You're talking yout of your ass. In preparation for vietnam, the US armed forces studied lethality of intent for small arms fire. Vietnam was the dataset, which has since been further validated. The cited text was written by a professor at west point, he's not full of shit.
Data (roughly) for effectivenes / lethal intent:
Population (normal): 5%
Soldier (WWII era): 20%
Soldier (Current Era): 95%
These are anectdotally referenced in the linked article, but they are discussed in that article's main citation, which is here:
[Amazon.com] Lt. Col. Dave Grossman draws unsettling, even sinister parallels between the psychological conditioning required to make soldiers kill in war and the similar effect that videos, films, games and movies have in civilian society.
This book is/was a textbook used in the armed forces, it is a summary of working papers etc. It is not some BS handwavey claptrap from academia. What you will notice from reading it is it is actually very difficult to get people to Kill one another.
That is why the data on effectiveness are so damning.
> In preparation for vietnam, the US armed forces studied lethality of intent for small arms fire.
Yes, they did, But it was not a scientific study -- no control group. No basis for comparing results. No basis for falsification. As a result, they "discovered" exactly what they expected to discover.
The entire Vietnam episode was based on the opinions of experts, not scientific study. And I am hardly the only one to make this observation.
> This book is/was a textbook used in the armed forces, it is a summary of working papers etc.
Yes, and it is not science. I now realize I'm talking to someone who doesn't understand what makes science science. And that is ... drum roll ... falsifiable theoretical claims, claims that someone could in principle conclusively falsify in practical tests. There are none in the book you cite -- it's a sequence of anecdotes and philosophical speculations.
> It is not some BS handwavey claptrap from academia.
I agree with the "from academia" part -- but it is certainly contentless philosophical speculation rather than science. There are no testable, falsifiable claims between its covers.
Strawman. Sorry. Your understanding of human behaviour is facile. The purpose of orthoganal explanation is to avoid this. There is not stronger form of argument, please don't pretend to lecture.
On the data, you're argument is from Ignorace. The author of that book is one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on that subject. Like it or not, your opinion has not been substantiated by any form of counter argument.
I don't need "objective" argument when I have intersubjective authority. You're argument about "science" is laughable in its in-applicability and ultimate irrelevance.
Which is obvious as well from your trivial citation of correlation/causation.
You don't understand how to create an argument and verify it using empirical data. The practicum on this is evidenced by the techniques of Special Forces operatives and all kinds of actual professional killers. These people don't have the inclination, the incentive, or the bandwidth to develop techniques which are failures.
The fact that you think Academics hold a superior position to actual killers on the subject points to the double weakness in your argument: (1) Academics have no actual experience; and (2) academics have all kinds of conflicted incentives to lie, the least of which is there pre-held political beliefes and naive understanding of actual human nature.
Try again. Or actually, don't. Actually, just read that book. The link to this discussion was not the motivation or the functional purpose of that series of working papers. The latter just became obvious and self/evident later (much of the background material, for example pre-dates the mid-1980s).[1]
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[1] Edit: As an aside, where do you think Andres Breivek got his idea to prepare for the massacre on Utoya? You should do some research on that as well. Both before and after there is relavent data on the record about it. The data there are also in distinct contradiction to your "argument" here.
You need to look up the term "straw man." My mentioning that the source you quote is not science is not a straw man, because that's the topic under discussion.
> Your understanding of human behaviour is facile.
Straw man. The topic of discussion is not human behavior, but whether or not psychology is a science. Or have you forgotten?
> There is not stronger form of argument, please don't pretend to lecture.
To someone who doesn't understand science, but who presumes to pontificate on the topic? One who thinks a philosophy textbook is science?
> The fact that you think Academics hold a superior position to actual killers
What the fuck are you taking about? You locate where I ever said or implied this, anywhere, and do it now. I happen to hold the opposite view, but very clearly, evidence is not a matter of concern to you.
> The author of that book is one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet on that subject.
And Hemingway is an authority on bullfighting -- but that doesn't make his books scientific.
Honest to God. I give up -- your ignorance is too profound.
By your definition, Vietnam was a scientific experiment? This speaks volumes about how you picture science. The plural of anecdote is not evidence.