue victim 99% of the time, your best guess in the hypothetical would be to say that Claim is has a higher likelihood of being true. Which in discussion like this is the same thing as saying that the Claim A is more credible than Claim B. Keep in mind that the credibility of the claimant is not at issue, as both claims were made by the same people.
I’m not sure I’m following you here either. I can’t see why you even ask this question. Seriously. But let’s try this.
A person on Gork makes Two Claims
Claim 1: Man A has tuberculosis.
Claim 2: Man B does not have tuberculosis.
Given
The incidence of tuberculosis among Gorkean men is 1%.
Question
Can you make a best guess or worse guess as to whether Claim 1 of Claim 2 is more likely to be true (more credible)?
You’re trying to determine the propensity for lying among the two sub populations. That would be fantastic information to have. It would lead to a much. much better decision as to which claim is more likely to be true. But we do not have it. And in a hypothetical, when you hear or read "all things remaining equal, this is one of the things they mean So you assume that the populations are equally credible. I don’t think I can repeat this again.
These thiings are completely unrelated. So you can’t have a best guess and a worse guess.
I think for the last time, you are ignoring the given which gives you a common point of reference. Why do make believe that crucial nugget of information has not been provided? Without it, I would agree that we would be unable to have a best guess and a worse guess. But we do.
However, you have not shown, in any mathematical or real-world sense that a CLAIM is influenced in any way whatsoever by the frequency of the event being claimed.
If the populations are equally credible then the claim is equally credible.
I don’t think the necessarily follows. The populations might be equally credible as broad entities, but both groups have liars in them. And if we are told that two people make a claim and that one is lying, we know for a fact that the two claims are not equally credible. The question is which one. We don’t know. But the question is can we make a best guess and worse guess. I maintain we can. Piss-poor as it might be.
Hentor provided his definition of “credible”, which coincides with mine and I suspect everyone else who has patiently argued against you.
What is your definition of “credible”? You dismiss the points that RaftPeople made for reasons that are unclear to me, so I have to assume that it’s because you think “credible” means something unrelated to a claimant’s truthfulness.
I find it fascinating that in all these pages that you’ve argued, not once have you compellingly laid out a logic-driven explanation to explain how you are deriving your guesses. “It’s more common, therefore it’s more likely” is your steady refrain, but you haven’t explained how this in anyway translates to credibility. It seems that you assume that this is a right way to view the world for no reason other than because it just seems right. In other words, there is no scientific rationale evident in your thought process, only gut feelings.
Condileeza Rice, a black woman, claims she was raped by a white man. Katelyn Fabre, a white woman, claims she was raped by a white man.
Knowing what we know about both claimants, which claim is more credible? In other words, who shuld we be more likely to believe, Rice or Fabre?
If we didn’t know anything about the claimants, should Fabre’s claim be more credible simply because of what stats say about her racial demographic group? Or should we view both claims as equally credible, in the absence of evidence that tells us whom to believe more?
The same as everyone else, I think. I think a great part of the confusion is that many, you included, if I recall correctly, seem to want to attach the credibility to the person and relegate it to the claim itself. Please see my last post to RaftPeople for more on that. For the record, I agree with the definition supplied by Hentor:
I’ve defined it numerous times. Here are a couple of times I found quickly:
I hope that misconception is cleared up now that I cut and pasted my explanations for you.
No. Quite the opposite. That is what you have been doing. Since your quote from page one that I supplied earlier. You are touchy that even a hypothetical might conclude that a a less credible claim leads to a less credible minority and that you find that “despicable”.
This is amazing. You “If we don’t know anything about the claimants…”, but you use two people who have been in the news extensively, one concerning an alleged rape. And I don’t know if you and I know the same things about these two people. And you think this is a helpful avenue to explore? It’s not. This is just dumb. We are getting further from the heart of the matter by looking to the real world, not closer. It is a question of logic and probability. A question best handled in the abstract.
I’m trying to make a point, and it seems as if you are inclined to disregard it, just as you’ve done other people’s points. Not surprised, I am.
People who make claims about rape are just as real as Condi Rice and Fabre. They exist, whether we know anything about them or not. To view two separate claims and guess that one is more credible than another simply because of racial crime statistics is foolish, if only because you have no information to go by to make that determination scientifically.
I don’t know why you are suddenly unable to answer my hypothetical using Fabre’s name in place of Janice’s and Rice’s name in place in Marie’s. If we knew nothing about these two women except their name, gender, and race, should we believe Fabre over Rice? By your reasoning the answer should be a resounding yes, but for some reasn you balk when asked for this answer. If you are to be consistent, you should say the same thing you would have said in the case of Marie and Janice, the two hypothetical women in the OP. Why are the situations any different, in the absence of other evidence?
When you refuse to address a reasonable, non-zombie ghost hypothetical, I can only assume check mate.
You really are just not getting what I am saying. Do you understand what I mean when I say “general population”? Do you understand what I mean when I say that women who claim rape form a different group from the general population? This is why you can’t, for example, draw inferences about the rates of disorders in the general population from studies of people in treatment at a clinic, and why relationships among comorbid conditions will be higher in those clinic samples relative to the general population. You really must understand this issue to move forward.
This much is true, and is probably why this is so difficult for you. And I honestly don’t mean for that to be patronizing. Once again, you can look at the rate of rapes in the general population and come up with a probability that you can apply to the general population about how likely to be raped the average person in that population is. Let’s just say it’s 5%. Pluck a person at random from that group, and you can apply that probability to them. “There’s a 5 in 100 chance that this woman was raped.” Okay so far?
Now, is your hypothetical “Take two random people, one white and one black. What is the probability that they were raped”? No, it isn’t. So…
Now, say you pluck that person at random from the population, and before you get a chance to apply your probability to her, she blurts out, “I’ve been raped.” Does it at all make sense to you that the probability that she was raped would remain 5 in 100? It really shouldn’t. Dear God I hope it doesn’t. The only way it could is if you completely discount the information you were just given when she claimed rape. If claims of rape are completely independent of actual rapes, you can ignore that information and apply your population statistics as you hope to. But that will simultaneously answer our other question, because any two claimants will be equally credible. Or, more specifically both will be perfectly incredible, since their statements “offer no reasonable grounds to be believed.”
Once you recognize that it doesn’t make sense that their probability for having been raped remains 5 in 100, ask yourself what the probability should be. What do you need to know to figure that out? Is it 100% likely that she was raped? If people were perfectly credible, or offered perfect grounds for being believed, it would be 100%. But people aren’t, and what you really need to know here is how often people who say they were raped are not accurate about it. This is your population of interest: people who say they were raped, and the information you are lacking is that aforementioned rate of inaccuracy.
Then to answer the original comparison, you need to know if there is a difference in the rate of inaccuracies between contrast groups. That’s it in a nutshell, and if that eludes you, I am sorry.
No. You continue to confuse random likelihood with specific credibility. The man is the source of the two claims. With no further information, we have to assume his credibility is constant across statements, and thus that both statements are equally credible.
However, if for some reason we were given information that led us to believe he said these things as he was randomly pointing at people walking down the street, we could apply probability to the likelihood of his statements being accurate. But we would still regard his credibility across claims as equal, since he is spewing statements at random.
Read back over the thread. I’ve not ignored much. I’ve fully engaged you specifically and entertained many, if not all of your previous attacks at the problem. You’re little game now is one I walk away from because I see it getting further from the heart of the problem (which I already said) and opening a door that could easily lead to “what ifs” much more numerous than those that have already populated this thread. If you think that is disregarding your point, so be it. :rolleyes:
You don’t say. Tell me, do you really think that when people engage in hypotheticals, using abstract entities to represent people that they think real people don’t exist?
Oh really? Here’s a hypothetical. Here are two claims.
A white woman claims that her grandfather was lynched.
A black woman claims that her grandfather was lynched.
Givens
For every white man who was lynched ten black men have been lynched.
Question
All other things remaining equal, which claim is more credible, the claim of the white woman or the black woman? Can you make a best guess and a worse guess?
Change “unable to answer” with “unwilling to entertain”. Hope that helps.
We no doubt agree on what is reasonable. But if that leads you to conclude “checkmate”, I’ve been giving your grasp of logic to much credit.