racin_rusty wrote:
I had 4 doctors misdiagnose me last year, another got it right.
That's disappointing, but not unbelievable. It's also a pretty good example of the fallacy of argument from anecdotal evidence:
"
It's often much easier for people to believe someone's testimony as opposed to understanding complex data and variation across a continuum. Quantitative scientific measures are almost always more accurate than personal perceptions and experiences, but our inclination is to believe that which is tangible to us, and/or the word of someone we trust over a more 'abstract' statistical reality."
Duffy has a bad dose of it. He knows that all science is rubbish, because some scientists once made his wife cry.
If tens of thousands of scientists had studied your condition for decades, and 98% of them misdiagnosed you, that would be as remarkable as unlikely.
racin_rusty wrote:
You clearly have no idea of the significance of who this guy is and more importantly was.
This one, by contrast, is the fallacy of appeal to authority.
As pointed out, there is no significance to who the guy is or was. He doesn't have good data. That's the issue. He wants you to believe that as a former environmentalist he is more credible. You seem to have fallen for that. If you insist on being impressed by his background, then it is actually who this guy
is that is more telling than who he
was. He has enjoyed a longer career as a paid lobbyist and shill for industries that Greenpeace has opposed than he had as an environmentalist. He is paid by industry groups who hope that the fact he once worked for Greenpeace will impress those with limited critical thinking skills. That, in turn, wouldn't matter if he had anything of scientific merit to contribute.
As Halvard says, the scientific process is well understood. He doesn't participate in that process. He's involved in the lobbying and PR process. Fine. Everybody has to make a living somehow, I suppose, but he isn't much use as a source of scientific knowledge.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/history/Patrick-Moore-background-information/ (and no, I don't look to Greenpeace for scientific insights, either. They also are engaged in lobbying and PR)
