Article: Parallelism at HotPar 2010
By: Dean Kent (dkent.delete@this.realworldtech.com), August 4, 2010 9:30 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
AM (myname4rwt@jee-male.com) on 8/4/10 wrote:
---------------------------
>...unless you can *really* back
>your 100x-claims-are-crap statements by showing that every published work that reported
>such speedups is not worth considering for being misleading, wrong etc.
>
First, I'll admit to not following this discussion closely, so I may have missed something, but from reading the back and forth of the last day or two, this is what it looks like from 20,000 feet...
David proposes a theory (or hypothesis) that 100x claims are crap. He supports this theory by using examples of the claim (or claims) he is aware of. Someone disputes his claim... but not by giving an example, but by stating that David's theory is crap unless he can show that virtually every published work is incorrect.
So, it seems to me you have your reasoning completely backwards. The way such things work, from my understanding, is that the theory is considered to be possible until someone provides a specific example of where it is wrong. That's all it takes - one example. At that point, there is no question or discussion about whether the theory is right. On the other hand, your approach can *never* prove 'truth', because it is always possible that there is some obscure published work, or an as-yet-unpublished work that David has not analyzed so that you can claim David could be 'wrong', and by extension, that this makes you 'right'.
It is obvious that this discussion is taking on all the trappings of a pissing contest. It only requires that someone show the *one* example of a published work that disproves his theory, yet you try to put the onus on him for absolutely, indisputably, and in all other ways completely prove the truth of his statement by finding every possible published work. If that were the way the scientific method worked, nothing would *ever* get proven.
So, it appears this discussion isn't about getting to the truth, it is about 'being right' - or at least trying to cast someone else as 'being wrong' without actually doing the work.
Just my observation, though as I said, I might be missing the actual point.
Regards,
Dean
---------------------------
>...unless you can *really* back
>your 100x-claims-are-crap statements by showing that every published work that reported
>such speedups is not worth considering for being misleading, wrong etc.
>
First, I'll admit to not following this discussion closely, so I may have missed something, but from reading the back and forth of the last day or two, this is what it looks like from 20,000 feet...
David proposes a theory (or hypothesis) that 100x claims are crap. He supports this theory by using examples of the claim (or claims) he is aware of. Someone disputes his claim... but not by giving an example, but by stating that David's theory is crap unless he can show that virtually every published work is incorrect.
So, it seems to me you have your reasoning completely backwards. The way such things work, from my understanding, is that the theory is considered to be possible until someone provides a specific example of where it is wrong. That's all it takes - one example. At that point, there is no question or discussion about whether the theory is right. On the other hand, your approach can *never* prove 'truth', because it is always possible that there is some obscure published work, or an as-yet-unpublished work that David has not analyzed so that you can claim David could be 'wrong', and by extension, that this makes you 'right'.
It is obvious that this discussion is taking on all the trappings of a pissing contest. It only requires that someone show the *one* example of a published work that disproves his theory, yet you try to put the onus on him for absolutely, indisputably, and in all other ways completely prove the truth of his statement by finding every possible published work. If that were the way the scientific method worked, nothing would *ever* get proven.
So, it appears this discussion isn't about getting to the truth, it is about 'being right' - or at least trying to cast someone else as 'being wrong' without actually doing the work.
Just my observation, though as I said, I might be missing the actual point.
Regards,
Dean
