...that universities will go out and find job interviews for you.
"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.
I mean I supposed some university could advertise that as a service but as an employee of an educational institution. I can attest that this is not the norm. It doesn't sound very feasible either.
No, the question is how intentional your misrepresentation of my argument is.
Which is fine for your personal definition of the term but it's not a very useful one nor does it fit well with examples in the texts on logic that I've read. Think about it.
But, wow, look at how quickly you want to change the subject again to pedantic redefinitions of common terms.
'quickly'? 'again'? in what sense?
It's almost as though you don't have any ideas or arguments relevant to the topic we're discussing,
One of which is wether or not an argument was a strawman.
and you're more interested in childish pissing contests.
Better to apply that criticism to yourself. You are the one going off a topic you were ready to discuss (that of an argument being or not being a strawman) and turning to a personal attack.
Not if you're willfully choosing a position that I am not taking for the purpose of setting up a weaker opponent to your own arguments.
Meh. Newbies.
The question of definition is less about what you state above and more about how important it is to have the argument strongly passed off as your own position. The other poster doesn't do this. Without that it's simply "not your argument" that's being defeated. There are many logical fallacies and honest mistakes which fit this definition however the only one that makes the *strawman* distinctive here is that someone is strongly passing off this argument as yours.
Even if your definition is somehow acceptable. You should realize how much of it requires a seemingly unreasonable level of knowledge about your opponent. In order to know that the opponent is *willfully* choosing to respond to an argument other than yours it stands to reason that you must know (or have strong evidence over the alternative) their motive and also know (or have strong evidence over the alternative) that they know your argument (otherwise they would be "not responding to your argument" accidentally not willfully).
This makes establishing your proposition (said argument is a strawman) rather difficult and perhaps impossible. Combine that with the fact that by inferring the same motives to your response "It seems you are setting up a straw man" you could level the same accusation at it and so on...ad infinitum. The result is that this doesn't appear to be a very *useful* definition of the term now does it?
I never argued anything like "We should throw away structural consistency and do formatting word-by-word." Either you're intentionally mischaracterizing my position, or you have some serious trouble with your reading comprehension.
It doesn't matter that you do not think that's what you argued to that person. It's true that they might not know what you mean by your statements it's also possible that you don't know what *they* mean by their statements. Giving us one more possibility. That you have, as you say problems with reading comprehension.
aaaaaaand we have the logical fallacy of false dichotomy.
Fourth, it seems to me now that you're setting up a straw man.
No, this is the kind of mistake that newbies to the informal fallacies make. The person is simply disclosing their view of your position. Kind of amusing that if the seemingly implied assertion - "Refuting an argument that has been explicitly disclosed as not necessarily held by your opponent" - qualifies as a strawman. Then the statement "Seems like you are setting me up for a strawman" would also be a strawman.
Not to mention that I find the "turing-test" to be much closer to a gedankenexperiment than an actual test. It's an expression of how we think we determine intelligence not a definition. So when I see this I wonder if there are people out there poisoning cats.
Back to the TFA - on a casual reading this guy comes off as enough of a wingnut that I wonder if he's not being misquoted. Otherwise it seems like he's simply redefined the term 'intelligence' to mean 'resilient'. That is to say, were I to create an block of an alloy stronger than any other material on earth (Call me Rearden) I would by his definition also have created the smartest object on earth. Which is certainly well-outside how most people seem to use the term. Which I humbly submit tends to orbit around the idea of 'problem solving' and while I recognize that many animals often invest their energy into solving a particular problem. That of having their resiliency approach that of my near-indestructible block. It doesn't seem terribly difficult to see that the block isn't taking any action to get to this state and therefore it can not be 'solving' anything and because of this calling the block 'intelligent' seems to be missing the point.
That might just be my 'ape-bias' talking though;-)
Sometimes I get some stupid responses when I say something like that. Among them is the person who badly wants to feel like he's clever so he says a thing like "yeah right like you don't have your own flaws" and doesn't understand why he's missing my point.
I find those kind of responses odd too. It's like some people have never been taught the difference between an 'is' and an 'ought'.
I'd interpret your statement as an 'ought' or as some say a 'value-based argument'. I.e. This is how we should drive.
I'd interpret the response as an implied 'is'. i.e. "Everyone has flaws". Sure, granted in fact the speaker may even suffer from the very thing they are decrying but that doesn't stop it from being different as how they *should* act.
Something Feynman said about working with "Monster Minds". The story goes that he's working on a lecture and progressively it gets revealed that some really important people (in physics and math) are going to show - including Einstein. So he starts worrying about what to do if these people start asking questions. Pauli is the first to stand up and say why he thinks the theory Feynman is presenting is wrong and ending with "Don't you agree Professor Einstein?". Einstein essentially says that the only problem he can see is that it doesn't agree with his theory about relativity but that's okay since there isn't much experimental evidence to support his theory.
This story has stuck with me about how criticism of ideas and especially criticism of ones own ideas are the hallmarks of the very intelligent. That said...any idea of this kind is bound by the "tyranny of small sample";-) Still I like it as a rule of thumb.
It rather fits my sampling of the IT sector these days. People who understood technology have been replaced with people who simply parrot information without much regard to its context.
Nobody said he didn't but I suspect that your confusion is the result of misreading my post. It's pretty clear that what he was comparing his ability to write and read cursive to was printing not typing/typeset text. Unless you are saying he claimed to write cursive 2x faster than he can type? Possible? Sure. Likely interpretation. No.
cursive writing is not competing with writing by hand in print. It's competing with typing. So when you ask the question, "which is more legible?"
Some of that may be true but it's also irrelevant to the context you were responding to. So it may be what *YOU* mean when *YOU* say "Which is more legible" but when you are responding to someone's claim about "A is more legible than B" you have to be talking about the same "A" and "B" to be part of the conversation.
No biggie your response was just poorly worded.
I understand you think you can cite terms from your high school statistics class and win any argument
Actually citing technical knowledge is the worst way to win an argument - unless you really know what you are talking about. Anyone who has read Socrates knows how to defeat arguments like that. Just ask "How?". I.e. So how does regression analysis imply that all other variables are likely small (or perhaps co-factors)?
It's pretty funny because when you don't ask the simple questions. You come off like you're intimidated by me.
And all you're actually observing is that I know enough - and far from everything - about methodology and results to see where deficiencies can appear. Just saying "There was a study with result X" is meaningless these days. The classic example (a la Sackett) is hormone replacement therapy. For years we had studies that confirmed it's use as a therapy. Then a really good study turned that belief around. So now people need to look at more than just "there were a bunch of studies".
As an aside I admit I find your array of prejudices fascinating!
, but you need to know something about the topics you're arguing about.
So far you haven't demonstrated either:
i) That you know anything about what you are arguing about.
ii) That I don't know what I'm arguing about.
I get how it's all reassuring to assume you are right and any dissenting opinion is wrong (or simply so well researched that it can't be refuted) but it seems like a good way to learn nothing.
You being ignorant on a subject doesn't mean that it needs more study.
Absolutely. Likewise you asserting that something has been sufficiently studied to afford no dissenting opinion is not an indication that it is so.
You really think that script is going to be generally easier to read than Times New Roman?
First of all, you've gone from saying I misinterpreted the discussion to pursuing an argument where I have taking a position opposing yours. Make up your mind.
Secondly it doesn't have to be 'easier' to confirm your confused interpretation of the person you were replying to. It only has to be not significantly more difficult. You do this strawman thing a lot. It makes you look stupid.
Thirdly it depends on what "generally" means in that context. It's possible you mean across a significantly sized random sampling of English literate North Americans asked to read a significantly sized sampling of North American English handwriting.
So to answer your question. If the above assumptions are true than, to me the idea that there is no significant difference while counter-intuitive seems plausible. Make of that what you will but if by "generally" you mean "intrinsically" then I doubt such research can or has been done very well.
There's a reason why we don't use script fonts in novels and computer interfaces, and it's not because they'r
No, it's a good comparison because the implication is that people are forgoing learning
cursive because they're typing things.
Interesting!
You should pay attention to the context of a discussion
Funny you should mention that...from the post you responded to
I have absolutely no problem reading neat cursive riding. For me I can write at least 2x as fast in script and I experience less hand fatigue while writing it because I am not always moving my hand up and down for every letter. Also I am exactly 26 years old. I use it mainly to write in a personal journal which I choose not to type out. Just because you are bad at it doesn't mean that its a completely useless skill.
Clearly the context here is cursive vs. printing in terms of both speed and legibility. The post that that person was responding to didn't even mention typing.
You responded by comparing an extrema of cursive quality vs. typing. Again missing the point, at least the point you were responding to.
pseudo-scientific nonsense to try to make yourself feel smart.
Please, it's pretty clear you're not even qualified to make that judgment. In your last freakout about dieting you didn't appear to know how a regression analysis works (reading the wiki article on that would have been a much better use of your time).
I suppose that I could just point out that you are unable to indicate exactly *WHAT* about my post is pseudo-scientific (as that would require some knowledge about science) but that lets you just spew nonsense without having an actual argument.
Happy now?
It wasn't as funny as your previous posting to me. I'd give it 6/10 in terms of entertainment value. Anyway I'm sure you're pretty rational in a lot of contexts but I think you let your presuppositions cripple your rationality at times.
Ok, I should have taken a closer look at the Dykstra paper - since it's clearly not cursive (but perhaps that just goes to show how interchangeable they are in my mind anyway). Mea culpa on that one.
Bad comparison as the machine itself adds a level of consistency which is probably difficult to measure and therefore control for.
A more relevant one would be comparing printing by hand. However there's plenty bad printing too. So not much of an argument there. You would actually need a study that compares printing and cursive legibility across some large group. However it also seems obvious that whatever possible intrinsic legibility in these systems the familiarity with systems is a pretty significant and perhaps overwhelming factor (as I pointed out to some other person). Which makes it a prime candidate for a directional fallacy.
huh...what do you know...you're that "gut baterica inefficiency" idiot. It'll be interesting to see if you just shout about others being wrong here, or just forget to read and respond to parts or maybe just flat out say you're not going to read much of the text at all and then pretend it's a virtue.
But hey...however you freak out here...make sure it's entertaining for me. Your last response had my whole office laughing.
Please...How does that become insightful? Sure the places where cursive are necessitated are dwindling but that's the case with lots of skills. For example many places that required manual or mental math have now been supplanted with cheap calculating programs.
But nothing in the real world using it...please you've had significant parts of your brain removed and just haven't noticed it yet.
One very obvious example... signing things. Handwritten signatures are still the defacto solemnization act for a wide variety of business transactions. As a manager I'm required to sign a number of documents every month. My wife, who's a doctor is required to sign dozens of documents each day. Your first argument is dead wrong...and by asserting it (with way more emphasis than you likely have evidence) publicly you've probably made the world just a little more stupid. Congratulations.
The third is at least debatable, given that I've had at least one opportunity to write my name on hundreds of documents and during which I distinctly recall having to switch to cursive in the process. However one sample does not a argument make however it does dispel the idea (present in at least one reading of your moronic drivel) that the relative speeds are universally similar.
As for "harder to read", "personal variation", "harms children". I call shenanigans - most of those terms are pretty vague to begin with. Add to that I'd strong suspicion even with better definitions these are difficult to control or execute properly. I.e. Seemingly 'harder to read' is difficult to define objectively. Since it seems reasonable that someone who has never seen cursive (but can print) will have more difficulty reading it than printing and likewise someone who has never seen printing (but can write cursive) would have more difficulty in reading it than cursive. So if these experiments were indeed done I would expect them to be of the kind where the results that are - at best - *suggestive* rather than conclusive....and I don't expect you to be able to tell the difference.
That the question is poorly defined...
I mean "What's the best first programming language" doesn't provide much useful information (even in the article) about what "best" means. What are the "learning outcomes"? - even if you define those kind of informally. The fact that the writer of the article gave an answer without defining the question is the reason he failed to answer the question correctly.
QED.
a) The simple comparison of if there is no increase in number of deaths then it can't be a huge danger is fallacious (without other information anyway).
b) "Other common things people do while driving" at least appeared to be a factor considered in one study covered.
Driving while distracted is (and always has been) dangerous, there's no questioning that. But my question is if cell phone usage is as huge a deal as everyone makes it out to be. There hasn't been a huge increase in car crashes since cell phone came into common usage. In fact, the number of deaths from auto accidents has actually gone down as a percentage of the population according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year). So the number of deaths from car accidents hasn't increased with the introduction of this huge danger.
Perhaps it's because your statistics degree was revoked.
I don't know who "everyone" is but for example cell phone usage can be a "huge deal" in it's contribution to someone's ability to drive successfully but still equate to a small number of deaths. I don't really see how you can't see that. Now what you are likely doing is using a special definition for "huge danger" but that's par for the course here.
If they want to do studies, why not do them on cell phones as well as other common things people do while driving? What effect does playing the radio, changing the CD, programming and following your GPS, eating and drinking, or anything else have on your driving?
At least one study appeared to do a comparison to other distractions: Research also shows that drivers conversing with fellow passengers do not present the same danger, because adult riders help keep drivers alert and point out dangerous conditions and tend to talk less in heavy traffic or hazardous weather.
Geeze, you're so full of shit I'm not going to even read all of this.
I suppose that's one way to keep avoiding the question.
I stopped when I hit, "The evidence is in any study on diet and exercise." What the hells does that even mean? Any study?
It means that if you were to pick a study where diet, exercise and weight were taken into account. For example if you wanted to see if one diet (say Atkins) was equal to or better than another (say GI) in terms of controlling weight. If "gut inefficiency" is of great significance in ones weight - as you appear to claim. Then you would see one of three things:
i) The study would control for it - since comparing two people with different levels of "gut inefficiency" would be meaningless. ii) The study would not control for it and when compared against a similar study. Would not agree. iii) The study would agree but only by chance - as would show up in something like a meta-analysis.
So any study - or more specifically - any pair of studies of this kind which show agreement would be evidence unto itself that "gut inefficiency" is not a significant factor. A suitable P value could be derived to determine just how likely iii) is too.
Have you done any study? Have you read any study? Do you know anything on the topic?
Well I can estimate that we've pretty much reached the maximum depth of your knowledge here and it isn't very impressive.
Give me one study. Give me a single study with a diverse sample of people that shows that people with the same caloric intake and same exercise routine will all weigh the same, even as a general trend.
That's not exactly what I've said. It's that caloric intake and caloric spend (including BMR) overshadow every other factor significantly in the vast majority of cases. Tell you what, I'll produce a study if you can define your terms provided that they are sane. For example what does "a diverse sample of people" mean? Language like that simply does not appear in the abstracts in medical journals. Also what does "all weigh the same" mean - what variance is acceptable?
Sorry if this seems difficult but you clearly don't know which end of the slide rule to hold. So if I showed you a study like this where a group of overweight people were subjected to a proportional caloric restriction and got a *proportional* loss in weight with less than 1% error. Would you even know why that would be damaging to your theory (or theories)
On second thought, don't bother. I know you're wrong, and by now, you probably know you're wrong.
Well I know you're fond of shouting about other people being wrong. I suppose the difference between you and I. Is that I've outlined two very specific places where you are potentially wrong and you...well you seem to think if you repeat "wrong" enough times it will be true. Good luck with that.
Instead, go read something on the topic. Or even talk to your family doctor.
Well it's likely I talk to medical professionals far, far more often than you do. I live with a GP/Emerge doc.
Or look on the web [lmgtfy.com] for any number of websites for more information.
That's pretty amusing. So somehow this is 'so obvious' and 'everyone agrees' and you can't produce a single cite from a medical journal about your theories. Again, I have at least taken up your challenge.
I may as well have been arguing with the Time Cube guy.
I think you may well *be* the time cube guy.
Incidentally. Somehow you still can't get around to answering two questions. I think it's pretty obvious why. Your entire post was pretty much you blowing smoke.
It would help if that question were a little more grammatical enough to be actually asking something.
Dodging the question? If people's 'gut inefficiencies' are not significantly overwhelmed by caloric intake (that is to say that they are small to negligible). Then dietary studies using similar methodologies either:
a) Agree: Because they control for this. b) Do not agree (generally) c) Agree: Simply by chance.
These are your only options logically. Pick one then I'll know how to beat your argument but if you're not going to tell me which one it is. Then it's true I can't destroy your argument but only because you refuse to define it. Which kind of puts you in the "some combination of ignorance and deceit" category.
But the whole point of taking large sample sets for scientific studies is to try to control for other unknown and uncontrolled factors.
There are a bunch of reasons to increase your sample size (i.e. type I and type II errors). When a study is said to be "controlled for X" it means that something has been isolated. I.e. you control a study for age by making sure your sample is only comparing people of similar ages. So I don't think you actually understand what you are talking about.
Do you actually have scientific support *at all* for your claim that the number of calories consumed and number of calories burned through exercise are, all by themselves, the only factors in weight gain? Across the entire human race, not another factor comes into play?
Strawman. All I've said is that the major factors are caloric intake and (to a lesser extent) calories burned. These are the most significant factors for the vast majority of cases. The evidence is in any study on diet and exercise. If there was another factor, as or more significant than that you would either have to control for it OR most studies with similar methodology would not agree. Again the second you take your position your argument is likely dead so I understand why you are stalling.
Illness, previously consumed food and beverages, environmental temperature, and stress levels can affect one's overall energy expenditure as well as one's BMR.
A number of things:
a) I addressed illness in an earlier post. Sure there are extremely rare chronic disorders that would affect BMR as well as temporal disorders (i.e. a fever) but again these are not the majority cases.
b) There is no mention as to the degree or significance of these effects in your quote. So this doesn't disagree with my position (yet) and it doesn't agree with yours.
c) Provide a cite from an actual journal. Wiki's are fun and all when you want to know Pokemon stats but having given up repeatedly in attempting to help maintain Wiki pages on a variety of issues. It's just not reputable enough a source (...and now you can regurgitate the 'Nature' article on Wiki accuracy and I can beat that down too)
Each person's metabolism is unique due to his unique physical makeup and physical behavior. For some, this makes weight management a very difficult undertaking requiring sophisticated expertise. There are a number of medical adjustments to natural human processes that can affect one's metabolism.
Please provide the cites supporting this statement. Otherwise it's just some typing on the internet. I'd also highlight that "for some" until qualified doesn't agree with you and doesn't disagree with me.
but the point is you're so far from the common understanding of things that you may as well be denying the existence of the sun
Common understanding - the question is "Who's common understanding". Wikipedia's? Medicine? EBM? Again lets see the cites. Remember your cites must show that the effects of these factors are large and frequent enough not to be generally overwhelmed by diet and are of general enough applicability to affect the majority case.
Can you provide a clinical reference for "fiber will flush calories"? Partially I'd like to know what is meant by that because I'm pretty skeptical.
"Protein builds muscle" - again this seems different than what I would expect the clinical reference would say. Just eating protein? Doubtful - exercising? Ok now I hear you. Protein is more easily converted into muscle than fat? Quite possibly but is that a net gain or net loss? For example I am extremely skeptical that you can't build muscle without *consuming* protein. Biosynthesis can provide twelve of the twenty required to create muscle the others can be gained through something other than protein. So if eating protein is the more "efficient" way of creating muscle doesn't that also mean that to create the same amount of muscle you are burning more non-protein? Possibly but I doubt the difference is significant.
"Muscle burns more calories than fat" - yes but not much more. 6 calories per lb. I'd expect that the work involved in adding a single pound of muscle to your body outweighs the caloric use of that muscle for somewhere from months to years.
"Small snacks help your metabolism" - again but not by much.
See this seems to be the problem with...well...virtually everyone here and every diet book and most people I talk to. Sure there may be some merit in some of these things but they are grossly overshadowed by simply eating less and (to a significantly lesser extent) by exercising more.
I dunno, I knew a guy in college you ate pretty much continuously, and mostly the "worst" foods possible (He had a real thing for Spam that I will NEVER understand, and no he wasn't from Hawaii), and was skinny as a rail. Not unhealthy, clearly not absorbing calories skinny, but skinny "I'm a waif" skinny. He didn't exercise much either, unless drinking beer counts. I don't know if he had a less efficient digestive system or just burned more calories doing less work, but his weight did NOT reflect his diet.
Likely it did minus whatever he was working off. It's not the quality of the food it is simply it's caloric content. I am losing approximately half a pound a day now and I continually shock people because I eat at McDonalds regularly and have been seen killing half a large "meateor" with a friend at Boston Pizza. Likewise this whole weight-loss "binge" was preceded by a "qualitative" diet where I ate salad almost exclusively with a wide variety of vegetables. During that period I lost virtually nothing.
From where I stand it appears that the confusion really comes down to precision. I eat a lot of processed foods now because they are the easiest to track their caloric content. I only eat at restaurants who publish their caloric information and I only eat things where I can guarantee the variance is low. I also avoid unplanned events where there is going to be a lot of unstructured eating.
The result: My weight tracks within 1% of my caloric intake (once adjusted for my estimated BMR).
Again the stuff I told the other poster also applies: If there was really that much variance between folks it would be sheer luck for two methodologically identical studies to agree on the subject. One study - and I can dig up the cite if you like - damaged the myth of the so-called chronically skinny. They took two groups of people, one who were skinny and had relatives who were generally skinny and another group who were obese and relatives who were generally obese. Surprise it was easy (by caloric control) to turn the fat people into skinny people and vice versa.
Now this doesn't mean it will be easy for an obese person to become thin but it does damage the credibility of the "fast/slow metabolism" theory for chronic obesity or normal weight.
Not where it counts. Again you didn't understand my criticism which makes it pretty obvious how you can so easily pass over it. Congratulations! You have likely made the world (and possibly yourself) stupider rather than smarter.
It shows up all over the place where there are people who are rather strict about their diet and are still heavier than others who overeat.
Again baring very specific and rare conditions. Not really. Again you don't understand how this would affect even simple things like doing regression analysis. According to you it would be unlikely for two dietary studies using the same methodology to come up with the same results unless they controlled for this mysterious "bacteria factor". Are you simply asserting that they do this but don't mention it or that most studies don't agree.
It even happens for particular people over time-- someone who's thin at 20 eating whatever he wants may need to be more strict about his diet later in life.
I'll leave aside that you have changed the subject of your argument from "bowel efficiency" sure BMR changes as you get older but not by much. Less than ten cals per year for the vast majority as a matter of fact (and unlike your assertion this *is* well documented).
The phenomenon has been observed for a long time, and there isn't any real disagreement about whether it happens.
You seem to be rather long winded on the subject but can't point to a shred of factual information. I've already pointed out two things that don't agree with your theory and all you do is trudge on arguing adjectives over evidence.
That's good advice, but it's not the end of the story.
It may not be but it is the vast majority of the story. Which is why all this other advice is usually i) Inapplicable or ii) of little effect.
There has been evidence that changes in emotional and psychology states can have an effect on your metabolism.
Metabolism meaning...right you don't know.
Being stressed out can not only cause you to put on more fat, but it can even cause you to put on fat in different places.
Study?
There have been studies that suggest that the kind of bacteria in your digestive system has an effect on how many calories you'll absorb from a set amount of food.
Where?
much more complicated than "number of calories eaten - number of calories worked off by exercise = number of calories turned into fat".
Try "number of calories turned into body weight" and again it's actually that simple. If it wasn't you would be lucky to have any two studies agree.
If you see a fat guy and a skinny guy, it's not necessarily true that they skinny guy eats less or exercises more.
But that doesn't support your point. "Not necessarily true" would be supported if it didn't apply for on in one hundred trillion (which I would accept) however unless you are backing away from your point you appear to be saying that this is very likely the case which is again demonstrably false (see earlier statement about regression and dietary studies).
True your digestive system isn't 100% efficient which is why you have waste products. However you seem to be implying that this means that everyone does this at significantly different rates. I.e. Given a group of people with identical diets (or possibly simple caloric value) and identical energy expenditures will have an inefficiency that is significantly different. i.e One person absorbs only 60% of what would normally be the bioavailable calories.
Two things:
a) One doesn't imply the other - people can be inefficient but within a small margin. b) With the notable exception of people with specific disorders (i.e. lacking an enzyme) it simply isn't true in the large sense (sure there some effects that have been experimentally validated but they are are pretty small - especially if you read the studies with a critical eye).
One thing I will say is that people who write things like this don't seem to think it through. If there was really a significant variance - it would show up in a bunch of places - for example it would be very difficult (or simply lucky) to use regression to come up with a useful BMR formula without a pretty large error (depending on how big the alleged difference is - you haven't mentioned which kind of says to me that you really don't know anything about the subject).
The short answer is that although there may be variances in how much you gain based on how much you take in (or how much you burn for that mater) these values, even collectively are likely significantly outweighed by the simple formula of "calories consumed" vs "calories burned".
Slashdot Mirror
"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.
I mean I supposed some university could advertise that as a service but as an employee of an educational institution. I can attest that this is not the norm. It doesn't sound very feasible either.
No, the question is how intentional your misrepresentation of my argument is.
Which is fine for your personal definition of the term but it's not a very useful one nor does it fit well with examples in the texts on logic that I've read. Think about it.
But, wow, look at how quickly you want to change the subject again to pedantic redefinitions of common terms.
'quickly'? 'again'? in what sense?
It's almost as though you don't have any ideas or arguments relevant to the topic we're discussing,
One of which is wether or not an argument was a strawman.
and you're more interested in childish pissing contests.
Better to apply that criticism to yourself. You are the one going off a topic you were ready to discuss (that of an argument being or not being a strawman) and turning to a personal attack.
Not if you're willfully choosing a position that I am not taking for the purpose of setting up a weaker opponent to your own arguments.
Meh. Newbies. The question of definition is less about what you state above and more about how important it is to have the argument strongly passed off as your own position. The other poster doesn't do this. Without that it's simply "not your argument" that's being defeated. There are many logical fallacies and honest mistakes which fit this definition however the only one that makes the *strawman* distinctive here is that someone is strongly passing off this argument as yours.
Even if your definition is somehow acceptable. You should realize how much of it requires a seemingly unreasonable level of knowledge about your opponent. In order to know that the opponent is *willfully* choosing to respond to an argument other than yours it stands to reason that you must know (or have strong evidence over the alternative) their motive and also know (or have strong evidence over the alternative) that they know your argument (otherwise they would be "not responding to your argument" accidentally not willfully).
This makes establishing your proposition (said argument is a strawman) rather difficult and perhaps impossible. Combine that with the fact that by inferring the same motives to your response "It seems you are setting up a straw man" you could level the same accusation at it and so on...ad infinitum. The result is that this doesn't appear to be a very *useful* definition of the term now does it?
I never argued anything like "We should throw away structural consistency and do formatting word-by-word." Either you're intentionally mischaracterizing my position, or you have some serious trouble with your reading comprehension.
It doesn't matter that you do not think that's what you argued to that person. It's true that they might not know what you mean by your statements it's also possible that you don't know what *they* mean by their statements. Giving us one more possibility. That you have, as you say problems with reading comprehension. aaaaaaand we have the logical fallacy of false dichotomy.
Fourth, it seems to me now that you're setting up a straw man.
No, this is the kind of mistake that newbies to the informal fallacies make. The person is simply disclosing their view of your position. Kind of amusing that if the seemingly implied assertion - "Refuting an argument that has been explicitly disclosed as not necessarily held by your opponent" - qualifies as a strawman. Then the statement "Seems like you are setting me up for a strawman" would also be a strawman.
Not to mention that I find the "turing-test" to be much closer to a gedankenexperiment than an actual test. It's an expression of how we think we determine intelligence not a definition. So when I see this I wonder if there are people out there poisoning cats.
;-)
Back to the TFA - on a casual reading this guy comes off as enough of a wingnut that I wonder if he's not being misquoted. Otherwise it seems like he's simply redefined the term 'intelligence' to mean 'resilient'. That is to say, were I to create an block of an alloy stronger than any other material on earth (Call me Rearden) I would by his definition also have created the smartest object on earth. Which is certainly well-outside how most people seem to use the term. Which I humbly submit tends to orbit around the idea of 'problem solving' and while I recognize that many animals often invest their energy into solving a particular problem. That of having their resiliency approach that of my near-indestructible block. It doesn't seem terribly difficult to see that the block isn't taking any action to get to this state and therefore it can not be 'solving' anything and because of this calling the block 'intelligent' seems to be missing the point.
That might just be my 'ape-bias' talking though
Sometimes I get some stupid responses when I say something like that. Among them is the person who badly wants to feel like he's clever so he says a thing like "yeah right like you don't have your own flaws" and doesn't understand why he's missing my point.
I find those kind of responses odd too. It's like some people have never been taught the difference between an 'is' and an 'ought'.
I'd interpret your statement as an 'ought' or as some say a 'value-based argument'. I.e. This is how we should drive.
I'd interpret the response as an implied 'is'. i.e. "Everyone has flaws". Sure, granted in fact the speaker may even suffer from the very thing they are decrying but that doesn't stop it from being different as how they *should* act.
Something Feynman said about working with "Monster Minds". The story goes that he's working on a lecture and progressively it gets revealed that some really important people (in physics and math) are going to show - including Einstein. So he starts worrying about what to do if these people start asking questions. Pauli is the first to stand up and say why he thinks the theory Feynman is presenting is wrong and ending with "Don't you agree Professor Einstein?". Einstein essentially says that the only problem he can see is that it doesn't agree with his theory about relativity but that's okay since there isn't much experimental evidence to support his theory.
;-) Still I like it as a rule of thumb.
This story has stuck with me about how criticism of ideas and especially criticism of ones own ideas are the hallmarks of the very intelligent. That said...any idea of this kind is bound by the "tyranny of small sample"
Yep, the next step up seems to be PCI express cards directly,
Shazam!
Hype aside I really like the runcore products. Especially the PCIe units with the USB header for cloning your drive.
I'm swiping that term as of right now...
It rather fits my sampling of the IT sector these days. People who understood technology have been replaced with people who simply parrot information without much regard to its context.
Hmmm.... Seems like he did mention typing.
Nobody said he didn't but I suspect that your confusion is the result of misreading my post. It's pretty clear that what he was comparing his ability to write and read cursive to was printing not typing/typeset text. Unless you are saying he claimed to write cursive 2x faster than he can type? Possible? Sure. Likely interpretation. No.
cursive writing is not competing with writing by hand in print. It's competing with typing. So when you ask the question, "which is more legible?"
Some of that may be true but it's also irrelevant to the context you were responding to. So it may be what *YOU* mean when *YOU* say "Which is more legible" but when you are responding to someone's claim about "A is more legible than B" you have to be talking about the same "A" and "B" to be part of the conversation.
No biggie your response was just poorly worded.
I understand you think you can cite terms from your high school statistics class and win any argument
Actually citing technical knowledge is the worst way to win an argument - unless you really know what you are talking about. Anyone who has read Socrates knows how to defeat arguments like that. Just ask "How?". I.e. So how does regression analysis imply that all other variables are likely small (or perhaps co-factors)?
It's pretty funny because when you don't ask the simple questions. You come off like you're intimidated by me.
And all you're actually observing is that I know enough - and far from everything - about methodology and results to see where deficiencies can appear. Just saying "There was a study with result X" is meaningless these days. The classic example (a la Sackett) is hormone replacement therapy. For years we had studies that confirmed it's use as a therapy. Then a really good study turned that belief around. So now people need to look at more than just "there were a bunch of studies".
As an aside I admit I find your array of prejudices fascinating!
, but you need to know something about the topics you're arguing about.
So far you haven't demonstrated either:
i) That you know anything about what you are arguing about.
ii) That I don't know what I'm arguing about.
I get how it's all reassuring to assume you are right and any dissenting opinion is wrong (or simply so well researched that it can't be refuted) but it seems like a good way to learn nothing.
You being ignorant on a subject doesn't mean that it needs more study.
Absolutely. Likewise you asserting that something has been sufficiently studied to afford no dissenting opinion is not an indication that it is so.
You really think that script is going to be generally easier to read than Times New Roman?
First of all, you've gone from saying I misinterpreted the discussion to pursuing an argument where I have taking a position opposing yours. Make up your mind.
Secondly it doesn't have to be 'easier' to confirm your confused interpretation of the person you were replying to. It only has to be not significantly more difficult. You do this strawman thing a lot. It makes you look stupid.
Thirdly it depends on what "generally" means in that context. It's possible you mean across a significantly sized random sampling of English literate North Americans asked to read a significantly sized sampling of North American English handwriting.
So to answer your question. If the above assumptions are true than, to me the idea that there is no significant difference while counter-intuitive seems plausible. Make of that what you will but if by "generally" you mean "intrinsically" then I doubt such research can or has been done very well.
There's a reason why we don't use script fonts in novels and computer interfaces, and it's not because they'r
No, it's a good comparison because the implication is that people are forgoing learning cursive because they're typing things.
Interesting!
You should pay attention to the context of a discussion
Funny you should mention that...from the post you responded to
I have absolutely no problem reading neat cursive riding. For me I can write at least 2x as fast in script and I experience less hand fatigue while writing it because I am not always moving my hand up and down for every letter. Also I am exactly 26 years old. I use it mainly to write in a personal journal which I choose not to type out. Just because you are bad at it doesn't mean that its a completely useless skill.
Clearly the context here is cursive vs. printing in terms of both speed and legibility. The post that that person was responding to didn't even mention typing.
You responded by comparing an extrema of cursive quality vs. typing. Again missing the point, at least the point you were responding to.
pseudo-scientific nonsense to try to make yourself feel smart.
Please, it's pretty clear you're not even qualified to make that judgment. In your last freakout about dieting you didn't appear to know how a regression analysis works (reading the wiki article on that would have been a much better use of your time).
I suppose that I could just point out that you are unable to indicate exactly *WHAT* about my post is pseudo-scientific (as that would require some knowledge about science) but that lets you just spew nonsense without having an actual argument.
Happy now?
It wasn't as funny as your previous posting to me. I'd give it 6/10 in terms of entertainment value. Anyway I'm sure you're pretty rational in a lot of contexts but I think you let your presuppositions cripple your rationality at times.
Ok, I should have taken a closer look at the Dykstra paper - since it's clearly not cursive (but perhaps that just goes to show how interchangeable they are in my mind anyway). Mea culpa on that one.
Bad comparison as the machine itself adds a level of consistency which is probably difficult to measure and therefore control for.
A more relevant one would be comparing printing by hand. However there's plenty bad printing too. So not much of an argument there. You would actually need a study that compares printing and cursive legibility across some large group. However it also seems obvious that whatever possible intrinsic legibility in these systems the familiarity with systems is a pretty significant and perhaps overwhelming factor (as I pointed out to some other person). Which makes it a prime candidate for a directional fallacy.
huh...what do you know...you're that "gut baterica inefficiency" idiot. It'll be interesting to see if you just shout about others being wrong here, or just forget to read and respond to parts or maybe just flat out say you're not going to read much of the text at all and then pretend it's a virtue.
But hey...however you freak out here...make sure it's entertaining for me. Your last response had my whole office laughing.
Please...How does that become insightful? Sure the places where cursive are necessitated are dwindling but that's the case with lots of skills. For example many places that required manual or mental math have now been supplanted with cheap calculating programs. But nothing in the real world using it...please you've had significant parts of your brain removed and just haven't noticed it yet.
One very obvious example... signing things. Handwritten signatures are still the defacto solemnization act for a wide variety of business transactions. As a manager I'm required to sign a number of documents every month. My wife, who's a doctor is required to sign dozens of documents each day. Your first argument is dead wrong...and by asserting it (with way more emphasis than you likely have evidence) publicly you've probably made the world just a little more stupid. Congratulations.
The third is at least debatable, given that I've had at least one opportunity to write my name on hundreds of documents and during which I distinctly recall having to switch to cursive in the process. However one sample does not a argument make however it does dispel the idea (present in at least one reading of your moronic drivel) that the relative speeds are universally similar.
As for "harder to read", "personal variation", "harms children". I call shenanigans - most of those terms are pretty vague to begin with. Add to that I'd strong suspicion even with better definitions these are difficult to control or execute properly. I.e. Seemingly 'harder to read' is difficult to define objectively. Since it seems reasonable that someone who has never seen cursive (but can print) will have more difficulty reading it than printing and likewise someone who has never seen printing (but can write cursive) would have more difficulty in reading it than cursive. So if these experiments were indeed done I would expect them to be of the kind where the results that are - at best - *suggestive* rather than conclusive....and I don't expect you to be able to tell the difference.
That said: I do find it interesting that this: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1036.PDF which was probably written in your lifetime might be difficult or even unreadable to you or your peers.
That the question is poorly defined... I mean "What's the best first programming language" doesn't provide much useful information (even in the article) about what "best" means. What are the "learning outcomes"? - even if you define those kind of informally. The fact that the writer of the article gave an answer without defining the question is the reason he failed to answer the question correctly. QED.
No it means that "other common things people do while driving" appear to be considered in at least one study.
Perhaps you should pay more attention to the quoted text?
I'd ask for people to check their biases at the door but that would seem to be unachievable.
Not really. I'm simply detailing two facts.
a) The simple comparison of if there is no increase in number of deaths then it can't be a huge danger is fallacious (without other information anyway).
b) "Other common things people do while driving" at least appeared to be a factor considered in one study covered.
Driving while distracted is (and always has been) dangerous, there's no questioning that. But my question is if cell phone usage is as huge a deal as everyone makes it out to be. There hasn't been a huge increase in car crashes since cell phone came into common usage. In fact, the number of deaths from auto accidents has actually gone down as a percentage of the population according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year). So the number of deaths from car accidents hasn't increased with the introduction of this huge danger.
Perhaps it's because your statistics degree was revoked.
I don't know who "everyone" is but for example cell phone usage can be a "huge deal" in it's contribution to someone's ability to drive successfully but still equate to a small number of deaths. I don't really see how you can't see that. Now what you are likely doing is using a special definition for "huge danger" but that's par for the course here.
If they want to do studies, why not do them on cell phones as well as other common things people do while driving? What effect does playing the radio, changing the CD, programming and following your GPS, eating and drinking, or anything else have on your driving?
At least one study appeared to do a comparison to other distractions: Research also shows that drivers conversing with fellow passengers do not present the same danger, because adult riders help keep drivers alert and point out dangerous conditions and tend to talk less in heavy traffic or hazardous weather.
Geeze, you're so full of shit I'm not going to even read all of this.
I suppose that's one way to keep avoiding the question.
I stopped when I hit, "The evidence is in any study on diet and exercise." What the hells does that even mean? Any study?
It means that if you were to pick a study where diet, exercise and weight were taken into account. For example if you wanted to see if one diet (say Atkins) was equal to or better than another (say GI) in terms of controlling weight. If "gut inefficiency" is of great significance in ones weight - as you appear to claim. Then you would see one of three things:
i) The study would control for it - since comparing two people with different levels of "gut inefficiency" would be meaningless.
ii) The study would not control for it and when compared against a similar study. Would not agree.
iii) The study would agree but only by chance - as would show up in something like a meta-analysis.
So any study - or more specifically - any pair of studies of this kind which show agreement would be evidence unto itself that "gut inefficiency" is not a significant factor. A suitable P value could be derived to determine just how likely iii) is too.
Have you done any study? Have you read any study? Do you know anything on the topic?
Well I can estimate that we've pretty much reached the maximum depth of your knowledge here and it isn't very impressive.
Give me one study. Give me a single study with a diverse sample of people that shows that people with the same caloric intake and same exercise routine will all weigh the same, even as a general trend.
That's not exactly what I've said. It's that caloric intake and caloric spend (including BMR) overshadow every other factor significantly in the vast majority of cases. Tell you what, I'll produce a study if you can define your terms provided that they are sane. For example what does "a diverse sample of people" mean? Language like that simply does not appear in the abstracts in medical journals. Also what does "all weigh the same" mean - what variance is acceptable?
Sorry if this seems difficult but you clearly don't know which end of the slide rule to hold. So if I showed you a study like this where a group of overweight people were subjected to a proportional caloric restriction and got a *proportional* loss in weight with less than 1% error. Would you even know why that would be damaging to your theory (or theories)
On second thought, don't bother. I know you're wrong, and by now, you probably know you're wrong.
Well I know you're fond of shouting about other people being wrong. I suppose the difference between you and I. Is that I've outlined two very specific places where you are potentially wrong and you...well you seem to think if you repeat "wrong" enough times it will be true. Good luck with that.
Instead, go read something on the topic. Or even talk to your family doctor.
Well it's likely I talk to medical professionals far, far more often than you do. I live with a GP/Emerge doc.
Or look on the web [lmgtfy.com] for any number of websites for more information.
That's pretty amusing. So somehow this is 'so obvious' and 'everyone agrees' and you can't produce a single cite from a medical journal about your theories. Again, I have at least taken up your challenge.
I may as well have been arguing with the Time Cube guy.
I think you may well *be* the time cube guy.
Incidentally. Somehow you still can't get around to answering two questions. I think it's pretty obvious why. Your entire post was pretty much you blowing smoke.
It would help if that question were a little more grammatical enough to be actually asking something.
Dodging the question? If people's 'gut inefficiencies' are not significantly overwhelmed by caloric intake (that is to say that they are small to negligible). Then dietary studies using similar methodologies either:
a) Agree: Because they control for this.
b) Do not agree (generally)
c) Agree: Simply by chance.
These are your only options logically. Pick one then I'll know how to beat your argument but if you're not going to tell me which one it is. Then it's true I can't destroy your argument but only because you refuse to define it. Which kind of puts you in the "some combination of ignorance and deceit" category.
But the whole point of taking large sample sets for scientific studies is to try to control for other unknown and uncontrolled factors.
There are a bunch of reasons to increase your sample size (i.e. type I and type II errors). When a study is said to be "controlled for X" it means that something has been isolated. I.e. you control a study for age by making sure your sample is only comparing people of similar ages. So I don't think you actually understand what you are talking about.
Do you actually have scientific support *at all* for your claim that the number of calories consumed and number of calories burned through exercise are, all by themselves, the only factors in weight gain? Across the entire human race, not another factor comes into play?
Strawman. All I've said is that the major factors are caloric intake and (to a lesser extent) calories burned. These are the most significant factors for the vast majority of cases. The evidence is in any study on diet and exercise. If there was another factor, as or more significant than that you would either have to control for it OR most studies with similar methodology would not agree. Again the second you take your position your argument is likely dead so I understand why you are stalling.
Illness, previously consumed food and beverages, environmental temperature, and stress levels can affect one's overall energy expenditure as well as one's BMR.
A number of things:
a) I addressed illness in an earlier post. Sure there are extremely rare chronic disorders that would affect BMR as well as temporal disorders (i.e. a fever) but again these are not the majority cases.
b) There is no mention as to the degree or significance of these effects in your quote. So this doesn't disagree with my position (yet) and it doesn't agree with yours.
c) Provide a cite from an actual journal. Wiki's are fun and all when you want to know Pokemon stats but having given up repeatedly in attempting to help maintain Wiki pages on a variety of issues. It's just not reputable enough a source (...and now you can regurgitate the 'Nature' article on Wiki accuracy and I can beat that down too)
Each person's metabolism is unique due to his unique physical makeup and physical behavior. For some, this makes weight management a very difficult undertaking requiring sophisticated expertise. There are a number of medical adjustments to natural human processes that can affect one's metabolism.
Please provide the cites supporting this statement. Otherwise it's just some typing on the internet. I'd also highlight that "for some" until qualified doesn't agree with you and doesn't disagree with me.
but the point is you're so far from the common understanding of things that you may as well be denying the existence of the sun
Common understanding - the question is "Who's common understanding". Wikipedia's? Medicine? EBM? Again lets see the cites. Remember your cites must show that the effects of these factors are large and frequent enough not to be generally overwhelmed by diet and are of general enough applicability to affect the majority case.
I'll just go ahead and take it that you've forfeited the argument
I suppose that would be beneficial for you in that you don't have to defend your point.
However you still haven't answered the question which kind of wrecks your whole point.
"Are you claiming that dietary studies control for this alleged 'gut inefficiency' mechanism, generally disagree or agree by chance?"
Rather convenient (for you) that you overlooked that.
Can you provide a clinical reference for "fiber will flush calories"? Partially I'd like to know what is meant by that because I'm pretty skeptical.
"Protein builds muscle" - again this seems different than what I would expect the clinical reference would say. Just eating protein? Doubtful - exercising? Ok now I hear you. Protein is more easily converted into muscle than fat? Quite possibly but is that a net gain or net loss? For example I am extremely skeptical that you can't build muscle without *consuming* protein. Biosynthesis can provide twelve of the twenty required to create muscle the others can be gained through something other than protein. So if eating protein is the more "efficient" way of creating muscle doesn't that also mean that to create the same amount of muscle you are burning more non-protein? Possibly but I doubt the difference is significant.
"Muscle burns more calories than fat" - yes but not much more. 6 calories per lb. I'd expect that the work involved in adding a single pound of muscle to your body outweighs the caloric use of that muscle for somewhere from months to years.
"Small snacks help your metabolism" - again but not by much.
See this seems to be the problem with...well...virtually everyone here and every diet book and most people I talk to. Sure there may be some merit in some of these things but they are grossly overshadowed by simply eating less and (to a significantly lesser extent) by exercising more.
In short: You are all majoring on a minor.
I dunno, I knew a guy in college you ate pretty much continuously, and mostly the "worst" foods possible (He had a real thing for Spam that I will NEVER understand, and no he wasn't from Hawaii), and was skinny as a rail. Not unhealthy, clearly not absorbing calories skinny, but skinny "I'm a waif" skinny. He didn't exercise much either, unless drinking beer counts. I don't know if he had a less efficient digestive system or just burned more calories doing less work, but his weight did NOT reflect his diet.
Likely it did minus whatever he was working off. It's not the quality of the food it is simply it's caloric content. I am losing approximately half a pound a day now and I continually shock people because I eat at McDonalds regularly and have been seen killing half a large "meateor" with a friend at Boston Pizza. Likewise this whole weight-loss "binge" was preceded by a "qualitative" diet where I ate salad almost exclusively with a wide variety of vegetables. During that period I lost virtually nothing.
From where I stand it appears that the confusion really comes down to precision. I eat a lot of processed foods now because they are the easiest to track their caloric content. I only eat at restaurants who publish their caloric information and I only eat things where I can guarantee the variance is low. I also avoid unplanned events where there is going to be a lot of unstructured eating.
The result: My weight tracks within 1% of my caloric intake (once adjusted for my estimated BMR).
Again the stuff I told the other poster also applies: If there was really that much variance between folks it would be sheer luck for two methodologically identical studies to agree on the subject. One study - and I can dig up the cite if you like - damaged the myth of the so-called chronically skinny. They took two groups of people, one who were skinny and had relatives who were generally skinny and another group who were obese and relatives who were generally obese. Surprise it was easy (by caloric control) to turn the fat people into skinny people and vice versa.
Now this doesn't mean it will be easy for an obese person to become thin but it does damage the credibility of the "fast/slow metabolism" theory for chronic obesity or normal weight.
Yeah, and it does.
Not where it counts. Again you didn't understand my criticism which makes it pretty obvious how you can so easily pass over it. Congratulations! You have likely made the world (and possibly yourself) stupider rather than smarter.
It shows up all over the place where there are people who are rather strict about their diet and are still heavier than others who overeat.
Again baring very specific and rare conditions. Not really. Again you don't understand how this would affect even simple things like doing regression analysis. According to you it would be unlikely for two dietary studies using the same methodology to come up with the same results unless they controlled for this mysterious "bacteria factor". Are you simply asserting that they do this but don't mention it or that most studies don't agree.
It even happens for particular people over time-- someone who's thin at 20 eating whatever he wants may need to be more strict about his diet later in life.
I'll leave aside that you have changed the subject of your argument from "bowel efficiency" sure BMR changes as you get older but not by much. Less than ten cals per year for the vast majority as a matter of fact (and unlike your assertion this *is* well documented).
The phenomenon has been observed for a long time, and there isn't any real disagreement about whether it happens.
You seem to be rather long winded on the subject but can't point to a shred of factual information.
I've already pointed out two things that don't agree with your theory and all you do is trudge on arguing adjectives over evidence.
That's good advice, but it's not the end of the story.
It may not be but it is the vast majority of the story. Which is why all this other advice is usually i) Inapplicable or ii) of little effect.
There has been evidence that changes in emotional and psychology states can have an effect on your metabolism.
Metabolism meaning...right you don't know.
Being stressed out can not only cause you to put on more fat, but it can even cause you to put on fat in different places.
Study?
There have been studies that suggest that the kind of bacteria in your digestive system has an effect on how many calories you'll absorb from a set amount of food.
Where?
much more complicated than "number of calories eaten - number of calories worked off by exercise = number of calories turned into fat".
Try "number of calories turned into body weight" and again it's actually that simple. If it wasn't you would be lucky to have any two studies agree.
If you see a fat guy and a skinny guy, it's not necessarily true that they skinny guy eats less or exercises more.
But that doesn't support your point. "Not necessarily true" would be supported if it didn't apply for on in one hundred trillion (which I would accept) however unless you are backing away from your point you appear to be saying that this is very likely the case which is again demonstrably false (see earlier statement about regression and dietary studies).
True your digestive system isn't 100% efficient which is why you have waste products. However you seem to be implying that this means that everyone does this at significantly different rates. I.e. Given a group of people with identical diets (or possibly simple caloric value) and identical energy expenditures will have an inefficiency that is significantly different. i.e One person absorbs only 60% of what would normally be the bioavailable calories.
Two things:
a) One doesn't imply the other - people can be inefficient but within a small margin.
b) With the notable exception of people with specific disorders (i.e. lacking an enzyme) it simply isn't true in the large sense (sure there some effects that have been experimentally validated but they are are pretty small - especially if you read the studies with a critical eye).
One thing I will say is that people who write things like this don't seem to think it through. If there was really a significant variance - it would show up in a bunch of places - for example it would be very difficult (or simply lucky) to use regression to come up with a useful BMR formula without a pretty large error (depending on how big the alleged difference is - you haven't mentioned which kind of says to me that you really don't know anything about the subject).
The short answer is that although there may be variances in how much you gain based on how much you take in (or how much you burn for that mater) these values, even collectively are likely significantly outweighed by the simple formula of "calories consumed" vs "calories burned".