Brunell vs. Bledsoe

Nice try ...but you have only added further claims to the original. You've proven nothing.

First: You're wrong. He did not add further claims to his original statement. He made statements which support and provide a basis for the original claim. Given your stance on the use of "mostly useless" statistics to "prove" a point, your earlier invitation for him to prove his statement relying on statistics is disengenous at best.

He has made a claim: Brooks is the best QB. He then supports it by asserting that Brooks excels at those things that good QB's need to do. Simply b/c he did not support his assertion in the manner you have asked him to does not mean he hasn't offered support. Can you disprove any of his supporting assertions and, thus, call into question his final conclusion?

What must he provide as a basis for support of his claim? Accepting your theory that stats are mostly useless, any use of stats will inevitably fail.
The circular nature of your argument is truly amazing: You assert stats are mostly useless for providing a comparison of players. Then assert someone has not proven their point b/c they have not relied on stats to compare the player to others.

IF, instead, it is your position that, as he is arguing that stats are important and valuable comparisons, he must provide a statistical basis for his position re: Aaron Brooks, THEN you have failed to grasp the point of the statement or are deliberately failing to answer it.

The statement that "Brooks is the best QB" was not made as an assertion of the truth, but, rather, as a demonstration that, w/o the use of or reliance on stats, such statements are simply a matter of unsupported opinion. In the common use of the english language, opinions unsupported by facts are know as either bias, when asserting opinion in favor of something, and prejudice, when asserting opinion against something.

As the statement was made not as a truth to be proven, but rather to demonstrate the impossiblity of your position (that stats are mostly useless), the burden falls upon you to demonstrate, in an objective fashion, w/out any reliance on stats, that it can be disproven. Please do so.

PSUSkinsFan21

I've proven that you have no way of arguing the merits of any player in the NFL. I've made assertions regarding a certain player. Those assertions must be taken as admitted by you since you have nothing to counter my argument.

You didn't make an argument. You made a claim about a player that you cannot prove. Nor can you prove that you have any valid way of comparing one player to another using statistics.

See if you want to argue "proof", you've really picked the wrong guy to argue with. You've mentioned "burden of proof", which I will take as a legal term of art.

You can take it any way you like, but it doesn't work that way in debate and this isn't a legal issue.

If we were to accept your views on statistics and their propriety in professional sports discussions, then all of us would be left making unsupported claims about players that simply could not be refuted.

Nah. Luckily, outside of the courtroom, logic prevails. It is simply illogical to say that you can't prove me wrong, therefore I'm right.

Excellent post JoeRedskin. Thank you.

i made reference to circular arguements and brick walls about 100 pages ago and still we're circling :(

where's the rebuttal to my points? where's your proof that you're right? I still see you claiming others have no proof despite well reasoned and articulate discussion, but you're "proof" consists of unsupported opinions (and bad logic)... yet somehow anything you write is evidence and anything anyone else writes is opinions or not relevent.

meanwhile i'm still waiting.

PSUSkinsFan21

You didn't make an argument. You made a claim about a player that you cannot prove. Nor can you prove that you have any valid way of comparing one player to another using statistics.

You can take it any way you like, but it doesn't work that way in debate and this isn't a legal issue.

Nah. Luckily, outside of the courtroom, logic prevails. It is simply illogical to say that you can't prove me wrong, therefore I'm right.

You know what, I'm done with this ridiculous argument. You're being difficult because you know you're wrong. Everyone here sees that. Everyone here disagrees with you. I'll take that as a win and walk away.

You can think whatever you want about your argument and your point, but the fact is you refuse to make any affirmative statement about Aaron Brooks right now because you know that the minute you do you argument will come crashing down. We would go round and round with our opinions, and you would never be able to prove me wrong because you've taken away the one thing that could prove me wrong: statistics.

Just know this: the minute you ever make an affirmative statement about any player in the NFL, I'm going to be all over it ...... because by refusing to back down from this absurd argument, you've essentially prohibited yourself from ever being able to support any argument you want to make about a player's abilities or whether one player is superior to another.

To the rest of you: good luck.

You didn't make an argument. You made a claim about a player that you cannot prove. Nor can you prove that you have any valid way of comparing one player to another using statistics.

he most definately DID make an arguement and you have absolutely no way of disproving it. Nice try, but it works both ways. There's no magic Huddle immunity, and yet you don't see this is exactly what you've been saying the entire time. "Your wrong, I'm right, and its true cause i said so." That just doesn't work.

As for filtering out co-variances, that's been covered and played out. It can be done, its done all the time, and just cause you might be lazy or unwilling to pursue such endeavors most certainly does not mean it cannot be done. Logic and math specific to such study (engineering and statistics) go into these things in great detail.



You can take it any way you like, but it doesn't work that way in debate and this isn't a legal issue.

so now you not only get the benefit of one way arguement (your opinions are evidence, others' opinions are just opinions), you also get to frame the rules on the fly to suit your needs as well? convenient.



Nah. Luckily, outside of the courtroom, logic prevails. It is simply illogical to say that you can't prove me wrong, therefore I'm right.

you've been proven wrong on every point, yet you still continue. I'd definately say there's something illogical alright.

Huddle - simple question and follow-up: Do you believe there are ANY criteria that provide a basis for objective comparison of two players playing the same position but for different teams? If so, what are they?

I'll assume you are talking about from a fan's perspective and not by the professionals.

Observation. Watching them play. But when we see the player infrequently, there's not much to go on.

Wow. I'll give you five options: (1) You're being intentionally obtuse b/c its fun to see our reactions; (2) You're twelve; (3) You forgot to take your meds; (5) english is your second language; or (4) You're an idiot.

In response to your response:

First - I asked for objective criteria. Go ahead and assume that I am talking about a fan's perspective. You do not provide an answer. For two people to compare the same players by watching the two players and then discussing their relative strenghts and weaknesses is BY DEFINITION a subjective comparison based only on the opinion of the observing individuals. Each individual may observe the same actions but perceive them differently.

Again I ask, w/out relying on mostly useless stats, please explain to me how two fans can have a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of two players w/out it being simply an exchange of individual biases for or prejudices against the player.

Second - Okay, let's assume I am talking about comparisons "by the professionals": What means do they use to make objective comparisons? OR are you asserting that "the professionals" have NO objective criteria and rely solely on their subjective observations?

Excellent post JoeRedskin. Thank you.

Apparently, I have not had my fill of inane academic argument.

I think this thread is on roids

:Smoker:

Ahh, but you're still reading it!!