Harper wrote:nimh wrote:"The 'facts' that are being circulated on the Internet appear to be selectively chosen to make the point". That pretty much sums it up for me, its basically been the one point I've been making here.
Wow, how odd is it for those making a hypothesis to present facts that support their theory. Puhleeeeeze, gimme a break.
Er, yeah, but there's this point where proponents of a hypothesis might start cherry-picking facts that support their contention and ignoring everything that would debunk it - and that's the point where they would discredit themselves. And I think the NYT article showcased a few striking examples of that.
In fact, isn't the whole essence of critical reading about differentiating between those who honestly weigh the pros and cons of a contention and those who are willing to filter facts any way necessary to come to a certain conclusion?
I thought the NYT article was very effective, for example, in debunking some of the main contentions you have been going on.
Eg,
here you are claiming it is "highly suspect" that, for the Florida "numbers to add up, Bush would have had to have gotten 100% of the Republicans, 100% of the Indies and 15% of the Democrat vote in 67 counties in Florida."
And
here is a neat NYT graph that shows that it's very commonplace, in fact, for Republican presidential candidates to win counties where most of the voters are registered Democrats - simply because in Florida, as in many other states, it is not at all unusual for over 15% of Democrats to vote for the Republican candidate.