Via Instapundit, Penn Jillette describes doing a nasty joke about the Hildabeast, and the (to him) surprising reaction from the crowd. This strikes me as being about right. As he notes, it’s an instant, honest reaction, as opposed to answering a poll where people have time to formulate an answer based on whatever agenda they have or what they think the pollster wants to hear. Mind you, the audience is not a random sample in the scientific sense. In statistics, this is called a convenience sample, but it’s nevertheless pretty interesting.
Update: For those of you wondering about the political implications, it’s true that any Penn and Teller audience is obviously self-selecting, but you’d have to do some research to find out what that means politically. Penn usually describes himself as a Libertarian. I prefer to think of him as being in the No Bullshit Party. He goes wherever logic and common sense take him. Which usually ends up being a conservative position, oddly enough.
A quick reaction isn’t honest. It’s unexplained. Not always the same thing.
People do have several kinds of pre-intellectual revulsions toward Hillary, which unfortunately for her (and Stanley Fish) are largely intellectually justifiable, but that crowd reaction — note its difference from the unoffendable Penn’s individual reaction — can also be explained by the degree to which Obama support is a self-image-satisfying display.
The decision to join comes before thinking. Obama’s campaign is built on this psychological verity. And if he sneaks by Hillary, it’ll make him President.
I wonder if their audiences tend to skew to any particular political positions. Whether or not they do, however, that was an interesting experiment he did. It’s one thing to say her negatives are high, and it’s another to confirm it.
Yeah, Cranky, there is also the factor of self-selection in the sample, but it’s still a type of convenience sample.
thank you.
I do not dispute that. I was just wondering in general what the makeup would be to see if the sample bias was highly skewed or not with respect to political party.
BTW, when people and their opinions are involved, I don’t think you can have anything other than a convenience sample, really. You can try to reduce the degree of convenience, if you will, but it cannot be eliminated. The only people who will answer questions are those who will answer them. You cannot sample people who won’t answer them, and I don’t think such people are evenly distributed across the political spectrum.
I agree, but I also wonder what level of self-satisfaction people get in supporting Hillary. I imagine it might be less than that achieved in supporting Obama, simply because from an identity politics standpoint Hillary has less “oppression cache.”
Eh, I think I answered my own question.
Right, right, I wasn’t arguing with you, just pointing that out. And you’re right about the self-selecting aspects of any political poll. It’s the bane of pollsters.
If Penn followed logic and reason then he certainly wouldn’t always end up with a conservative point of view. That statement in and of itself is logically false.
True, that would be false, but then again, Craig said “usually” not “always.” So, sparky, strawman much?
Sparky may not be strawmanning. He may just not be getting good grades in reading comprehension these days.
Also, the spit that flies when they start frothing tends to cloud the screen a bit.
Speaking of bitches, sparky, put some ice on that. Bitch slap you just got, that is…:) Because in reality, if one does indeed follow logic and reason, and oh yes, facts, in one thinking, you will indeed pretty much always end up with a conservative point of view.
Actually, about the only thing I find surprising about the crowd’s reaction to Penn’s joke is that some people are still surprised when things like that happen. (Also, that by his own admission, Penn was “a little offended” by that joke himself, says something about his politics.)
Ever since the end of the Clinton regime in 2000, and Hillary’s prompt move to New York and even more prompt election to the Senate, the “conventional wisdom” has been that she was going to run for President, and that it would be a cakewalk for her to the Dim nomination.
But once the long slog to the convention started, it didn’t take long, at least for those with eyes to see, that Thunder Thighs was not going to have such an easy time of it after all. And it is for the simple reason that a lot of people simply don’t like her, nor is it just conservative Republicans. Clearly a lot of Dims don’t like her either.
But even if you don’t know anything about her history, just looking at her, listening to the things she says and does, her demeanor, body language, the works, is very off-putting to a lot of people. Her image fairly screams ball-cutting bitch; a sort of female General Zod (“You will bow down before me! Both you, and one day, your heirs!”) that even a goodly number of Demos can’t abide.
Granted, neither Clinton nor Obama have any business anywhere near the White House, as both are empty suits, with zero qualifications for the job (being elected to one and a quarter, or less in the case of Barry-O, to the Senate from two of the most politically corrupt states in the country does not count). The fact that either one of these dimbulbs is where they are now says a lot about the state of the Democrat Party.
But the fact that a more-or-less random audience like the ones Penn had would laugh at such a joke is in reality no surprise…
I don’t know who this guy’s normal audience is, but I’d guess he does, and this was not the reaction he expected.
So yes, self-selected audience, and interesting result.
So what was the original joke?
Perhaps not, but in order to back up a categorical statement like yours, you must be able to provide a positive proof – that is to say, a verifiable example where “logic and reason” leads to a non-conservative position.
I don’t doubt that such an example exists, but it is not up to others to provide your evidence.
Now, if you would be so kind, please follow through and either provide the example, or withdraw the categorical nature of the comment.
(Besides, as has already been pointed out, the original word was “usually”, not “always”.)
Penn was pretending to read from a newspaper during a magic bit (to fill time; it was a throwaway line) and commented that Obama was really beating up on Hillary in the primaries, and Hillary was complaining that it was because February is ‘Black History Month’. He finished with, “Unfortunately for Hillary, there is no ‘White Bitch Month’.”
And the crowd went apeshit.
A self-selecting crowd to some degree, surely, but I would imagine tourism is down a bit during the winter months, and with it being so close after Christmas (just about the time the credit card bills arrive), so I would argue that the crowd is likely to be more randomized than that, including a coterie of locals out for a birthday or anniversary celebration, especially for a mid-week show.
Just my thought, but the wife and I visit the area regularly, usually preferring to arrive in Vegas on a Sunday and leave a few days later, and avoid a shiteload of traffic, both ways, on I-15.
Clicky-clicky, Sticky.
Even if you replace “always” with “usually” my statement is still true. Specifically speaking that is because logic in and of itself is dependent on a persons own bias from the start. One can logically reason that all elephants are pink if one assumes that there exists such a thing as a pink elephant. Therefore, Penn “usually” comes to conservative conclusions because he starts from conservative assumptions.
Y’know, Scott old fellow, I’ve got a friend named Bedivere I’d like you to meet. He’s a student of natural science and a hella big fan of logic. You should hear this proof of his about the weight of aquatic fowl as a means for establishing whether a woman is more or less likely to leave you newt-like. Or newtish. Newtistic, maybe.
Clicky-clicky
You called?
Uh, no. That’s not logic, that’s faith. And it would still be illogical, even if you conceded the faith to be accurate.
No, you can create a logically sound argument that states all elephants are pink elephants. It would be as follows:
Premise 1: If elephants are real, then they are pink.
Premise 2: Elephants are real.
Conclusion: Elephants are pink.
This is an example of a logically valid argument. You can construe any argument into a logically valid argument because any of the premises can be false. So you can logically say that all elephants are pink elephants and still be completely wrong.
I should say a logically valid argument, a logically sound argument would have all true premises. I apologize about that guys.
Ah, but that belies your earlier argument. If logic leads to a false-to-fact error, a contradiction or a paradox, then one or more of the underlying assumptions is not true.
How many and which ones are subject to discussion, but that is where your bias enters – what kinds of evidence you are willing to accept in support of your arguments, ranging from Maxwell’s Demon to the current level of unquestioning mania surrounding B. Hussein Obama.
However, your walkback regarding the shift from “always” to “usually” is easily solved, but adds a great deal of burden of proof squarely onto your shoulders. If you were attempting to counter-argue the use of “always”, then all you would have to do is provide a counter-example.
However, now that you are denying “usually”, you now have to come up with a majority of all such situations, and show how more than half result in a non-conservative result.
You fail to meet the burden. Are you going to apologize for that, as well? Or are you just going to rest on your nonexistent laurels while the rest of us ignore your feeble efforts at being offended by the facts.
Actually I made my point fairly accurately. In demonstrating that logic can be dependent on bias I showed how someone could come up with logically valid but wrong assumptions. Now you’re misinterpreting what I’ve said. I said that a logical falsehood can be valid, but not sound. For logical soundness the argument must have all true premises, so my pink elephant argument falls apart when we reach that point. Just as the argument that Penn “usually” comes to a conservative conclusion based on logic is subject to the same type of scrutiny:
Premise 1: If Penn is logical, then he is conservative.
Premise 2: Penn is logical.
Conclusion: Therefore Penn is Conservative.
That seems to be the argument laid out at the end of the post. It does not follow that to be logical is to be conservative, because many liberals are logical as well and many conservatives are illogical. So this argument would also be valid, but probably not sound.
I admit fault for replacing “usually” with “always” that was just an error on my part. However, the point was not the error I made (which I corrected) but that logic is not the end all be all for construing a belief system. It can be manipulated to support many different claims some of which undoubtedly are false.
So I am calling into question the general soundness of the claim, not the validity. I have offered no real assertion that logic leads one to a set of liberal conclusions either. Merely that it could be manipulated in a manner that would offer logical validity to almost any claim.
I’m trying to get how raising taxes increases prosperity. Or how immediate withdrawal from Iraq will benefit either us or the Iraqis. Or how just uttering the word ‘change’ will get you elected.
I’m thinkin most of the time yer gonna wind up with what the left calls a reactionary conclution. Politically speakin, that is.
Sparks is ignoring that the logical thing to do when making decisions is to establish the facts first.
I admit I don’t know that much about logic, but I’ve never heard of the three-step “therefore” kind beginning with “if”; as I recall, it was “All” somethings are, followed by “Some” things, followed by “Therefore”.
I thought that three-part statement that began with “If” were usually followed by “Then” and “Else”.
Maybe Sparky is confusing digital logic with deductive logic.
sparks used to hang out at caric’s place and tell the good prof how brilliant he is. He does not appear to be acquitting himself much better here.
No, that is an example of a logical fallacy. That one is called Sweeping Generalisation. It also suffers from a premise for which you have no evidence.
There you go, displaying the conservative bias of your assumptions.
So sparkler hasn’t given up yet. Whatever.
This is an example of what I mean. No one here – except you, of course – is making this assertion.
The proper premise-conclusion being drawn is:
Premise 1: Using Logic and Reasoning will usually bring you to a conservative position.
Premise 2: Penn uses Logic and Reasoning.
Conclusion: Penn usually arrives at a conservative position.
To disprove it, you have to show that one or more of the premises is invalid, and (despite repeated invitations) you have failed to do so.
Can you actually show your work, or are you simply fighting the tide with knee-jerk parrot squawkings?
The occasional rare exceptions do not invalidate the “usually” part of the claim, and until you can show that more-than-half of liberals are logical and more than half of conservatives are illogical, your claim is clearly inaccurate.
You are AGAIN invited to actually show your work.
Only if you accept an invalid assumption to start out with, such as your “all elephants are pink” premise. I can “prove”, using inevitable mathematical logic, that 1 = 2, but that doesn’t make it “true”, because the error, while subtle and hard to find, exists never the less.
Which only reiterates my original claim that if logic and reasoning leads to a false or contradictory conclusion, the error lies in the underlying premises.
conclusion very tired. must sleep.
Drumwaster the first lesson you must learn is that for a relativist, logic only is used to attack, not defend. If you reject the concept of absolute truth to begin with, it doesn’t matter what’s true logically.