Marvin Shilmer

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Posts by Marvin Shilmer

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  82

  Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.

  i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.

  first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  • I understand and agree in theory. The problem again is that in practice we are dealing with humans. And the fact is that, with us, it just ain't that easy because of the way we are made.

    Individuals do as they want.

    Those who want to minimize potential of falling victim to confirmation bias choose as a practice to look for evidence and let that evidence lead to whatever conclusion it leads to.

    Those who want to look for evidence to support a preferential conclusion will do that, and they will find themselves hobbled by their practice of confirmation bias.
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  37

  Australian Branch Stats?

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm working on some statistical analysis of child abuse data made public by the royal commission.

  while i'm working on this, can someone here do me a favor and look up the peak publisher figures reported by watchtower for the australian branch for each of the years from 2005 through 2014?

  my thanks in advance.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  It's clear though that the global figures are shocking.

  I don't think the overall numbers will be particularly shocking. We already know child abuse is prevalent, and we have no reason to think the JW community is immune from this plague. It's just a fact that so far no one has had a solid basis to calculate the numbers (other that Watchtower insiders, that is!). Now that's changed. We now have something substantial as a basis to measure as a minimum how much of this is going on in the JW community.

  The thing I think people should focus on is the fact that Watchtower asks the JW community to report these incidences to its own appointees but has no protocol at all in place that offers even a shred of protection to the wider community of children based on these reports. Watchtower acts like the moral advice to love your neighbor as yourself is of no account! How can it be said that Watchtower policy would have elders (for that matter, any JW!!!) love their own neighbors as they love themselves when they do not advise those elders to make local law enforcement aware of child abuse allegations. The whole thing is upside-down and backwards from a moral perspective, and elders in Australia are learning that perhaps what they've been doing is illegal too!
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  37

  Australian Branch Stats?

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm working on some statistical analysis of child abuse data made public by the royal commission.

  while i'm working on this, can someone here do me a favor and look up the peak publisher figures reported by watchtower for the australian branch for each of the years from 2005 through 2014?

  my thanks in advance.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  I was wondering if there was perhaps a correlation between the figures and how they were handling matters. Seems you may be on to something!

  We cannot always know why a sample will be populated as we find it, but in cases where we can't be sure sometimes we can make good guesses based on available evidence.

  Regardless, a population value we find against a given sample size will be whatever it is. In terms of extrapolation our duty is to do it responsibly and not to a given result. In this case, beginning about 25 years ago Watchtower gave steam to an effort to have local elders give special treatment to reports of sexual child abuse. Taking a look at the overall annual levels of reported cases of perpetrators, and specifically to cases involving JWs or anyone with standing in a congregation, will provide a good glimpse into whatever consequences resulted from this policy shift. As I have time to work on this I'll share it. It's not rocket science. It just takes time.
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  82

  Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.

  i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.

  first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  Marvin, that was tongue in cheek nothing personal, carry on.

  I understood that, JW_Rogue.

  Mainly I replied as I did for sake of clarity so other readers didn't get a wrong idea.
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  37

  Australian Branch Stats?

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm working on some statistical analysis of child abuse data made public by the royal commission.

  while i'm working on this, can someone here do me a favor and look up the peak publisher figures reported by watchtower for the australian branch for each of the years from 2005 through 2014?

  my thanks in advance.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  For the whole dataset I got 1857 victims and 1006 abusers. This calculates to an ratio of 1.85 victims per abuser.
  I'm curious as to this ratio for the 10 year data slice you have extracted, as it appears from the figures you've produced that the ratio will be lower for the latter 10 years than for the dataset as a whole - which would suggest there's a downward trend.
  Also if you can separately determine the ratio for the period prior to 2005 we can absolutely confirm if there is a downward trend.

  My data slice does take a look at each year and I noticed that 2005 has a significantly higher incidence rate than other years in the 10-year period. (This is one reason why I presented an extrapolation based on a 10-year average rather than any single year.) Before I finalize anything for wider use I'm thinking about removing the highest and lowest incident years to form a more conservative extrapolation. But before I do that I want to analyze the data more to see if i can identify why some years might have lower or higher numbers. There are instructions to elders over the last 25 years or so that might have driven some of what we find in the numbers. One reason why I selected the 10-year period of 2005-2014 was to avoid some years (by a fairly wide margin) where numbers could easily be skewed either upward or downward for reasons of fluctuating Watchtower policy instructions to elders. What I've presented here is just a beginning.
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  82

  Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.

  i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.

  first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  SEE! LOL Some people enjoy debating I find that I don't really enjoy it so I leave those subjects to others. Although I sometimes like to watch them go at it.

  You might read me wrong, JW_Rogue.

  Though I think every opinion worth sharing is an opinion worth challenging, I neither have the time nor the inclination to challenge every opinion presented.
• 
  82

  Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.

  i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.

  first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  My company has many female pilots, and a good number of them are captains, some younger but far senior to me in tenure. I haven't flown with them all, but the vast majority of the ones I've had the pleasure of working with have shown their reasoning, judgment, and skill to be the match of any man's, including my own.

  And how long will it take Watchtower to figure out that women are already teaching among JWs, only not in a Watchtower appointed capacity of "elder"?

  And how long will it take Watchtower to figure out that sitting on a judicial committee to evaluate evidence and repentance is not "teaching"?

  And how long will it take Watchtower to recognize the context of historical positions taken by biblical characters/authors apart from underlying values so that JW women are no longer kept from performing valuable work inside the organization that so far they've been kept from?
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  82

  Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.

  i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.

  first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  Who advocates challenging every opinion?

  I do!

  Wouldn't have it any other way.

  An opinion worth sharing is an opinion worth challenging!!!
• 
  37

  Australian Branch Stats?

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm working on some statistical analysis of child abuse data made public by the royal commission.

  while i'm working on this, can someone here do me a favor and look up the peak publisher figures reported by watchtower for the australian branch for each of the years from 2005 through 2014?

  my thanks in advance.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  What ratio did you identify from your statistical slice? It's evidently lower than for the whole data.

  I'm not sure what you're asking me to calculate as a ratio.

  Take a look at my second post in this discussion. There I express what I counted and did not count. Maybe that'll answer your question. If not please rephrase your question.
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  30

  We can now estimate the absolute minimum number of child abuse cases

  by Viviane in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  vincent tool said that he is exclusively working the phones for child abuse cases, but never said he is not the only one.

  for now, let's assume the rate of abuse cases averages over time to the three or four cases he gets per month.

  let's further assume that, since he isn't the only person working the phones and is on vacation at some point, the number is 4-5 per month, or 4.5 per month.

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  Marvin Shilmer

  To be clearer, when I say to me this provides a pretty clear idea of the magnitude of reported cases Watchtower has received worldwide over the past 10 years, and is also a pretty good indicator of what the problem has looked like for a long time (decades!) before that, I'm not talking about the overall number of reported sexual molestation of a child/children. Rather, the constructed statistical slice I'm talking about only accounts for the number of individuals reported to Watchtower that are associated with the organization in some capacity (i.e., as a parishner, elder, unbaptized publisher etc.).

  For purposes of extrapolating the amount of overall victimization (worldwide) I have to perform a different analysis, and I'm working on that.