My “esteemed critic” is at “it” again - splitting hairs. S/he
utters in Comments to my previous posting: “Blame
is an incorrect way to frame this issue. Dogs are not moral agents. Therefore,
they cannot be blamed. Their behavior can be influenced by breed genetics. It
is best to think in terms of cause and effect."
Cute. S/he uses the usual red herring - quibble about minutiae to distract from the message.
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| About the history of the breed |
Cesar Millan's is not a native English speaker. I am not
sure whether he said what it’s attributed to him, or whether he said it first,
or whether he said it at all, etc. OK, s/he doesn’t like “blame.” To appease our prevaricator, we can replace “blame”
with asperse, attack, bad-mouth, blot, blotch, calumniate, decry, defame,
defile, denigrate, dishonor, do a number on, give a black eye, knock, libel,
malign, rip up and down, rip, slander, slur, smudge, stain, sully, taint,
tarnish, traduce, vilify, or any other similarly-meaning word from a thesaurus.
The historical facts remain that at different times in the
history of this country people had the same visceral hatred for specific breeds
of dogs that Bully-haters demonstrate for Pit Bulls now.
The entire argument that Pit Bulls are dangerous because the
media reports fatal dog attacks is an egregious example of post-hoc ergo
propter hoc type argument. It’s a huge logical fallacy and my detractors know
this. But an agenda is an agenda and, quite obviously, selling your soul is
secondary to that.
To spare the readers of this blog a serious tension
headache, I will NOT engage in a nature vs. nurture argument here. I know for a
fact that I can modify the behavior of the dog to conform to the needs, rules,
and social requirements of the milieu in which it lives. A glancing shot at “nurture”
here: as everybody who cares to learn about Pit Bull terriers knows, the animals
that WE call Pit Bulls have been genetically selected AGAINST human-aggression.
Cause and effect? Really? Science deals with probabilities. The probability
that ANY of my Pit Bulls will bite anybody… ever… is ZERO.
I reiterate a statement that I, and all similar-minded
people, hold as truth: Only owners who take the responsibility of a Pit Bull
ownership SERIOUSLY should have Pit Bulls in their families. Is this not an
unequivocal and pretty clear statement?
In the hands of responsible owners, a Pit Bull of any sort
is not more likely to harm a person than any other breed of dog. IF, my Pit
Bull bites you, brother, you have the right to take me to court, sue the hell
out of me for medical bills, pain and suffering, and whatever else you and your
shyster desire. Plus, you also have the right to have criminal charges brought
against me.
What you DON’T have, Bully-hater, is the right to assume that
my dog will bite you because s/he happens to look like a dog you don’t like.
I will fight you and your pals with all the resources available
to me to prevent you from empowering police, dog catchers, sexual deviants, and
whoever you care to name to come barging into my house and kill my dogs because
they simply LOOK like a dog you don’t like.
Pitbulls' bad rap comes mainly from their association with recent (last 10-15 years) urban/gangsta/hip-hop BLACK culture. The "bling" gangs adopted Pibbles as ferocious, intimidating accessories. They replaced, first, Dobies, and then Rotties.
ReplyDeleteAll three are still on the "exclude" lists in some municipalities.
If that demographic started keeping and brandishing 'labro-doodles," that dog would SOON be found to be a national danger for attaking old ladies and young children, too...
"What you DON’T have, Bully-hater, is the right to assume that my dog will bite you because s/he happens to look like a dog you don’t like."
ReplyDeleteReally, you don't think I have the right to make assumptions based upon observation and experience?
The hair splitting I did was to point at the way this issue is framed in people's minds. They frame it in terms of blame and guilt. Therefore, the dog wins by default because it seems silly to blame a dog in the moral sense that rides that word like baggage. So, I was pointing to removing that so we could address the problem in a more useful manner. As far as science being about probabilities and not cause-effect, that is a very short sighted view of perhaps a few versions of science. Scientists often think in terms of cause and effect, and this is the strongest manner to forumlate hypotheses. In observational studies where determining cause-effect is more difficult, a more probabilistic approach is taken.
ReplyDeleteSo where's the evidence that other breeds were the center of as much violence, fear, and controversy as pit bulls are presently? I have heard this simply asserted many times, but never saw any relevant data.
ReplyDelete"The entire argument that Pit Bulls are dangerous because the media reports fatal dog attacks is an egregious example of post-hoc ergo propter hoc type argument. "
ReplyDeleteSo, pit bulls being the lead fatal maulers is not good evidence because it doesn't take more into account. I totally believe that other factors contribute to ever dog bite, but this does not exclude the possibility of a breed effect.
"I will fight you and your pals with all the resources available to me to prevent you from empowering police, dog catchers, sexual deviants, and whoever you care to name to come barging into my house and kill my dogs because they simply LOOK like a dog you don’t like."
ReplyDeleteI never said I wanted your dog killed.
Really. Since you have ZERO observation of MY dogs and ZERO experience with MY dogs, you have ZERO chance of knowing anything about MY dogs, even though my dogs are American Pit Bull Terriers.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, statistically, your opinion based on your observation and your experience and added to the experiences and observations of ALL the Pit Bull haters in the World is ZERO (less than 0.01), when compared to the experiences and observations of millions of dog owners.
According to CDC "Several interacting factors affect a dog’s propensity to bite, including heredity, sex, early experience,socialization and training, health (medical and behavioral), reproductive status, quality of ownership and supervision, and victim behavior."
Time to accept the truth, my friend. The responsibility is yours and mine, not the dogs'.
It really is not all that complicated. Do read a previous entry to this blog: http://andrew-rozsa.blogspot.com/2009/11/morons-owners-take-turn.html
"So, pit bulls being the lead fatal maulers is not good evidence because it doesn't take more into account. I totally believe that other factors contribute to ever dog bite, but this does not exclude the possibility of a breed effect."
ReplyDeleteWho says? Not the CDC and not the AVMA. Once and for ever: there are NO data to support your statement. NONE! I already provided plenty of evidence. Media reports are NOT data.
"I never said I wanted your dog killed."
That's b.s. When you advocate the view that an animal is vicious by its genetic makeup and ignore all the evidence to the contrary, you also advocate Breed Specific Legislation. You can choose whatever euphemism you want. BSL enables morons to come to my house and kill my dogs.
"As far as science being about probabilities and not cause-effect, that is a very short sighted view of perhaps a few versions of science. Scientists often think in terms of cause and effect, and this is the strongest manner to formulate hypotheses. In observational studies where determining cause-effect is more difficult, a more probabilistic approach is taken."
ReplyDeleteHere we completely disagree. Causation is the realm of faith. Scientists work with probabilities. Anything else is simple hubris. As far as observation is concerned - if we paraphrase Heisenberg and apply his Uncertainty Principle in a general way to ALL sciences, not just quantum physics - the act of observation changes what you are observing.
Andrew, you are committing a reification fallacy here, ignoring huge chunks of science, and misapplying Heisenberg's principle (which you admit to). I'm quite sure that Watson and Crick did not put error bars around their discovery of the helical shape of a DNA molecule, nor are there probabilistic components of time dilation. Further, measuring the redshift from distant galaxies does not appreciably change their path properties.
ReplyDeleteYou speak of probabilities and hubris, and in your blog text you assign a zero probability of your dogs biting anyone. The problem here should be obvious. First, you cannot put a probability on this, and, if you could, it would certainly not be zero. Further, assigning a zero probability (or a probability of 1) is approaching the line of cause-effect that you disparage.
I don't think you get it... MY Pit Bulls will NEVER have the opportunity to bite anyone. Short of divine intervention, *I* am in control of what my dogs do. If you are actually interested in this discussion and not just trying to provoke me, spend five minutes to read my blog entries that explicitly, and to great detail, address the issue here:
ReplyDeletehttp://andrew-rozsa.blogspot.com/2009/06/andrews-primer-for-having-american-pit.html
http://andrew-rozsa.blogspot.com/2009/11/morons-owners-take-turn.html
Can you please remind me of how it is incorrect to make probability statements about dog breeds in regards to behavior and how this is similar to racism (and therefore bad)?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/the-overlap-bet/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/angry-iq-tester/
You'll likely not post this and block me after that, but it had to be done. Or you'll post it and then write a wild screed of a blog post about how you believing that Africans have lower intelligence on average as a result of biology is not in anyway germane to your thinking about dog breeds.
P.S. In regards to our previous discussion related to cause-and-effect, use the google to look up probabilistic causation. ...........[in hindsight that exchange becomes even more hilarious given that you had a quote about blame (which implies the existence of cauasality in the moral sphere of responsibility if it is to have any meaning) and so by using a quote with the term you implicitly endorsed the concept of cause-and-effect, yet you take me to task for invoking it].
I am delighted to entertain you.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to dogs, my personal preference is to appreciate each dog on his or her merit. Ditto for people. I have found surprising redeeming and instructive values across the spectrum of human existence, across geopolitical boundaries and across the many cultures in which I lived. Similarly I found the dog an eminently likable animal and am willing to give each dog the opportunity to exist within the sociable acceptable parameters of its milieu.
It appears that, to you, the controversy regarding Pit Bulls is either a joke (excusable if you have that type of humor) or an exercise in armchair philosophical masturbation. There could be other reasons why you are engaging in this type of discussion. Some not so flattering.
To me and to the hundreds of thousands of people who have worked with Pit Bulls, or trained them, or owned them, or evaluated them for placement with proper owners, or used them as therapy dogs, Pit Bulls are a wonderful breed. That they are killed by the hundreds of thousands a year is abhorrent to me.
I find that what the sensation-seeking media and politicians are doing to Pit Bulls is vile. I oppose it and I endeavor to expose the perversity of those who are capable of fostering such unspeakable deeds for a few bucks. I have very little interest in listening to or learning from the teeny-tiny number of people who have had bad experiences with dogs or Pit Bulls. When a person bitten by a dog makes it her life’s goal to promote the extermination of an entire breed, my reaction is either to wish that she went to see a shrink to find the real source of her existential panic or that she found a purpose in life that would leave behind more than just a pile of shit to indicate her passage on this Earth.
Probability, causality, genetics… they can all be reduced to a simple experiment that you can conduct on your own. Put 100 dogs representing every breed you can think of in an enclosure with a person who is not exuding terror. I will volunteer. I will bet you any amount of money you wish that it will not be the Pit Bull who will attack, bite or kill that person (me?). You can pick any 99 dogs you want to. I will only stipulate that the Pit Bull be neutered/spayed and not have a history of extreme abuse. That’s it.
In the entire history of ragdom (read: media), there has never been a report of a single, neutered, adequately cared for Pit Bull having attacked a person, without provocation.
Now go away. Your participation in the Whiners’ Club is requested.