> I don't intend to spend my day providing citations
If it takes a day, then I assume the evidence isn't at hand, in which case how do you know it exists?
Do you have first-hand experience of this evidence, or are you just assured it exists by sources you consider "reasonable".
you are also a "random guy on the internet" and since you made the claim, the burden is on you. Some hand-waving "reasonable dispute" doesn't cut it - if it's so obvious, accepted and supported, it should be as easy to demonstrate.
I'd also add you comments about historical racism lack context - i.e timelines, impact, magnitude etc all of which would feed into the main question; Are the UK police racist today? Muddying the waters with vague or unsupported claims doesn't help answer this question, especially given that there are lots of efforts to answer it, and reasonable sources of information in existence.
You misunderstand. hueving didn't ask me for a citation for this point, he asked me to provide citations in general. I don't intend to spend MY day (not "a" day) providing citations for every statement I make in general. If people ask for a specific citation fair enough; that's not what happened here.
> Do you have first-hand experience of this evidence, or are you just assured it exists by sources you consider "reasonable".
I worked with the people who ran various RCTs for the police, and listened to them present their findings which were then implemented as policy. So no, not first-hand, no, but good enough for me.
A reasonable standard to maintain IMHO, especially for topics that are "such loaded". Then maybe we disagree on how controversial the claim is? I don't think "the UK police has had problems with racism" is controversial (well, maybe the magnitude is, especially compared to the US), but whether this still applies generally today I think is controversial.
Attempts at improving the police has gone on for quite q while, so I wouldn't assume the question "Have they been successful; Are the police different now?".
> A reasonable standard to maintain IMHO, especially for topics that are "such loaded".
Loaded perhaps. Disputed? Not with significant credibility in my opinion.
> but whether this still applies generally today I think is controversial.
I've used the past tense throughout, and even a footnote in my comment on that exact point. Nor have I referred to racism, only to institutional racism which is a very different thing.
A lot could have happened in the 7 years since the Macpherson report, but it's not "controversial" to expect evidence of change before assuming that all the problems have disappeared and everything is now completely fine.
> Are these findings public?
Yes. The one I mentioned was published last year. I don't want to post links relating to clients on here so will leave the googling to you if you're bothered.
If you believe anyone who disputed the claim would find it hard to find a credible source, fair enough, lay down that challenge. The question here is can you find a credible source for the claim yourself first?
Even if there where absolutely no credible sources of dispute, the burden would still exist; Or at least, you need enough evidence to dispute.
> I've used the past tense throughout
Maybe I misread the thread;
headmelted: "I'm a little surprised that in the article, and in the comments here, there's such a presumption of guilt on the part of the police."
you (responding to this line): "There's a long catalogue of evidence that the police have been insitutionally racist (and other issues)."
I interpreted "There's a long catalogue" as meaning a presumption of guilt was justified because of past issues.
> A lot could have happened
between "assuming that all the problems have disappeared" and "assuming nothing has changed" is "we don't know". You don't have to assume anything, but when you do (and make a claim) it's then you have a burden to justify it.
Then only use so much evidence as to support your claim.
Evidence of you claim is only evidence of your claim after it is verified, at which point the work has been done. before then it's potential evidence. You don't know what evidence you have until you investigate it, so again, suggesting that there's a lot is just speculation.
If the claim requires a great level detail, then it's your fault for making an overly broad claim without evidence; again, if the work has yet to be done, you can't be sure what the picture will look like - you can only assume that you are able to prove a "wonderfully detailed picture" of whatever you claim; This is a faith-based argument; you have faith in you ability to demonstrate, and in the apparent quality of evidence, before actually having done it.
A google search isn't research for many reasons (e.g. the bias in focus of a search engine, which is a tool for finding specific information, not building a representative/comprehensive summary of information on the internet; The 'mememtic survival bias' and/or 'publish bias' of what kind of information is most commonly found on the internet etc etc etc).
One relevant reason is just because a url is returned, doesn't mean it's a relevant source (and multiple urls may all have the same underlying source/s); checking those sources would be the job of whoever made the claim. Until this is done you only have a blob of data, not a verified list of sources.
If this hasn't been done, then you don't know, and are just pushing the burden of investigation on me - I'd assume if I find any invalid source among that google search, you'd just tell me to keep looking until I found a valid one? Why do I have to spend my time to support your claim? I should be send on a wild goose chase to find something that you claim to exist...
> I don't intend to spend my day providing citations
If it takes a day, then I assume the evidence isn't at hand, in which case how do you know it exists?
Do you have first-hand experience of this evidence, or are you just assured it exists by sources you consider "reasonable".
you are also a "random guy on the internet" and since you made the claim, the burden is on you. Some hand-waving "reasonable dispute" doesn't cut it - if it's so obvious, accepted and supported, it should be as easy to demonstrate.
I'd also add you comments about historical racism lack context - i.e timelines, impact, magnitude etc all of which would feed into the main question; Are the UK police racist today? Muddying the waters with vague or unsupported claims doesn't help answer this question, especially given that there are lots of efforts to answer it, and reasonable sources of information in existence.