NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been reading through their website, and they do cite many, many facts. I'm curious: has anyone else here heard of them? What do you think?

Edit: Right... JustFacts (www.justfacts.com)

I think you owe me $10 for doing the work of posting your link for you.

http://www.justfacts.com/

I've not heard of them.

What do you think?

They seem to have a conservative bias. I expected a little more impartialty going from the name. Maybe they should rename the site to Justfactswelike.

They seem to have a conservative bias. I expected a little more impartialty going from the name. Maybe they should rename the site to Justfactswelike.

It sounds as if they have a conservative bias, but, at the same time, in response to a somewhat inflamatory email on "Race," they say that any fact that meets their standards of credibility will be posted. I have to ask, if they are just posting facts, then what specifically makes them biased? The race section especially, includes facts I was not aware of, such as

"There is at least five times more genetic variation within races of people than there is between them. (1)"

"* I.Q. test results are affected by environmental factors. On average, Orientals and Jews score higher on I.Q. tests than Europeans, and whites score higher than blacks. On an intelligence test done by the U.S. Army, blacks from Ohio had a median score of 49.50 and whites from Mississippi had a median score of 41.25. (7)"

"* The Marcus Garvey Schools in Chicago and Cincinnati, the Marva Collins Schools in Philadelphia, and the Ivy Leaf School are all founded, owned, and operated by blacks. Academically, nearly 100% of the students are at or up to four years ahead of their grade level. (14)"

"* As of 1999, Public School # 161 in Brooklyn, N.Y. has a student body comprised of 91% blacks and 8% Latinos. The average class size is 35 students. Over 80% of the kindergartners can read. The sixth graders have the 2nd highest reading scores in the state of New York. Nationally, the sixth through eighth graders placed in the 93rd percentile in reading and the 96th percentile in math. (15)(16)"

Their section on abortion gave me lulz.

Their name alone should set off your "INCOMING CONSERVATIVISM" alarm. With a name like JustFacts, you know they're gonna be Fair and Balanced!

Why is it that the phrase "just the facts" makes me think of goat leggings?

Genetically speaking, with the exception of identical twins, once a woman conceives a preborn human, the odds against her conceiving the same one again are greater than 10^600 to one. (10^600 is shorthand for the number 1 with 600 zeros after it. For comparison, there are roughly 10^80 atoms in the known universe.)

One googol is greater than the number of elementary particles in the known universe, which has been variously estimated from 1079 up to 1085. Since a googolplex is one followed by a googol zeroes, it would not be possible to write down or store a googolplex in decimal notation, even if all the matter in the known universe were converted into paper and ink or disk drives.

Thinking of this another way, consider printing the digits of a googolplex in unreadable, 1-point font. TeX 1pt font is .3514598mm per digit, which means it would take about 3.5×1096 meters to write in one point font. The known universe is estimated at 7.4×1026 meters in diameter, which means the distance to write the digits would be about 4.7×1069 times the diameter of the known universe. The time it would take to write such a number also renders the task implausible: if a person can write two digits per second, it would take around 1.1×1082 times several billion years to write down a googolplex.

That's interesting. If all the combinations had to be run through first identical humans would be physically impossible. As it stands it's possible but extremely unlikely.

Bottle: I don't know. As far as names go, the actual fair and balanced sites aren't that different. Consider FAIR and CounterSpin - from the names alone you couldn't be sure they don't sit on the same side as JustFacts.

But perhaps our names are just a bit more high-brow, using more than monosyllabic words. Different audience. :P

"* I.Q. test results are affected by environmental factors. On average, Orientals and Jews score higher on I.Q. tests than Europeans, and whites score higher than blacks. On an intelligence test done by the U.S. Army, blacks from Ohio had a median score of 49.50 and whites from Mississippi had a median score of 41.25. (7)"

I was told by a friend who is living in Japan that it's rude and racist to call Asian people "orientals".

I was told by a friend who is living in Japan that it's rude and racist to call Asian people "orientals".
In high school none my east asian friends minded the term. Several used it to describe themselves.

One of my friends from India would regularly get pissed at people who, when referring to "asians" would really mean "east asians" as though they were the only people on the continent.

In high school none my east asian friends minded the term. Several used it to describe themselves.

One of my friends from India would regularly get pissed at people who, when referring to "asians" would really mean "east asians" as though they were the only people on the continent.

I was told that oriental was used to describe things, like rugs, but not ever people.

I use the term Asian if I can't figure out conclusively what country the person might be from, if I can I use the proper indication (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc.)

Also, reading on Just Facts, one of the "facts" is that "some people say that..." yeah, that's not a fact.....or not in the way they are presenting it.

some people say the sky is purple.

^not stating facts

I was told by a friend who is living in Japan that it's rude and racist to call Asian people "orientals".

It's because of the phenomenal amount of ethnic animosity that continues to pervade East Asia, under no circumstances would a Han Chinese guy want to be classified with a Japanese guy. Regardless, it's a useful tool. After all, here on this side of the world we refer to ourselves as "westerners" regardless of where we're from in the "west". We just stopped using the term "Occidentals" to describe ourselves a while ago.

I was told by a friend who is living in Japan that it's rude and racist to call Asian people "orientals".

Of the people I know who are Asian, and the smaller number of them that this topic has come up in discussion with, none of them really had a feeling towards the word one way or the other. Generally, and I agree, it's just an odd word to use. It's kind of archaic to refer to Asia as The Orient or things as Oriental rather than Asian. I think it's still used in academia when in reference specifically to East Asia (Oriental Culture, Geography of the Orient, etc.) and not the Indian sub-continent.

On an intelligence test done by the U.S. Army, blacks from Ohio had a median score of 49.50 and whites from Mississippi had a median score of 41.25. (7)"

Given that the median score for IQ in the general population is meant to be 100 is this saying that Forrest Gump is pretty much the norm for US army recruits?

"* I.Q. test results are affected by environmental factors. On average, Orientals and Jews score higher on I.Q. tests than Europeans, and whites score higher than blacks. On an intelligence test done by the U.S. Army, blacks from Ohio had a median score of 49.50 and whites from Mississippi had a median score of 41.25. (7)"



Whahaha! So Ohio & Mississippi blacks are moderate mental retards....

And according Bottle, Koko the gorilla is reaching 90 point on an IQ Test. :)

And orientals & Jews are smarter as whites.

Interesting 'cause Jews are not even a race... :)

I posted already enough about this subject and I would even add:

The score of an IQ Test is only showing how good you are in developing an IQ Test.

Given that the median score for IQ in the general population is meant to be 100 is this saying that Forrest Gump is pretty much the norm for US army recruits?

I don't think the Army uses the same type of IQ tests people are accustomed to. ~40-50 is the median range on it, isn't it? Maybe someone whose actually taken the test can weigh in here, I'm just speaking from poorly recollected hearsay.

I just reviewed JustFacts' page on abortion, and I conclude that it is not an unbiased listing of facts at all.

What it is, is a highly biased paper laying out in detail several of the most popular anti-choice talking points -- above all, the claim that abortion is part of some kind of conspiracy to reduce the human population by fooling or coercing women into aborting their pregnancies. It makes the usual unsupported allegations against specific people and organizations (most notably Planned Parenthood, the anti-choice faction's favorite target). I have heard this argument, in its entirety, many times before, from sources that make no attempt to hide their bias (groups such as Operation Rescue).

JustFacts shows other clear signs of bias as well. For instance, after a long and confusing "explanation" of the language of the abortion debate and how it wants to avoid the appearance of bias, it settles on referring to embryos and fetuses and "preborn humans" -- one of the most popular inflammatory phrases of anti-choice activists/speakers.

Another sign of its bias is the great number of facts JustFacts fails to list, such as the fact that every one of its claims about population, the work of Planned Parenthood, and the status of the various laws it mentions, have been and are in dispute -- in court cases and by the individuals in involved via the media. The fact that JustFacts fails to give equal time to these disputes is strong evidence that it is espousing a viewpoint, not listing "just facts."

I have not yet looked at the other subjects at JustFacts.com -- and by the way, I find it interesting that the subjects they cover so neatly coincide with the standard right wing political platform -- but if the abortion page is anything to judge by, I would say JustFacts is just another wolf in sheep's clothing -- a biased group pretending to be neutral in an attempt to pass of their opinions as facts.

Here, check out the About Us page:

http://www.justfacts.com/aboutus.asp

Reading this told me that JustFacts.com is a one-man operation, run by a guy who, arguably, knows how to write a paper but is in no way an expert on any of the listed subjects.

If you want to know what his slant is, he states it clearly: conservative/libertarian.

In addition, the section on his "Standards of Credibility" tells us a lot about his writing style and a lot about the information he chooses to leave out of his entries, but it tells us nothing at all about how he decides whether the sources he uses are credible or not. Not much of a standard, if you ask me.

I'll pass on JustFacts.com, thank you. It strikes me as just another internet vanity project.

snip

That being said, would it be fair to cite some of the (somewhat outdated) "facts"/facts that are listed in arguments on NSG?

That being said, would it be fair to cite some of the (somewhat outdated) "facts"/facts that are listed in arguments on NSG?
No, for the following reasons:

A) You yourself point out those "facts" may be outdated. If the accuracy of the source cannot be relied on, what point is there in citing it?

B) Opinion is not fact. JustFacts, despite its name, is clearly an opinion site. It lists the opinions of just one man, who acknowledges that he is not an expert on the subjects about which he gives his opinions. Therefore, his opinions are not likely to add weight to your arguments.

C) If he cites a fact that you want to use, you should not quote him as saying it. You should track that fact down to the original source it came from, judge the validity of that source, and cite the fact with a link to that source. JustFacts is not a source -- it is a middleman, and a biased one at that.

D) If you hold the same opinions as him, and if his version of your argument says everything you want to say better or as well as you could have said it, you might be lazy and quote his version of your argument. But you must still be prepared to support his/your claims by presenting reliable links to evidence in support of asserted facts. Merely quoting him again will not be enough. It would amount to a "well, according to this guy" argument, which I do not think will fare very well around here.

this kind of complements the race section if anyone's interested

http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=1999&x=blackwhite

http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2002&x=arabviews

Good data.

Too selective in their data. Look up gun control. Look at how they only mention things that do not favour gun control.

They only mention states with gun control if these have problems with it.

They only mention states without if these have no problems with it.

Muravyets, can you cite and link or quote to specific facts that are actually false?

Given that the median score for IQ in the general population is meant to be 100 is this saying that Forrest Gump is pretty much the norm for US army recruits?

First, answering the question: It's saying that the army wasn't using an IQ test.

Explanation: Well, firstly 100 is the mean, not the median. This difference is why whenever someone says "half of the population are dumber than average", they are revealing that they suck at maths.

Secondly, the curve is normalized so the standard deviation is 15. This means a person with a score of 70 is two standard deviations (two sigma) below the average. If you assume a normal distribution, this means 2.28% of all people are below 70, and 0.13% are below 55.

I hope this demonstrates that, whatever else may be said, the average IQ of army recruits is not 50. You'd have to go to the White House to see that kind of statistic.

In high school none my east asian friends minded the term. Several used it to describe themselves.

One of my friends from India would regularly get pissed at people who, when referring to "asians" would really mean "east asians" as though they were the only people on the continent.

My brother (white guy born in England) made friends with several east Asian kids in highschool in New York. He was hanging out with them one afternoon at a meeting of the "Asian Club" and asked, "there aren't any Indian kids in this club, right? There aren't any Eastern Russian kids in it? So you're not really an Asian Club, right?" Then one of them made a motion to rename the club "The Oriental Club." The motion carried, the club was renamed.

My brother (white guy born in England) made friends with several east Asian kids in highschool in New York. He was hanging out with them one afternoon at a meeting of the "Asian Club" and asked, "there aren't any Indian kids in this club, right? There aren't any Eastern Russian kids in it? So you're not really an Asian Club, right?" Then one of them made a motion to rename the club "The Oriental Club." The motion carried, the club was renamed.


Depending upon the usage of 'Oriental' that means either that they are still an Asian club, or they are a club for only those Asians south of China, east of India, and on the mainland.

Muravyets, can you cite and link or quote to specific facts that are actually false?

Did I say their facts were false? Did I accuse JustFacts of fabricating lies?

No, what I said was that their argument is biased, and that they obviously left out a great deal of factual information.

I suppose you might say I am accusing JustFacts of lying by omission, but I assume you do not want me to post every single thing they did not post, because that would take a very, very long time and make for one hell of a long post here, wouldn't it?

EDIT: And if you are thinking that, if they say things that are factually true, then they can be quoted as a source of facts, I point you back to my earlier post: Opinion is not fact. If you want to cite facts in support of your opinion, you should not take them from someone else's opinion. You should get them direct from their real source, whatever that may be. Otherwise, you are just using an opinion to bolster an opinion.