Viral 'human bird wings' video fake, probably an ad, expert says
foxnews.com
foxnews.com
Google Translate should do a decent job ;).
By the way, the real name of the guy is 'Floris Kaayk'.
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/21/fairleigh_dickinso...
It would be bad reasoning to say "because [source] says [claim] and [source] is unreliable, [claim] is probably wrong." But it is correct reasoning to say "[source] says [claim], but [source] is unreliable, so my beliefs about [claim] are virtually unaffected."
Edit: of course, if you saw the original video, you should already believe it to be fake. An article from foxnews.com should not change that. And yes, I realize that this is only being reproduced by foxnews.com, and is not their original material. Still, "don't click [unreliable source].com links" is a worthwhile policy to have because the human mind is not very good at tracking sources.
Consider the related approach of giving someone who is a known expert in field X undue weight for their commentary in field Y. We recognize this as a mistake because one's ability in field X does not necessarily correlate with their ability in field Y.
In this case, you're suggesting we completely ignore the statement of a source which is known to be unreliable on a particular set of partisan topics, and known to be reliable on non-partisan topics (such as sports scores), when they are addressing a topic within the second category.
Proper evidential weighting takes into account not merely the "reliability" or "unreliability" of a source in a generic sense, but the specific details of that (un)reliability.
(The problem with the heavily-downvoted grandparent post is more than mere improper evidential weighting. The larger problem is that it's boring and off-topic. Here on Hacker News, we prefer comments that add value to the discussion.)
Perhaps it is not quite right to say that ignoring it completely is "proper evidential weighting". What I mean is that it is a better heuristic than the ones your brain's native evidence-weighing routines will employ. And since it is impossible to completely override those instinctive heuristics, there is some level of credibility below which the best course of action is to simply disregard a source. The fact that we have limited investigative resources further raises that bar.
Otherwise, I would have to spend all of my time weighing odds and researching the plausibility of claims gleaned from Prison Planet, during which I could learn much more information about the world by focusing my attention elsewhere.
>(The problem with the heavily-downvoted grandparent post is more than mere improper evidential weighting. The larger problem is that it's boring and off-topic. Here on Hacker News, we prefer comments that add value to the discussion.)
Well yes, it just bothers me quite a lot when people act like ignoring disreputable sources is some kind of sin against rationality.