Florida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates

What I do instead is trust articles, scientific studies and papers whose findings fit what I've already come to believe is true.
This will be your undoing. Articles, studies and papers are awash in errors. Just because it's written in print doesn't make it any more trustworthy or accurate.

Also, there is no such thing as a "scientific" study. There are only studies. No study somehow acquires more authority because someone refers to it as "scientific." Studies are not science; they don't get the "scientific" honorific.

Now at this point, I can easily imagine you or someone else saying that this is confirmation bias, and I'd agree.
Nope. It's simply sheer silliness.

The thing is, there's a very limited amount of time that I'm willing to spend looking at scientific studies and papers
... and none of them are scientific. You are allowing yourself to be hornswoggled.

, so I narrow it down to those which agree with what I already believe.
... and when what you believe is in error, you can point to the papers, articles and studies that agree with you and know that they are erroneous as well.

There is, ofcourse, one factor wherein I go beyond what I would usually look at, and that is online forum posters who disagree with my viewpoints.
That doesn't work either. They can be wrong as well, just with their errors pointing to differing conclusions.

My recommendation to you is to go directly to science, math and logic. You won't get that in studies / articles.

... but my closing recommendation to you is, that once you have reviewed relevant science, math and logic, go with whatever your own critical reasoning tells you, and tell all the others who are lining up to call you "thtooopid" to fuck off. You might be totally correct that there are no living organisms "viruses" and that there is a different explanation for our observations that is, in fact, correct.
 
If it differs from Wikipedia's, yes, I don't. I believe I told you that if people can't reach a consensus on what something like abortion means, trying to -discuss- whether abortion should be allowed or not becomes impossible.
You are being dishonest. You know that the topic is "contract killing." That is the topic about which I am asking you, and you are being intentionally EVASIVE because you see the threat to your beliefs and you know your position is indefensible.

You are fleeing to the hills. Stop being an intellectual coward, come on back, be honest, and engage in honest discussion on contract killings. Explain why you think they are OK. The word "abortion" doesn't ever have to come into play.
 
No, I'm trying to explain how I thought you meant whether I support abortions and your saying "contract killings" was just some exotic way of saying abortion. It now seems that you really were talking about contract killings, but it also seems like you're trying to insinuate that abortions -are- contract kilings and that's where I simply disagree with you.
Did you ever learn about "sets" in math class in school? Do you know what a "proper subset" is? You don't get to "disagree" with the assertion that a proper subset is somehow not a subset.

Contract Killing: A killing of a living human victim V by killer K who is hired by customer C for his "unaliving" services. The fee paid by C is negotiated with K while V gets no say in the matter. The killing is entirely a decision of C.

If you disagree with this definition, give me an example of a contract killing that does not meet this definition so I can modify it. In any event, you believe that contract killings are perfectly fine and I really would like to read your justification for such because, as I said, my understanding is that contract killings are abhorent things performed by shitty people. I'm interested in your perspective.
 
I haven't seen any evidence of this.
You make a habit of turning a blind eye to mountainous evidence all around you.

Well, I think I've made some progress with my efforts to avoid insulting posters and their beliefs as much as I'm capable of.
You really shouldn't be worried about whether someone might feign indignance or pretend to be offended. Ask your questions, and if someone pretends that your fair questions are somehow a problem then you've been given a green light to tell them to sit on this and spin around.

What I mean is that I -think- that, generally speaking, I think posters tend to refrain from insulting me and my beliefs,
You are on the left. Those who exist only to sling poo are also on the left. They aren't going to sling poo at you, but they will always be poised to sling poo at me. Hence, I return fire. I'm not a victim, I'm a poo-Howitzer.

and that's considering that at least one of my beliefs, such as my belief that biological viruses don't exist, is apparently not shared by anyone else in this forum.
Sorry, you aren't the only one. I hate to be the one to break it to you. Have you searched JPP's posting history?
 
I disagree.
You don't get to disagree, I'm sorry. This is not a subjective matter of opinion. If usage descriptions differ then they cannot both be the definition.

Also, since nobody owns any language, nobody gets to define any word in any language. If two people wish to agree on a definition of a word, them great, they can define the word for themselves but not for "the language _.

Yes, different dictionaries certainly aren't identical,
Ergo, avoid the words "define" and "definition."

but in general, they are all pretty similar.
Exactly. They are not identical.

That doesn't mean that it isn't interesting to see how they differ and why, but the differences are small enough that, generally speaking, people could still have decent conversations even if they each defined words only from different dictionaries.
You are describing usage descriptions, not definitions. I'm fairly certain that you are not a computer programmer. Conflicting definitions, even ones with minor differences, result in catastrophic errors. Similar usage descriptions, however, are good enough for a conversation.

I didn't assert that. My assertion is that when having discussions, there needs to be an agreement as to how the participants in said discussion are defining a given word.
Then we agree. Normally, someone proposes a definition for the discussion, and the others say "that's good enough for a discussion."

You apparently switched the subject of the discussion- the discussion had been about abortions.
It's not switching subjects to ask you a question. Your topic of "abortion" was, and is, still there.

I defined contract killings in the totally normal way, and asked why you approve of them. I am eagerly awaiting your justification; I'm sure it's fascinating.
 
Back
Top