Consider it my opinion, and the whole of this article as the substantive argument for why. If you have an issue with the argument, of course, you’re free to present it. Alternatively, if you know somebody who was converted from religious belief to atheism by The God Delusion, that would be an evidence-based argument as to why I am wrong on the matter as a whole.
Hm. The rest of your article explains that tone can be bad for effectiveness, and when it is, it’s reasonable to act on that information.
You do argue that a confrontational tone will put people on the defensive. Which seems true on average, and ceteris paribus will result in persuading fewer people than a nonconfrontational tone. But there are “non-average” effects, for example if people who don’t immediately become defensive are also more (or less) likely to be persuaded by confrontation, that gives a positive (or negative) term. And there are “ceteris isn’t paribus” effects, where a confrontational tone might get noticed a lot more (or less) than non-confrontation, gaining a positive (or negative) effect that way.
Anyhow, one could find anecdotes both pro (yay google) and con (I guess we’ll count you for that one. We’d prefer anecdotes of opinion because of rather than opinion on, but those will be scarce unless Dawkins actually makes people join religions). To get non-anecdotal evidence, maybe we could estimate some long-term impact on atheism? That gets awful theory-laden awful fast, though. I guess you’d need some persuasion studies on the marginal impact of tone, and a model that could account for effects like those I mention above.
I’ll have to concede that point then. Most of those weren’t strong believers to begin with, but the presence of one refutes my argument, leaving me with the weaker form “The God Delusion does more damage than good.”
I use the responses to my attack on Dawkins as proof of that attack on Dawkins; it put a lot of his supporters on the intellectual defensive, and caused them to respond to my attitude towards Dawkins rather than the substantive point of the article.
That comes across as an attempt at a witty answer, but it avoids the substantial question I asked: You have claimed “The God Delusion does more damage than good.” How do you support this claim, with something more than personal opinion? I ask that you substantiate the claim on a more robust basis than “I feel like it does”, given that you literally didn’t think the book worked at all until this thread snowed you under with examples, suggesting your personal feeling on the book is not well calibrated with its effectiveness in the world (as others have already alluded to), thus putting into slight question the chain of logic you considered it a good example of.
I’m responding again: Short summary is, my apologies. I took out my irritation about the way the responses focused laser-like on something I didn’t intend to talk about (note to self: people talk about what they want to talk about, not what I want to talk about) on you; you actually provided evidence, and put the argument to rest relatively quickly, and I should have tapped out explicitly then, instead of getting sarcastic and rude and hoping that would be the end of it.
I was never particularly interested in debating the effectiveness of The God Delusion; I used it as an example, because in most of the places I have argued, it would have been accepted as such. I was mistaken about its effectiveness as an example for my point here. And I may be mistaken about the book’s effectiveness in converting people, but frankly, I’d rather be mistaken than debate its effectiveness with you, I will reserve that debate for people who are actually pleasant to talk with; my experience with you thus far means the negligible value of the truth of the matter to me would have a negative net utility.
I’ve categorized you as a person who is more interested in making criticisms of any point at any cost than making useful criticisms. A useful criticism, incidentally, after I elicited my -purpose- in using that example, would be asking whether that example served my purpose; that would elicit a positive response and a constructive conversation. Instead you persisted in questioning the example itself, arguments I had already dismissed and downplayed arguments about. Literally the only reason I -would- entertain that debate is if the debate -itself- was interesting. So seriously, it’s worse for me to argue with you than not. I’ll debate with you on matters I judge worth debating about, but don’t expect me to argue for the sake of arguing, nor to dismiss beliefs on the basis of a one-sided argument in which I’m not participating.
I’ve categorized you as a person who is more interested in making criticisms of any point at any cost than making useful criticisms.
This is a common from-the-inside view in people using a tone argument, yes. It’s similar to responding to criticism by complaining that the critic is the wrong sort of skeptic.
That would be relevant if I were, in fact, making a tone argument. Given that I am not, it fails to be inside the algorithm you reference. I am simply not interested in arguing that point with you. Although apparently you’ve been called the wrong sort of skeptic before, which is a good classification of you; your responses have been about as meaningful to the substantive thrust of the argument as a complaint about typeface.
Or, to put it another way: That soldier is dead. I’ve abandoned him on the front lines as a pointless cause, as he was out of formation and unnecessary to the battle. You’re not arguing with me, you’re desecrating a corpse.
Conservation of expected evidence applies here. If you believe that people responding to your attack on Dawkins constitutes evidence for that attack, then in order to be consistent you have to believe that if people had ignored your attack, then this would be evidence against the attack. Do you believe that?
Only provided Dawkins was not in strong support here. There’s an asymmetry, because two things have to be true for people to ignore the substance of the argument in favor of the example—they have to care about the substance of the example, and then they have to be offended by the characterization of it. If they don’t care about Dawkins, there won’t be much to be offended about to begin with.
A implies B does not imply that B implies A.
But none of that matters, because that was a tongue-in-cheek response to somebody pursuing a line of argument about something I didn’t care about. It was not a serious response.
I’ve met both sorts, people turned off by “The God Delusion” who really would have benefited from something like “Greatest Show on Earth”, and people who really seemed to come around because of it (both irl and in a wide range of fora). The unfortunate side-effect of successful conversion, in my experience, has been that people who are successfully converted by rhetoric frequently begin to spam similar rhetoric, ineptly, resulting mostly in increased polarization among their friends and family.
It seems pretty hard to control for enough factors to see what kind of impact popular atheist intellectuals actually have on de-conversion rates and belief polarization (much less with specific subset of abrasive works), and I can’t find any clear numbers on it. Seems like opinion mining facebook could potentially be useful here.
Amongst the sophisticated theists I know (Church of England types who have often actually read large chunks of the Bible and don’t dispute that something called “evolution” happened), they will detail their objections to The God Delusion at length … without, it turns out, having actually read it. This appears to be the religious meme defending itself. I point them at the bootleg PDF and suggest they actually read it, then complain … at which point they usually never mention it ever again.
This is part of why I tend to think that for the most part, these works aren’t (or if they are, they shouldn’t be) aimed at de-converting the faithful (who have already built up a strong meme-plex to fall back on), but rather for interception and prevention for young potential converts and people who are on the fence. Particularly college kids who have left home and are questioning their belief structure.
The side effect is that something that is marketed well towards this group (imo, this is the case with “The God Delusion”) comes across as shocking and abrasive to the older converts (and this also plays into its marketability to a younger audience). So there’s definitely a trade-off, but getting the numbers right to determine the actual payoff is difficult.
I think a more effective way to increase secular influence is through lobbying. I think in the U.S. there is a great need for a well-funded secular lobby to keep things in check. I found one such lobby but I haven’t had the chance to look into it yet.
I think in practice, it has to be a movement and it has to, in its various parts, work all the angles at once. Which is pretty much the present state of things—there’s plenty of work to go around.
[citation needed], of course.
Consider it my opinion, and the whole of this article as the substantive argument for why. If you have an issue with the argument, of course, you’re free to present it. Alternatively, if you know somebody who was converted from religious belief to atheism by The God Delusion, that would be an evidence-based argument as to why I am wrong on the matter as a whole.
Hm. The rest of your article explains that tone can be bad for effectiveness, and when it is, it’s reasonable to act on that information.
You do argue that a confrontational tone will put people on the defensive. Which seems true on average, and ceteris paribus will result in persuading fewer people than a nonconfrontational tone. But there are “non-average” effects, for example if people who don’t immediately become defensive are also more (or less) likely to be persuaded by confrontation, that gives a positive (or negative) term. And there are “ceteris isn’t paribus” effects, where a confrontational tone might get noticed a lot more (or less) than non-confrontation, gaining a positive (or negative) effect that way.
Anyhow, one could find anecdotes both pro (yay google) and con (I guess we’ll count you for that one. We’d prefer anecdotes of opinion because of rather than opinion on, but those will be scarce unless Dawkins actually makes people join religions). To get non-anecdotal evidence, maybe we could estimate some long-term impact on atheism? That gets awful theory-laden awful fast, though. I guess you’d need some persuasion studies on the marginal impact of tone, and a model that could account for effects like those I mention above.
Dawkins, of course, has a pile of them. While this selection is obviously lacking in arguments against, it is precisely the thing you just asked for.
I’ll have to concede that point then. Most of those weren’t strong believers to begin with, but the presence of one refutes my argument, leaving me with the weaker form “The God Delusion does more damage than good.”
I look forward to your substantiation, on a more robust basis than personal feeling.
I use the responses to my attack on Dawkins as proof of that attack on Dawkins; it put a lot of his supporters on the intellectual defensive, and caused them to respond to my attitude towards Dawkins rather than the substantive point of the article.
That comes across as an attempt at a witty answer, but it avoids the substantial question I asked: You have claimed “The God Delusion does more damage than good.” How do you support this claim, with something more than personal opinion? I ask that you substantiate the claim on a more robust basis than “I feel like it does”, given that you literally didn’t think the book worked at all until this thread snowed you under with examples, suggesting your personal feeling on the book is not well calibrated with its effectiveness in the world (as others have already alluded to), thus putting into slight question the chain of logic you considered it a good example of.
I’m responding again: Short summary is, my apologies. I took out my irritation about the way the responses focused laser-like on something I didn’t intend to talk about (note to self: people talk about what they want to talk about, not what I want to talk about) on you; you actually provided evidence, and put the argument to rest relatively quickly, and I should have tapped out explicitly then, instead of getting sarcastic and rude and hoping that would be the end of it.
I was never particularly interested in debating the effectiveness of The God Delusion; I used it as an example, because in most of the places I have argued, it would have been accepted as such. I was mistaken about its effectiveness as an example for my point here. And I may be mistaken about the book’s effectiveness in converting people, but frankly, I’d rather be mistaken than debate its effectiveness with you, I will reserve that debate for people who are actually pleasant to talk with; my experience with you thus far means the negligible value of the truth of the matter to me would have a negative net utility.
Good day.
But I paid attention to tone and everything!
I’ve categorized you as a person who is more interested in making criticisms of any point at any cost than making useful criticisms. A useful criticism, incidentally, after I elicited my -purpose- in using that example, would be asking whether that example served my purpose; that would elicit a positive response and a constructive conversation. Instead you persisted in questioning the example itself, arguments I had already dismissed and downplayed arguments about. Literally the only reason I -would- entertain that debate is if the debate -itself- was interesting. So seriously, it’s worse for me to argue with you than not. I’ll debate with you on matters I judge worth debating about, but don’t expect me to argue for the sake of arguing, nor to dismiss beliefs on the basis of a one-sided argument in which I’m not participating.
This is a common from-the-inside view in people using a tone argument, yes. It’s similar to responding to criticism by complaining that the critic is the wrong sort of skeptic.
That would be relevant if I were, in fact, making a tone argument. Given that I am not, it fails to be inside the algorithm you reference. I am simply not interested in arguing that point with you. Although apparently you’ve been called the wrong sort of skeptic before, which is a good classification of you; your responses have been about as meaningful to the substantive thrust of the argument as a complaint about typeface.
Or, to put it another way: That soldier is dead. I’ve abandoned him on the front lines as a pointless cause, as he was out of formation and unnecessary to the battle. You’re not arguing with me, you’re desecrating a corpse.
Conservation of expected evidence applies here. If you believe that people responding to your attack on Dawkins constitutes evidence for that attack, then in order to be consistent you have to believe that if people had ignored your attack, then this would be evidence against the attack. Do you believe that?
Only provided Dawkins was not in strong support here. There’s an asymmetry, because two things have to be true for people to ignore the substance of the argument in favor of the example—they have to care about the substance of the example, and then they have to be offended by the characterization of it. If they don’t care about Dawkins, there won’t be much to be offended about to begin with.
A implies B does not imply that B implies A.
But none of that matters, because that was a tongue-in-cheek response to somebody pursuing a line of argument about something I didn’t care about. It was not a serious response.
I’ve met both sorts, people turned off by “The God Delusion” who really would have benefited from something like “Greatest Show on Earth”, and people who really seemed to come around because of it (both irl and in a wide range of fora). The unfortunate side-effect of successful conversion, in my experience, has been that people who are successfully converted by rhetoric frequently begin to spam similar rhetoric, ineptly, resulting mostly in increased polarization among their friends and family.
It seems pretty hard to control for enough factors to see what kind of impact popular atheist intellectuals actually have on de-conversion rates and belief polarization (much less with specific subset of abrasive works), and I can’t find any clear numbers on it. Seems like opinion mining facebook could potentially be useful here.
Amongst the sophisticated theists I know (Church of England types who have often actually read large chunks of the Bible and don’t dispute that something called “evolution” happened), they will detail their objections to The God Delusion at length … without, it turns out, having actually read it. This appears to be the religious meme defending itself. I point them at the bootleg PDF and suggest they actually read it, then complain … at which point they usually never mention it ever again.
This is part of why I tend to think that for the most part, these works aren’t (or if they are, they shouldn’t be) aimed at de-converting the faithful (who have already built up a strong meme-plex to fall back on), but rather for interception and prevention for young potential converts and people who are on the fence. Particularly college kids who have left home and are questioning their belief structure.
The side effect is that something that is marketed well towards this group (imo, this is the case with “The God Delusion”) comes across as shocking and abrasive to the older converts (and this also plays into its marketability to a younger audience). So there’s definitely a trade-off, but getting the numbers right to determine the actual payoff is difficult.
I think a more effective way to increase secular influence is through lobbying. I think in the U.S. there is a great need for a well-funded secular lobby to keep things in check. I found one such lobby but I haven’t had the chance to look into it yet.
I think in practice, it has to be a movement and it has to, in its various parts, work all the angles at once. Which is pretty much the present state of things—there’s plenty of work to go around.