Harry Reid slams Comey for Russia election meddling

[PandoraAwakened]

41. Troll or Disinfo Victim? Which one?

It is always short-sighted, not to mention intellectually dishonest, to dismiss anecdotal evidence with trite expressions like "isn't meaningful."

I will assume then that this means you are unaware that anecdotal evidence (someone says something about something having occurred to someone they know personally) forms the very basis of our justice system in that anecdotal evidence is what prompts investigation, which then leads to deposition and discovery, which then leads to formal presentation of both circumstantial and direct evidence, which then finally results in a decision about what has occurred.

"Not meaningful"? I think our forefathers, a number of them lawyers by trade, would disagree.

The mantra about Comey's actions having "no statistical impact" because "the polls said so" is a known right-wing disinformation campaign repeated only by trolls or their hapless victims who, not surprisingly, are never able to point to the study where such data exists.

You know why? BECAUSE THE STUDY HAS NOT BEEN PERFORMED!!! Duh... Not one single American has yet been asked about this in a FORMAL STUDY. Not. One. Single. Person.

Key to this particular troll campaign is the faulty logic of, "But the polls said... therefore!"

In order to understand how this bit of tomfoolery gets over on an otherwise levelheaded, if not exactly critical thinker, it is first helpful to review the definition of "disinfo," particularly in the context of how this trade is plied online:

"DISINFO": "The introduction of faulty logic with implied assertions. The assertions are false and not directly claimed but are derived from the claim."

So, how does that work in the context of this particular disinfo campaign?
Well, what we see is that the "But the polls!" assertion introduces faulty logic by pointing to data that does not directly speak to the claim in any way whatsoever, but that can easily be used to imply a false assertion because of its tangential relationship to the same event (in this case, an election).

In other words, the polls that Honeycombe8 refers to are those that asked the pre-election question, "Who are you voting for?" The poll question was not "Has Director Comey's action influenced your decision?" That measurement was never taken.

Yet, the false assertion is made that you can take the data of a tangentially related question and compare its results before and after an isolated variable (Comey's action), TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER VARIABLES CAUSING MOVEMENT IN THE DATA POINTS, and derive from that claim supposed "evidence" of the variable that was never measured by the data in the first place.

That, my friend, is the very definition of "faulty logic" and it is used day-in and day-out, 24/7, to push false narratives.

Additionally, because the word association for most people is "polls" = "data" = "statistics" = "analysis," the disinfo receives the additional benefit of easily conflating in the minds of its victims that there has actually been a real "statistical analysis" completed addressing what the disinfo makers fervently do not wish to be analyzed.

So, where does that put us in terms of the goal of this particular disinfo? Well, what we see is that the "But the polls!" disinfo about the impact of Comey on Clinton votes has been and continues to be used as a means of SILENCING ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE and therefore PREVENTING INVESTIGATION, i.e., a formal study that compiles both AFTER-EVENT POLLING and DIRECT TESTIMONY on the matter.

So, what you'll see is the very people who should most want to know the true answer to this question instead have easily been duped into doing the disinfo agents' job for them, thereby preventing truth to be known.

For the record, I don't think you're a troll. I just think you've been trolled.