The Public Discourse

Edward Feser has written a bunch on this topic over the years:

> Despite its adherents’ pose of rationality, scientism has a serious problem: it is either self-refuting or trivial. Take the first horn of this dilemma. The claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, that science is even a rational form of inquiry (let alone the only rational form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically. For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle.

* https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174/

* http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/scientism-roundup.html

* http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html

See also naturalism:

> According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific processes;[15] that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as to the ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of…

Although McLeod is a law professor, some of his legal claims have already been disputed by Orin Kerr on the Volokh Conspiracy.[1] He has published constitutional law nonsense before, and once accused a federal judge of 'tyranny' for upholding the Fourteenth Amendment argument that succeeded in Obergefell v. Hodges.[2] It is surprising to see so many commenters uncritically endorsing his conclusions. His main complaint seems to be:

> [S]everal states have created an entirely novel phylum of law: the civil violation of a criminal prohibition. Using this nifty device, a city can charge you of a crime without any witnesses, without any probable cause determination, and without any civil due process.

But McLeod never explains what this actually means, and goes on to describe an ordinary criminal trial where he was acquitted after the prosecution failed to prove its case to the required standard. While the focus on the trial suggests that he is complaining about criminal procedure, the real purpose of the article seems to be to deny the legitimacy of traffic cameras as a law enforcement mechanism. The vaguely-described contractual arrangements sound concerning, but he doesn't give any supporting evidence and those contracts weren't the subject of his case.

Traffic cameras are common in the rest of the developed world and can be used consistently with the rule of law. This may involve the legislature infringing the rights of accused people by shifting the burden, or reducing the…

"In 2019, there were at least 13 minors who suffered from "serious side effects,” according to Swedish reports. One of them had developed osteoporosis - a health condition that weakens bones - after taking puberty blockers. Others have suffered from liver damage, significant weight gain and depressive symptoms." - https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/02/16/as-spain-advances-trans-rights-sweden-backtracks-on-gender-affirming-treatments-for-teens

"A pattern begins to emerge as we survey some of the best and longest outcome studies on gender transition: the longer the studies and the better the methods, the more negative the results. " - https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/02/60143/

Also, the posts by detransitioners who explain how their doctors, specifically, did not care to investigate confounding signals or perform valid surgical aftercare. And how hatefully they're treated by the trans community, without any concern for the validity of what they say.

> your peer reviewed paper

Their papers are failing peer review, that's the point. The "studies" they claim to have done are intentionally bad. Tavistock in the UK failed to record the sex of many of their patients. Other clinics don't follow up with patients and have reported all loss-of-contact results as positive interventions. This is what you'd expect from a field that's more concerned with returning the "progressive" answer than facts.

> Since you seem to have some expertise in this area, do you have any feelings…

“you could probably match everything to a single person if you wanted to.”

You could probably match it to a single car owner but I'll bet you'd have a hard time matching it to a single person purely using data without some research, and people let other people borrow cars more frequently than mobile phones. Though you probably could fingerprint someone's driving style based on starts/stop cadence, turn velocity, routes, destinations, etc. and some insurance companies may already do it. They use this data to modify their clients rates automatically, already. That's why I opted to not use my housing insurer, Lemonade, to insure my car. I don't need surveillance capitalism invading yet another part of my existence.

In the case of red light cameras (https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/01/18093/), I think the legal consequences are so comparatively minor that nobody bats an eye when this gets flubbed. When it comes down to this being used as evidence in a major crime, that will probably be harder and surely defense attorneys will be all over it. From a commercial data privacy perspective, it's probably enough of an edge case that their customers wouldn't care much.

I think civil cases may be the more interesting venue for this inconsistency. I don't know if it's still true, but in file sharing cases, folks often didn't question the idea that an IP address could be mapped to a specific person. I'd guess this wouldn't be that much different than having a series of witnesses…

As noted on metafilter

http://www.metafilter.com/164565/Law-Professor-Challenges-Traffic-Camera-Ticket-Hijinks-Ensue#6874770

FYI, the author is a morally repugnant conservative. He believes that a lesbian couple should not both be legally recognized as the parents of a child;[0] that Texas courts should defy the Supreme Court and further restrict access to women's healthcare;[1] and that colleges should be free to discriminate against LGBT students and employees; [2] among many other positions.

He signed a statement calling on the local, state, and federal government to refuse to follow Obergefell [3] (the case legalizing same sex marriage nationally).

The website this was published on is an outlet of the Witherspoon Institute.[4]

The author is fanatically opposed to what he calls 'the regulatory state'. He is a far-right extremist and religious fundamentalist.

[0] http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/10/18106/

[1] http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/07/17328/

[2] http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/05/16907/

[3] https://americanprinciplesproject.org/founding-principles/statement-calling-for-constitutional-resistance-to-obergefell-v-hodges%E2%80%AF/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witherspoon_Institute

"Israel is one of the last countries in the world where the Tender Years Doctrine is still in force, if not the last. While the clause reflects an old world order in which mothers were expected to be homemakers and fathers were breadwinners, many feminist politicians and women's groups refuse to have it amended, claiming that the time is not yet ripe for such a change and that men will take advantage of it to put pressure on women in divorce." - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174956#.Urnmoq2Yn7c

I also read with some horror this for a self-claimed feminist:

"Yet under no-fault divorce, a woman can find herself essentially a single mom, drained of family resources by court costs and lawyer fees, and suddenly required to work against her will and sacrifice time with her children."
- http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10031/

Hopefully all the above is today a minority view, but it should not be glossed completely over. Feminists and fathers right groups should under all circumstances agree on gender equality, which mean equal time with children and equal requirement to work in an effort to support their own children.