Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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If the people arguing against you are Alansmurphy and Davel you should take it as a sign you're probably right.
You've both demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of this yet are convinced that you are correct.
Davel is even arguing against linking to evidence during a debate.
When your glaring errors are pointed out you both just resort to insults.
It's completely pathetic.
The thing is that it is not just two posters arguing against you, and no-one is arguing for you.
The two posters you have singled out are a good representation though as one is pro-helmets, the other anti. So because of this you can remove the possible debate bias issue. AlanSMurphy is not the only pro-helmet poster on this thread, many have posted comments reflecting support of helmet, but none have posted comments supporting your use of data being correct.
Can you really not see that this statement more describes yourself than others?
What? I do not understand what you are getting at here?
That's rich coming from, well Rich
Not sure who reverted to insults first, but don't kid yourself that you don't do it via your passive-aggressive nonsense like actually typing 'yawn' onto a forum page.
I tend not to call people trolls unless they're being trolly.
When I exhibit a complete lack of understanding of something, I tend to either preface the shit I'm about to post, or accept correction from someone who knows more about a topic than I do. You should try that.
What I tend not to do is just carry on having a row then deny it happened a few months down the line, then when reminded of it, with proof, make out like it's somehow the other person's fault for remembering it.
That's the behaviour of a fucking troll. Ergo, Rich_cb is a fucking troll. There would be other erroneous conclusions to make, such as: all trolls are Rich_cb, or trolls only exhibit that sort of behaviour. Feel free to jump to any other incorrect conclusion, but the one I'm happy with is that you're a fucking troll.
The graph, if you can picture it, has 'Rich_cbness' as one axis, and 'trollness' as the other, and they are directly proportional.
HTH
I think it was me, I called him a c**t for which I later apologised. I regret that...
Apology.
You shouldn't apologise, there's a graph that proves he's a clueless c**t, sorry make that hypothesis based on the number of clueless posts and deliberately acting like a cunt. I think my data is sound.
graph.gif
I can only assume you're off the scale on both counts.
Learnt the difference between absolute and relative risk yet?
If you aint got a graph or a published paper then you're wrong, I have a graph that proves my point, that's how it works for proof in your la la land, ergo my hypothesis is valid according to your rules/way of thinking. You truly are a delusional dipshit.
I'll take that as a no.
That's just brillant!!
I'm going to use your example whenever I have to explain statistics to anyone.
And you're back to being pointlessly obtuse.
The datasets you're referring to both cover the UK during the period 1994-2002.
The fact that they classified roads in a slightly different manner does not prevent an overall comparison being made.
Especially when the data is only being used to show a correlation.
I've explained that multiple times.
So are you saying that helmets prevent cyclist fatalities from all injuries? If not then you are not showing correlation because you don't have the correct dataset to show the trend of fatalities from head and neck injuries. The dataset that you provided does not show if head and neck injury related cycling fatalities go up or down.
I showed correlation with mobile phone contracts and coverage, at least that fits with all causes of cyclist fatalities.
We've been over the mobile phone stuff before.
You didn't/couldn't explain the lack of correlation with cycling injuries given the supposed enormous effect on pedestrian injuries.
Helmet use (in adults) is correlated with a decrease in deaths and serious head injuries.
I don't have access to further data showing a decrease in death from serious head injuries but the absence of that data doesn't disprove the hypothesis.
Please, please stop abusing science.
Otherwise, come and disprove that the flying spaghetti monster is nesting at the bottom of my garden.
I haven't got the data to say that Freddie Starr didn't eat my hamster or that there isn't a double decker bus on the moon!
Fair warning: I won't try to not disprove it then. I think.
We can now add 'The Scientific Process' to the (rapidly lengthening) list of things that Davel doesn't understand.
Oh, fuck off.
You've got an opinion, done some shit Google-fu to try to find ANYTHING to support it, keep pulling out new scraps that don't prove what you're saying, and you see the inability of people debating against you to outright disprove what you're saying as somehow supporting your nonsense. And you either don't get the absurdity of that situation, or don't care.
You don't even know what it is that you don't understand. I remember our debate about insurance Ts&Cs - exactly the same. Zero experience, zero grasp of the subject, blagging your way through some tiresome posts based on frantic googling.
Stick to your subject matter: living under bridges and eating goats.
Wade into a discussion you don't understand, throw some insults around and then declare the other person a troll.
Ok.
Ps
I'm pretty sure I've never debated Insurance T&C's with anyone.
I had a debate about insurance with someone on here. Don't know who.
When they found out some of my work was for insurance companies they suddenly stopped arguing.
I assume you mean "the scientific method"? I am curious to know what it is about this that you believe you understand but Davel doesn't?
I've seen the terms used interchangeably but yes that is what I mean.
Davel does not understand how to test a hypothesis.
Rich, you don't understand how to test a hypothesis. You have two unrelated graphs showing a very high level trend. As has been demonstrated on here before, this can be done with thousands of things that don't stand up to scrutiny when questioned. You seem to wish to simply discredit/ignore anything that doesn't suit your argument; this isn't testing a hypothesis it is being arrogant and ill-informed.
I did explain the difference in the effect on pedestrians and cyclists from mobile phones. I said it was down to the growth of coverage starting in cities and where the majority of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities occur.
You are right, the lack of data does not disprove your hypothesis. What it does mean is that you have no proof to support your hypothesis.
You didn't explain why urban cyclists had failed to benefit at all when their pedestrian counterparts had enjoyed a huge fall in fatalities.
As I've said all along proving causation is impossible in this situation.
It doesn't mean I have no evidence.
I did explain why urban cyclists had a slower impact initially, you just choose to ignore it.
I'm not talking about causation yet, just correlation. Unless you are trying to prove that helmets create a magic bubble around the cyclist preventing all types of injury then you have no evidence. Unless you can show that head and neck injury related fatalities for cyclists went down over that period you have nothing.
The way I understand the Scientific Method is that once the hypothesis is formed the corner of the hypothesis goes to collect RELEVANT data to prove the hypothesis. You seem to be under the impression that any data will do and it's not for you to prove your hypothesis but for others to disprove it.
Here's a picture of the scientific process/method.
As you can see I have collected relevant data from the literature and analysed it for patterns that would support my hypothesis.
The patterns do support the hypothesis.
The_Scientific_Process.svg-1.png
The issue is that you have not gathered relevant data because you don't have corresponding data. This results in you having no patterns or data that support your hypothesis (though you are now claiming it as a theory rather than a hypothesis)
Look at the diagram I provided.
Observation: There is a correlation in the UK between increased helmet wearing and decreased cycling fatalities.
Question: Could cycling helmets have been responsible for a fall in cycling fatalities? How would they do this?
Hypothesis: Cycle Helmets reduce deaths (from head injuries).
Testable predictions:
1: Overall injury rate will not fall when helmet use increases as helmets do not prevent accidents.
2: Head injury rates will fall as helmet use increases.
3: Deaths from head injuries will fall.
Data Gathered
Prediction 1: Proved correct
Prediction 2: Proved correct in adults.
Prediction 3: No data available to prove or disprove.
So as you can see I have actually followed the method/process.
You are aware that you can do free online statistics courses?
https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=statistics
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability
(Yes learning about probability is relevant.)
It's probably worth you doing one.
That way then you can understand why other posters are pulling your posts apart.
Good old deflection.
Always there when you haven't got an argument to make.
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