Spikey,
what you say is true, my ego is exceedingly pompous and busting it out and breaking clear of its confining rubbish is the point, the whole point and at this point of my life... the only point. Thank you for making that clear, l find this very helpful. l understand you are upset, so am l, and l have a tendency to upset others. Let us let it go.

To the notion of evidence. What is evidence? From where does it derive? Do you see a colour or hear a sound the same way as l? Do our minds put that stuff together the same way, is there any point in even trying to agree? Does agreement or consensus make evidence, a fact ? You'll have to forgive me, lm on an unremittengly 'what is THIS' 'existential' bent of late and its got a hold of my me.

Romany,
nice to read your words. They satisfy my silly self on the one hand and give me some hope that lm managing to go FURTHER into THIS, on the other.

trade215

Evidence doesn't matter? Did I write something to which you responded? i don't think so. It was just an imagined moment. I won't remember a thing in the morning. Will you?

Pynchme you wrote, "Until I know more about him and the truth of his claims, I will continue to withold an opinion one way or another",

Here is a link to a speech by Christina Hoff Sommers who if memory serves me correctly, SJF does not like her very much.

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.29165/pub_detail.asp

I however find it a fascinating read.

I could add some quotes from her speech, but all that will do is bring the warth down on me, so for the sake of some peace, if you are interested, some of what Hoff Sommers is saying tends to support Neil Lyndons case.

JamesH,
Very interesting link you pointed us to.

Christina Hoff Sommers:
"In my view, the noble cause of women's emancipation is being damaged in at least three ways by the contemporary women's movement. First, today's movement takes a very dim view of men; second, it wildly overstates the victim status of American women; and third, it is dogmatically attached to the view that men and women are essentially the same."

Click here to view the full text of this speech as an Adobe Acrobat PDF:
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf

spikey,
not whether evidence matters, but specifically, WHAT is it? l posit that evidence is about validating/substantiating ideas, theories, perspectives, products of mind. In the world of science, physical empirical sunstantiation trumps all.

Evidence offered in support of scientific theories and observations is one thing. Evidence offered to support personal opinion, perspective or agenda is quite different... that stuff can certainly be very much like offering the pieces of one's dream-like sense of self and to that end, that stuff can, as you suggest, have the capacity to disappear on waking in the morning. Which for me these daze, is the whole point (l know, broken record).

The thing about scientific evidence is it tries to be objective and based on how science defines that it seems fair enough. There are other ways of thinking that say there is no such thing as objectivity as the observer changes/influences the observation (or possibly the outcome itself). There's some stuff in physics that claims to demonstrate that, l cant remember the experiment at the moment. l might look it up at some point.

Another interesting thing about scientific evidence is that its all contingent and hence what one accepts as fact today is subject to revision or replacement tomorrow. None of it is immutable.

l hope we can get past the ill-will and what not and leave the personality stuff out of any further dialogue.

peace.

romany,
l was thinking about your post that said you were 'waiting for a catch' and it now occurs to me that lm growing most weary of getting caught in my own catches. Alas, thats the folly of self-identity in my estimation... it eats itself.

trade215,

Thank you for those comments. My opinion, however, is that your distinction between "Evidence offered in support of scientific theories and observations is one thing. Evidence offered to support personal opinion, perspective or agenda is quite different..." is not sustainable.

To illustrate:

One person is of the opinion that Indigenous Australian women are disadvantaged. Another take the opposite view but, for sake of argument, asserts that if they are disadvantaged they simply have to get off their backsides and change their attitudes. The one is able to point to evidence from health data, access to education, employment and housing. The other is a skillful rhetorician and sticks to his position that it's a matter of women's attitudes. The one replies that while their may be something in the attitude question, attitudes are not free-floating but related to the context including the power relationships with Indigenous men as well as the opportunity structure and resources at their disposal.

Is it not possible to say that in this instance the one opinion is superior to the other?

If you don't concede the point (at least in principle) we might as well forget about research in the social domain and just let everyone fly by the seat of their pants. That opens the door for superstition, prejudice and idiosyncrasy.

Another option is to take the 'might is right' position where the opinions of the loudest and strongest prevail. Thankfully, that hasn't happened on OLO - yet.

I'm finding it hard to think of an opinion of any value that can be evidence-free. Perhaps you can supply one?