13
votes
Biblical claim isn't notable? Really?
Wikipedia explains the term "straw man":
A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
10
votes
Accepted
Can you reopen the "Gotthard Base Tunnel Opening Ceremony" question?
Title
My first reaction on seeing the title 'Is there explanation other than “Satanic ritual” for the Gotthard Base Tunnel Opening Ceremony?' was that the form of the question in the title is not ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
10
votes
Should we follow the international date format standard?
The simplest option is to just write out the date as "[month name] [day], [year]" or "[day] of [month name], [year]", rather than following a standard that is ambiguous if you don't know the standard ...
- 11.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Is this answer about illegal immigrants supported by its evidence?
I think this is an example of a very bad answer. In my opinion, this questions is important and hard, so it requires hard data to back up the answer. I have seen no such data.
This is why I ...
- 101
8
votes
Is writing code to parse data original research and therefore inappropriate as an answer?
Banning "Original Research"
My impression is the community has (or should) scale back on the ban on "non-trivial" original research—it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the Help section, though there ...
- 103
7
votes
Myanmar: A viable topic?
Apart from the normal requirements of a specific claim and notability (i.e. that many people believe the claim), we also have a restriction on events that are so recent that there has been ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
7
votes
Answer on my post should not have been deleted
I was not involved in the act, however I want to publicly support it.
The post was not answering the question, at least not directly. Maybe the OP wanted to show evidence that Truthy had an influence ...
- 78.8k
7
votes
Answer on my post should not have been deleted
Your question asks if Twitter has a double standard.
The substance of the deleted answer was some details about a research project nicknamed "Truthy" from Indiana University, that tried to detect ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
6
votes
Is this answer about illegal immigrants supported by its evidence?
I'm going to answer a slightly different question. Not "Is this acceptable?" but "Why haven't I taken any moderator action to delete it?"
The general policy on references is that they are required, ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
6
votes
Biblical claim isn't notable? Really?
When there is a dispute that a question is notable or not, there's always an easy way to fix it. If a claim is notable, many people believe it. If many people believe it, some will be repeating this ...
- 78.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Is writing code to parse data original research and therefore inappropriate as an answer?
The programmer in me loves this answer.
The skeptics mod hates it. You do indeed need to be an expert (in this case a programmer, and an expert on naming) to ascertain whether the method used is ...
JamiecMod
- 9,012
5
votes
Biblical claim isn't notable? Really?
The Bible involves miracles. Of course with miracles anything could happen.
The Bible isn't claiming that Jonah could survive in a fish without a miracle for 3 days any more than it is saying ...
- 108k
5
votes
Incorrectly and arbitrarily deleted answer for being alleged as "theoretical"
I didn't delete the answer, but likely would have had I seen it first.
The question was: Were 1 in 6 protesters at the 1968 DNC FBI agents?
The only sourced part of your answer was that the FBI ...
- 52k
5
votes
Improving the question regarding 'surgery results based on gender'
I am loathe to repeat the extensive explanation given in chat.
But basically, there is no notable claim in doubt here.
It appears that everyone agrees:
There was a study. It found a correlation, not ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
4
votes
Is this answer about illegal immigrants supported by its evidence?
I do not have an opinion on the question that triggered this meta question. Or, I do not wish to express an opinion on that here. I really do not have an opinion on the verity of the answer that ...
- 101
4
votes
Reopen question about Obama vs Trump immigration bans
I'm not strongly opposed to reopening (and if you get 4 more re-open votes, it will be done without me), but I am not excited by this question.
It asks about "similarities", which is ultimately ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
4
votes
Accepted
Can the admin please check my account for an instance of serial down voting?
The serial downvotes have been invalidated.
- 78.8k
4
votes
We can't blame the British. How can we fix the Israeli cat question?
Honestly I don’t think there was much wrong with the original question. The single cause fallacy issue that oddthinking highlights is not a problem with the question, but a problem with the notable ...
- 3,858
4
votes
Shouldn't this question on a current event be closed?
This is a question about a specific article written by Seymour Hersh in the end, even though the title is more general. But the text of the question is clear that this is about whether the account by ...
- 43.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Why was the definition of the NGO "Breaking the Silence" removed from my question?
I think it is appropriate to have some context for who Breaking the Silence is.
The context appeared to be a self-description, which is typically the most appropriate way to describe an organisation.
...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
3
votes
How am I supposed to improve this question?
There are a lot of problems with your question.
First of all the "healthy vs non-healthy" distinction is not only arbitrary and opinion based, but also a "no true Scotsman" argument. We can ...
- 78.8k
3
votes
Accepted
Can we reopen the Trump Tower wiretapping question?
1) No. I think that should be enough to re-open it.
We want to avoid falling over ourselves trying to answer questions based on evidence that is still filing in. We aren't journalists chasing down ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
3
votes
Help me edit my recent question, please
There are no motive atoms in the universe. Motives don't exist in physical reality but in our mental models of the behavior of other people.
If you believe Nietzsche then everything that humans do is ...
- 33.9k
3
votes
Answering "Can you achieve immortality through yoga?"
I don't believe this is strongly answerable. If we assume that the "verified oldest people" are the actual oldest people (or at least close) then that raises the question of why there isn't anyone ...
- 3,677
3
votes
Was there anything wrong with this question about Boris Johnson or its answer?
To answer your last question first "Did I do anything wrong here", I think not, at least in regards to the specific question
Has Boris Johnson ever referred to any of his opponents, whether
...
- 161
3
votes
My question is not a duplicate. Can it be reopened?
Welcome to Skeptics!
I suggest you have a read of the Welcome to New Users FAQ.
Your question has been substantially rewritten to make it possible to re-open it.
In particular, the irrelevant ...
OddthinkingMod
- 144k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible