Sorry. I was merely trying to provide an example, not to snipe. If you want to provide a reformulation of that paragraph that better reflects your views, I’ll change it.
Kaj, I’ve always enjoyed your posts, so I felt bad picking on you and I apologize if I jumped down your throat. It seemed time to say something about this because I’ve been seeing it over and over again in lots of otherwise very rational/reality-based contexts, and your post finally pushed that button.
For reformulating your summary, I’d have to go read the original discussion, but you didn’t link to it.
It’s not that it needs to reflect my views, it’s that I think we need a more… rigorous? systematic?… way of looking at controversies.
Yes, many of them can be dismissed without further discussion—global warming denial, evolution denial, holocaust denial, et freaking cetera—but there are specific reasons we can dismiss them, and I don’t think those reasons apply to 9/11 (not even to the official story—parts of it seem very likely to be true).
Proposed Criteria for Dismissing a Body of Belief
Terminology:
a “claim” is an argument favoring or supporting the body of belief
a “refutation” is a responding argument which shows the claim to be invalid (in a nested structure—responses to refutations are also “claims”, responses to those claims are also “refutations”, etc)
Essential criteria:
the work has been done of examining the claims and refuting them
no claims remain unrefuted
A further cue, sufficient but not necessary:
those promoting the ideology never bring up the refutations of their claims unless forced to do so, even though there is reason to believe they are well aware of those refutations
Any objection to those ground rules? The first set is required so that the uninformed (e.g. those new to the discussion) will have a reference by which to understand why the seemingly-persuasive arguments presented in favor of the given belief system are, in fact, wrong; the final point is a sort of short-cut so we don’t waste time dealing with people who are clearly being dishonest.
I submit that, by these rules, we can safely dismiss (at a minimum) global warming denial, evolution denial, Young Earth theories, Biblical literalism, holocaust denial, HIV denial, and anti-gay rhetoric… but not the 9/11 “truth movement”.
Your criteria sound good in principle. My only problem with them is that determining when a claim has really been refuted isn’t trivial, especially for people who aren’t experts in the relevant domain.
I think it was not wise and maybe even a bit provocative to use an example where you know that differing views exist in this forum and that is a source of heated debates. If you are really concerned about it as opposed to just signaling concern may I suggest to change it yourself in accordance with the point you are trying to make? Don’t put the burden on others.
I must admit that I’m not sure why you think it was unwise to use an example where differing views exist in this forum. That was kinda the point: differing priors lead to differing views.
I’m asking the offended party to provide a better formulation since obviously they know their own side better than I do, and are thus more capable of providing a more neutral formulation.
Others considered their prior for “the government is ready to conduct massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens as a publicity stunt”,
If I understood you correctly you write “the government is ready to conduct massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens as a publicity stunt” as a statement of fact. And this very fact is just one where differing views exist and that has been debated on this forum. So in order to make a point you use as a fact something that is under dispute, hence my comment. It would be possible to make the point you want to make without using any disputed facts or controversial/sensitive topics at all and therefore avoid all the controversy.
Just to put it into numbers, of the 161 comments that this post generated so far 53 where in reply to woozle’s and 12 in reply to my observation on the 9/11 paragraph. This totals 53+1+12+1 == 67 comments or 41%. Almost half the comments are in regards to this issue. So at least numerically I think it is undeniable that unfortunately the discussion has been derailed. Btw, this wasn’t my purpose and I assume neither it was woozle’s, in fact I regret having written anything at all because I think it is futile, and as an aside have been downvoted by 40 points total. Not that I care that much about karma anyway but I have the impression that I have been downvoted mostly as a form of punishment because of my dissenting view than for not arguing according to the site’s rules.
An alternative formulation I’m pulling out of my hat now, and I’m not a good writer:
Or take the debate about the existence of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Some people think that unexplained and otherwise suspicious things in an abandoned house have to mean that ghosts exist. Others considered their prior for “ghosts and supernatural entities exist and are ready to conduct physical operations that scare thousands of people around the world”, judged that to be overwhelmingly unlikely, and thought it far more probable that something else caused the suspicious things.
One drawback of my alternative is that people who actually believe in ghosts might take offense, but AFAIK at least on this site this issue has never been a source of debate.
If I understood you correctly you write “the government is ready to conduct massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens as a publicity stunt” as a statement of fact.
I didn’t write it as a fact, I wrote it as an assumption whose validity is being evaluated.
Here’s an attempt to reword it to make this clearer:
“Others thought that the conspiracy argument required the government to be ready to conduct, as a publicity stunt, massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens. They considered their prior for this hypothetical and judged it overwhelmingly unlikely in comparison to priors such as ‘lots of unlikely-seeming things show up by coincidence once you dig deeply enough’.”
Wording it that way makes it clearer that it is an assumption by the hypothetical characters. Though based on our previous discussions I suspect that it also reflects your assumption and maybe that’s why you failed to clearly distinguish it from the characters’ assumptions in the OP. At least myself and woozle took objection to it. Of course it is also a possibility that we are both reading impaired.
Sorry. I was merely trying to provide an example, not to snipe. If you want to provide a reformulation of that paragraph that better reflects your views, I’ll change it.
Kaj, I’ve always enjoyed your posts, so I felt bad picking on you and I apologize if I jumped down your throat. It seemed time to say something about this because I’ve been seeing it over and over again in lots of otherwise very rational/reality-based contexts, and your post finally pushed that button.
For reformulating your summary, I’d have to go read the original discussion, but you didn’t link to it.
It’s not that it needs to reflect my views, it’s that I think we need a more… rigorous? systematic?… way of looking at controversies.
Yes, many of them can be dismissed without further discussion—global warming denial, evolution denial, holocaust denial, et freaking cetera—but there are specific reasons we can dismiss them, and I don’t think those reasons apply to 9/11 (not even to the official story—parts of it seem very likely to be true).
Proposed Criteria for Dismissing a Body of Belief
Terminology:
a “claim” is an argument favoring or supporting the body of belief
a “refutation” is a responding argument which shows the claim to be invalid (in a nested structure—responses to refutations are also “claims”, responses to those claims are also “refutations”, etc)
Essential criteria:
the work has been done of examining the claims and refuting them
no claims remain unrefuted
A further cue, sufficient but not necessary:
those promoting the ideology never bring up the refutations of their claims unless forced to do so, even though there is reason to believe they are well aware of those refutations
Any objection to those ground rules? The first set is required so that the uninformed (e.g. those new to the discussion) will have a reference by which to understand why the seemingly-persuasive arguments presented in favor of the given belief system are, in fact, wrong; the final point is a sort of short-cut so we don’t waste time dealing with people who are clearly being dishonest.
I submit that, by these rules, we can safely dismiss (at a minimum) global warming denial, evolution denial, Young Earth theories, Biblical literalism, holocaust denial, HIV denial, and anti-gay rhetoric… but not the 9/11 “truth movement”.
Sure, no problem.
The original 9/11 discussion began as a thread in The Correct Contrarian Cluster and was then moved to The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory.
Your criteria sound good in principle. My only problem with them is that determining when a claim has really been refuted isn’t trivial, especially for people who aren’t experts in the relevant domain.
Kaj,
I think it was not wise and maybe even a bit provocative to use an example where you know that differing views exist in this forum and that is a source of heated debates. If you are really concerned about it as opposed to just signaling concern may I suggest to change it yourself in accordance with the point you are trying to make? Don’t put the burden on others.
EDIT: impolite → provocative
I must admit that I’m not sure why you think it was unwise to use an example where differing views exist in this forum. That was kinda the point: differing priors lead to differing views.
I’m asking the offended party to provide a better formulation since obviously they know their own side better than I do, and are thus more capable of providing a more neutral formulation.
If I understood you correctly you write “the government is ready to conduct massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens as a publicity stunt” as a statement of fact. And this very fact is just one where differing views exist and that has been debated on this forum. So in order to make a point you use as a fact something that is under dispute, hence my comment. It would be possible to make the point you want to make without using any disputed facts or controversial/sensitive topics at all and therefore avoid all the controversy.
Just to put it into numbers, of the 161 comments that this post generated so far 53 where in reply to woozle’s and 12 in reply to my observation on the 9/11 paragraph. This totals 53+1+12+1 == 67 comments or 41%. Almost half the comments are in regards to this issue. So at least numerically I think it is undeniable that unfortunately the discussion has been derailed. Btw, this wasn’t my purpose and I assume neither it was woozle’s, in fact I regret having written anything at all because I think it is futile, and as an aside have been downvoted by 40 points total. Not that I care that much about karma anyway but I have the impression that I have been downvoted mostly as a form of punishment because of my dissenting view than for not arguing according to the site’s rules.
An alternative formulation I’m pulling out of my hat now, and I’m not a good writer:
Or take the debate about the existence of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Some people think that unexplained and otherwise suspicious things in an abandoned house have to mean that ghosts exist. Others considered their prior for “ghosts and supernatural entities exist and are ready to conduct physical operations that scare thousands of people around the world”, judged that to be overwhelmingly unlikely, and thought it far more probable that something else caused the suspicious things.
One drawback of my alternative is that people who actually believe in ghosts might take offense, but AFAIK at least on this site this issue has never been a source of debate.
I didn’t write it as a fact, I wrote it as an assumption whose validity is being evaluated.
Here’s an attempt to reword it to make this clearer:
“Others thought that the conspiracy argument required the government to be ready to conduct, as a publicity stunt, massively risky operations that kill thousands of its own citizens. They considered their prior for this hypothetical and judged it overwhelmingly unlikely in comparison to priors such as ‘lots of unlikely-seeming things show up by coincidence once you dig deeply enough’.”
Wording it that way makes it clearer that it is an assumption by the hypothetical characters. Though based on our previous discussions I suspect that it also reflects your assumption and maybe that’s why you failed to clearly distinguish it from the characters’ assumptions in the OP. At least myself and woozle took objection to it. Of course it is also a possibility that we are both reading impaired.