Tim Tebow voted into the top 100 players in the NFL by other NFL players

My friend, decisions / opinions made based on tastes and preferences are most certainly biased.

Main problem is that this "concern" is one that you invented yourself as I certainly never said or implied such a thing.

Nope, it's correct. You are just looking at it the wrong way

 

heheehe.

I'm still sticking with this one:

 

No, actually not. Bias infers, in an economic situation, that something is unfair. Quality of goods is inferred to be universally recognized.

I know. You argued that by leaving Tebow off the ballot the results can be easily skewed the other way, to which I responded impossible under an inclusive voting system. I was making a "prefutation" of sorts, where I said "well, given that you're trying to poke holes in the argument, the one spot left that you could respond is that voters chose a certain player over Tebow to put Tebow down to which I said that collusion could not have occurred".

I have to assume that because you said nothing more specific/direct that you have nothing to rebut that.

 

It's perfectly fine for you to take that stance but, at the time, statements like

led me to believe that you were using the Top 100 list as justification/evidence to argue in favor of Tebow on the board.

 

Yes, but because it was purely observational I meant that analyzing the methodology instead of just absorbing "vote by NFL players to determine the top 100 players of 2011" would shape your opinion positively and factually.

I won't respond to anything else because you said you're waiting until tomorrow.

 

Quality of goods may indeed be universally recognized, BUT, it is not universally sought. Also, I'd question that bias infers that something is unfair. If I have a preference for something, that is most certainly a bias. For example, I prefer brunettes. Therefore, I am biased towards them, and against blondes and red heads.

And again, most of this was based on your mistaken presumption.

You say that it's impossible under an inclusive voting system, but you haven't put forth a credible argument to demonstrate that this is the case.

As I said, you are looking at it the wrong way. I've already presented the argument.

 

Can't argue the Invisible Hand example any more, it's not even relevant.

I don't want to continue arguing definitions. Unless I find a good source or you are able to learn the big differences between Heisman voting and this voting (for example) I can't have anything further to say on the matter.

 

You're trying to help a blind man see by telling him to look harder

 

Yes Vandy, I can argue the invisible hand as it's still applicable, whether you get it or not.

EACH ACTOR has his own inherent preferences and biases. Those biases influence the selections that he or she makes.

You talked about "quality of goods" being a universal thing. Guess what ? Some people place a higher preference on VALUE as opposed to quality. Therefore, even if you have the highest quality product, the "value" segment of the market place won't purchase it.

They don't get together and collude or coordinate on this. Each has their own opinion and they act on it, but the cummulative effect is an entire segment that will decide to buy something else.


Say that Tebow had a Pro Bowl season, much better than Cam's, yet 50% or the players who received ballots were tired of hearing his name and each of them, acting individually, left his name completely off the ballot.

That would indeed skew the results.

Let's look back at your example of Dawkins voting Tebow #1. You said that this would skew things. Why ? Because Tebow would have gotten a higher vote total because of it. He would have gotten 20 pts from Dawkins.

BUT, if players purposely left Tebow off the ballot, then Tebow would get ZERO votes from each of them, thus, similarly skewing the vote.

Getting 0 votes because of some bias is the extreme opposite of getting 20 pts due to bias. It's the same effect, just the polar opposite in impact.

 

Have fun talking about an example that's not pertinent to the thread topic. And by "you're talking about it", I mean I'm not going to read it because even if you are correct you're still not even trying to grasp E.v.I.

 

My friend, as I said earlier, the problem isn't that I don't understand what you are saying, but rather, it's that you've been wrong.


I'll go back to your very first post on the topic:

Do you see right there in pretty red letters where you stated that you HAVE TO HAVE SOME SORT OF COLLUSION ??


That just simply isn't the case. As Smith's "Invisible Hand" illustrates, people, exercising their own inherent biases, WITHOUT ANY COLLUSION, can indeed have an aggregate effect on an outcome.


Your underlying premise is fatally flawed.

 

And I've said if you want to prove I'm wrong you can't just say "you're wrong". That's not too convincing of an argument.
Because YOU'RE wrong. (see what I did there?)

 

My apologies, as I was too slow and you replied before I edited my post.

 

My bad, I'll go back again

 

Don't just say Invisible Hand. Tell me why your example applies directly to this list. Are goods buying one another? What market is set up like this 100 list?

You're taking exception to the least important part of my argument. Forget about collusion and start telling me exactly how my "premise" is collusion (unless you meant the premise me saying "collusion") and exactly how it's fatally flawed?

 

I already explained it once, but, I'll go ahead and do it again. First, look at results. Widget X is the best seller and Movie A is #1 at the box office. A purchase is just like a vote. People don't have to collude and conspire to buy Widget X or go to Movie A for them to top their respective lists. Out of their own biases and rational self interest, they make their choices. That Widget X and Movie A come out on top are a RESULT of those choices.

In the voting that we are discussing, players make choices based on their own biases. They might pick players who are friends of theirs. They might choose teammates. They might go heavy on defensive choices as they play defense.

These biases also affect who gets left off their lists. they might decide not to vote for players from certain teams (like a Raven voting for a Steeler). They might ignore most offensive players (except for the standout QBs maybe) as they are defenders. They might stay away from choosing guys from the AFC as they are from the NFC. Lastly, they might boycott choosing a player because they got burned out from all the media coverage that player garnered this past season.

So, INDIVIDUALLY, and without any "collusion" with others, they might have purposely left Tebow off the ballot.

That, my friend, would indeed "skew" the results. Just as Dawkins would skew the results by voting Tebow #1, and handing him 20 points, others would skew the results in the opposite direction by refusing to vote for Tebow, even if he had a Pro Bowl season.

As to the question of your underlying premise, again, here's your own words:

THAT is the underlying premise that the rest of your arguments stem from, and as that premise is wrong, so is your entire line of argument.

 

How is that an underlying argument or premise of anything? That's a random subpoint that I threw in. Pretend I never said it. It's irrelevant to the discussion and the only reason I said it, at the time, was so that you didn't annoy me with some future response of "but players could've voted for other guys over Tebow so that those other guys would get in the top 100 instead of Tebow"

And the Invisible Hand question was a trick question. It's an inapplicable example when you're talking about the results of the top 100 list. At this point you're unable to understand the difference so, out of laziness, I'll concede it and agree to disagree with you on that point.

 

Mathematically, the 20-player ballot for 450 player voters equates to 90 players (or 5.3% of the population) with a 100-player ballot. Having 450 out of 1696 players is a valid sample size, however my arguments that 1) voters can't punish Tebow, 2) a 20-player ballot is absurdly small [1/5 of the list and less than the total number of All-Pro's] still stand, and 3) Tebow probably strongly benefited from either name recognition or overrated voting

I don't believe you can defend the legitimacy of this list