Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)

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dholliday said:
So there is no "simple genetic fact", because you don't understand genetics. There isn't enough there to say anything is a fact. Bustamente says so himself.

You even admitted that your 'simple fact' is nothing but your interpretation of information:

In your mind...these are simple facts which you keep repeating to yourself...like a mantra. Until you believe nothing else.

This is what they call alternative facts. Or what I call self-brainwashing. Or indeed bonkers.
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Here's a way out for you: do you want me to go back and replace every instance of me using the word "fact" with "99% likely" or some other such term? Would this make you feel better: "with 99% likelihood Warren has more native American DNA than the average American" Does that help things?

So when you claim "No she doesn't" you are putting all your weight in the 1% probability that the estimation of her ancestry was wrong, and I'm saying with 99% probability that the current analysis is the best explanation we have to explain those long segments of A's, C's, T's and G's that are shared between her genome and the reference population.
 
verreauxi said:
Here's a way out for you: do you want me to go back and replace every instance of me using the word "fact" with "99% likely" or some other such term? Would this make you feel better: "with 99% likelihood Warren has more native American DNA than the average American" Does that help things?

So when you claim "No she doesn't" you are putting all your weight in the 1% probability that the estimation of her ancestry was wrong, and I'm saying with 99% probability that the current analysis is the best explanation we have to explain those long segments of A's, C's, T's and G's that are shared between her genome and the reference population.
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As an internet contrarian I am certain he is more than comfortable living in the 1%.
 
verreauxi said:
Scientists use words like "likely" and "support" to express probability in a hypothesis. This is standard scientific talk. Can science prove anything with 100% certainty?...of course not. That's not how science works. The data only speak to the most likely hypothesis, which in this case is that Warren has more native American DNA than the average American. If you are trying to move the goal posts (again) in terms of what constitutes proof in some sort of philosophical sense (or some silly semantic debate over "pretty conclusive"), that's fine, we can do that in another post. Science only makes the strongest inference to the best explanation and such inferences are measured in probabilities, which is why any scientist worth their salt would never say anything like "we've shown conclusively" or "we have definitely proved that" etc. Instead, they use phrases like "with 99% probability, the data and analysis support this explanation..." Such words are a simple acknowledgment that it could be otherwise, given a new set of data, a new analysis, etc. The technical report says "The analysis also identified 5 genetic segments as Native American in origin at high confidence, defined at the 99% posterior probability value." So at present, the data support the simple fact that her DNA contains Native American segments. It is a fact because if she released her raw data, I could literally point to the long stretches of A's, C's, T's and G's in her genome that reflect this ancestry. And I could further point to a different sequence of A's, C's, T's and G's in an average American genome showing that they lack this native American segment. So again, you are simply wrong on this. And it becomes more and more puzzling that you cannot admit it.

Let me put it this way: if another analysis turns up that says she is 83% Finnish or any other analysis that robustly proves Bustamante's analysis incorrect, I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong. But there are no alternative analyses, and the only analysis we have is quite robust and shows, as a simple fact, that she has long stretches of Native American DNA and the average American does not.

As to the quote "because you don't understand genetics" that is simply false.
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obsessed. bonkers. but not pushing it...no sir.
 
verreauxi said:
Here's a way out for you: do you want me to go back and replace every instance of me using the word "fact" with "99% likely" or some other such term? Would this make you feel better: "with 99% likelihood Warren has more native American DNA than the average American" Does that help things?

So when you claim "No she doesn't" you are putting all your weight in the 1% probability that the estimation of her ancestry was wrong, and I'm saying with 99% probability that the current analysis is the best explanation we have to explain those long segments of A's, C's, T's and G's that are shared between her genome and the reference population.
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this is why Trump will win in 2020...
 
LinekersLegs said:
the way that Soros is accused and vilified on a huge range of subjects by elements of the right I’m surprised he hasn’t been attacked before.
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before he became the bogeyman it was any Rothschild or Rockefeller...there's a few youtubes about of very old members of these families being accosted by thankfully harmless conspiracy theorists armed only with weird questions.
 
dholliday said:
this is why Trump will win in 2020...
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To review: the issue is whether Warren has more native American DNA than the average American. You claimed she does not. I have outlined here--repeating myself over and over--why I claim she does, pointing to the technical report among other things.

You have sidestepped my assertions by claiming things such as:
--I'm brainwashed (ad hominem)
--It's a minuscule amount so it doesn't matter (the relative amount does matter, it is exactly the issue at hand)
--We've agreed that Warren made a silly political move so let's move on (sidestepping, but I agree)
--That I wrongly said "digged" when I should have written "dug" (petty and irrelevant)
--That my responses are bonkers (they're not, they have been direct)
--That I'm trying to get one over on Trump (more sidestepping)
--That I don't understand genetics (despite you making the bizarre claim that "Most people in the world will have some exotic DNA going that far back")

But none of this absolves you from the issue at hand, and the issue you are wrong about.

You then try to steer the exchange into semantics about "likely" and "supports" and I explain to you how science works: science explains reality only through hypothesis testing and assigning probabilities to those hypotheses; this is why I feel comfortable calling as "fact" that Warren has long stretches of native American DNA, as the data are supported with a 99% posterior probability. I've even suggested I'd admit to being wrong if a different and more robust analysis came back suggesting something otherwise.

You're response to all this was "obsessed. bonkers. but not pushing it...no sir." (more sidestepping)

I've also suggested that if you don't like my use of "fact" we can replace it with "99% likely" to which you bizarrely responded: "this is why Trump will win in 2020..." (more sidestepping)

All this because you don't want to admit you're wrong on this simple and, frankly, trivial scientific point. We are getting nowhere.
 
ilikecheese said:
I didn't label him a racist. He took issue with me tagging in a mod when he doubled down after being told he was in the wrong calling someone else a racist.
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Wait, what? Over on the Far Left thread, we were lectured by dholliday about name-calling. Yet you are saying he labeled someone a racist? What's going on here? dholliday: I thought name calling was bad...but did you suggest someone was racist?
 
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