Reply #28: where did I not tell the truth?

[OnTheOtherHand]

Here's the MPSA program, you can search it for yourself:
http://www.kiva.net/~mpsa/2006FinalProgram.pdf

But wait. You are "truly NOT seriously interested in assessing" the truth of my claim. So there really is no point in presenting evidence, even though you are demanding evidence. Clearly this is an excellent use of my time.

So, if you don't care what the truth is, how could you possibly hope or claim to evaluate whether or not I am telling it?

OK, let me see if I can find something interesting to say.

Umm, yes, I assume that what political scientists write and publish indicates what they believe about the topics they study. And I assume that the major journals, conferences, and presses that I monitor offer a fair cross-section of what political scientists write and publish. OK, so my claim could be infirmed if (1) political scientists don't write and publish what they believe, or (2) somehow I am managing to read exclusively unrepresentative journals etc. (2) does not really detain me, so I am left with (1). Hence my analogy to biologists who only pretend to believe in evolution. Apparently some people do believe that biologists only pretend to believe in evolution.

Oh, sorry, I make another auxiliary assumption: that political scientists in subfields that don't touch upon the election are unlikely to accept en masse -- yet silently -- a view that professionals in the relevant subfields reject. Hypothetically, most comparativists 'might' believe almost anything about American politics, and I might not notice. I guess that would be sort of like biologists being convinced that cold fusion is a breakthrough power source. A physicist might not notice -- but how would large numbers of biologists form that opinion in the first place?

Did that help? Since you profess no interest in the topic you are belaboring, I remain unsure what could.