--- Steve Vertigum <utilitymuffinresearch2(a)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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