Prelude to Post of Dr. William G. McCown Q&A

Everyone is religious. Since no one knows the truth behind the creation of the universe then any belief is based on faith ... which is no different than the typical religious institutions.

I don't see how studies could not have found a correlation to something that everyone has.

Not everyone believes in an all powerful, all knowing God who impacts our daily lives. Not all religions are the same. Not all branches of all religions are the same. My suggestion (apparently confirmed by both Snidely and the literature) is that different religious belief sets may be an indicator or a contributor to gambling bias.

If your core belief is that everything in this universe has been predetermined since the 'creation' there is no randomness....what was meant to be, is. God's Plan becomes a more important factor in Gambling than Pay Tables or Perfect play. Again, I'm not claiming this is a primary cause of problem gambling...just that those of different faiths, or branches of faiths, or lack of faith may have different predispositions to the bias.

Though this post seems to be making a counter argument against what I've read in books on problems gambling, the points you are making are on topic and very relevant to the discussion Alaneroy started.

Scientists aren't immune to distortion anymore than their subjects are. As I see it the only difference between the two groups is the scientists are aware of experimental bias and distortion. They keep an eye out for it and use techniques such as "the scientific method" to reduce our inherent human weaknesses.

One can only hope that large scale studies, done by multiple cross-discipline scientists, with peer review and replication of results by others, would be more likely to be correct than what individuals simply "think".

One measure of a scientific theory is its ability to make predictions. Since incorporating the information from those studies in problem gambling, referenced in the books I read, gambling addiction treatment has seen a ten fold increase in success rate according to Dr. McCown. Wrong or right, it's working.

I'll post the entire interview on March 1st. ~FK

P.S. And thanks for bringing up a good point even if it was somewhat contradictory. I'm going to bail out on this thread because of the sensitivity of the religious aspect of the conversation. I didn't want anyone to think I was leaving the thread for any other reason.

P.P.S. I know most of you don't have gambling problems and probably never will, but lets try to be sensitive to all the people out there that might when I post the interview in a week.

The difference between praying in a house of worship, and praying in a casino, is that in a casino, you really really mean it. ~unknown

DonDiego is known locally as "Mr. Sensitivity".

I'd like to say one more thing before I take a week long break from posting. The reason I complimented Aleneroy was not because he followed instructions in this thread. The primary reason was because he offered good contradicting view points in the last thread and even pointed out where I had made a legitimate mistake in gathering my data. I'm always appreciative to people that give me actionable new information.

We have very little to learn from people that think exactly as we do. I do not require people to agree with me and never have. I don't even have a problem admitting when I'm wrong. I probably said it best when I said,

The inability to believe one can ever be wrong is oddly the best way to assure one is almost never right. I learned that lesson a long time ago and I always try to be right, but I achieve it by never being sure I am. ~FK

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors seem to be "working," too. But they didn't work so well on Eric Harris.

"Nowadays"? DD remembers a time before homosexuality?

How the hell old are you?

It was the webpage How to Become a Teacher's Pet, which DonDiego referenced, that explicitly addressed the issue of flirting with one's teacher "of the opposite sex", not DonDiego. Apparently the website is behind the times. DonDiego was just trying to be more inclusive for the benefit of those who practice gender roles other than or in addition to those typical of heterosexuals, like f'rinstance alanleroy.

The issue is not whether there was "a time before homosexuality". It's that before "nowadays" society was less inclusive of those engaging in it.

The term "homosexuality" did not appear in American dictionaries until the 1909 edition of Merriam Webster's New International Dictionary. It was deemed a medical term meaning "morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex." "Heterosexuality" was not defined until the 1923 edition. And it was also deemed a medical term meaning ""morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex." Apparently nothing back then was normal.

But by 1934 things had changed. Websters edition of 1934 defined "homosexuality" as "eroticism for one of the same sex.", . . . and "heterosexuality" as "manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality."

And that's the way things were until, . . . nowadays. So in the United States at least nowadays arose sometime between 1934 and 2012. DonDiego was born within this interval. Nowadays probably arrived earlier in, f'rinstance Berlin and Paris.

Oh, and alanleroy and snidely333 are creeping poor old DonDiego out.

alanleroy only practices gender roles typical of heterosexuals...but he has been warned to avoid goofballs, like f'rinstance DonDiego.

As in Kahneman's epiphany, DonDiego has “grossly misinterpreted information and come to not only wrong conclusions, but answers that are diametrically opposed to reality". I'm wondering if DD would be open to some experimental, modified Kahneman/Tversky cognitive behavioral therapy to see if we can better understand the root cause of his condition.