7 ms·

He wasn't working there at the time - only started in 2008 post subprime crisis. Please don't argue ad hominem, if you have an issue with the statement then ma

He wasn't working there at the time - only started in 2008 post subprime crisis. Please don't argue ad hominem, if you have an issue with the statement then make your objection directly.

cheez 8y ago
Taleb calls these people IYIs: intellectual yet idiot. There is nothing exceptional about THIS economist that would make him right. The OP had the right idea.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jackvalentine 8y ago
  What’s your point?
  - cheez 8y ago
    The point is that it's not an ad hominem attack. The entire profession of economists on balance do not call anything correctly.
    - jackvalentine 8y ago
      It is an argument from ad hominem. Or are economists wrong even when they say something you'd agree with?
      - cheez 8y ago
        The semantics of the philosophy of the argument are irrelevant. The basic point is that predictive economists are nothing more than highly educated charlatans.
        jackvalentine 8y ago
        You’re very keen on pushing that point.
      - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
        The original comment ("In theory, yes. In practice, no.") is from ad hominem. It does not provide any actual thoughts or arguments, it simply says that there is an economist that thinks this way, implying that it should be enough of a reason to trust it. There was no argument except for ad hominem! Of course the response to that can only be a defusal of such argument.
        jackvalentine 8y ago
        Err did you click on to the link provided with that comment at all?
sempron64 8y ago
There is a fallacy about logical fallacies: using them to discredit non-logic based arguments. When one wants to assess the credibility of anecdotal facts, it is entirely fair to ask whether a person is a reliable source for this information. This is why character witnesses are acceptable in court. We are not trying to prove a theorem or explain the results of an experiment. We are trying to use our intuition, for lack of better tools and information, to assess what we hear. So saying that this person can be considered unreliable as a source of information in this kind of analysis due to past behavior is valid. Objective data and detailed explanation should be provided to back up his argument logically in order for it to be acceptable, rather than taking Duncan's word for his analysis of the data he has presumably seen. In this case, the author's data-based assertion of non-correlation is much weaker than Douglas Duncan's. I think based on Duncan's background, it is fair to dismiss his quote entirely without further context and base conclusions only on the data presented. In addition, since the author presents an unreliable source, one may suspect the data is skewed to support that source, conciously or unconsciously.
- jackvalentine 8y ago
  I agree to an extent, but I don’t see the post that I replied to as possessing any good faith at all based on the wording.

He wasn't working there at the time - only started in 2008 post subprime crisis. Please don't argue ad hominem, if you have an issue with the statement then make your objection directly.

cheez 8y ago

Taleb calls these people IYIs: intellectual yet idiot. There is nothing exceptional about THIS economist that would make him right. The OP had the right idea.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jackvalentine 8y ago
What’s your point?
- cheez 8y ago
  The point is that it's not an ad hominem attack. The entire profession of economists on balance do not call anything correctly.
  - jackvalentine 8y ago
    It is an argument from ad hominem. Or are economists wrong even when they say something you'd agree with?
    - cheez 8y ago
      The semantics of the philosophy of the argument are irrelevant. The basic point is that predictive economists are nothing more than highly educated charlatans.
      - jackvalentine 8y ago
        You’re very keen on pushing that point.
    - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
      The original comment ("In theory, yes. In practice, no.") is from ad hominem. It does not provide any actual thoughts or arguments, it simply says that there is an economist that thinks this way, implying that it should be enough of a reason to trust it. There was no argument except for ad hominem! Of course the response to that can only be a defusal of such argument.
      - jackvalentine 8y ago
        Err did you click on to the link provided with that comment at all?

sempron64 8y ago

There is a fallacy about logical fallacies: using them to discredit non-logic based arguments. When one wants to assess the credibility of anecdotal facts, it is entirely fair to ask whether a person is a reliable source for this information. This is why character witnesses are acceptable in court. We are not trying to prove a theorem or explain the results of an experiment. We are trying to use our intuition, for lack of better tools and information, to assess what we hear. So saying that this person can be considered unreliable as a source of information in this kind of analysis due to past behavior is valid. Objective data and detailed explanation should be provided to back up his argument logically in order for it to be acceptable, rather than taking Duncan's word for his analysis of the data he has presumably seen. In this case, the author's data-based assertion of non-correlation is much weaker than Douglas Duncan's. I think based on Duncan's background, it is fair to dismiss his quote entirely without further context and base conclusions only on the data presented. In addition, since the author presents an unreliable source, one may suspect the data is skewed to support that source, conciously or unconsciously.

jackvalentine 8y ago
I agree to an extent, but I don’t see the post that I replied to as possessing any good faith at all based on the wording.