I didn't say it was a good excuse. I didn't even say it was an action I approved of. I was GUESSING at the judges motivations. I think it helps at least a little that first offense DUI convictions do not result in prison time, and usually not even in a suspended license, but it is still a miscarriage of justice.
I'm not a judge, and that affords me the luxury of taking the long view. Knowing what I do about the case (which is practically nothing), I don't believe I would have made the same decision, but since it was not my decision to make I comfort myself with the belief that the majority of the convictions were not of innocent parties.
Look, I said I don't approve, but at the same time I suspect that the majority of the convictions are correct. Those that are incorrect did have a chance to their day in court. That doesn't make it any better for those falsely convicted, but then again I never said it would
I suspect that the judge placed some emphasis on the cost of re-trying all of the cases that are based on this piece of equipment, in light of its obsolescence moving foreword. As a minnesotan, I don't necessarily approve, but I would expect that the majority of those covicted with this equipment truely were drunk.
I agree with you there, and for the record I *AM* a white man who has been falsly (in my opinion) accused of being racist. IMO, if the skin color is the beginning and end of the reasoning, then it is racism. IMO, if the skin color is a small part of making you feel affinity for someone, then it is not. The deciding difference is the voters internal reasoning and that is what makes it difficult to distinguish the two from the outside. Do you feel affinity because you suspect he's been pulled over for "driving black" just as you have? or is it simply because you want to see a black man ordering around white folks? To me the difference determines whether or not your motivation is racist.
Neither. I'm saying that relating to a candidate is about more than the party line. Voting based on a single ancillary issue like race is racism, voting for someone you feel affinity for is not, and black voters are more likely to feel affinity for a fellow black man with similar formative experiences than for a white woman with little if any similar experiences. It's not about the skin color or gender itself, but about what other traits are signaled to the voter by such obvious traits.
Voting for someone to whom you feel you can relate is pretty universal. People use different terms to describe this gut reaction like "I feel like I could have a beer with him" (commonly used in reference to GWB in his first campaign), "he's a good Christian", etc. And what I believe they are (consciously or not) basing their decision on, among other things, is the likelihood for having had similar experiences. There is are plenty of distinctly black experiences that I have never, nor am I likely to ever experience. Therefore, all other things being equal, a black voter is more likely to identify positively with my hypothetical black twin than with me. If black voters didn't feel like they had a different point of view based on their unique experiences, then they wouldn't place that much emphasis on skin color when making their own decisions.
In my own case, I look more positively on politicians from my home state, with similar socio-econimal background, a similar amount of education, and those who's college degrees are in fields closely related to mine. I have a good idea what effect that kind of background can have on a person, and I trust that personal insight (as we all do). I place stronger emphasis on that last point, because I feel that it provides a unique perspective that is lacking in high office, and less on the first 2 because those experiences are less unique or fundamentally important. Does that make me an educationist, statist, or socio-economic warrior? I don't think so, and I don't think it necessarily makes someone a racist if they place high value on shared experiences that might be tied to race.
The flip side, refusing to vote for a black candidate for example, is racism because you are saying that their is no inherent value to that specific point of view that is of any value under any circumstances. It is a view based on ignorance and hate, as opposed to familiarity and a positive value for a unique, and possibly under-represented perspective.
I have a fairly unique last name. There are only 2 distinct families with it in the entire US, and the other family has yet to use my first name for one of their sons. Therefore any search for my first and last name always comes up with me (discouting large lists of names where the first and last name don't actually appear together). Somehow this site has me living in 4 different states, and one of them i've never even visited. In one of the states where I went to school it lists only the first address (out of 7) that I used when I first moved to that state. And in the state I grew up it claims my parents had my last name, which because of divorce and a second marriage they did not.
I have to say that Spokeo isn't worth the digital ink it is printed with
Not an apples-to-apples comparison. Clinton won by a landslide if i recall correctly. His proportion of just about any demographic category would need to be skewed to the high side in his favor when compared to a much closer race like that of Obama v. McCain. Now, if the proportion of black voters going Democrat in a similarly close presidential election are also in the high 90's then your point would be valid.
Besides, I think the more telling measure of his black support is the record turn out of black voters (15.9 million in '08 vs. 13.8 million in '04 according to Pew, or 65.2% of eligible black voters in '08 v 60.3 in '04) combined with his winning almost every single black vote. According to ABC News most of the 5 million vote increase in 2008 over 2004 is attributable to minority voters (which of course includes blacks), with whom Obama, in particular, and the Democrats, in general, do very well. It becomes even more compelling of an argument when you look at Young Black Voters who's participation jumped from 8% in 2004 to 55% in 2008.
Not that I see anything wrong with it, BTW. Just pointing out a better metric to show his record breaking support from the black community. Voting for someone frequently comes down to ephemeral decisions about a persons character, how likely you would be to have a beer with them, or some other equally vague criteria. That being black made young black voters like him more is no worse than any of the other reasons, and arguably better than the refusal to vote for someone becuase of he is black.
It's no mistake that a large portion of students that go to college tend to be moderate to liberal. Many of the teachers and professors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, teach from a liberal standpoint and thus this is what children are taught.
I have to admit that my experience is similar. I remember simply mentioning my views on abortion on a bus during a field trip in college (I was NOT volunteering, and did try to dodge the question for the sake of everyones sanity during the hour long drive), and promptly spent the next 45 min defending my opinion, not only against the students (my peers) but the professor, with his inherent, and unavoidable position as THE authority figure present (and all of the psychological baggage that comes with it). It's subtle and I can't imagine it was intentional, but there you go. I was under immense pressure to change my opinion, with liberal professor applying much of the pressure.
There already are GMO pigs. A Canadian group created them about a decade ago, and last I heard they were trying to get regulatory approval in Canada to sell them for meat. They were modified to more efficiently digest phosphorus from grain, thus reducing their environmental impact. I believe the trade name they intend to use is Ecopig, or something like that.
The second he bills someone for his advice he become subject to consumer protection laws. Up until that point he violated no law, but by charging for his services, he is in fact making claims contrary to his disclaimer, which is a form of misrepresentation. He is being charged for violating consumer protection law, not for as you put it "being a crackpot".
I frequently rail against the nanny-state, but in this particular case the power of the government is being used appropriately in my opinion. Maybe it's because I have a PhD in nutrition that I view their response as appropriate. There are thousands of people out there who give bad nutritional advice because in a lot of places a license is NOT require to act a nutritionist. Anyone can call themself a nutritionist in many states without objection by the state, and I've seen the problems this situation can create. The FUD spread by many of these charletons is very damaging.
Turns out I mis-remembered... it wasn't a 30% increase, but a 13% increase. Furthermore, to put that 13% in perspective using a quote from a much shorter tearing apart of the original article
2) The numbers are very small. The overall risk of dying was not even one person in a hundred over a 28 year study. If the death rate is very small, a possible slightly higher death rate in certain circumstances is still very small. It does not warrant a scare-tactic, 13% greater risk of dying headline – this is ‘science’ at its worst.
That's the problem with relative percent changes. For something with an infinitesimally small rate of occurrence even a 100-fold increase can still be infinitesimally small rate of occurrence in practical, real-world, terms.
Your post makes me think of two recent instances in my field (I am a non-ruminant nutritionist).
1st had to do with a Professor down in Texas who is pushing the feeding of supplemental L-arginine to sows and a "consultant" for an Arginine manufacturer. He's been pushing it based on (frequently) contradictory reports of improved litter sizes and reduced piglet mortalitites. However, he's never had sufficeint statisitcal power. You need at least 100 sows per treatment because of the high standard deviations involved, but he frequently uses less than 10 sows per treatment. At the Midwest American Society of Animal Science meeting in Des Moines, IA this year there were two presentations from industry where they EACH used over 100 sows per treatment and found no positive effects of feeding supplemental L-arginine. They never mentioned the Texas professor directly, but you could tell that both studies were intended to be a rebuttal of what they considered bad, and self-serving science.
2nd has to do with an article I read critiquing the use of what is called "Nutritional Epidemiology," and can be found here. It is incredibly long, but very insightfule critique of a field that is given far too much credence simply becuase of where the scientists work, and how free they are with chicken-little-esq proclomations about how meat is going to increase your chances of dieing by 30%!! (everyone has an exactly 100% chance of dieing).
It's even more rediculous than that. Those same factories make other companies products. It's not a 1 company/factory set up. It's different assembly lines, yes, but not separate sites. Therefore it's as though only Apple's assembly lines are bad, which is just ludicrous.
If you want to change the labor laws in China do so, but Apple is hardly the only company working with Foxconn, and by all accounts they do a much better job of verifying that overseas suppliers comply with their rules regarding worker treatment, compensation, etc. than others.
Don't search for reviews that way. I go to sites I already trust for reviews, so that's not an issue for me. DDG hasn't managed to pr0n up my search results yet, but could be a matter of what I search for more than anything. It is my work machine after all. Also not a dev, so that's also a non-issue for me. I guess I should have ended my last post with YMMV.
I use it as my primary search engine. Managed to get it set as the built in search option in Safari. Only go to google if it draws a blank. I'd say about 20% of my searches still go to google on my desktop (google scholar mainly)
I do know that even if you are not a federal employee, or on federal land there are various professions where you are a mandatory reporter of child abuse if discovered. My mother is a nurse and she claims that she is required by law (not sure if state or federal) to report any child abuse she sees while in a patients home (if doing community nursing) or while with a patient in a hospital setting. Being proved to have turned a blind eye could cost her job or medical license and even land her in jail supposedly. However, I doubt that applies to anyone screwing around on their own computer.
Being skeptical about one's own results is important. That's the best way of reducing wasted effort. With time and experience, researchers become aware that most ideas which seems brilliant at first are probably not. It's an important lesson to learn, as it gives perspective on time management.
I completely agree in principle, but don't believe any of this negates the value of publishing negative results.
1) information overload where the good stuff is hidden in a lot of mundane stuff, and there's only so much time a person can spend reading papers. As it is, the scientific literature is already too big for anyone to keep up to date on everything that could be relevant to their work.
Which is why I suggested in an earlier post that it might be published in something less formal than a full blown manuscript, such as a poster at a meeting, with an abstract in the conference proceedings. This gets the results in print for others to find, but doesn't take much time to digest.
2) human psychology is that if a researcher believes his idea is brilliant, he'll not be deterred by someone claiming the opposite.
No, they shouldn't be turned off at first, but he shouldn't be so arrogant as to ignore a growing body of evidence. Below, I illustrate a real example where a large body of negative results were published in order to definitively show that Betaine cannot be used as a Methionine replacement. Negative results without which nutritionists would still be wasting their time and money on testing.
SCENARIO 2 That's not an example of publishing negative results
Yes it is. It's my hypothetical situation, and no where did I claim any sort of progress. At the time the decision is made whether or not to publish the results it is impossible to know whether it will ultimately fall into scenario 1 or 2. We only know because it is hypothetical and our perspective is 3rd person omniscient.
Here is a good example of scenario 1 that I came across during my PhD lit review. Methionine in addition to being an essential amino acid for protein synthesis, is also the primary methyl-donor. There exists a pathway for the conversion of betaine, which has a chemical structure similar to that of methionine, to methionine inside the liver. A lot of work was done to test whether or not nutritionally administered betaine could be used to meet part of the bodies methionine requirement (it is much cheaper as a feed ingredient). Turns out, no it can't, but a lot of negative results had to be published before we could be certain. I hadn't read any of that work yet, when that same idea occurred to me while I was putting together a map of relevant Methionine using pathways. A quick lit review showed that my "Brilliant Idea" was a dead end, but if previous researchers had all taken your view, I might have wasted my time re-inventing the square wheel as it were.
The obvious point that you seem to be missing is that I don't know whether or not my negative results fall into scenario 1 or scenario 2 until after the fact.
SCENARIO 1: I come up with a "Brilliant" theory that I think will solve a problem. I do the research and discover that my idea was not as brilliant as I thought. I don't publish. Meanwhile, someone at another university comes up with the same "Brilliant" theory and needlessly duplicates my effort. If I'd published the research I did showing that the idea was not brilliant, then he would have been saved the wasted time and resources duplicating my work. This could in theory be happening at multiple universities over and over and over again. Resources being wasted all around.
SCENARIO 2: I run the same test of the same idea with the same result and publish. Some other researcher comes up with the same idea, looks at my work and figures out why my idea was brilliant, but I was an idiot and designed the test wrong somehow (failing to account for a previously unknown confounding factor for example). He goes on, citing my work as how NOT to test the idea, and proves that the idea has merit. If I'd not have published the he might not have seen the flaw in my original work and needlessly duplicated the flawed study on the path to getting things right. Hell, he might have fixed my error on the first run, but made a completely different error that my work warned him to avoid.
In the end science is incrementally advanced by failures as much as by our successes. Thomas Edison famously stated: "I have not failed, not once. I've discovered ten thousand ways that don't work." when describing his research on the incandescent light bulb. By publishing failures I help others avoid wasting their time on dead ends.
How is that different from the "meaningful intellectual contributions" bar that I describe? If, as is the case with my advisor, someone does none of the hands on work but helps to hash out the protocol, analyze and interpret the results, and set the tone for the manuscript during the review process, then I believe that they've "performed work on the actual research to a great degree" even if they didn't weigh a single pig or analyze a single sample in the lab.
I like Colonel Korn's response. I may have written all of the papers, and even run all of the research, but without my advisor none of the projects would have come my way. Research is collaborative, especially for a graduate student with no resources and little training. That is the point of a graduate degree. In exchange for training you, and easing the procurement of resources you do a lot of the grunt work (mixing feed, weighing animals, running lab equipment, writing all first drafts, etc. in my personal case) thus gaining valuable experience while a good advisor tutors you in the correct methodology for designing, conducting, and reporting scientific research. I can't think of a field where this is not how it works.
P.S. the Last Author = Advisor convention is what is used in Animal Science. The only time my Advisor took first author on a paper he did not write was when he had 2 grad students run the 2 trials included in the paper (i was the second) and a third actually write up the paper. The intellectual contributions of the grad students were roughly equal, so to head off an argument he pulled rank and took the first author position. Otherwise he's only ever taken first author when he actually wrote the paper.
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I didn't say it was a good excuse. I didn't even say it was an action I approved of. I was GUESSING at the judges motivations. I think it helps at least a little that first offense DUI convictions do not result in prison time, and usually not even in a suspended license, but it is still a miscarriage of justice.
I'm not a judge, and that affords me the luxury of taking the long view. Knowing what I do about the case (which is practically nothing), I don't believe I would have made the same decision, but since it was not my decision to make I comfort myself with the belief that the majority of the convictions were not of innocent parties.
what part of "I don't approve" didn't you understand?
That's awfully charitable of you.
Look, I said I don't approve, but at the same time I suspect that the majority of the convictions are correct. Those that are incorrect did have a chance to their day in court. That doesn't make it any better for those falsely convicted, but then again I never said it would
I suspect that the judge placed some emphasis on the cost of re-trying all of the cases that are based on this piece of equipment, in light of its obsolescence moving foreword. As a minnesotan, I don't necessarily approve, but I would expect that the majority of those covicted with this equipment truely were drunk.
It has, you just have to be willing to see it: http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-creative-2010-10?slop=1 http://technologizer.com/2011/12/05/how-the-ipad-2-became-my-favorite-computer/
and the other family has yet to use my first name for one of their sons.
I think a patent is in order
Or maybe I should register it as my trademark?
I agree with you there, and for the record I *AM* a white man who has been falsly (in my opinion) accused of being racist. IMO, if the skin color is the beginning and end of the reasoning, then it is racism. IMO, if the skin color is a small part of making you feel affinity for someone, then it is not. The deciding difference is the voters internal reasoning and that is what makes it difficult to distinguish the two from the outside. Do you feel affinity because you suspect he's been pulled over for "driving black" just as you have? or is it simply because you want to see a black man ordering around white folks? To me the difference determines whether or not your motivation is racist.
Neither. I'm saying that relating to a candidate is about more than the party line. Voting based on a single ancillary issue like race is racism, voting for someone you feel affinity for is not, and black voters are more likely to feel affinity for a fellow black man with similar formative experiences than for a white woman with little if any similar experiences. It's not about the skin color or gender itself, but about what other traits are signaled to the voter by such obvious traits.
not really.
Voting for someone to whom you feel you can relate is pretty universal. People use different terms to describe this gut reaction like "I feel like I could have a beer with him" (commonly used in reference to GWB in his first campaign), "he's a good Christian", etc. And what I believe they are (consciously or not) basing their decision on, among other things, is the likelihood for having had similar experiences. There is are plenty of distinctly black experiences that I have never, nor am I likely to ever experience. Therefore, all other things being equal, a black voter is more likely to identify positively with my hypothetical black twin than with me. If black voters didn't feel like they had a different point of view based on their unique experiences, then they wouldn't place that much emphasis on skin color when making their own decisions.
In my own case, I look more positively on politicians from my home state, with similar socio-econimal background, a similar amount of education, and those who's college degrees are in fields closely related to mine. I have a good idea what effect that kind of background can have on a person, and I trust that personal insight (as we all do). I place stronger emphasis on that last point, because I feel that it provides a unique perspective that is lacking in high office, and less on the first 2 because those experiences are less unique or fundamentally important. Does that make me an educationist, statist, or socio-economic warrior? I don't think so, and I don't think it necessarily makes someone a racist if they place high value on shared experiences that might be tied to race.
The flip side, refusing to vote for a black candidate for example, is racism because you are saying that their is no inherent value to that specific point of view that is of any value under any circumstances. It is a view based on ignorance and hate, as opposed to familiarity and a positive value for a unique, and possibly under-represented perspective.
yeah, that site is not very accurate at all.
I have a fairly unique last name. There are only 2 distinct families with it in the entire US, and the other family has yet to use my first name for one of their sons. Therefore any search for my first and last name always comes up with me (discouting large lists of names where the first and last name don't actually appear together). Somehow this site has me living in 4 different states, and one of them i've never even visited. In one of the states where I went to school it lists only the first address (out of 7) that I used when I first moved to that state. And in the state I grew up it claims my parents had my last name, which because of divorce and a second marriage they did not.
I have to say that Spokeo isn't worth the digital ink it is printed with
Not an apples-to-apples comparison. Clinton won by a landslide if i recall correctly. His proportion of just about any demographic category would need to be skewed to the high side in his favor when compared to a much closer race like that of Obama v. McCain. Now, if the proportion of black voters going Democrat in a similarly close presidential election are also in the high 90's then your point would be valid.
Besides, I think the more telling measure of his black support is the record turn out of black voters (15.9 million in '08 vs. 13.8 million in '04 according to Pew, or 65.2% of eligible black voters in '08 v 60.3 in '04) combined with his winning almost every single black vote. According to ABC News most of the 5 million vote increase in 2008 over 2004 is attributable to minority voters (which of course includes blacks), with whom Obama, in particular, and the Democrats, in general, do very well. It becomes even more compelling of an argument when you look at Young Black Voters who's participation jumped from 8% in 2004 to 55% in 2008.
Not that I see anything wrong with it, BTW. Just pointing out a better metric to show his record breaking support from the black community. Voting for someone frequently comes down to ephemeral decisions about a persons character, how likely you would be to have a beer with them, or some other equally vague criteria. That being black made young black voters like him more is no worse than any of the other reasons, and arguably better than the refusal to vote for someone becuase of he is black.
It's no mistake that a large portion of students that go to college tend to be moderate to liberal. Many of the teachers and professors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, teach from a liberal standpoint and thus this is what children are taught.
I have to admit that my experience is similar. I remember simply mentioning my views on abortion on a bus during a field trip in college (I was NOT volunteering, and did try to dodge the question for the sake of everyones sanity during the hour long drive), and promptly spent the next 45 min defending my opinion, not only against the students (my peers) but the professor, with his inherent, and unavoidable position as THE authority figure present (and all of the psychological baggage that comes with it). It's subtle and I can't imagine it was intentional, but there you go. I was under immense pressure to change my opinion, with liberal professor applying much of the pressure.
There already are GMO pigs. A Canadian group created them about a decade ago, and last I heard they were trying to get regulatory approval in Canada to sell them for meat. They were modified to more efficiently digest phosphorus from grain, thus reducing their environmental impact. I believe the trade name they intend to use is Ecopig, or something like that.
The second he bills someone for his advice he become subject to consumer protection laws. Up until that point he violated no law, but by charging for his services, he is in fact making claims contrary to his disclaimer, which is a form of misrepresentation. He is being charged for violating consumer protection law, not for as you put it "being a crackpot".
I frequently rail against the nanny-state, but in this particular case the power of the government is being used appropriately in my opinion. Maybe it's because I have a PhD in nutrition that I view their response as appropriate. There are thousands of people out there who give bad nutritional advice because in a lot of places a license is NOT require to act a nutritionist. Anyone can call themself a nutritionist in many states without objection by the state, and I've seen the problems this situation can create. The FUD spread by many of these charletons is very damaging.
2) The numbers are very small. The overall risk of dying was not even one person in a hundred over a 28 year study. If the death rate is very small, a possible slightly higher death rate in certain circumstances is still very small. It does not warrant a scare-tactic, 13% greater risk of dying headline – this is ‘science’ at its worst.
That's the problem with relative percent changes. For something with an infinitesimally small rate of occurrence even a 100-fold increase can still be infinitesimally small rate of occurrence in practical, real-world, terms.
Your post makes me think of two recent instances in my field (I am a non-ruminant nutritionist).
1st had to do with a Professor down in Texas who is pushing the feeding of supplemental L-arginine to sows and a "consultant" for an Arginine manufacturer. He's been pushing it based on (frequently) contradictory reports of improved litter sizes and reduced piglet mortalitites. However, he's never had sufficeint statisitcal power. You need at least 100 sows per treatment because of the high standard deviations involved, but he frequently uses less than 10 sows per treatment. At the Midwest American Society of Animal Science meeting in Des Moines, IA this year there were two presentations from industry where they EACH used over 100 sows per treatment and found no positive effects of feeding supplemental L-arginine. They never mentioned the Texas professor directly, but you could tell that both studies were intended to be a rebuttal of what they considered bad, and self-serving science.
2nd has to do with an article I read critiquing the use of what is called "Nutritional Epidemiology," and can be found here. It is incredibly long, but very insightfule critique of a field that is given far too much credence simply becuase of where the scientists work, and how free they are with chicken-little-esq proclomations about how meat is going to increase your chances of dieing by 30%!! (everyone has an exactly 100% chance of dieing).
It's even more rediculous than that. Those same factories make other companies products. It's not a 1 company/factory set up. It's different assembly lines, yes, but not separate sites. Therefore it's as though only Apple's assembly lines are bad, which is just ludicrous.
If you want to change the labor laws in China do so, but Apple is hardly the only company working with Foxconn, and by all accounts they do a much better job of verifying that overseas suppliers comply with their rules regarding worker treatment, compensation, etc. than others.
Don't search for reviews that way. I go to sites I already trust for reviews, so that's not an issue for me. DDG hasn't managed to pr0n up my search results yet, but could be a matter of what I search for more than anything. It is my work machine after all. Also not a dev, so that's also a non-issue for me. I guess I should have ended my last post with YMMV.
I use it as my primary search engine. Managed to get it set as the built in search option in Safari. Only go to google if it draws a blank. I'd say about 20% of my searches still go to google on my desktop (google scholar mainly)
I do know that even if you are not a federal employee, or on federal land there are various professions where you are a mandatory reporter of child abuse if discovered. My mother is a nurse and she claims that she is required by law (not sure if state or federal) to report any child abuse she sees while in a patients home (if doing community nursing) or while with a patient in a hospital setting. Being proved to have turned a blind eye could cost her job or medical license and even land her in jail supposedly. However, I doubt that applies to anyone screwing around on their own computer.
Being skeptical about one's own results is important. That's the best way of reducing wasted effort. With time and experience, researchers become aware that most ideas which seems brilliant at first are probably not. It's an important lesson to learn, as it gives perspective on time management.
I completely agree in principle, but don't believe any of this negates the value of publishing negative results.
1) information overload where the good stuff is hidden in a lot of mundane stuff, and there's only so much time a person can spend reading papers. As it is, the scientific literature is already too big for anyone to keep up to date on everything that could be relevant to their work.
Which is why I suggested in an earlier post that it might be published in something less formal than a full blown manuscript, such as a poster at a meeting, with an abstract in the conference proceedings. This gets the results in print for others to find, but doesn't take much time to digest.
2) human psychology is that if a researcher believes his idea is brilliant, he'll not be deterred by someone claiming the opposite.
No, they shouldn't be turned off at first, but he shouldn't be so arrogant as to ignore a growing body of evidence. Below, I illustrate a real example where a large body of negative results were published in order to definitively show that Betaine cannot be used as a Methionine replacement. Negative results without which nutritionists would still be wasting their time and money on testing.
SCENARIO 2 That's not an example of publishing negative results
Yes it is. It's my hypothetical situation, and no where did I claim any sort of progress. At the time the decision is made whether or not to publish the results it is impossible to know whether it will ultimately fall into scenario 1 or 2. We only know because it is hypothetical and our perspective is 3rd person omniscient.
Here is a good example of scenario 1 that I came across during my PhD lit review. Methionine in addition to being an essential amino acid for protein synthesis, is also the primary methyl-donor. There exists a pathway for the conversion of betaine, which has a chemical structure similar to that of methionine, to methionine inside the liver. A lot of work was done to test whether or not nutritionally administered betaine could be used to meet part of the bodies methionine requirement (it is much cheaper as a feed ingredient). Turns out, no it can't, but a lot of negative results had to be published before we could be certain. I hadn't read any of that work yet, when that same idea occurred to me while I was putting together a map of relevant Methionine using pathways. A quick lit review showed that my "Brilliant Idea" was a dead end, but if previous researchers had all taken your view, I might have wasted my time re-inventing the square wheel as it were.
The obvious point that you seem to be missing is that I don't know whether or not my negative results fall into scenario 1 or scenario 2 until after the fact.
It's about avoiding wasted effort.
SCENARIO 1:
I come up with a "Brilliant" theory that I think will solve a problem. I do the research and discover that my idea was not as brilliant as I thought. I don't publish. Meanwhile, someone at another university comes up with the same "Brilliant" theory and needlessly duplicates my effort. If I'd published the research I did showing that the idea was not brilliant, then he would have been saved the wasted time and resources duplicating my work. This could in theory be happening at multiple universities over and over and over again. Resources being wasted all around.
SCENARIO 2:
I run the same test of the same idea with the same result and publish. Some other researcher comes up with the same idea, looks at my work and figures out why my idea was brilliant, but I was an idiot and designed the test wrong somehow (failing to account for a previously unknown confounding factor for example). He goes on, citing my work as how NOT to test the idea, and proves that the idea has merit. If I'd not have published the he might not have seen the flaw in my original work and needlessly duplicated the flawed study on the path to getting things right. Hell, he might have fixed my error on the first run, but made a completely different error that my work warned him to avoid.
In the end science is incrementally advanced by failures as much as by our successes. Thomas Edison famously stated: "I have not failed, not once. I've discovered ten thousand ways that don't work." when describing his research on the incandescent light bulb. By publishing failures I help others avoid wasting their time on dead ends.
How is that different from the "meaningful intellectual contributions" bar that I describe? If, as is the case with my advisor, someone does none of the hands on work but helps to hash out the protocol, analyze and interpret the results, and set the tone for the manuscript during the review process, then I believe that they've "performed work on the actual research to a great degree" even if they didn't weigh a single pig or analyze a single sample in the lab.
what is your field?
I like Colonel Korn's response. I may have written all of the papers, and even run all of the research, but without my advisor none of the projects would have come my way. Research is collaborative, especially for a graduate student with no resources and little training. That is the point of a graduate degree. In exchange for training you, and easing the procurement of resources you do a lot of the grunt work (mixing feed, weighing animals, running lab equipment, writing all first drafts, etc. in my personal case) thus gaining valuable experience while a good advisor tutors you in the correct methodology for designing, conducting, and reporting scientific research. I can't think of a field where this is not how it works.
P.S. the Last Author = Advisor convention is what is used in Animal Science. The only time my Advisor took first author on a paper he did not write was when he had 2 grad students run the 2 trials included in the paper (i was the second) and a third actually write up the paper. The intellectual contributions of the grad students were roughly equal, so to head off an argument he pulled rank and took the first author position. Otherwise he's only ever taken first author when he actually wrote the paper.