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That was not the trap. The trap was 1) dismissing with prejudice the evidence that was counter to his claim, 2) asserting it as evidence for his claim, while a

• Dylan16807 10y ago
  > 1) dismissing with prejudice the evidence that was counter to his claim He had already evaluated that evidence and found it weak and unconvincing. > 2) asserting it as evidence for his claim This did not happen. > 3) implying that mentioning that counter-evidence is itself evidence of malfeasance on my part ("pretty telling"). He's using a simple argument. A) When people are trying to be convincing, they usually use some of the better evidence they have. B) He asserts that X and Y are weak and unconvincing evidence, based on previous evaluation. This leads to a very simple conclusion: Someone pulling out X and Y as their main line of argument probably has no good evidence. This is not kafkaesque. He gave you a genuine opportunity to provide good evidence. The only 'telling' is of lacking good evidence, not malfeasance. - In other words, he's not trying to take your evidence and turn it backwards. He's saying that the use of weak evidence as the core of your argument implies that you don't have good evidence. Weak evidence is better than nothing, but he has evidence of his own on the other side, so weak evidence is not enough in this case.