No, actually, the point you made previously is very different than the point you are pretending you made. Yesterday and the day before, you said that you had read the studies, and that they were flawed. Today, you say that one shouldn't rely on abstracts, which is actually Nihil's point, and an intelligent one. I would say to Nihil that I have no idea whether the studies are statistically flawed, myself, as I have no training that would allow me to draw that conclusion. Thus, I must accept them until they are refuted, unless they are inconsistent with plain common sense, which has its limits. I do know that if one dismisses the studies as flawed, one ought to have 1. read the studies, and 2. have the proper training, otherwise, one is just blowing smoke.
As for your training, this is what you posted to Christopher Hodgkins: "I have a background in medieval history, as you know; and they worked like hell. (I remember having a bit of fun in my master's thesis arguing how widespread the use of the eight-ox plough actually might have been!" This appears to me to be an implication that your Master's Thesis was in medieval history. In what other field does it matter about the use of the eight-ox plow? |
