Dickens wrote:

Take this test to see if you can tell a criminal from a law-abiding citizen.

I wonder if anyone is so amazingly stupid as to take this kind of thing seriously.

When I do presentations on art and music, I sometimes do an acting demonstration of criminal/honest man, lying/telling the truth. Most people laugh when seeing how easy it is to create such illusions- once in a while some people seem to be enraged by the demonstration. Though of course I don't know if they are enraged- only stupid sheep are convinced of such things. The rest of us with some brains and life experience take our time and judge by actions not appearances.

50%

Dickens wrote:One guy claims to get a 90% result using Edenic Phrenology

http://excavatingeden.com/2012/09/09/ap ... -not-quiz/

Yeah, on one single test. Unfortunately, not very robust is it.

Shall we try my model of flipping a coin?

Overall, we know that would work out approximately 50% correct... but if I just did it once, it's entirely possible I'd get 100% right without even looking at the screen.

That's why pseudoscience is called pseudoscience!

Dickens wrote:

Sovereign wrote:No more like socioeconomic status. Turn of the century it was the Irish.

Even if the crime rates are a result of a socioeconomic status, this does not refute the argument that a method based on what you call bigotry and prejudice yields a better than random results. Seven times better in my example.

What a fantastically weak analytical ability you possess. Perhaps you'd be interested in buying a second hand car off me/

<another why-is-this-in-anthropology/archaeology-forum-thread>

Yeah I got 50%, exactly as expected from random chance. I don't believe it's possible to "tell a criminal just by the way they look".

Rumraket wrote:Yeah I got 50%, exactly as expected from random chance. I don't believe it's possible to "tell a criminal just by the way they look".

I thiknk the Libor Scandal just showed that on a grand scale.

Sovereign wrote:

Dickens wrote:

Sovereign wrote:No more like socioeconomic status. Turn of the century it was the Irish.

Even if the crime rates are a result of a socioeconomic status, this does not refute the argument that a method based on what you call bigotry and prejudice yields a better than random results. Seven times better in my example.

Next, what is the similarity with the Irish? Did they at the turn of the century commit 7-8 times more murders per capita than the WASPs?

Even those stats are being called into question lately. What is your argument exactly?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones ... _8398.html

http://www.civilrights.org/publications ... ncing.html

https://lib.law.washington.edu/content/guides/racecrim

None of those links addresses murder.

It's plausible that whites might actually commit assaults at the same rate as blacks, but have a much lower rate of being charged and convicted. It's not plausible that the same is true for murder. You'd have to argue that the police and prosecutors just decide to let off the vast majority of white murderers just because they think murder is okay for whites, and there just aren't enough murders for that to be true.

Rather than try to deny the reality that crime rates are higher for blacks, it would be better to try to identify what's driving those higher rates.

lobawad wrote:I wonder if anyone is so amazingly stupid as to take this kind of thing seriously.

I did check the Wikipedia article on Lombroso and it states that he was Jewish. As a result this criticism is antisemitic. As such it must be and is hereby dismissed.

solipsist wrote:

lobawad wrote:I wonder if anyone is so amazingly stupid as to take this kind of thing seriously.

I did check the Wikipedia article on Lombroso and it states that he was Jewish. As a result this criticism is antisemitic. As such it must be and is hereby dismissed.

Don't talk bollocks. Next thing you'll be telling us is that criticism of Obama's policies is racism.

jamest wrote:

solipsist wrote:

lobawad wrote:I wonder if anyone is so amazingly stupid as to take this kind of thing seriously.

I did check the Wikipedia article on Lombroso and it states that he was Jewish. As a result this criticism is antisemitic. As such it must be and is hereby dismissed.

Don't talk bollocks. Next thing you'll be telling us is that criticism of Obama's policies is racism.

Next time I'll be telling you? The racist background of the criticism of Obama had been already exposed by millions of skeptics worldwide. Including in major news media. You must have seen many examples.

It was the antisemitic underpinning of the criticism of Lombroso's theory which still remained unchallenged.

Spearthrower wrote:I was going to say that this is guff, then I got 100% right on the first try!

But I still think it's guff!

That was my feeling as well. I wondered if the test just said you were right, as I got 90% on my first go

j x