Marvin Shilmer

Joined

• started 433 topics
• posted 4,004 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by Marvin Shilmer

• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  That's an interesting way to look at it.

  It was in or around year 1990 that Watchtower started taking greater and more specific measures to have elders give special treatment to reports of child molestation. During the early to late 1990s this likely resulted in a surge of reports of child molestation. To reduce the probability of skewing values I decided to ignore all reports except for the last 10 years. For statistical purposes, this gave any initial number surge a good 15-years of opportunity to subside.

  Of those reports I ignored 1) all cases without a clear date (year) of reporting and 2) all cases reported as "Not a JW member".

  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.
• 
  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

  Those are 28,827 reasons why WT's GB Jackson may not present himself to the Royal Commission's courtroom next week and 28,827 reasons why WT's GB Lett refused to testify in the U.S. a few months ago on another JW child molestation case.

  It's much, much worse than that.

  Keep in mind that the extrapolated value of 28,827 is only for the last 10 years. Think about what that means.
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  I try to make my passion about doing the right thing and achieving the right goals and objectives rather than 'being' right.

  AMEN to THAT!!!
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  My quick statistical review yields the following:

  For the Australian Branch during the 10-year period of 2005-2014 there was an annual average incident rate of 0.000401 per peak publisher. This amounts to an average annual number of about 0.40 per 1000 peak publishers. There were a total of 257 individual perps reported for this period in the Australian Branch.

  Worldwide this extrapolates to:

  For the 10-year period of 2005-2014 there is an estimated worldwide number of 28,827 individuals associated with Jehovah's Witnesses that have been reported for sexual molestation of a child.
• 
  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

  Okay...

  I constructed a basic statistic based on the sexual child abuse data from the Australian Branch.

  BASIC STATISTIC:

  For the 10-year period of 2005-2014 there is an annual average incident rate of 0.000401 per peak publisher. This amounts to an average annual number of about 0.40 per 1000 peak publishers.

  What I counted:

  - I did not include any value for perp cases identified as "Not JW member". I treated these cases as though they do not exist.

  - I included values for cases with dates of report.

  - I gave no assigned value (i.e., I made no assumptions) to any of the many cases with "unclear" indicated for year of report. In other words, I did not attempt to extrapolate a value for the period of 2005-2014 from the many cases with no clear year indicated for reporting of the abuse. My basis statistic treats these cases as though they do not exist.

  Extrapolation:

  Based on an annual average incident rate of 0.000401 per peak publisher, for the 10-year period of 2005-2014 there is an estimated worldwide number of 28,827 individuals associated with Jehovah's Witnesses that have been reported for sexual molestation of a child.
• 
  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

  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. If I had more time I'd dig this up myself without bothering anyone.
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  As to finding someone who doesn't care about the outcome to act as a disinterested party, that generally doesn't happen in critical fields. It's very competitive, and more often than not you will find someone who is just dying to prove you wrong if anything, in the process providing a means to either disprove or validate your findings.

  The point is that a person can have a passion for a subject without having a passion for a particular finding based on research of that subject. We can, for instance, have a passion for hematological science without holding a preference for what we'd like facts to lead to in the form of findings (read: conclusions) of hematological research.

  As for those "just dying to prove you wrong," that's a good thing! Conclusions of arguments deserve no less.
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  Oh, is that all?
  I agree with you, but know from tons of experience that you've placed a pretty tall order and most folks just ain't gonna do it.

  If a person is incapable or unwilling to release themselves from preferential outcomes (conclusions) then they will be plagued with confirmation bias.

  The other problem is this: if you don't care about the outcome, you likely won't do the work to find it.

  My remark intended to convey a disinterest in a particular outcome. My remark was not intended to convey disinterest in finding the outcome of a subject of interest. Of course individuals will be more driven to investigate areas of personal interest. This is a major factor in choosing career research areas.
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  But how to avoid confirmation bias?

  The best way to avoid confirmation bias is to release oneself from caring about the outcome (a conclusion) of an argument and, instead, focus on looking for objectively verified information (for purpose of this subject we'll call this: facts). Once you have verifiable information at your disposal then you can use this/these as premises to form logical arguments, which will lead to conclusions without bias.

  Let objectively verified information and valid argument forms decide the conclusions.

  Confirmation bias disappears because you don't care about the conclusion. If, as it turns out, human behavior is the subject of research what I've said does not suggest a person must be amoral. Rather it means a person must be willing to let their morality be guided by facts rather than preference.
• 
  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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  Very well put, Viviane!

  Learning of the skills of critical thinking and then taking time to learn how to use those tools can make such a world of difference in a person's life. Otherwise an individual will always find themselves preyed upon by the ever-present snake-oil salesperson.