Want to get docked a letter grade on your argument?
Call it “evidence-based”.
Seriouslly.
We are seeing this phrase from an awful lot of groups, especially media, to try and market themselves as authoritative, objective, and “not fake“.
(Dishonorable mention to Minnesota and National Public Radio who’ve been leading with the equally-dumb “fact-based”).
The phrase isn’t “meaningless”, per se – but it does prey on the gullibility of the audience.
Virtually every argument that goes past the level of the thesis statement is based on some kind of “evidence“ or another, including every single conspiracy theory that more than three people share.
The flat earth theory is “evidence-based“: the evidence is too narrow in scope, obsolete or just plain wrong, but it is in fact evidence.
Phrenology – the practice of medicine based around measuring bumps on peoples heads – what evidence-based. It turned out the evidence led to a faulty conclusion.
Hair strand analysis -= the story of the structure of hair – was considered as infallible as DNA is today, for purposes of evidence in criminal proceedings. The “evidence-based” study of hair strands was considered so authoritative it sent many people to death row over the years.
But it turned out that the interpretation of the evidence, as knowledge of other ividence grew, meant that hair strand analysis turned out to be completely useless for establishing identity, and is today not a whole not more respected than phrenology or the flat earth theroy.
Evidence is not a conclusioni. It’s not distilled truth, in and of itself.
Evidence is the “table stakes” in a rational, informed debate that gets us, eventually, to the truth.
Anyone who treats that phrase otherwise deserves a sound mocking.
Mitch, your website has become VERY slow, we are talking 9600 baud here. Do you know why?
The outcome of every trial depends on what can and what cannot be admitted as evidence. not the evidence itself.
“Evidence based” social science makes about as much sense as evidence based black magic.
Hey, I will stick with “scant evidence-based”, because I dread the thought of social science and grievance studies departments fully embracing the notion of “theory-based”.
Can you just imagine?
“That’s utter bull-crap!”
“No, it is not, it’s THEORY-BASED!!!!”
The “shut up and dribble” crowd has been real quiet about Aaron Rodgers suddenly becoming one of the top scientists and doctors in the world.
Evidence to fact is like correlation to causation.
Seems to me that Aaron Rodgers does not look sick. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone was given a false positive.
Credentialism is violence.
I have the same trouble as Kinlaw . . . this site is v-e-r-y- s-l-o-w.
Did you switch your server to AOL dial-up?
It’s 2:48 cst and the site loaded very quickly. It’s a lot slower when there are more people on the interwebs.
It used to be that healthcare choices were a matter between doctor and patient.
Suddenly LA majors with a PhD in public health make the decisions for both doctors and patients.
Get ready for a lot more plagues in the future.
Evidence:
“Danchenko’s background, which is worthy of a second-rate spy novel, came to light in late 2020, when a Justice Department inspector-general investigation was unsealed. A Russian citizen transplanted to Washington as a geopolitics scholar, he landed at the Brookings Institution, a prominent Clinton-friendly think-tank. In 2009, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation of Danchenko. He had allegedly suggested to two Brookings staffers, who appeared to be headed for jobs in the Obama administration, that he could make it worth their while if they passed along classified information. The staffers (one of whom believed Danchenko must be a Russian agent – imagine that!) instead passed along word of Danchenko’s entreaty to the FBI. The Bureau learned that Danchenko appeared to be tied to two Russian agents who were also under investigation.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/11/the-dossier-deceit/
Big Bird got his Covid shot. Therefore you should also. Does that qualify as evidence? We are all prisoners of the anecdote. The evidence on the pandemic will take years to sort through. Right now confirmation bias leads the parade.
Rodgers gets all his medical advice from Joe Rogan…
I see a bright future for Rodgers as a candidate under the banner of the GOP.