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> Bill Gates' favorite book I'm not that interested in what Gates thinks a good book is. Being famous/successful/rich/humanitarian isn't super relevant to bein

> Bill Gates' favorite book I'm not that interested in what Gates thinks a good book is. Being famous/successful/rich/humanitarian isn't super relevant to being able to identify a good book. > interviews with convicted murderers Accumulation of anecdotes != non-anecdotal evidence. It's interesting, but just anecdotal. > where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system A statement that is very hard to prove. I don't think you did, and I'm not sure if it's really possible given the general replication crisis within psychology. > improving trust in the police should reduce crime I think your evidence is once again insufficient to make the point, but I will agree that the conclusion seems more-or-less valid. > We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites. You don't have to predict that, because it's already well-known. As such, a) you made a trivial prediction, b) you have to show a causal link, c) you have to show that your posited cause is in fact the dominant cause of the effect you're looking at, and d) you have to demonstrate the direction of the causality. You haven't done b, c or d. IIRC, there are a lot of persuasive alternative explanations for the difference in the black/white murder ratio, all of which would have to be addressed. Since I think this explanation of that ratio is much less persuasive than other potential causes, I don't think this point is tenable. > every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system That's a really good bit of evidence, and interesting to think about. I will agree with you that as far as "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" goes, Germany seems decently representative of the latter. However, as I mentioned above, the US side of the comparison is far less apparent: the critical piece of the logic puzzle doesn't work. After my first reading of your comment, I didn't really expect to find holes in most of the points you made, when I made my response. Thought I'd be agreeing with you more. But here we are. It was definitely interesting. Thanks.

btilly 6y ago
When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided. However some of the successes of community policing (particularly when you have neighboring cities, one of which adopts it and another of which doesn't) do suggest a causal link with causality going the right way. Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.
- generalizations 6y ago
  > When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided. Yeah, though that just means it's harder to actually find out what's true. That's why the replication crisis in psychological sciences is a crisis. We can't treat gaps in our knowledge like supporting evidence. > Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime. That sounds great, and does seem like you're right about that specific item.

btilly 6y ago

When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided. However some of the successes of community policing (particularly when you have neighboring cities, one of which adopts it and another of which doesn't) do suggest a causal link with causality going the right way. Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.

generalizations 6y ago
> When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided. Yeah, though that just means it's harder to actually find out what's true. That's why the replication crisis in psychological sciences is a crisis. We can't treat gaps in our knowledge like supporting evidence. > Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime. That sounds great, and does seem like you're right about that specific item.