No, you aren’t seeing double. Buried in the comment section of my guest post of the same name is this:
I’ll be back in a week or so with an updated version; the one you’re reading doesn’t incorporate the revelations of the past few weeks, by design.
It’s actually been months. While I was happy to let this issue die out, I recently learned Michael Shermer has been invited to speak at this year’s TAM, after most people thought the speaker’s list had been finalized. Many are pissed off at the bait-and-switch, while others are trotting out the same tired excuses.
Ah, the ol’ “hearsay” angle. It’s bizarre how Alison Smith’s account is dismissed as “unsubstantiated,” despite at least one witness who was present shortly thereafter, yet Shermer’s account is taken as Gospel, despite multiple contradictions. At the same time, these people see no contradiction in hounding the Catholic Church on the basis of hearsay….
Confession Time: Hey Catholic priests, I don’t think “child rearing” means what you think it means!
… Or Bill Cosby.
Some TV shows don’t have enough graphic rape scenes. For example, The Cosby Show.
Some of that may come from a blind obedience to Thought Leaders; some may be due to an inherent hatred of women. Whatever the motive, it’s clear that some self-declared skeptics will toss out all skepticism when their pet subject comes up.
Let’s not do that. Instead, let’s engage in logic and reason even when the results make us uncomfortable. To help that along, I’ll reprint all five parts of my guest post on this blog, with revisions where necessary.
[HJH 2015-07-19] A link to part one might be helpful.
SINMANTYX 
Yes indeed, let us “engage in logic and reason even when the results make us uncomfortable”. You may wish to start by noting the definition for “unsubstantiated” (1):
While I will readily concede that there was in fact a witness to some elements of the story – particularly and notably, those “shortly thereafter” the supposed crime – that still does not substantiate Alison’s claim that she was in fact raped. Somewhat disingenuous of you, at best, to suggest otherwise.
And while I will also concede that the evidence doesn’t support the counter-claim that she wasn’t raped, I think you might want to consider, in your fun with Bayes’ Theorem on this issue, that there are probably any number of other possibilities – other than that either Shermer or Alison were lying – that you may want to consider ballparking as to their probabilities. More specifically, consider this (2) from Wikipedia on “confabulation”:
While it is of course unknown precisely who had how much to drink and when over the course of the evening, the narrative suggests that Alison at least, by her own assertions, was three sheets to the wind at the end of it. And in which case it seems not at all implausible that her recollection of the events is highly suspect and may well come in under the rubric of confabulation, that she has recoloured her memories of the events with “retroactive perceptions of coercion” as Cathy Young (3) put it. And particularly as alcoholism is noted as a cause of confabulation. However, to be fair, one might suggest that that is analogously true of Shermer as well.
But I geddit that this issue is seminal – so to speak – and paradigmatic, and has any number problematic ramifications and consequences. However, trying to build a case on specious applications of probability without due care and attention to all the factors doesn’t look particularly credible, not evidence of “engaging in logic and reason”. And while the situation in general doesn’t seem to afford any easy solutions, one might suggest that those engaging in risky manifestations of “hook-up culture” may wish to consider being a little more proactive by recording the events in question – as potential evidence of rape or false accusations thereof – with something like “cop-cameras” (4). Or some sort of iPhone App as I’ve argued elsewhere (5).
——
1) “_http://www.thefreedictionary.com/unsubstantiated”;
2) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation”;
3) “_http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/20/feminists-want-us-to-define-these-ugly-sexual-encounters-as-rape-dont-let-them/”;
4) “_http://www.salon.com/2014/08/22/make_cops_wear_cameras_a_simple_way_to_hold_the_police_accountable/”;
5) “_http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5336”;
That was an essential part of my analysis. Emphasis mine:
You cannot invoke Bayes’ Theorem without considering both the true positive and false positive rate, and here the latter means “lying, misunderstanding, or something else.” You either never read my original analysis, or forgot it and substituted your own fantasy.
You think Alison Smith is an alcoholic? What evidence do you have of this? I hope it doesn’t rely on eyewitness testimony, as you’ve dismissed that as a source of evidence.
Interesting, you think sexual assault only occurs in “hook-up” scenarios. I’m assuming you have some evidence for this too, yes?
Because right now, all I’m seeing are wild assertions from a failing mind. A few months ago, I took you to task for repeatedly playing the “appeal to moderation” card over and over, to the point that even your word choices and grammar were recycled:
And yet what’s your opening move here?
Yet another cookie-cutter “appeal to moderation,” and like last time I already answered it in the OP:
You even repeat your authors, forgetting that I’d taken you to task over them last time, too, and that you had no rebuttal:
It’s more endless spinning in mental loops, which I’ve previously guessed was a sign of gradually worsening memory loss. But I do hope you stay around, though, because you keep dropping more evidence that you hate women.
Trivializing assault against women with bad puns? Stay classy, Steersman!
Yes but apparently only in general terms. In looking through a few of your comments on the topic in one of Ashley Miller’s posts (1), I don’t see that you’ve dealt with the issue in the specific case of Shermer & Smith. And, if I’ve half-ways correctly followed your lucubrations on Bayes, given the existence of one factor in a specific case changes the probability of a conclusion or hypothesis: if a person has a history of making false rape allegations then it would likely increase the probability that another one so qualifies; people who cry wolf and all that.
For one thing, Oppenheimer’s article (2) where he quotes Shermer:
While it might be moot how credible Shermer’s characterization was, if it is reasonably accurate then one might suggest that being able to drink others “under the table” only comes with more than a small amount of practice. In addition, in the same article, Smith indicates that Shermer “walked me to his [room] instead. I don’t have a clear memory of what happened after that [because I was drunk]. I know we had sex.” In the face of all that, I would say it is a rather specious argument to insist there is no possibility that Smith hadn’t confabulated events, or hadn’t recoloured them with “retroactive perceptions of coercion”.
What disingenuous if not egregiously dishonest horse crap. I only pointed out that the “eyewitness testimony” only pertained to or described events after the supposed crime, not the supposed crime itself. That hardly constitutes “dismissing” “eyewitness testimony” in general – at least unless one has a tendency to “motivated reasoning”, to be charitable.
I provided a link to a source (3) in an AtheismPlus post of mine that I had linked to earlier. While one might question the source as the blogger apparently has a religious bias, he also quotes from and discusses a more credible study:
And I didn’t say “sexual assault only occurs in ‘hook-up’ scenarios”; I only made reference to that case without in any way suggesting that it was exhaustive, that there were no other possibilities.
And you’re a fucking idiot. And a narrow-minded and dogmatic one to boot.
Speaking of being an idiot, even if you had managed to prove Young was wrong in that previous case – which is anything but the case – that hardly proves she is wrong in every or any other one.
I guess that that was too much of a hurdle for you to get over to get at my subsequent points and conclusion. Or maybe you just used that as an excuse – stay classy, H.J.
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1) “_http://freethoughtblogs.com/ashleymiller/2015/04/12/more-on-shermer-pz-and-michael-nugent/”;
2) “_http://www.buzzfeed.com/markoppenheimer/will-misogyny-bring-down-the-atheist-movement#.qt3xXVnjp”;
3) “_http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithonthecouch/2013/08/is-the-hook-up-culture-over-hyped-absolultely-not-study-shows/”;