In article ,
Henry Kuska wrote:
billo, your answer satisfies my suspicion that your quest is meaningless
since your first reply clearly shows that it excludes meaningful real world
groups.

I then asked you in another way (" If a group of licensed and periodically
recertified people does not meet your criteria, then I cannot visual any
meaningful real world group that
your criteria would apply to. Please give some examples") so as to cover
the logic of both exclude and include and you reply " My criteria for using
things as directed is using things as directed". Which of course is no
answer, and can be interpreted that you cannot think of one real word group
yourself. (If you feel that that is an answer, please look up the definition
of what was requested "example"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=example .




No, Henry. If you want to make a statement about whether or not
something is being used as directed, you study whether or not
something is being used as directed. This is not meaningless.
And it is not hard. What is meaningless is to use the Psychic
Science Network to pretend that something is being tested when
it is not.

It would not be hard to test whether or not something is being
used as directed. One might start with asking the quesition and
finding out whether or not the respondents even claim that
it is being used as directed. The second thing one might do
is find out whether or not the respondents even actually
*know* what the criteria are. The third is to physically
look and see if the criteria are being met -- in the case
of professional applicators, one can look in the barn and
see if things are actually being stored correctly, look at
the equipment and see if it is calibrated, look at residual
levels in the workplace and see if spillages are correctly
handled.

As an example of the second, consider the use of Daubert
criteria in the courts. A few years ago, the Supreme Court
changed the way scientific evidence was admitted into
court. They set up some specific criteria and stated
that the judges were to be the gatekeepers of what was
and was not legally considered "science."

Now, using the Henry Psychic Method of assuming results,
one would believe that federal and state judges, who have
passed the boards, have massive experience, and have
specific training would understand and correctly apply
these criteria. However, when people actually set down
and asked that question, the results were not what you
would expect. In a questionnaire of judges, it turned
out, for instance, while 88% agreed that "falsifiability"
was an important criteria and that they used it regularly,
only 6% knew what it meant; 91% felt that a known
error rate was important, but only 4% knew what it meant;
only 71% understood the concept of peer review.

If you want to know if someone is actually following
a protocol or instructions, you test for it. You don't
just assume it. It's not hard, Henry. It's done in
medicine *all the time,* and the results of such studies
show that it is important to test for it. And it's
not a meaningless question to ask. Ipse dixit died
years ago, perhaps not before you retired, but in
today's world of inquiry it is by no means meaningless
to actually ask if people are doing things as directed.


billo