Since we’re crowdsourcing the question of who’s right in this argument, here’s a fun couple of posts:
Oh, bonus comment from Damuri:
On a scale of 1-10, how does everyone feel Damuri Ajashi did at the 5th grade task of turning words into a math problem?
FYI, it was about the above post that Paranoid Randroid said “I believe you’re right about the math.” When **Damuri **and **Slacker **talk about “people agreeing that they’re right”, they’re talking about **Paranoid’s **comment. Paranoid, are you sure you don’t see any problems with **Damuri’s **math?
Before Paranoid answers, s/he is going to want to read this.
Yes, you did. For example:
First of all, I did not make STATEMENT 2 (neither did I assert the opposite was true; I simply have not taken a position on that question). But let’s set that aside. We can also set aside the fact that this all originated with my claim about intradistrict funding, a distinction EE is hellbent on obscuring. Let’s just look at the logic fail established by EE’s own premises and his false conclusion about what “mathematically speaking” they “must mean”.
The first sentence below the STATEMENTS (“Do you not realize that, mathematically speaking, this must mean that non-special-ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than non-special-ed white schoolchildren?”) is trivially true and redundant, because it is nothing more than a rephrasing of STATEMENT 2 (which, again, I never made, but w/e). But it’s the second statement that is logically false:
“And that special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren?”
The “And” clearly means in grammatical terms that it is a continuation of the first sentence, so we could rewrite this assertion (which, in logical terminology, is a “consequent”, the “STATEMENTS” functioning as “antecedents”) as follows for greater clarity:
“This must mean that special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren.”
To make it even clearer, speaking of antecedents, let’s replace the vague-sounding word “This” with what it quite obviously refers to:
“If STATEMENT 1, STATEMENT 2, and STATEMENT 3 are all true, it must mean that special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren.”
The simplest way to disprove this is to provide a single counterexample.
So let’s imagine a school with 20 students, ten white and ten black. Two of the white kids and five of the black kids are SpEd. We’ll assign their funding levels as follows:
—The eight reg ed white kids average $110 in funding, for a total of $880.
—The five reg ed black kids average $100 in funding, for a total of $500.
—The two SpEd white kids average $200 in funding, for a total of $400.
—The five SpEd black kids average $202 in funding, for a total of $1,010.
Now, let’s go through the STATEMENTs one by one:
“STATEMENT 1: Black schoolchildren get more funding on average than white schoolchildren”
Is this one true? Yes. The ten black kids average $151 in funding, while the ten white kids average $128.
“STATEMENT 2: Excluding Special Ed funding, black schoolchildren get less funding than white schoolchildren”
Is this true in our thought experiment? Yes. The reg ed white kids are averaging $110 in funding, ten bucks more per capita than the reg ed black kids.
“STATEMENT 3: STATEMENT 1 and STATEMENT 2 can both be true because a higher percentage of black schoolchildren receive Special Ed funding”
This is not really of a piece with the other two antecedents, but we’ll cut EE some slack here because he was not tasked with presenting a formal logic proposition. In any case, it is true: 50% of the black kids receive Special Ed funding, vs. 20% of the white kids. 50 is more than 20. And the “because” explanation is accurately stated.
Now, what about our reworded consequent (conclusion)?
“If STATEMENT 1, STATEMENT 2, and STATEMENT 3 are all true, it must mean that special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren.”
Do our black SpEd students receive less per capita funding than our white SpEd students? No. No, they do not. EE may not be aware of this, but $202 is in fact NOT less then $200. Oops! :smack:
Now just admit you were wrong yet again, EE (and you too, Andy), and STAY DOWN.
No, he’s not going to want to read your stupid shit. I provided all the context he needs to answer the question I asked him.
I’m sure the “logic” that follows is as well-thought out as: “Dogs and cows are different species. SpEd kids and reg ed kids are the same species.” Which, you have to admit, is one of the stupider arguments in the history of The Straight Dope.
NO FUCKING SHIT YOU FUCKING IDIOT. And it only took you 7 months to figure it out. Well done.
Your example requires black SpEd kids to receive more funding than white SpEd kids, when you have previously claimed that all SpEd kids receive the same amount of additional funding (this post here, where you claim that “the average cost per special education student is an additional $9,369 per student”).
Remember that this post is one of a series of posts in an ongoing discussion, and you can’t just ignore shit you said before. I didn’t address the equability of federal funding in my post, because my post was directed to you, and **you **were the one who claimed that federal funding was equitably allocated.
Now I’m willing to excuse Damuri’s initial post. He wasn’t aware of our ongoing discussion, so when he came in hot, jumping into an argument he wasn’t part of, I politely explained the point about equitable allocation of Federal funding to him, in a post that your “counterexample” dishonestly required you to ignore. (I’m not even surprised or upset that your “counterexample”, made almost 200 posts after I clarified to **Damuri **how you and I agreed to treat SpEd funding, ignored that post. Dishonesty on you is like acne on a leper: It’s kinda the least of your problems)
But **you **have no excuse. **You **were the one who stated that federal funds were distributed equitably. Your “counterexample” requires **you **to ignore **your **prior claims.
Let me be clear here: You don’t get to ignore your prior claims, you stupid sack of shit.
I’m not going to bother responding to the rest of your dumb shit. If I remember correctly it involved you claiming you were winning. That’s a sure sign things are going your way.
Okay, so last time at least (well, one of the many times) you eventually acknowledged you were wrong. This time, this weaselly shit is all you can muster? Pathetic.
You certainly know more about the logic of distinguishing between dogs, cows, and SpEd students:
“Dogs and cows are different species. SpEd kids and reg ed kids are the same species.”
Holy shit dude, I’m not sure I could come back to the board after posting something like that. And the great thing is, it gets worse! I recently got as far as “dogs are born dogs and will die dogs”. But I couldn’t get much further, and I had to read from between my fingers.
Honestly, no joke, I really think you should flesh out your argument some on the differences between dogs, cows, and SpEd students. I don’t think your brief post did the topic justice.
But hey, it’s kinda fun to hold your idiocy up for mockery and derision, and you’ve provided a fresh hot batch, so:
Uh, yeah…that was the entire point, idjit. You claimed that based on a series of antecedents (the “STATEMENTS”), the consequent (“special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren”) necessarily follows. To disprove this, I outlined a hypothetical scenario in which the antecedents were true but the consequent was not. Are you really STILL not following this? You’re even more innumerate than I thought! And that’s saying something.
:dubious: Izzat right? If I say “the average cost per special education student is an additional $9,369 per student”, you think I’m saying that each and every SpEd student costs that much additional over a reg ed student? Like, exactly that much, to the penny? Do you seriously not know what the word “average” means? Okay, let’s dial this way way back to like fifth grade level for you.
Elsa has $3 in her piggy bank. Akmed has $7 in his piggy bank. And Naonka has $2 in her piggy bank. Now, the usual meaning of “average” is the “arithmetic mean” (some might use it to refer to the median, but that still wouldn’t help your case any). To obtain that number, we add these three numbers together: 3+7+2. That makes 12. Now we divide by the number of kids with piggy banks, which is three. 12 divided by 3 is 4. So the average kid in this group has $4 in their piggy bank. Does that mean each one has that same $4? Think carefully now!
This is pretty funny too, although I’m certain it’s too subtle for you to get. Some others here may enjoy it though (or groan and wish you would stop hurting their “side” and giving me so much pleasure).
So you’re claiming that we both “agreed to treat SpEd funding” as equal, right? This never happened, but…if it did, why were you carrying on in your massively innumerate and incoherent attempt at presenting a logical proposition that “special ed black schoolchildren must receive less per capita funding than special ed white schoolchildren”? You were violating our supposed agreement, before belatedly going into high dudgeon mode because I violated it?
OMFG, you really are hilarious. Sometimes I think I should have taken your bet and let you leave the board (or be able to dog you in every thread for not living up to your word), but then stuff like this happens and I’m reminded of why I said you are “way too entertaining” to take up on that bet!
Jesus fucking Christ: THINK BEFORE POSTING, YOU FUCKING MORON!
I seriously can’t believe i have to explain this shit again. 7 fucking months and we’re right back where we started.
Look, small words: Group A starts off with $10 per student in funding. Group B starts off with $5 per student in funding. Now some organization comes along and gives $7 each to some members of Group A and some members of Group B.
Now, among the people who didn’t get the bonus, members of Group A have $10 each, and members of Group B have $5 each.
Among the people who did get the bonus, members of Group A have $17 each, and members of Group B have $12 each.
So, even though the organization gave (a subset of) students the same amount of money, members of Group B still have less than members of Group A on a like-for-like basis.
No joke, I literally just banged my head on the desk.
Look, apart from the racist shit, I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy, but…dude…
Dude, please, stop trying to be clever. The little comments (“think carefully now!”) after you’ve just said something stupid, is just so fucking annoying.
We can treat all students as receiving the exact same amount of money, or not, it doesn’t matter. It only matters if, on average, black students receive more SpEd funding (on a per capita SpEd student basis, not in aggregate) than white students.
That stupid little example with Akmed (the only Akmed I’m aware of is a terrorist puppet. Do you have any non-racist references?) is completely irrelevant. It just proves you don’t actually understand the discussion.
Look, I love arguing as much as the next person, but your shit is wearing me down. Could you just think a little before your next post, please?
What the fuck are you talking about? What error have I made? It’s not like I said that race was mostly a biological classifier. That would be a giant error, but I didn’t say that.
As far as EE, I still haven’t seen what his supposed error is. Just innuendo and snark - no specific and clearly explained “this post had a math error”.
You are either joking, you somehow missed posts 942 and 947, you’re more innumerate than he is, or you are stubbornly trying to gaslight your way out of this. We may be in the Pit, but this is still the SDMB—so if it’s the last one? For shame. :dubious:
From what I can tell, this is simply he said she said shit. EE says he didn’t say what you’re saying he did. And you’re saying you didn’t say what EE said you did. And it’s not incumbent on me to go through dozens of posts to try and finagle a “winner”.
But you did, very clearly, say I was wrong about something, which I challenged, and you’ve ignored. Why is that?
Seriously: anyone reading this who is numerate enough to know I’m right: speak up for the sake of the integrity of the board. No matter what you think of me, it’s a sad day if promoting innumeracy is excused for a “good cause”. You don’t have to support me: feel free to state openly what a piece of shit I am while acknowledging I’m right on the math. But don’t help cover up the truth (including by biting your tongue) for the sake of in-group solidarity. That’s basically selling out your soul in a place like this.
ETA: It’s not dozens of posts, Andy. It’s right there, quoted in the posts just above, 942 and 947.
Where did I say that? Are you lying about me, or just confused? I think I know which post you’re talking about, but I didn’t say what you’re asserting that I did (didn’t say the opposite either).
I’m no economist or statistician, but I’m a qualified Navy nuclear engineer officer, and my degree is in physics, so I do okay with numbers. But you haven’t laid out a clear case that I can follow. All you’ve done is say in your own words that EE has said something incorrect, which he disputes.
And crow about winning like Starving Artist, of course.
Do you seriously not know what the word “average” means? Okay, let’s dial this way way back to like fifth grade level for you.