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The thought police prohibit a sense of humor

BradStevens said:
Curry and Shaq w/r/t FT isn't a very helpful analogy since FT are a binary outcome that we have a high level of confidence in confirming the accuracy and relevance of the data. Not so with expert issues that are litigated and have room for interpretation, by definition.
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I am trying to illustrate the point that a physicist at CERN is going to be right far more often on particle physics than the guy who took standard science classes in high school and that was it. Even if there is a time or two the CERN guy misses something and the other guy has it right. Statistically speaking, bet on CERN.

But we don't like the CERN guy, so we work hard to discredit him. He's on the pay of big particles.
 
Stuffshot said:
The idea that Congress will ever write "better legislation" seems unrealistic when we all know that members of Congress vote for many laws without reading them at all, Some legislation like the budget, tax code, etc. is thousands of pages long and cannot realistically be read by a group of lawmakers.

Then, of course, there's the problem of getting Congress even to call a vote as to some issues, like keeping the government open.
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SS, you bring up some good points, however, circumstances do change and laws don't always work out as foreseen.

Then there is the sad state of affairs which occur when the so-called lawmakers would rather campaign year in and year out about legislation which has failed rather than pass new legislation to correct a problem. Prime example in my view is the need to clarify our immigration laws concerning how to deal with immigrants seeking asylum.

As to not reading bills, legislators have staffs along with lobbyists who follow closely the path which all bills take. Elements which end up in a long and complicated bill to which a legislator may object are usually brought to his attention by staff and/or lobbyists long before a final vote. He may not know all the facets of a bill, but he will know the parts he doesn't like.
 
BradStevens said:
Most reasonable people would agree we want the law to have certain characteristics. One of the paramount ones is predictability. The agency deference position probably has the advantage there.
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Nobody has attempted to argue why federal Chevron deference is better than state presumptions. In many cases statutory federal judicial review is not based on deference, but based on a presumption of validity— like in the states.
 
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Marvin the Martian said:
I am trying to illustrate the point that a physicist at CERN is going to be right far more often on particle physics than the guy who took standard science classes in high school and that was it. Even if there is a time or two the CERN guy misses something and the other guy has it right. Statistically speaking, bet on CERN.

But we don't like the CERN guy, so we work hard to discredit him. He's on the pay of big particles.
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Marv,, I gotta give up. Your understanding of the issue is just wrong and I“m not good enough to show you otherwise. The issue is not about t particle physics, or about ppm for pultion standards. Not that there won’t be conflict about those matters because experts often disagree about their areas of expertise.

Maybe you should read the briefs in the case argued last week.
 
Marvin the Martian said:
I am trying to illustrate the point that a physicist at CERN is going to be right far more often on particle physics than the guy who took standard science classes in high school and that was it. Even if there is a time or two the CERN guy misses something and the other guy has it right. Statistically speaking, bet on CERN.

But we don't like the CERN guy, so we work hard to discredit him. He's on the pay of big particles.
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I get your point Marv. And I am trying to point out that on many of these issues, you have experts with similar credentials on both sides arguing for opposing views.

There is no federal judge who is going to decide a case under the assumption he or she knows more about particle physics than a physicist. Do you have an example of where this has happened (not physics necessarily but anywhere)? Maybe it would help to use an example that has occurred?
 
BradStevens said:
I get your point Marv. And I am trying to point out that on many of these issues, you have experts with similar credentials on both sides arguing for opposing views.

There is no federal judge who is going to decide a case under the assumption he or she knows more about particle physics than a physicist. Do you have an example of where this has happened (not physics necessarily but anywhere)? Maybe it would help to use an example that has occurred?
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In a redistricting case, Roberts called the data "sociological gobbledygook". That doesn't sound like the critic of one with specific questions as to methodology. It doesn't sound like someone who may find the science good but isn't relevant. Isn't that what someone who doesn't understand it says? I have certainly heard people refer to foreign languages as gobbledygook. But never have I heard someone who knows the language call it gobbledygook.


So back to mifipristone. What science did the FDA get wrong? you can see below it compared to penicillin and Viagra.


So what science is he using?
 
Marvin the Martian said:
IIn a redistricting case, Roberts called the data "sociological gobbledygook". That doesn't sound like the critic of one with specific questions as to methodology. It doesn't sound like someone who may find the science good but isn't relevant. Isn't that what someone who doesn't understand it says? I have certainly heard people refer to foreign languages as gobbledygook. But never have I heard someone who knows the language call it gobbledygook.


So back to mifipristone. What science did the FDA get wrong? you can see below it compared to penicillin and Viagra.


So what science is he using?
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Sociology isn’t science. And a lot of it is intellectual gobbledygook.
 
BradStevens said:
Sociology isn’t science. And a lot of it is intellectual gobbledygook.
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Like that letter of from the president of the ASA said, Sociological models are built into anti-credit card fraud algorithms. I suppose now anyone arrested using such tools will be able to get their conviction overturned as it is based on gobbledygook.
 
Marvin the Martian said:
Like that letter of from the president of the ASA said, Sociological models are built into anti-credit card fraud algorithms. I suppose now anyone arrested using such tools will be able to get their conviction overturned as it is based on gobbledygook.
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Link? Sounds like statistics. Math isn't gobbledgook.
 
TheOriginalHappyGoat said:
Slow down. It might not be a hard science, but there is plenty of rigorous quantitative research in sociology. If you're gonna be too picky, you have to say biology isn't science, either.
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The better analogy, I think, would be economics, not biology. I'm fine with saying economics isn't a science, either, although it aims to be.
 
BradStevens said:
The better analogy, I think, would be economics, not biology. I'm fine with saying economics isn't a science, either, although it aims to be.
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They both work as analogies. Point is, science is a methodology, not a field, and that methodology is not restricted to particles. You can do science in any field, including economics and sociology. That doesn't mean all economics and sociology is science. A lot of it isn't. But some of it is.
 
TheOriginalHappyGoat said:
They both work as analogies. Point is, science is a methodology, not a field, and that methodology is not restricted to particles. You can do science in any field, including economics and sociology. That doesn't mean all economics and sociology is science. A lot of it isn't. But some of it is.
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I agree with that, I guess.

I'll rephrase: most sociology isn't science.** But I'll go further, any sociology resting on the premise that there is no objective truth probably can't be scientific. As interpretivists admit:

studyingsociology.com

Is sociology a science (2nd year only) – Theory and Methods

Lesson objectiveTo explore whether sociology is a scienceLesson outcomes• Both perspectives highlighting to what extent• Strengths and weaknesses• What arguments for and against sociology being a s…
studyingsociology.com studyingsociology.com

The Rhetoric of Sociological Facts on JSTOR

James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, The Rhetoric of Sociological Facts, Sociological Forum, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Sep., 2007), pp. 270-299
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

**I assumed that most sociologists now were in the interpretive camp. I have nothing to back that up, though.
 
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BradStevens said:
I agree with that, I guess.

I'll rephrase: most sociology isn't science.** But I'll go further, any sociology resting on the premise that there is no objective truth probably can't be scientific. As interpretivists admit:

studyingsociology.com

Is sociology a science (2nd year only) – Theory and Methods

Lesson objectiveTo explore whether sociology is a scienceLesson outcomes• Both perspectives highlighting to what extent• Strengths and weaknesses• What arguments for and against sociology being a s…
studyingsociology.com studyingsociology.com

The Rhetoric of Sociological Facts on JSTOR

James M. Jasper, Michael P. Young, The Rhetoric of Sociological Facts, Sociological Forum, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Sep., 2007), pp. 270-299
www.jstor.org www.jstor.org

**I assumed that most sociologists now were in the interpretive camp. I have nothing to back that up, though.
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I will say this. It's been a long time since I was in grad school, but when I was there, the qualitative researchers and the quantitative researchers in my department shared a building, and that was it. It's like they were doing two entirely different jobs.
 
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BradStevens said:
There is no federal judge who is going to decide a case under the assumption he or she knows more about particle physics than a physicist. Do you have an example of where this has happened (not physics necessarily but anywhere)? Maybe it would help to use an example that has occurred?
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If a judge is presented with two opposing versions of expert testimony, how does he decide who should prevail?
 
UncleMark said:
If a judge is presented with two opposing versions of expert testimony, how does he decide who should prevail?
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Not by thinking he knows more than the expert.

Most of the time he doesn't decide--it goes to a jury. But when it's a bench trial, in general, he listens to the experts, has to decide credibility issues, and the lawyers will drill down on why they disagree and what those disagreements are based on. He'll ask lots of questions, typically, and rely on a lot of briefing and expert reports. Sometimes, a judge will retain an independent expert to help him out.
 
As an expert scientific witness in about 7 cases that have gone to trial, it usually comes down to the expert who cuts out all the jargon and clearly explains to the judge, with common sense support, why one argument is correct.

Example... I was expert A, opposed by expert B. Expert B argued that a scientific paper from the 1960s invalidated a pharmaceutical patent. He gave the reasoning, that a certain experiment described in that paper would have produced at least some of the same drug substance that the company marketing it had later patented, claiming it was new to the world.

I argued that the experiment in that paper would not and could not produce that substance, and exactly why. The other expert then argued the opposite.

Then, I showed what happened when I, with my own hands in my own lab re-ran that 1960s experiment. Why my DATA, and not just my OPINION, was crystal clear. Explaining without jargon what I did, how I did it, what the data looks like, and exactly what it means. Like I was explaining it to my grandmother.

Most cases are not so cut and dried, admittedly. And I have lost a couple, settled a couple more, won a few more.
 
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BradStevens said:
Not by thinking he knows more than the expert.

Most of the time he doesn't decide--it goes to a jury. But when it's a bench trial, in general, he listens to the experts, has to decide credibility issues, and the lawyers will drill down on why they disagree and what those disagreements are based on. He'll ask lots of questions, typically, and rely on a lot of briefing and expert reports. Sometimes, a judge will retain an independent expert to help him out.
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Sometime in the 90s I was at a computer security conference. One of the speakers was discussing the law. I wish I remembered his examples of tech court cases, but his point was judges had no clue how the internet worked and were making crazy rulings. Eventually he said it would sort out, but at that moment anything you did carried vast profit and risk potential.

Looking at the one-click cases that went around, it seems the patent office was no better. And of course whomever allowed corporate copyright names to be bought by anyone.

But you do know more about law than I do, I feel sorry for you for that sad fact but alas I will respect it. You seem sure bizarre scientific rulings cannot happen (no one is going to sneak through the world is 6000 years old must be taught or pi equals 3.0). So I will withdraw my objections.
 
TheOriginalHappyGoat said:
Jesus Christ dude
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Not sure what that means, but 6 or7 cases in 16 years that went to trial (one was settled mid-trial) and about 5 others that didn't get to trial. A few of the cases are connected,say, one company sued by two different companies that did not want to litigate together.

I have gotten picky with cases, never work on more than one at a time, and tend to turn them down, since the goal when I started doing it was to pay ivy league tuitions for smarty pants kids. They are all out now. Well, two are in graduate schools, but not of the type of programs that run up bills.
 
Marvin the Martian said:
Sometime in the 90s I was at a computer security conference. One of the speakers was discussing the law. I wish I remembered his examples of tech court cases, but his point was judges had no clue how the internet worked and were making crazy rulings. Eventually he said it would sort out, but at that moment anything you did carried vast profit and risk potential.

Looking at the one-click cases that went around, it seems the patent office was no better. And of course whomever allowed corporate copyright names to be bought by anyone.

But you do know more about law than I do, I feel sorry for you for that sad fact but alas I will respect it. You seem sure bizarre scientific rulings cannot happen (no one is going to sneak through the world is 6000 years old must be taught or pi equals 3.0). So I will withdraw my objections.
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I'm sure rogue judges will be stopped. I can't guarantee every court decision made on scientific issues will be correct. No one can. I can also guarantee that no admin process will be correct 100% of the time, and I agree with you, that in the abstract, an "expert" would do a better job at it than a judge. I have no idea what % of time agencies "get it right" vs. make crazy rulings.

But I do know that all agency decisions aren't made in the abstract by experts. Many times, they are made by partisan hacks within agencies, who look for reasons to do what their bosses or their ideology tells them to do. Again, the Fifth Risk was pretty illuminating on that point re the Trump administration.

We both want the same things. I just am questioning (I really don't know this area well enough to have much of an opinion) whether Chevron deference really will result in much worse decisions in practice.
 
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