Poll: Think you think straight? Think again...

[jamesworkshop]

40%

Questions 16 and 21: What should be legal?

70881 of the 173496 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficacy and safety
And also that:
Alternative and complementary medicine is as valuable as mainstream medicine

But most alternative and complementary medicines have not been tested in trials as rigorously as 'conventional' medicine. For example, the popular herbal anti-depressant, St John's Wort, has recently been found to cause complications when taken alongside any of five other common medicines. This has only come to light because of extensive testing. Yet the product is freely available without medical advice. The question that needs answering here is, why do you believe alternative medicines and treatments need not be as extensively tested as conventional ones? The fact that they use natural ingredients is not in itself good reason, as there are plenty of naturally occurring toxins. Even if one argues that their long history shows them to be safe, that is not the same as showing them to be effective. This is not to criticise alternative therapies, but to question the different standards which are used to judge them compared to mainstream medicines.

Really I'm supposed to know the specifics of medicine and what is and is not tested

Anyone can put piss in a jar and call it an alternative medicine... Does this mean it's as valuable as a scientifically verified cough mixture?

Swap the piss for cyanide. Now do you think government should let people sell their magic jar as untested alternative medicine?

sorry I don't know what you are on about you have simply given another example similar to the example given above, you haven't added anything

Answer the two questions I have posed to you considering the examples given...

It should be No to the first and No to the second...

But in the test you agreed that an alternative medicine is as good as a mainstream medicine, yet you also agreed that the government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficency and safety.

if you are saying that any alternative medicine (including untested and potentially harmful medicines) are as valuable as mainstream medicines, you are contradicting yourself because you think all medicines should be tested for safety before being permitted for sale... You dig?

I wasn't questioning the Tension only the reasoning that I must be of the knowledge of what is and what is not subjected to scientific tests a herbal remedy is deffined by it's ingredients not which (if any) form of regulation of which would be dependant on geographical location of any person questioned.

It's like when questions ask iof you think gay marriage should be made legal even if you live somewhere where it is already legal

 

[tibieryo]

That's not true.
The statement was: Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists.
And I agree, because that is my personal opinion.
If someone disagrees with me, I would not think they are 'wrong'.
Similar to how I think coffee tastes good, hence coffee tastes good.
That doesn't mean I think someone who doesn't like coffee is wrong.
They just don't like coffee.

Ah, but there's the rub--if no one but you thought he was one of history's finest artists, would he still be one of history's finest artists? It is a bunch of semantic horsecrap, but where it got you was in saying "finest", which is meant to be a subjective thing, instead of "most famous" or "most renowned". I would agree that he's one of history's most famous artists, but not one of the greatest--not because I don't like his work, but because I can take it or leave it and the popular taste may change at any given moment in time.

Which is a lot of thinking on my part just to say whether or not I agree with that statement.

I don't mean you're wrong--I agree with you that subjective assessments like quality of art and taste of coffee lie with the subject. I just wanted to clarify where the test was coming from. Or, where I think it's coming from, I wouldn't know, I didn't write it.

 

[joshuaayt]

7%. I get where I screwed up, but I can live with minor hypocrisy- it's hard not to.

That said, I simply neglected to answer the question about Michaelangelo- I already said that it was subjective, it seemed weird to then state that he was either the best or not the best.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I'm just reading through all of these responses now, just after having taken the test. I got 0% contradictions, but especially struggled on the Michaelangelo tip. Eventually, I came down on "I think he is what he is and other people disagree, so, disagree." Which apparently jived perfectly with saying there were objective truths in the arts.

Funny, that.

In any case, I just wanted to say that it was kind of amusing to see the people who got 27% and upwards dismiss the test as BS, but all the people who got 0% acting smug and superior. Especially after the test itself said anybody with some contradictions held in their beliefs must be doing some mental gymnastics. Come back here and a guy is saying "Well, the test said there are contradictions in my beliefs and I don't think there are, so the test is wrong."

Of course, by mentioning that, I'm being a smug 0% bastard with utter faith in the test.

Funny, that.

I can't be so smug as one of those 0% jackasses P) But I did manage 7%

 

[Aethren]

90%

I win.

 

[conflictofinterests]

40%

Questions 16 and 21: What should be legal?

70881 of the 173496 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
The government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficacy and safety
And also that:
Alternative and complementary medicine is as valuable as mainstream medicine

But most alternative and complementary medicines have not been tested in trials as rigorously as 'conventional' medicine. For example, the popular herbal anti-depressant, St John's Wort, has recently been found to cause complications when taken alongside any of five other common medicines. This has only come to light because of extensive testing. Yet the product is freely available without medical advice. The question that needs answering here is, why do you believe alternative medicines and treatments need not be as extensively tested as conventional ones? The fact that they use natural ingredients is not in itself good reason, as there are plenty of naturally occurring toxins. Even if one argues that their long history shows them to be safe, that is not the same as showing them to be effective. This is not to criticise alternative therapies, but to question the different standards which are used to judge them compared to mainstream medicines.

Really I'm supposed to know the specifics of medicine and what is and is not tested

Anyone can put piss in a jar and call it an alternative medicine... Does this mean it's as valuable as a scientifically verified cough mixture?

Swap the piss for cyanide. Now do you think government should let people sell their magic jar as untested alternative medicine?

sorry I don't know what you are on about you have simply given another example similar to the example given above, you haven't added anything

Answer the two questions I have posed to you considering the examples given...

It should be No to the first and No to the second...

But in the test you agreed that an alternative medicine is as good as a mainstream medicine, yet you also agreed that the government should not permit the sale of treatments which have not been tested for efficency and safety.

if you are saying that any alternative medicine (including untested and potentially harmful medicines) are as valuable as mainstream medicines, you are contradicting yourself because you think all medicines should be tested for safety before being permitted for sale... You dig?

I wasn't questioning the Tension only the reasoning that I must be of the knowledge of what is and what is not subjected to scientific tests a herbal remedy is deffined by it's ingredients not which (if any) form of regulation of which would be dependant on geographical location of any person questioned.

It's like when questions ask iof you think gay marriage should be made legal even if you live somewhere where it is already legal

I don't think these are the same things at all. The semantics may be a bit screwy, but for the most part "alternative" vs. "mainstream" means "popular but untested" versus "widely tested and trusted by most doctors"

 

[conflictofinterests]

13%

Not that I can trust any score, for this reason:

Those statements are designed to come into conflict with each other. My apologies for not making the questions a little clearer.

Seriously, you don't get honest results by intentionally making things vague and easily interpreted the wrong way. It only results in people meaning to express their belief one way and the test interpreting their answer another way and telling them how they disagree with themselves.

It's not like you can't take the test again with full knowledge of the implications of each answer.

 

[Denamic]

Ah, but there's the rub--if no one but you thought he was one of history's finest artists, would he still be one of history's finest artists?

Well, yes.
That's my point.
It's perspective.
One man's art is just shit on a canvas for someone else.

 

[Firetaffer]

23. To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

My answer was that that I disagree, to allow ANYONE to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is what I was thinking. However I have reasons to believe this was not the intention of what the creator placed the question for. I need someone to confirm this however, that it won't 'skew' the results.

 

[Quaidis]

33%. I can't tell if that's medium or almost medium. So I chose Medium.

I remember taking a test similar to this in a hospital clinic once. Except it was 300+ such questions. In the end they told me I was paranoid and anxious, also that I had PTSD.

 

[conflictofinterests]

13%

Not that I can trust any score, for this reason:

Those statements are designed to come into conflict with each other. My apologies for not making the questions a little clearer.

Seriously, you don't get honest results by intentionally making things vague and easily interpreted the wrong way. It only results in people meaning to express their belief one way and the test interpreting their answer another way and telling them how they disagree with themselves.

It's not like you can't take the test again with full knowledge of the implications of each answer.

You mean get 0% now that you're considering your own philosophy through someone else's eyes. This whole thing is really just a test of how lucky you are in guessing what someone else means with an ambiguous statement, and a re-take is how well you can suck up to someone else's view of philosophy.

No. It's meant to show you how someone else views your philosophy so you can better evaluate it yourself. Also, it's not so ambiguously worded that you couldn't figure out what it meant if you cared to try. It's meant to be taken as literally and objectively as possible. A lot of what it has to do with is objective truths in general, in morality, and so forth. There are some parts that need clarification, but I dare you to make a clearer quiz.

Anyways, it's from a grekoroman philosophical base, so it pretty much only indicates tensions if you are also from that philosophical arena.

And yeah. Being able to view your own philosophy through someone else's eyes is a valuable tool for figuring out if you like your own belief system or not (something which few people actually explore)

 

[Brainpalm]

I got 20%, but have explanations for all of my contradictions.

 

[Sjakie]

tension score of 7%.
i fracked up with the 2 questions about drugs and alternative healing techniques.

cool site.

 

[conflictofinterests]

23. To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

My answer was that that I disagree, to allow ANYONE to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is what I was thinking. However I have reasons to believe this was not the intention of what the creator placed the question for. I need someone to confirm this however, that it won't 'skew' the results.

You agree with it, but you would extend it to include more people, basically. It's in opposition to the question "is there an all-powerful, loving God," because "if God is omniscient and omnipotent, then whence comes evil?"

 

[Kaymish]

only 7% for me
i got tripped up on this one

Spoiler

Questions 14 and 25: How do we judge art?

79389 of the 173693 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste
And also that:
Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists

The tension here is the result of the fact that you probably don't believe the status of Michaelangelo is seriously in doubt. One can disagree about who is the best artist of all time, but surely Michaelangelo is on the short list. Yet if this is true, how can judgements about works of art be purely matters of taste? If someone unskilled were to claim that they were as good an artist as Michaelangelo, you would probably think that they were wrong, and not just because your tastes differ. You would probably think Michaelangelo's superiority to be not just a matter of personal opinion. The tension here is between a belief that works of art can be judged, in certain respects, by some reasonably objective standards and the belief that, nonetheless, the final arbiter of taste is something subjective. This is not a contradiction, but a tension nonetheless.

mostly because my belief on that subject is one of a balance between the 2 extremes in the test and it came out one way for the first question and the other way for the second
i would rather say that i have no tensors as this one is so minor that it probably doesn't even matter given my overall philosophy of balance

 

[DRobert]

These two beliefs supposedly contradict one another (paraphrased):
"Judge people only by their merits".
"Positive discrimination is desirable in some circumstances".
But they don't contradict!!! Just because I think that a program to, for example, encourage women to participate in the workforce would be a good thing doesn't mean that I judge them as being more deserving than men. It just means that I take the view that, in the circumstances, the social benefit of the program outweighs the fact that it does not consider the merits of the individual.

It is not me saying that I judge this woman or that as being more deserving of the program; it means that I judge the social benefit as being worth ignoring such judgments.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

7%

Does that mean I have a healthy number?

 

[conflictofinterests]

These two beliefs supposedly contradict one another (paraphrased):
"Judge people only by their merits".
"Positive discrimination is desirable in some circumstances".
But they don't contradict!!! Just because I think that a program to, for example, encourage women to participate in the workforce would be a good thing doesn't mean that I judge them as being more deserving than men. It just means that I take the view that, in the circumstances, the social benefit of the program outweighs the fact that it does not consider the merits of the individual.

It is not me saying that I judge this woman or that as being more deserving of the program; it means that I judge the social benefit as being worth ignoring such judgments.

It's basically saying that you judge the woman not only by her merits, but also by the fact that she was discriminated against in the past. It's not a bad thing to add things other than merit to the equation, it's just a different thing than judging solely based on merit.