I am not a pit hater. What's with the calling me stupid and my advice worthless? I have had to defend research for funding or approval many times. I know how results are attacked. I am just stressing the need to be critical of stats and one's arguments. If the arguments are accepted blindly then shot down by experts for the other side, then you loose the argument. You brought up a good example of what I'm talking about. You described the studies in detail. Merely throwing out numbers is propaganda and pointless. You have to know how the numbers are derived, which you demonstrated.

I'll give you an example. I love snakes (and dogs) and obviously do not want to see them banned. The argument so many people give as to why snakes are safe is that they bite far less people that dogs. Well that argument gets absolutely no respect because there are far, far, far more people with dogs than snakes. So of course there will be more dog bites. I am sure that are far more cornsnake bites than emerald tree boa bites, because there are far more cornsnakes. Yet who is going to tell a young kid that an emerald is safer than a corn. Many of us hear some numbers and run with them. In the meantime snakes keep getting banned.

So my point is that is important to counter people's ACTUAL experiences (the dog park examples and shelters examples I gave) and be informed of how the numbers come about or else no one in power respects them and legislation continues to gets passed. Keep implying that the very people who are trying to help are stupid and continue to watch our animals get taken away form us.

[ Show Entire Thread ]