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Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

science.org

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Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#101

Post by krisoft »

colordrops wrote: post #96
krisoft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A weak counterclaim does not imply the claim to be truth. Yes. So? The options are not just that we accept whatever fact is presented, or accept whatever is the oposite of it. We can just say: “looks like we don’t know” and that is perfectly fine. A claim or a counterclaim (is there even a distinction?) warrants the same amount of proof.

> A claim or a counterclaim (is there even a distinction?) warrants the same amount of proof. Yes that is exactly what I was saying.

Then I don't understand you.

You wrote:

> Is there a name for being arbitrarily biased against a counterclaim?

Who is arbitrarily biassed against a counterclaim in your opinion here? Debby Sneed who wrote the study? Andrew Curry who wrote the science.org article about the study? gadflyinyoureye who wrote the comment your comment is responding to? Someone else?

> The simple fact that this is posed as a counterclaim itself seems to invoke skepticism...

As it should. I don't see the bias here. Are you saying that someone accepts claims without skepticism but not counterclaims? Who?

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#102

Post by Jansen312 »

technothrasher wrote: post #84
krisoft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A weak counterclaim does not imply the claim to be truth. Yes. So? The options are not just that we accept whatever fact is presented, or accept whatever is the oposite of it. We can just say: “looks like we don’t know” and that is perfectly fine. A claim or a counterclaim (is there even a distinction?) warrants the same amount of proof.

The abstract of the paper sounds like this isn't actually a counterclaim, it is only a questioning of the claim being made. The author isn't saying that the Spartans didn't systematically "kill weak babies." She is saying there doesn't appear to be much evidence that they did, and given evidence that it wasn't common in general in ancient Greece, the claim is suspect.

Sparta wasn't common like any of the contempory cities. Sparta has unique militaristic society. Hence the writer should have furnish proof within Sparta and not use proxies to generalize the same. Canada and Mexico are next to USA. The things happening in USA are hard to be extrapolated from Canada or from Mexico. You can't be reasonable to say American loves maple syrup and have cartel rampant running the drug trades simply because it is common in Canada or Mexico.

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#103

Post by rendall »

okl wrote: post #85
rendall wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both the claim "Spartans did this" and "Spartans did not do this" are affirmative claims that require evidence. Hmm. That is an interesting perspective, but I do not agree. Isn't "Spartans did not do this" actually a negative claim? And aren't negative claims notoriously difficult to prove? What if this were consorted with extraterrestrials or some other random claim? Then it's easy to dismiss lack of evidence with…

Null hypothesis should be: we don't know!

Well, sure, we don't know for sure that they did not kill deformed newborns, but we also don't know for sure that Spartans were not magical invisible goats, either. After all, there's no proof they weren't, am I right?

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#104

Post by dang »

0des wrote: post #41
hsod wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Lately it seems that people who lay their ideas out and accept criticism are being destroyed by those who refuse to admit fault a priori

Just a head's up, it appears your account may be shadow banned, most of your comments cannot be seen unless someone vouches for them. To respond to your comment, I think sometimes that the skills of debate are fading from society. Often it is not the subject matter of what is being disputed, but the manner in which it is presented, or the person/ideology espousing it.

Not shadowbanned—we told them we were banning them and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 - as we usually do, when an account has some history on HN. Please don't take threads off topic like that. If you think an account shouldn't be banned, you're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.

Edit: you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not cool. Please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#105

Post by Talanes »

scndrycntct wrote: post #16
Talanes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even within Sparta, proper Spartans didn't make up the majority of the population, so you'd still have to distinguish between Spartan infants and helot infants.

Pretty pedantic. I think we can agree that since the title and parent comment mention "Spartans", they are talking about the Spartans and not other residents.

I'm only expanding on GPs point, so I'm not sure how my comment could be considered pedantic to them.

And as for the title point: Spartans seem to only be mentioned in the article coverage of the research. They are not the topic of the research itself. Sparta doesn't even appear in the abstract of the paper. Demonstrating that infanticide of disabled babies wasn't a widespread practice in Ancient Greece does not necessarily mean that it wasn't practiced by a group that only consisted of the elite class of one state.

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#106

Post by colordrops »

krisoft wrote: post #101
colordrops wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A claim or a counterclaim (is there even a distinction?) warrants the same amount of proof. Yes that is exactly what I was saying.

Then I don't understand you. You wrote: > Is there a name for being arbitrarily biased against a counterclaim? Who is arbitrarily biassed against a counterclaim in your opinion here? Debby Sneed who wrote the study? Andrew Curry who wrote the science.org article about the study? gadflyinyoureye who wrote the comment your comment is responding to? Someone else? > The simple fact that this is posed as a counterclaim it…

I may not have expressed myself properly. Instead of saying arbitrarily biased against the counterclaim, I should have said arbitrarily biased for the implied claim that is being countered.

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#107

Post by 0des »

dang wrote: post #104
0des wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a head's up, it appears your account may be shadow banned, most of your comments cannot be seen unless someone vouches for them. To respond to your comment, I think sometimes that the skills of debate are fading from society. Often it is not the subject matter of what is being disputed, but the manner in which it is presented, or the person/ideology espousing it.

Not shadowbanned—we told them we were banning them and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 - as we usually do, when an account has some history on HN. Please don't take threads off topic like that. If you think an account shouldn't be banned, you're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Edit: you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not cool. Please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.…

This is a disturbing step in the wrong direction. If I were doing it in an automated fashion, or going on a diatribe about it, I'd meet you halfway on it and say you have a point, but this feels uncharacteristically like "we will moderate who we please and you're not allowed to notice or comment on it, and don't push the issue, or else."

If the vouch system shouldn't be used to rescue otherwise worthy on-topic comments, what is it there for, and why not ban the user entirely?

Before you 86 me over it, consider if you're in the right here, and what types of chilling effects your statement above has. Nobody claims that this place is the paragon of fairness, but this community works hard to keep it fair and balanced without this type of clandestine moderation. What you just attempted is morally wrong. If that gets me banned for daring to disagree, then you're doing me a favor by adding me to the list.

Even someone who's ideologically motivated like the guy I replied to can be right at times, whether I agree with them personally the rest of the time or not, so I'd implore you to reconsider the readiness with which you bear down on those who are doing the moderation for you by surfacing the comments where the shunned, for once, aren't pursuing their own agendas. Isn't that the purpose of the vouch system?

Deflated.

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#108

Post by okl »

rendall wrote: post #103
okl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Null hypothesis should be: we don't know!

Well, sure, we don't know for sure that they did not kill deformed newborns, but we also don't know for sure that Spartans were not magical invisible goats, either. After all, there's no proof they weren't, am I right?

Confidence is a scale, not binary. What does "sure" mean for you and how much of it do you need to be convinced? Does it depend on the situation? For example, how sure do you need/want to be when you cross the street?

Before I consider that, you'd have to show that magical invisible goats (can) exist.

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#109

Post by [deleted] »

rendall wrote: post #103
okl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Null hypothesis should be: we don't know!

Well, sure, we don't know for sure that they did not kill deformed newborns, but we also don't know for sure that Spartans were not magical invisible goats, either. After all, there's no proof they weren't, am I right?

[deleted]

Re: Ancient Spartans didn’t kill ‘weak’ babies, new study argues

#110

Post by dang »

0des wrote: post #107
dang wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not shadowbanned—we told them we were banning them and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 - as we usually do, when an account has some history on HN. Please don't take threads off topic like that. If you think an account shouldn't be banned, you're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Edit: you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not cool. Please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.…

This is a disturbing step in the wrong direction. If I were doing it in an automated fashion, or going on a diatribe about it, I'd meet you halfway on it and say you have a point, but this feels uncharacteristically like "we will moderate who we please and you're not allowed to notice or comment on it, and don't push the issue, or else ." If the vouch system shouldn't be used to rescue otherwise worthy on-topic comme…

It's not a step in any direction—it's how HN has always worked.

Of course the vouch system should be used to rescue worthy on-topic comments. That's its purpose. I wasn't talking about that, but rather about your repeatedly posting like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528161

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043

There are two problems with doing that: (1) it's repetitive, which is not what HN discussion is for; and (2) it's basically doing an end run around moderation.

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