Re: Weekly posting summary

"Dag" <dwastberg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:fu0fp5028in@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> whisky-dave wrote:
>> "Dag" <dagwast@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>> news:ftl79102vba@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>> The question was never whether it _could_ have some effect, but if it 
>>> did have the specific effect claimed.  Whereas I could accept the
former 
>>> I very much doubt the latter.
>>
>> Well you'll have to wait until someone else does a similar thing then.
>
> Exactly.  Until there is significant evidence to the contrary, the
prudent 
> and correct thing is to assume the theory to be false.
No not really. I can believe what I want based on experience.
I know certain things that affect people, I have personal experience
of knowing hiow things can affect peoplem and I'll belive those before
and above any so called researchers or academics claims.
I know capital punishments works, just because no ones allowed
to study it doesn;t mean it doesn't work.



>>>  And in and of itself there is nothing wrong with that, but you have
to 
>>> have some pretty good arguments as to why you can't present your
sources 
>>> and why we should believe you anyway.
>> I presented my sources though, whether or not you accept them as real 
>> sources is up to you.
>
> You may have presented source, but those sources where either irrelevant

> or didn't back up your point.  Also non of those sources where what one 
> would consider really reliable.
If it's reliable enough for you to claim it's wrong or that perhaps
reliable enough for you to suggest that hard labour may have an affect .
Remember you can't really do studies on humans where the study involves 
doing
possible harm to the subject, which is why Thalidomide took so long to
prove
as the drug that caused the deforming of babies. All you really have is 
evidence
that it happened.


>
>> especially when pretty much everyone has been told that such things as 
>> hard labour, cruelty, capital and cor****al punishments have NO effect.
>
> Are we now believing what we have been told, or are we thinking for 
> ourselves and independently checking the evidence.

well what evidence is there to check.
I've heard and watched quite a few do***entaries over the years and have
never seen it  proved that any form of punishment(s) reduce reoffending.
It could be such studies are banned or that the results when analysed
haven't proved what the research set out to prove.


>> But such things have been done, they may not have been done by a 
>> professional
>> research body but they have been tried, and said to be ineffective as
is 
>> capital punishment.
>
> As ineffective as capital punishment at what exactly?  deterrence or 
> preventing re-offending.
Both actually.

>  Because they are two different things, and I thought we agreed that 
> capital punishment was very effective at reducing re-offending rates.
I thought it was and I was under the impresion that prison was not meant
to 
deter
people from commiting crimes but was a punishment if they should commit 
them,
and for some just to stop them reoffending and protecting the public from
those that offend.
..



>>>>>  Also if you base your writings on false assumptions
>>>> Such as pink is calming ........
>>> So is that a false assumption now?
>> I don;t think so, but I'm wondering what false assumptions I've made.
>
> Mainly the assumption that pink is calming (which is a best a dubious 
> claim) can be used as evidence to back up the claim that pink cells
reduce 
> reoffending.

http://www.colormatters.com/body_pink.html
One of the most interesting examples of color effects is Baker-Miller Pink
- 
a color that's close to the bubble gum pink background color of this web 
page ( R:255, G:145, B:175) . Also known as :drunk tank pink," this color
is 
used to calm violent prisoners in jails. Dr. Alexander Schauss, Ph.D., 
director of the American Institute for Biosocial Research in Tacoma 
Wa****ngton, was the first to re****t the suppression of angry,
antagonistic, 
and anxiety ridden behavior among prisoners: "Even if a person tries to be

angry or aggressive in the presence of pink, he can't. The heart muscles
can't 
race fast enough. It's a tranquilizing color that saps your energy.

http://www1.moe.edu.sg/learn@[EMAIL
PROTECTED]
 jail cells were painted pink because it was found out that this
colour 
can calm violent prisoners. Dr Alexander Schauss in the United States 
re****ted that angry and anxiety ridden prisoners were calmer in the
presence 
of pink. Pink jail cells are now widely used to reduce violent and 
aggressive behaviour. It was re****ted that muscle strength was reduced in 
inmates within 2.7 seconds. Pink was also used to calm excitable mental 
patients. It can act as a tranquiliser and even the colour blind can be 
tranquilised by a pink room.


>All this given the fact that there actually was a reduce, which hasn't
been 
>proven.

I've not said it has what I've said is that it does have a calming affect.
That has been proved over and over again by researchers.
I've not been able to tell whether or not it stops reoffending I can only 
tell
by looking at what others have done. I can't paint the lab walls pink
to see what happens, I doubt there's many of us than can do any test or 
study,
so we have to lok at what others have done. All the evidence I have seen 
have said that
colour does affect people and that the colour pink has been used not just
in 
one prison
but in many prisons, and in cells in police stations.
Now the question is why do such a think if it has no effect.





>> Well I just typed it in to google and there were far more links with 
>> infornmation
>> on that than evidence that hard labour has any effect other than
pissing 
>> off
>> liberal hippies ;-)
>
> Again, we're back to the argument of citing reliable sources vs random 
> pages found via Google.  I see we're not quite agreeing there.

So why don't you quote your so called reliable sources.
 I do not believe that someone who test theories out on resident students
has to be seen as reliable.



>
>> and that something like 80% reoffend, and how useless boot camp were 
>> etc...
>> I was a little sceptical before searching, especially when even the
death 
>> penalty is said not to work.
>
> You seem to be confusing deterrence with re-offending again, with your 
> talk of the death penalty.  Stop that, they're two very different
things.
They are but despite all the so called evidence dead people neither
reoffend
or commit a crime again. Of course whether it's a deterrent or not you 
should really
do a study on actual criminals rather than ask students who have no real
way
of evaluating the situation. Of course there's little evidence that 
executing someone in the USA
should deter anyone from stealing a mobile phone in the UK, but such so 
called evidence
is used to prove that capital punishment doesn't work to deter criminals.
I'd like to see a more direct study before I'll believe such 'evidence'




>> If the sheriffs evidence needs citing then so does anyones.
>
> The sheriff was making a direct claim.
That he had found painting the walls etc. pink reduced reoffending.
As this has been done before and used in other prison and even police
cells
why should I doubt him.


>> or at least it played a part,
>
> Again this is incorrect.
>
>> I just wanted to see what made you think that.
>
> I don't think that.
> See what I mean about you not knowing what my POV actually is.

Well usually if people mention something such as did you check X or Y out
that usually means they have some reason for believing in X or Y.

>> Mood affect behavour that's a fact
>
> Mood can affect certain behavior to some extent.  From my limited 
> understanding of the field, there seems to be much disagreement about
how 
> much and to what extent.

And if there is such disagreement then it could be true that pink does
have 
the effects
that the sheriff has said. But ALL and every site I have found has said
that 
colour
does have a psychological effect on humans.  It's in fact very difficult
to 
find
any site or anyone that disagrees that colour affects people.
What we don't is just how much effect it can have, and without someone
doinf tests or studies we'll never know.


>
>>> You do get the difference between citing something and proving
something 
>>> don't you.
>>
>> can I really prove something without a cite to back it up.
>
> Sure, it's just harder.  You just have to start from axiomatic ideas or 
> other basic principles and work your way up.
Such as colours affect people.

>And anyway you still don't quite seem to get it.  You don't cite to back
up 
>your proof, you cite to show where you are starting your proof from,
 Such as colours affect people.

>and to back up any assumptions you're making.
I'm not making assumptions I'm stating such facts  as colours affect
people.



>> Unless money, ***, power, or promotion  is inviolved of course.
>
> Except that proving a rival wrong is one the favorite things for any 
> academic.  Once something is published there are often scores of people 
> pouring over the work looking for errors.  There really is nothing to
gain 
> for a researcher to keep quite about an error found in another
researchers 
> work.

There's plenty although most is to do with companies or govenrm,ent
refusing
to fund research that doesn't prove what they want. Sometimes they get
away
with it other times they don't.
There was a case a few weeks ago where a website had to remove the word 
abortion
for all of it's test because it offending certain people, and those people

had some control over the funding of them. But someone noticed and 
complained  and so everything went back
to how it should be. But there's many other instances of research not
being 
funded if the results weren't what the funder wanted. Typically with
global 
warming, but it's not limited to it.


>>  > Also what makes you think peer review cannot be done on original
>>> research?
>> If it's truely original it is NEW.
>> Checking out new data that could have taken a few years to compile
can't 
>> be done
>> while having a ****.
>
> Which is why peer review can take several month.
And in the case of prisoners reoffending such a study would take years
because the prisoners are in there for years you wouldn't expect to see a
massive change in reoffending a week after the paint dries especially if
sentences of the prisoners are counted in years rather than 2 weeks
for stealing a carrot.



>
>> Now the sheriff started this in 2005 IIRC with sentence being at least
a 
>> few
>> years I wouldn't expected significant results for a few years,
>> and if anyone's checking his results and trying it for themselves I 
>> wouldn't expect peer review evidence for about 5 years.
>
> You seem to be confusing peer review of articles with reproducing of 
> experiments.  Again these are two totally different concepts.  Peer
review 
> rarely involves reproducing the experiment in question.  I think you are

> really quite confused here.

That's one reason I'm not impressed as much by peer reviews,
it doesn't test any facts and if a review thinks asking students is 
acceptable
then that's it, once two see students as acceptable so will most.
All the reviews appear to do is check that the numbers add up.
After all submitting a paper this says I've asked 1000 students,
isn;t proof that the research has asked anyone.