--- Steve Vertigum utilitymuffinresearch2@yahoo.com wrote:
Why dont you email Chomsky Daniel. Im not an expert. Read that link on the email too. I think you two would hit it off--dont axe me why.
I'm sorry, I missed that link.
I've read some of Chomsky's works, linguistic and political, and I still find it surprising that so many liberals are anti-Israel. I'm sorry, anti-apartheid, whatever you want to call it.
We can agree then that 1. there are standards which would cause us to void some statistics-- we can refuse to be ignorant and 2. admit that statistics are not unpolitical-- that we not simply take them at face value. We can agree that 3. these statistics are of questionable statistical value since they deal with ethnic divisions which are based on dubious ethnic distinctions.
We can also agree to 4. use the .il statistics anyway provided we violate their "moral" copyright-- And AS I SAID THREE times: **Not with a bot. A bot's use represents a privelidged means of access to the Wikipedia. Such a privelige must not be given to POV numbers. They are not statistics---the science behind them is poor. They are merely numbers.
To use such numbers would require a disclaimer that essentially says "these are not statistics--they are politicized numbers."
~S~
I agree with you on the first point, but that's it. See [[Begging the question#Circular Arguments]]. You are proving your premise with itself. Both in this email, where you said "I think we can assume..." (we cant) and proved what you thought we could assume, and before, saying that you're not anti-Israel, just anti-apartheid (who isn't? But israel isn't apartheid).
And of course these numbers are collected for political and/or burocratic purposes, such as creating budget projections and accurately representing districts. Why else would they collect them. LDan
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