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 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.