Pit Bulls?

[XeKr]

Anecdotes are not very useful. People have had their children killed. It’s not surprising some feel so strongly about this.

Regardless, the brief point I wanted to make is the use of sources. It might help you and also future discussions in this forum lololol >_>. Some of the ones you (BANRYU) are dismissing are from peer-reviewed journals, often pretty good ones in their field. Take, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/88/1/55.abstract. It’s an old paper, certainly, but was published in Pediatrics by prominent MDs from Penn. (You should be able to get the full text if you’re attending a university, and possibly otherwise. It has references, incidentally). It presents data directly from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Meanwhile, you freely accept what media personalities (From what I can tell, Cesar Millan is this.) or bloggers tell you on the internet. Other articles cited (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302402 ) are okay, but from a lower impact factor journal, and they use an online survey for their data. Take what you will from that. Some of these things take seconds to check.

Reading obviously biased viewpoints (Animal Humane Society, a “dog-bites.com”) are very useful to an extent, as long as you remember they’re biased and verify the sources yourself, for some of the more controversial and interesting points. Note, even ostensibly scientific press releases are not immune to hype/bias/sensationalism/etc, so it’s often better to go to the actual manuscript they cite and still remember to take that with a grain of salt too (can be very difficult to work through without a specific background, admittedly).

Re: the point at hand. From what I’ve read, the statistics are clear, but I freely admit I didn’t read that carefully (or that much).

Edited April 18, 2014 by XeKr

[Chiki]

Bad owners can be anything from well-meaning but ignorant to paired with a dog whose personality doesn't mesh with theirs to outright "didn't connect the dots" - none of these are necessarily criminal.

I think dog ownership should be based on environment (for example, I'm not getting a border collie if I live in a cramped apartment), preference, and the dog's personality/history. An abused chihuahua will probably be more of a pain to handle than an Akita who has no history of aggressiveness/mistreatment. Can't really comment on pit bulls, as I haven't had a chance to interact with one yet.

but saying that all pit bulls have vicious temperaments by nature is unfair (for reasons I've stated earlier with sources, and have no intention of stating or quoting them again; if they're being ignored, it just means this argument isn't worth my time). It might sound weird to say this, but it is literally straight-up racism.

LOL. Well, life is unfair. The truths of the world don't change based on your personal opinions on what's good and bad. Black people are innately better at physical activities than us whites. And so on.

It's not like Goldens can't be mean at times, either. Obviously they're not as substantial a threat purely on physical basis, but my golden retriever had moments where she could be quite ill-tempered.

Ok, but that's likely to be a problem with the specific dog, and not the breed. Golden retrievers were bred to be loyal and gentle, but pit bulls were bred to kill other dogs. They are vicious.

Have any of you guys SEEN a pit bull kill someone? If not, then attack? If not, then have you personally witnessed any such aggressive behavior? Or even if not that, witnessed it recorded on video or in a documentary or anything of the like?

No. So what? I only care about statistics.

Let's say I've been personally attacked by a golden retriever once. That doesn't mean all golden retrievers are bad. It's just an anecdote: it may or may not have a bearing on reality. What we need to do is find statistics to establish if there's really a problem with the breed or with the dog.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Chiki

[Phoenix Wright]

pitbulls require more than just the "average" dog owner in order to be as sociable and safe as other breeds (as many studies have shown). given this, i'd say pitbulls should be banned from the general public.

[Rehab]

LOL. Well, life is unfair. The truths of the world don't change based on your personal opinions on what's good and bad. Black people are innately better at physical activities than us whites. And so on.

Ok, but that's likely to be a problem with the specific dog, and not the breed. Golden retrievers were bred to be loyal and gentle, but pit bulls were bred to kill other dogs. They are vicious.

No. So what? I only care about statistics.

Let's say I've been personally attacked by a golden retriever once. That doesn't mean all golden retrievers are bad. It's just an anecdote: it may or may not have a bearing on reality. What we need to do is find statistics to establish if there's really a problem with the breed or with the dog.

It'd be nice if you could use a different example. Empirical stats have racial proportions of successful athletes differing from sport to sport, and some sports are famous for having comparatively few black fans or players. There's a possibility culture plays some role in their seeming dominance in some sports, which happen to be some of the most visible ones to people in the U.S.

I've also heard more than one black person opine that the statement is flat-out tainted by racism, because historically it has so closely tied to an accompanying assertion that they're lesser mentally. And I've seen more than that who it just plain makes uncomfortable.

[Chiki]

It'd be nice if you could use a different example.

Boohoo.

Empirical stats have racial proportions of successful athletes differing from sport to sport, and some sports are famous for having comparatively few black fans or players. There's a possibility culture plays some role in their seeming dominance in some sports, which happen to be some of the most visible ones to people in the U.S.

I've also heard more than one black person opine that the statement is flat-out tainted by racism, because historically it has so closely tied to an accompanying assertion that they're lesser mentally. And I've seen more than that who it just plain makes uncomfortable.

Why do you always have to act morally outraged whenever people say something that's not offensive at all, but can be twisted into something offensive?

Even a casual mention that meaningful genetic differences exist between populations can ignite a firestorm and threaten a career. Ask Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder. Or Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in the mile, in 1954. In a speech before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1995, Sir Roger Bannister, the distinguished neurologist and retired Oxford dean was showered with ridicule for venturing his opinion "as a scientist rather than a sociologist" that all athletes are not created equal. "I am prepared to risk political incorrectness," he said, "by drawing attention to the seemingly obvious but under stressed fact that black sprinters and black athletes in general all seem to have certain natural anatomical advantages."

http://run-down.com/guests/je_black_athletes_p2.php

Yet the science is quite clear and the empirical evidence consistent and overwhelming. A look at the ancestry (or home country) of runners holding the top 100 times in eight distances, from the 100 meters to the marathon, makes it clear that African domination is deep as well as broad:

• Blacks who trace their ancestry to West Africa, including African Americans, hold more than 95 percent of the top times in sprinting;
• Whites are virtually absent from the top ranks of sprinting; though whites have traditionally done well in the longer endurance races, particularly the marathon, their ranks have thinned in recent years;
• Athletes from one country, Kenya, make up more than one-third of top times in middle and long distance races; including top performances by other East Africans (most from Ethiopia), that domination swells to almost 50 percent.
• North Africans do well at middle distances;
• Mexicans (Native Americans), are strongest at the longest races, 10,000 meters and the marathon;
• East Asians are competitive only at the event requiring the most endurance, the marathon, and at ultra-marathons.

Edited April 18, 2014 by Chiki

[Rehab]

I was trying to go for "polite asking," to let you know you might be going into a subject that could get you more seriously blown up at, and to give you a quiet way out of comparing the concept of human races to fucking dog breeds, but okay, if you really want to be a big tactless nerd about it

Your quote block leaves out swimming and hockey, which, as I noted, black athletes are a smaller share of. You said "innately better at physical activities."

Also, a specific rebuttal, which points out that Africa is a big fucking place and not at all homogenous genetically

Recently, journalist Jon Entine has written a book defending the claim that “black athletes dominate sports,” which he says is demonstrated by the Olympic performance of African athletes. The claim is false. What is true is that members of some small populations, widely scattered in Africa, are good at some specific sports, whereas members of other African populations underperform in the very same sports, as shown in this chapter by adducing the very evidence that Jon Entine mistakenly thinks supports his own case.

[dondon151]

probably a better example would be to say that the statement "men are better athletes than women" is not sexist in a pejorative way.

EDIT: the general message here is that we shouldn't eschew stereotyping for the sake of political correctness when stereotyping is useful. i don't think that rehab was challenging chiki's assertion on grounds of moral outrage so much as he finds the data unconvincing, since it can be confounded by a number of factors.

Edited April 18, 2014 by dondon151

[Rehab]

Something like that.

I think it's worth paying attention to and trying to analyze relevant data, of course, particularly regarding the big numbers I've now seen on display of pit bulls making trouble- 50% differences are hard to dismiss without taking a look. I'm just wary about whether my opinion would change if I looked up more about the context it was compiled in.

[eclipse]

Sheesh people, tone it down. ;/

pitbulls require more than just the "average" dog owner in order to be as sociable and safe as other breeds (as many studies have shown). given this, i'd say pitbulls should be banned from the general public.

Agree with the first part, meh on the second part. Perhaps some sort of licensing/certification instead of an outright ban?

[Chiki]

Rehab is always ready to jump down people's throats if they say anything that can be taken to slightly hurt people's rights. This is far from the first time and it's really obnoxious. Anyway,

our quote block leaves out swimming and hockey, which, as I noted, black athletes are a smaller share of. You said "innately better at physical activities."

It also leaves out chess and some other sports too. They aren't really meaningful. Running ability/endurance is probably the most important physical ability overall.

Going back to pit bulls, http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2013.php

Together, pit bulls (25) and rottweilers (1), the second most lethal dog breed, accounted for 81% of the total recorded deaths in 2013.

The breakdown between these two breeds is substantial over this 9-year period. From 2005 to 2013, pit bulls killed 176 Americans

California led lethal dog attacks in 2013 with 5 deaths. 100% were attributed to pit bulls and 60% resulted in criminal charges

Edited April 19, 2014 by Chiki

[Phoenix Wright]

Sheesh people, tone it down. ;/

Agree with the first part, meh on the second part. Perhaps some sort of licensing/certification instead of an outright ban?

that's what i meant by "general" public. sorry for not being clear.

[Rehab]

Man, if you think "it'd be nice if you could use a different example" is jumping down your throat, I'd hate to see you interact with somebody for whom what you said is an actual sore spot.

I have indeed blown up at you before, and I'm sorry that I kinda ditched trying to be constructive about what we were talking about then, but believe it or not, I was trying to head off what you said at first there before it got worse, to let you know why, and to give some simple counter-evidence, not to give you a hard time about it. Ended up blowing up a little on you anyway, so I obviously mucked that up, but "Boo-hoo?" You can make it kinda easy to get mad at you sometimes, dude, and you don't help things by giving the appearance of not caring.

The pertinent distinction is that "black people" encompasses a lot of different ethnicities with a lot of different sets of common physical traits. As the thing I linked to before gets into, various peoples of African descent perform differently in aggregate than do other peoples of African descent, sometimes doing worse than both an ethnicity of non-African descent and another ethnicity of African descent. The term "black" could refer to African-American people, which usually have a fair share of white ancestry (which itself varies) in them mixed in with their varying African ancestries, or it could refer to peoples of a ton of different native African ethnicities, all of whose aggregate performance can vary wildly, going between different activities. And it's not also not like every physical activity is dominated by one of those different African ethnicities, either. "Black people are better physically/at sports than ___" just ends up being so general as to be a meaningless statement, besides being misleading.

It's just not a good comparison to dog breeds, which are both more specific and controlled more tightly than different sets of humans in any capacity.

Okay. Done. I'll try not to jockey any harder for the last word on this digression if you'll make a gentleman's agreement with me here

[BANRYU]

I'm just kind of done dealing with Chiki's asinine nonsense.

The solid points he might have been making are far outweighed by all the other stupid shit he's spouting.

probably a better example would be to say that the statement "men are better athletes than women" is not sexist in a pejorative way.

I'd just like to point out this isn't really any better than the racially-insensitive crap Chiki was doing unless you phrase it in a different way like 'men have capacity for more muscle mass than women', which is more objectively true and less seemingly sexist (which I don't think was your intent-- just be careful how you word it). Women can be perfectly good athletes too, and some may be more genetically predisposed for athleticism than some men. As with anything, it depends on the individual.

pitbulls require more than just the "average" dog owner in order to be as sociable and safe as other breeds (as many studies have shown). given this, i'd say pitbulls should be banned from the general public.

OBJECTION!

Sorry that was more for the catchphrase than anything although yeah incidentally I DO disagree though I've already stated why earlier in the thread and don't have any particular desire to repeat myself at the moment

Anecdotes are not very useful. People have had their children killed. It’s not surprising some feel so strongly about this.

Yeah I'll admit the whole 'have you seen it? no? = it doesn't happen' thing was a really poor argument; I knew it when I posted it and it's even more painfully obvious in retrospect. Let's just forget I mentioned that.

Regardless, the brief point I wanted to make is the use of sources. It might help you and also future discussions in this forum lololol >_>. Some of the ones you (BANRYU) are dismissing are from peer-reviewed journals, often pretty good ones in their field. Take, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/88/1/55.abstract. It’s an old paper, certainly, but was published in Pediatrics by prominent MDs from Penn. (You should be able to get the full text if you’re attending a university, and possibly otherwise. It has references, incidentally). It presents data directly from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Meanwhile, you freely accept what media personalities (From what I can tell, Cesar Millan is this.) or bloggers tell you on the internet. Other articles cited (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302402 ) are okay, but from a lower impact factor journal, and they use an online survey for their data. Take what you will from that. Some of these things take seconds to check.

Reading obviously biased viewpoints (Animal Humane Society, a “dog-bites.com”) are very useful to an extent, as long as you remember they’re biased and verify the sources yourself, for some of the more controversial and interesting points. Note, even ostensibly scientific press releases are not immune to hype/bias/sensationalism/etc, so it’s often better to go to the actual manuscript they cite and still remember to take that with a grain of salt too (can be very difficult to work through without a specific background, admittedly).

Re: the point at hand. From what I’ve read, the statistics are clear, but I freely admit I didn’t read that carefully (or that much).

Apologies, I don't mean to dismiss these sources so readily; it might not seem like it, as admittedly-opinionated as I am on the subject, but I'm really just after the truth of the matter... In responding to some people *cough* it was a bit difficult not to get a little... side-tracked, shall we say, in some of my rebuttals. But there it is, I shouldn't have, but I did; I can admit that.

Anyway.

I could try too get that full paper if I can find the time for it; I'm pretty busy with my classes this quarter (thus my taking so long to respond).

In my own brief spate of research, the articles I gravitated towards were ones that talked about both sides of the issue; I cited a couple of other articles that were similarly objective to the ones you linked (which were pretty solid in their own right).

And yeah, I'm inclined to believe what Cesar Millan says regarding Pit Bulls, but media personality or no, he's undeniably an expert on the topic of canine behavior and is no stranger to the pit bull aggression aside (I'm sure there was at least one episode of his show where he dealt with that IIRC, though I don't really watch it). It doesn't mean that I'm dismissing the tragic incidents that HAVE occurred, I'm just questioning whether the frequency of these attacks (which is NOT as high as most people would be inclined to believe, according to your and other articles) really warrant banning the breed.

Believe it or not, I want pit bulls to stop mauling people too. I just think that better education and licensing are the solution, rather than a ban (Rehab, Euklyd and I have all gone over the reasons why a ban is not the practical solution to this issue).

Edited April 19, 2014 by BANRYU

[Chiki]

I'm just kind of done dealing with Chiki's asinine nonsense.

The solid points he might have been making are far outweighed by all the other stupid shit he's spouting.

I'd just like to point out this isn't really any better than the racially-insensitive crap Chiki was doing unless you phrase it in a different way like 'men have capacity for more muscle mass than women',

How about this to both you and Rehab: Western Africans have empirically proven greater endurance and athletic ability. How is it stupid shit to say this?

Or how about this: Pit bulls have lesser secretion of glucocortoid hormones and greater secretion of dehydroepiandrosterone compared to other dog breeds.

Making it sound slightly more technical doesn't make the reality of it any less worse, lol.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Chiki

[dondon151]

I'd just like to point out this isn't really any better than the racially-insensitive crap Chiki was doing unless you phrase it in a different way like 'men have capacity for more muscle mass than women', which is more objectively true and less seemingly sexist (which I don't think was your intent-- just be careful how you word it). Women can be perfectly good athletes too, and some may be more genetically predisposed for athleticism than some men. As with anything, it depends on the individual.

sorry, just because you think it's "insensitive" doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to say it. statements which are made with pejorative intent with little supporting evidence (which means they're usually, though not always, false) deserve to be labeled "insensitive."

i shouldn't have to be careful about what kinds of words i use for the sake of political correctness. if you're going to appropriate a word or a characteristic as a trigger for taking offense, then boo on you. mindsets like this stifle serious discussion.

Women can be perfectly good athletes too, and some may be more genetically predisposed for athleticism than some men. As with anything, it depends on the individual.

if i assume a certain level of intellectual honesty from my opponent, i shouldn't have to qualify every statement i make with an appeal to the normal distribution.

Edited April 19, 2014 by dondon151

[BANRYU]

(other words)

if i assume a certain level of intellectual honesty from my opponent, i shouldn't have to qualify every statement i make with an appeal to the normal distribution.

Fine. If I knew what you meant to say, it was pointless to call you out on it. Fair enough. Sorry about that.

Edited April 19, 2014 by BANRYU

[Rehab]

I'd appreciate the effort, Chiki. No sarcasm. [spoiler=belaboring it]But just for our information, I'd note that it can be reduced even further than that; it's a single ethnic group, the Kalenjin, from one region, the Rift Valley, that accounts for over 60% of all Kenyan medals in track, for example. And they don't perform as well as other groups to be found over in East Africa do in long-distance running, without going outside the area of footraces. So, even though biology surely affects physical performance, and biological adaptations tend to be passed down through genes, the advantages it may confer can seem very specific and narrow; this is such that saying biology determines strict physical superiority tends to beg a lot of questions. (also, this is avoiding the argument apparently being had over whether the circumcision rituals the Kalenjin practice- their culture, effectively- have any effect on cultivating physical endurance.)

tl;dr: Ethnies are admittedly more comparable to breeds than races are in this context, though, yes.

Seeing how much zooming in on that data in the context of human physical performance can create complications in the conclusions to be drawn helps to make me, personally speaking, wary of what the data on pit bulls could mean regarding their aggression, and of how that data was collected and framed. Not "dismissive," but "wary."

Have they actually examined details of pit bull hormone hormone secretion, though? I don't even mean to make an argument about it, I just love reading about that shit, feel free to throw some material my way

[eclipse]

I said tone it down, not turn it up. Closing this before it gets worse.