daverupa wrote:
daverupa wrote:The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. Have you any data?
Kim O'Hara wrote:Yes:
Kim O'Hara wrote:My experience.
Does yours differ?
Do you have more?
Kim
My personal anecdotes are irrelevant to any valid conclusion about the relative "nicety" of religious v. secular individuals, as are yours. Variable control (i.e. awareness of as many inputting causes and conditions as one can be) is wholly absent here, and as such your conclusion is an unwarranted generalization. Replace the contrasting terms with race or gender or caste terms, and the argument's flawed structure becomes apparent.
Hi, Daverupa,
Your comment, "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. Have you any data?" was a dismissive and unwarranted wisecrack. I don't want to pull this thread off-topic by spending too much time on it but I feel I must answer it seriously since you seem not to have taken the hint in my first response.
Coyote asked a question. I answered, very explicitly, on the basis of
my experience. I didn't present any anecdotes.
I will maintain, however, that my experience is, in fact, data. Each personal interaction I participate in gives me a new data point, as do many that I observe. It happens that I am a teacher who has worked in state schools, Catholic schools, a Jewish school, Protestant schools and independent schools, meeting and working with teachers, students and parents whose affiliations generally reflect those locations.
My experience does add up to more data than most people's. On the other hand, I know that it is limited. On the other other hand, I did not claim it was universal.
I didn't present a 'conclusion', and the point of view I did present was not 'unwarranted' but fully supported by the evidence it was (explicitly) based upon.
Kim
Now ...
[Edit: fixed up 'quote' tags
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