Thanks, you make some good points. Reading your comments caused me to realize that I’m not interested in taking the time to find out why the professors didn’t want Lagarde to speak at Smith because I assign a low probability to my finding their arguments reasonable. (The time I would need to spend doing this could be much better used, for example, reading your past LW contributions.) I don’t think this is because of confirmation bias, but of course if it were I wouldn’t think it was.
The first sentence was supposed to be a line of retreat in which I admitted that it is appropriate to exclude some people.
It is pretty much always poor form to psychoanalyze your political opponents and present their beliefs or behaviors as a consequence of the pathology you ascribe to them
Poor form perhaps, but not necessarily inaccurate.
I’m not interested in taking the time to find out why the professors didn’t want Lagarde to speak at Smith because I assign a low probability to my finding their arguments reasonable.
I expect your opponents think the same of you; albeit with different phrasing. And thus by symmetry you each defect against the other, and thus is elucidated the old theorem regarding the bitterness of academic disputes.
Thanks, you make some good points. Reading your comments caused me to realize that I’m not interested in taking the time to find out why the professors didn’t want Lagarde to speak at Smith because I assign a low probability to my finding their arguments reasonable. (The time I would need to spend doing this could be much better used, for example, reading your past LW contributions.) I don’t think this is because of confirmation bias, but of course if it were I wouldn’t think it was.
The first sentence was supposed to be a line of retreat in which I admitted that it is appropriate to exclude some people.
Poor form perhaps, but not necessarily inaccurate.
I expect your opponents think the same of you; albeit with different phrasing. And thus by symmetry you each defect against the other, and thus is elucidated the old theorem regarding the bitterness of academic disputes.
Agreed!