Central, Hong Kong Island. From Discovery Bay

Far left: ICC Centre, 108 floors. IFC Two Tower. The Peak 

“Cherry picking” is not Cherry picking…

Me to Grok:

Cherry Picking. I want to argue that this phrase is simply ad hominem. When you don’t have a counter argument you charge your interlocutor with “cherry picking”. 

BUT — and here’s the thing — EVERYTHING is cherry picking. 

Whatever facts or argument you quote are necessarily going to be a selection from the whole. You don’t sit there reading aloud a whole series of stats or a whole academic paper. You quote a BIT of it. You cherry pick. Editors do it every minute of every day to put out newspapers. These are the very definition of Cherry Picking.

Please help me make my argument. Sharpen it. Give it guts. Do it in as short a from as you can.

Grok to me:

The charge of “cherry picking” is usually ad hominem.

It is the move you make when you have no answer to the evidence presented. Instead of engaging the facts, you attack the person for having selected them.

But selection is not optional. It is the precondition of all argument. You cannot quote an entire paper, recite every statistic, or narrate the full historical record. Every claim, every article, every editorial, and every conversation is a curated slice. 

Newspapers are machines for systematic cherry-picking. So are academic papers, court arguments, and political speeches. The question is never whether selection occurred. The question is whether the selection misleads.

When someone replies “cherry picking” without showing that the omitted material actually reverses the conclusion or outweighs what was presented, they have not made a methodological point. They have made a personal one: you chose badly because you are arguing against me. That is textbook ad hominem — attacking the arguer’s character or motives rather than the argument’s substance.

Real cherry-picking exists. It is the deliberate suppression of known contradictory evidence. The casual accusation, however, almost never demonstrates this. It simply registers discomfort that the other side found data that hurts their position. 

In practice, “cherry picking” has become a thought-terminating cliché used to avoid having to do the harder work of rebuttal.

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk_f4d5ea02-d704-4bda-94fc-d094114a47a3

The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival. Yay!

Stanley Beach, south Hong Kong Island

Happy days for the normal folk: a holiday, a 3-day weekend. 

Good exercise too! Fun for the littlies...

Our version, here in Discovery Bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong:

Tai Pak Beach, Discovery Bay

The Forsythe Family of County Antrim, Northern Ireland

Grandfather's Birth Cert, from Ballymena, in 2018.
No. 113 is "Andrew Forsythe", paternal grandfather,
born in Northern Ireland in 1876. 

The "Forsythes" with an "e" are the ones that live in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Without the "e" it's the Scottish Forsyth's.

The Forsythes with an "e" likely were forced out of Scotland or were "encouraged" out of Scotland and to Northern Ireland in the 17th or 18th Centuries. State-sponsored colonization, known as the Plantation of Ulster. 

I may look further. Or maybe not. 

Should we Forsythes with an "e" be allowed a Right of Return? To Ballymena in Northern Ireland? Or to Scotland? 

For the Record. A summary of a longer convo. From Google's Gemini AI: 

Family History Research Report: The Forsythe Family of County Antrim

1. Decoded Birth Registry Details (11 February 1876)

• Child's Full Name: Andrew Forsythe
• Date of Birth: 11 February 1876
• Place of Birth: Tullybane (Tullynewy), Civil Parish of Dunaghy, County Antrim, Ireland
• Father's Name: Thomas Forsythe
• Father's Profession: Farmer
• Mother's Name: Bessie Forsythe (formerly Stewart)
• Registration District: Clough (within the Superintendent Registrar's District of Ballymena)
• Informant: Matilda McCormack (Present at birth; signed with her mark +, indicating she was illiterate; likely a midwife, aunt, or grandmother living in Tullybane)
• Date Registered: 29 February 1876
• Registrar: John Wiley

2. Historic & Cultural Insights

• The "E" Ending: The spelling of Forsythe with an "e" heavily signifies the family’s transition into Northern Ireland and distinguishes this branch from the traditional Scottish Forsyth.
• Ancestral Ties: Both parental surnames (Forsythe and Stewart) are classic Lowland Scottish names, confirming a deeply rooted Ulster-Scots Presbyterian heritage.
• The Local Economy: Being a farmer in Dunaghy parish during the late 19th century meant dealing with the fallout of the Irish Land War. Andrew likely chose to migrate to Australia due to agricultural hardships, lack of land ownership opportunities for younger sons, or targeted recruitment by Australian colonies looking for experienced farmers.

3. Strategic Next Steps for Records Research

Step A: Uncover Andrew's Grandfathers (The Marriage Certificate)

To extend your tree back another generation, you need to find the marriage record of Thomas Forsythe and Bessie Stewart. This will explicitly name the grandfathers of Andrew.

• Where to Search: IrishGenealogy.ie (Free, official historic civil records site).
• Search Strategy: Search "Civil Marriages" using Thomas Forsythe and Bessie Stewart (or Elizabeth Stewart) in the Ballymena district. Narrow the timeline from 1864 to 1875.
• What to look for: The certificate will list the names and occupations of both fathers (Andrew's grandfathers) and the exact Presbyterian church where they wed.

Step B: Pinpoint the Exact Family Farm Plots

Because the family remained in the same parish for generations, you can find exactly which fields Andrew grew up on.

• Where to Search: AskAboutIreland.ie - Griffith’s Valuation (Free land records mapped between 1847 and 1864).
• Search Strategy: Look for Thomas Forsythe (or an older relative like a William or John Forsythe) in County Antrim, parish of Dunaghy, townland of Tullynewy or Tullybane.
• What to look for: Note the plot number. Use the website’s map overlay slider to look at the 19th-century plot borders directly over modern satellite Google Maps.

Step C: Track the Farm Succession

To see who inherited the family farm after Andrew left for Australia, bridge the timeline gap using the land revision tax records.

• Where to Search: PRONI Valuation Revision Books (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland).
• Search Strategy: Search their digital land books for Dunaghy Parish covering 1864 to 1910.
• What to look for: Look for the Forsythe farm plot. You will physically see names crossed out in colored inks when a relative passed away and a new family member took over the tenancy.

Step D: Discover Andrew's Australian Arrival

To close the loop on his migration story around the turn of the century, look for his ship logs.

• Where to Search: The State Archives of his arrival destination (e.g., NSW State Archives for Sydney or Public Record Office Victoria for Melbourne).
• Search Strategy: Look for "Andrew Forsythe" (or Forsyth) in passenger arrival indexes between 1895 and 1905.
• What to look for: Look for listings noted as an "assisted immigrant" or "agricultural laborer," which confirms he was recruited to farm Australian soil.

To keep tracking Andrew's path down under, let me know if you know which Australian state he first lived in or if he married in Australia.