[EM] 05/13/02 - The Education of Poor Richard:

[Donald Davison]

05/13/02 - The Education of Poor Richard:

Greetings list members,

Richard Moore's rantings in his letter of 5/5 are not understandable.  The
best I can say for him is that he is clueless as to what is being said
and/or implied by the `code words' used on this list, or maybe he has
volunteered to act as a Pit Bull for Alex (without Alex asking).  Poor
Richard should pay more attention to code words before going ballistic.
For his information and education, the words `Condorcet candidate' or
`Condorcet winner' are code words which mean or imply that Condorcet is the
standard for all single-seat election methods including Condorcet itself.

Whenever anyone uses the code words `Condorcet Winner' they are attempting
to establish Condorcet to this high position as the standard of all
single-seat election methods including Condorcet itself.  I do not accept
Condorcet as the standard, but of more importance I say it is dishonest to
regard any method to be a standard of all methods including itself.  This
dishonesty will create junk mathematics and I said as much in my reply to
Alex's use of the code words.

It is not proper to use any of the considered methods as a standard, not
Plurality nor Irving nor any of variants of the junk methods, Approval and
Condorcet.  It would be as if in the American Beauty Constest Miss
California (or Miss Condorcet) was regarded to be the standard by which all
the contestants are to be judged including Miss California - and the winner
is Miss California - of course, who else - more deceit of the Condorcet
people.

In my letter of 5/05/02 titled: `Condorcet just does not make the cut', I
felt I finally made "..the point that no method should be regarded as the
standard for all the methods including itself..."  There was nothing taken
out of context, there were no errors by me, there was no misdirection by
me.  It is not clear as to what Poor Richard is talking about, as to what
he is ranting about?

    Alex understands what Alex is saying.
        I understand what Alex is saying.
             Poor Richard is the problem.

Regards, Donald


  ------------ Poor Richard's Original Letter ------------
Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 10:55:38 -0700
From: Richard Moore <rmoore4 at cox.net>
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [EM] aka [Junk Election Methods] 05/05/02 - Condorcet just does
 not make the cut:

Donald Davison wrote:
> 05/05/02 - Condorcet just does not make the cut:
>
> Alex, you wrote: "Seriously, do you disagree with the statement that IRV
> can elect a candidate who is also a Condorcet winner?  Do you disagree that
> the IRV winner is not guaranteed to be the Condorcet winner?"
>
> Donald:  I tried to make the point that no method should be regarded as the
> standard for all the methods including itself, but you will not have that,
> will you?  It seems that you are insisting that one of the single-seat
> methods should be a standard for all, so be it.  If necessary, I can play
> that silly game.  Irving is more than qualified to be the standard of the
> single-seat election methods.
>
> I will agree that Condorcet can elect a candidate who is also an `Irving
> Winner', but that the Condorcet winner is not guaranteed to be the `Irving
> Winner'.
>
> That is one of the bad features of Condorcet, it does not always measure up
> to the `standard' of Irving.  Sorry, but Condorcet just does not make the
> cut.
>

Alex's statement was taken totally out of context by Donald (not an
infrequent tactic of those who rely exclusively on rhetoric rather than
logic to make their point). When Alex made that statement he was responding
directly to the following from Donald:

 >Alex: "IRV can elect a Condorcet candidate, it just doesn't guarantee the
 >election of a Condorcet candidate (if he exists)."
 >
 >Donald: More dishonesty, you call yourself a scientist and a
 >mathematician. What kind of junk mathematics are you using? What are you
 >smoking?

So I ask the same fair question Alex asked. What part of Alex's statement
in the above exchange was Donald disagreeing with when he said "More
dishonesty", and where is the "junk mathematics" in Alex's statement???

Honestly, I think it is quite fair for Alex to ask Donald to defend his
statements. But Donald's defense always appears to be to try to focus
the attention away from his errors. Misdirection is great for magicians
but it has no place on this list.

  -- Richard



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