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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2007 :  12:12:22  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
While we wait for Kil to provide us with his own report on the events of TAM5, I thought I'd start a thread in which we can discuss other TAM5 reports.

And I'll start with Robert Carroll's short report, not least because he mentions "David Glück of The Skeptic Friends Network and the Kil report" (giving us two links), in the same sentence with Reggie Finley, as well as Derek and Swoopy.

I think Dr. Carroll gave our own beskeptigal short shrift by starting out a paragraph with "Ginger Switzer offered some interesting comments on communication. For example, she agrees with George Lakoff's notion that how we frame issues is most important," and then saying, "The problem I have with Lakoff is..." and that's all he talks about for the rest of the paragraph. Lakoff, Lakoff, Lakoff. Not another word about b'gal's "interesting comments" (which I'm still waiting to read, b'gal - nudge, nudge).

Finally, I'd like to point out that Dr. Carroll's entire review starts out with a long, fascinating aside in which he tells a story of how Elizabeth Loftus, of False Memory Syndrome fame and according to Carroll, "one of the darlings of the skeptical community," is called into a pre-trial hearing for Scooter Libby's defense and winds up getting hoist on her own petard by the prosector.

[Edited because I let Dr. Carroll trick me into using a horrible misspelling of Derek's name]

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.

Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 01/29/2007 :  19:02:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message
Well, huh. How cool is that?. If you recall from last year's report, meeting Robert Carroll was on my wish list at TAM4. I finally got to thank him in person for including my Evil Skeptic and a Visit to Awarness 2000 on the Skeptic Refuge essential reading list, under essays. He has also placed our forum very high up in is links/resource section of the Refuge too. All in all, he has been very kind to SFN.

There will be more about our chance meeting in my TAM5 report.

As some of you already know, I do not hold Elizabeth Loftus in the highest regard. But she remains a darling of the skeptic community, even if this skeptic doesn't agree that she should be.

I enjoyed beskeptigal's paper presentation. It was on an important topic and I look forward to the written version which will be published here, among other places. I can't really go into any detail about it now because I'll be writing about her presentation in my report.

And yes, I am working on the report...



A bit of editing...

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2007 :  03:04:02   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

While we wait for Kil to provide us with his own report on the events of TAM5, I thought I'd start a thread in which we can discuss other TAM5 reports.

And I'll start with Robert Carroll's short report, not least because he mentions "David Glück of The Skeptic Friends Network and the Kil report" (giving us two links), in the same sentence with Reggie Finley, as well as Derek and Swoopy.

I think Dr. Carroll gave our own beskeptigal short shrift by starting out a paragraph with "Ginger Switzer offered some interesting comments on communication. For example, she agrees with George Lakoff's notion that how we frame issues is most important," and then saying, "The problem I have with Lakoff is..." and that's all he talks about for the rest of the paragraph. Lakoff, Lakoff, Lakoff. Not another word about b'gal's "interesting comments" (which I'm still waiting to read, b'gal - nudge, nudge).

Finally, I'd like to point out that Dr. Carroll's entire review starts out with a long, fascinating aside in which he tells a story of how Elizabeth Loftus, of False Memory Syndrome fame and according to Carroll, "one of the darlings of the skeptical community," is called into a pre-trial hearing for Scooter Libby's defense and winds up getting hoist on her own petard by the prosector.

[Edited because I let Dr. Carroll trick me into using a horrible misspelling of Derek's name]

Well, I shall have to look into this. Lakoff was on 2 of my 38 slides only to introduce the concept and term. It wasn't the focus of my talk by a long shot.

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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2007 :  03:27:05   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
This is great,
quote:
I also got to meet many people I'd known before only through e-mail or the telephone: Derrick and Swoopy from Skepticality, Rich Herren who was the first of several volunteer online editors of The Skeptic's Dictionary, David Glück of The Skeptic Friends Network and the Kil report, and Reggie Finley, the Infidel Guy.


I'm not too worried about the Lakoff thing. I'm looking at how anything I discuss which has a political example gets half the audience blocking out the message. On the one hand, it's a communication block, but on the other, a big reason to educate people abut the political manipulation is that's what is happening. The Lakoff example was of Republicans calling tax cuts tax relief.

quote:
There was some discussion of bias in the media and some agreement that the main bias is the bias of the good story. Significance or importance of the issue takes a back seat to whether there is a good story to be told. Somebody from the audience commented that stories that focus on immediate dangers or negative consequences are much easier to see and write than stories about possible future benefits of some policy or action.
This is what I need to address. The main bias might be good stories don't sell, but the worse problem is all the rest of what's going on, partly this, partly media consolidation, partly media manipulation by the White House and the Republicans, and so on and so on. If it were just too many stories about murder and missing white girls it would be bad, but it's the lack of any actual newsworthy information as well. There is so much we need an informed public to know. And right now, you can only find the information in places other than the mainstream news.




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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 01/30/2007 :  04:13:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
I posted on Rennie's blog. It's great to see all the familiar faces among those posts. I hope they all come back and read what I said as well.





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