On 22 January 2012 22:54, Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 2:36 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
There's a massive selection bias there! Of
course the NGOs that do
lots of lobbying think lobbying is a great idea, otherwise they
wouldn't be doing it.
Not only that, but of course people who eat food and drink water to
sustain themselves are unlikely to give proper weight to Breatharian
points of view!
That pesky POV problem keeps rearing its noisy head wherever you look. ;)
Indeed. That's why I asked for independent research. Research from
NGOs that have chosen not to engage in lobbying would be just as
useless.
I welcome your independent research project when you
get it started.
Or anybody's, really. I suppose the null hypothesis is that one can
simply stay silent and wins the issue anyway. Obviously, I tend to
fall on the Gandhi/Martin Luther King side of that issue -- at least
I'm transparent about my biases.
I disagree - the null hypothesis is that the gain from lobbying isn't
worth the cost, not that the gain is zero. (Cost includes far more
than just monetary cost, of course.)