[EM] Standards for credibility on EM (an on-topic post that doesn't name anyone)

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

It was claimed or implied on this mailing list that if  someone has an 
engineering degree from Standord, what he says has more credibility than 
what I say. But, assuming for the moment that the person actually went to 
Stanford,   wouldn't his claim of enhanced credibility  be true only if the 
topic were engineering? If someone claims to be good at some other thing, 
different from the topic under discussion, there's no reason why that gains 
authority on the topic being discussed.

In fact, as I said, in voting systems, statements and proposals can only be 
judged on their own merits. Notions or claims of authority aren't helpful in 
evaluating such statements & proposals.

For example, say, hypothetically, that we have someone who has recently 
claimed to have an engineering degree from Stanford,   saying that Approval 
strategies aren't effective when there aren't 2 lilkely frontrunners. And I, 
who don't make any such claim about myself, say that there are Approval 
strategies that are effective when there aren't two likely frontrunners. If 
we go by the degree that that person hypothetically  claims to have, then he 
  must be right. But it's been common knowledge in voting discussions, not 
just here, but everywhere, for years, that ther are Approval strategies that 
are effective for maximizing expectation when there are no perceived likely 
frontrunners. In fact there's even a very well-known approval strategy for 
when there's no information other than one's own utility ratings. It's 
effective too.

  This suggests that a Stanford degree in engineering isn't telling us a 
whole lot about how authoritative or how ignorant someone is, or the value 
of what they're saying--assuming, that is, that the degree isn't imaginary.

And if one such instance isn't enough to demonstrate that, then I mention 
that it wasn't really hypothetical, and that there were many such instances 
in which an amazing degree of misunderstanding was demonstrated by the 
individual in question.

That same indivicual has apparently made the astounding discovery, via a 
simulation, that sometimes Approval doesn't converge. And has also given to 
us the epoch-making conjecture that the nonconvergence could be associated 
with cycles. Stop the presses. Call the journals.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/