Posted by bwakedanca on February 27, 2012, at 2:35:38
In reply to Re: Clicking the Amygdala?!?!?, posted by Neil Slade on February 13, 2012, at 12:21:14
¡esto es rico!
What qualifies a person to have an opinion is having enough brain cells to formulate an opinion. The most deluded mental patient is qualified to form an opinion. Thoughtful people are more interested in how well qualified is an opinion.
The more detailed and specific an opinion, the more carefully thoughtful people scrutinize an opinion. The further one's opinion deviates from accepted findings of researchers whose work has built on the findings of other researchers working in a specialized field, the more likely thoughtful people are to doubt the merits of the novel opinion.
Likewise, the more a proponent of an opinion represents a novel opinion as accepted by career specialists in a field when aspects of the novel opinion significantly deviate from accepted opinions, the more likely thoughtful people are to question the qualification of the novel opinion.
In marketing, it is not uncommon to see references to numbers of people who engaged in some experience. It's a form of social proof. That's a far different matter than scientific proof. Marketers at times seek to establish credibility by asserting that others find value in a product, service or viewpoint. Marketers proffer social proof as an alternative to scientific proof. It's an appeal to the numbers -- argumentum ad pupulum -- a form of fallacy.
An appeal to numbers is different than an assertion that "most scientists agree" on a matter when the latter assertion is presented in the context of valid reasons that most scientists agree. The latter suggests the work has been verified, the former implies verification is unnecessary.
Of course, asserting a fact such as that most scientists agree the brain has billions and billions of potential pathways does not verify an unrelated claim, such as a claim that we only use 10 percent of our brain. We might use less than 10 percent of the highway at any given moment but there is a reason for that space between vehicles. We use it in the next instant.
In the 1970s, hundreds of people throughout the world took part in many summer experiences intended to develop various personal skills. The same thing happened in the 1980s, and 1990s. In fact, in the 1770s, hundreds of people throughout the world took part in summer experiences intended to develop various aspects of their lives. That doesn't mean any one of those summer experiences accomplished any purpose for which it was promoted. In one case, a leader of popular self-enrichment experiences who was well liked and who appeared in popular psychology magazines later led a group suicide among followers who believed a space ship was waiting for them.
Opinions among the academic community about why people participate in novel self-enrichment experiences often cite a need for approval of an authority figure. Leaders of self-enrichment exercises often flatter participants, telling them they have unusual powers if only they tap into some novel experience. That doesn't qualify the opinions of people who lead summer self-enrichment experiences. The relationships are sometimes mutual, with leaders offering participants benefit of bold, albeit improbable promises that encourage participants to shower the leader with acceptance, praise and affection.
Especially in today's world of print-on-demand imprints anyone with a few hundred dollars and a manuscript can hire, if getting something in print and getting people to enjoy reading a text that promises great personal benefit were all it took to make truth, we would indeed live in a fantastically amazing majicalicious world. We could simply write entertaining books about how to solve every disease in the world by snapping our fingers, and -- voila -- no more disease, no more hunger, no more need for an unfortunate death at the end of a long and sometimes difficult life. Anyone who continues to suffer from disease and die obviously hasn't read enough of our books or bought enough of our DVDs. Do you feel the love?
Nor does income a person derives from self-published books validate the contents of those books - not unless truth is something we vote on rather than something that can be repeatedly tested. Even if truth were a matter of popular vote, one author's income wouldn't be enough to win the election - not when the book stores are full of titles well-financed publishers have accepted and produced through a review process that involves scrutiny by learned editors. The election would go to those authors whose books have appeared on the best-sellers list. Truth by those terms would be told by those who have made so much money they have no need to defend their reputation against critics at an anonymous online mental health forum.
Looking back through this 12-year-old thread, one item caught my eye. A claim that 20 million minds were involved in an experiment does not comport with facts about radio audiences. Talker Magazine's estimates of Arbitron reports say Coast to Coast at one time had three million weekly listeners in a typical week. Three million some time during a week is not 20 million at one moment.
It was an overnight radio show, maybe four hours long, so there was a lot of time for people to tune in. The average radio listener tunes in to about 20 minutes of a show. As an overnight show, it attracted a wide audience by nature of the fact that there were fewer alternatives during those hours than during daytime hours when more stations were on the air. The audience included truck drivers, graveyard shift workers and insomniacs.
Three million listeners during any week doesn't mean that three million people were listening at any one time. Those listeners could've tuned in to any one of 100 20-minute segments during five nights of a four hour show. Much less does it mean that a significant portion of those who were listening at one moment were active participants in a mental activity suggested by a host and his guest.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031202/msgs/287058.html
People caught in a lie often react in anger, masking their fear of exposure behind angry attacks against those who question the integrity of their claims. Sometimes people get angry because they so believe their otherwise untrue statements, they genuinely feel angry -- as a wrongly accused person tends to be. That's just my opinion about how people in general react when they're confronted with untruthful statements they've made.
It's also my opinion that when a person discusses whether another is qualified to offer an opinion rather than discusses the opinion at hand, chances are the opinion is not one that can easily be substantiated, or the person arguing against the person is not skilled at formulating valid opinions, or both.
poster:bwakedanca
thread:936686
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20110117/msgs/1011722.html