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Obligatory warning: Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points. Bear that

Obligatory warning: Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points. Bear that in mind when considering arguments she makes.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
I think that in making an ad hominem argument like that, you ought to at least provide documentation rather than just sling accusations. In my experience, her reasoning has been sound and I'm not aware of a high degree of factual errors in her writings. If you're right, please help us understand. Otherwise you sound like a partisan yourself.
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  I've posted an example in response to one of the other comments. In the future I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from conflating source criticism with ad hominem attacks; someone who has, in the past, been demonstrated to misrepresent or misreport facts in service to political goals is an unreliable source, and there's no fallacy in pointing this out.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from conflating source criticism with ad hominem attacks I only conflate them because a criticism of the source (as opposed to a criticism of the argument, or objection to a fact) is an ad hominem attack. See wikipedia: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ad_hominem https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ad_hominem An ad hominem, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. You cite an (alleged) characteristic of Ms. McArdle, that she's had factual errors in the past. You have not even mentioned the facts of this article: your argument is based on that characteristic of Ms. McArdle. QED
    - ubernostrum 16y ago
      An ad hominem attack is, or is usually understood to be, fallacious and as such an invalid point. But bringing up a past record of unreliability in a given source is neither fallacious nor invalid; it is in fact extremely relevant when considering how carefully to examine claims made or how thoroughly to check sources cited. In other words: "this person has been known in the past to misrepresent/misreport things" is perfectly valid to point out, as such a source should be taken with a grain of salt and subjected to scrutiny. Megan McArdle is one such source.
      - CWuestefeld 16y ago
        I went back and looked at your original post. You said Bear that in mind when considering arguments she makes. Based on this, I think I may have been a little harsh. You didn't cite specifics in her history, nor did you make specific objection to the argument or facts of the OP. However, you also didn't explicitly say they're wrong; you advised vigilance. As there's nothing wrong with that, I now think I owe you some apology. That said, I still believe that you came across like a partisan mudslinger. And I stand by my claim that an effort to defeat an argument by addressing its author rather than its argument or facts, is by definition an ad hominem attack. If you go read the OP, you'll find that it's really an exercise in balance. There's not much factual in it, nor does there need to be. Nor does she really come out on one side of the argument or the other. All she's saying is that the situation isn't as simple as "the government identified a problem and fixed it for us", and I think she makes that point well.
    - loumf 16y ago
      But it's very difficult to argue against reasoning if you don't believe the facts they are derived from. If you don't have time to do the research yourself, you tend to trust past behavior. She's been caught manipulating facts to support her point-of-view -- so, I can't accept her "givens" without research. I think pointing out that someone has been documented doing this in the past is enough to warrant not accepting the premise until verified.
- loumf 16y ago
  There are many, but this one is lengthy http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22/abject_ignorance/ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22... and another http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/07/25/megan-mcardle-is-just-andrew-breitbart-with-a-broken-calculator/ http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/07/25/megan-mcardle-is-jus... It's not her reasoning -- usually it's her "facts".
- korch 16y ago
  Can we get a new Internet-Meme-Law like Godwin's, to say the moment anyone invokes ad hominem without specifying what the personal insult was, they automatically lose the argument?
jseliger 16y ago
Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points Do you have any citations for / examples of this? I ask because she's a) pretty scrupulous IME and b) is very good about making "mea cuplas" when she's not.
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  Here's one example of a McArdle debunking: http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/why-friends-dont-let-friends-cite-the-atlantics-business-and-economics-editor-further-to-the-megan-mcardle-is-always-wrong-chronicles/ http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/why-friends-do... Many more are lurking around the internet, should you feel inclined to dig them up.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    I found that criticism less than persuasive. If a person says that $1000 in medical bills is to low a threshold to declare a bankruptcy to be due to medical expenses, then the fact that the actual threshold the study used was even lower ($1000 in medical bills or A or B or C) doesn't detract from the argument and merely makes the critic look bad. All the other specific criticisms seem to be either equally pedantic, or matters where there could be a reasonable difference of opinion expect for his proper criticism of her for getting the response rate of the survey wrong which does significantly effect one of the points Megan raised in the article that was being debunked.
    - ubernostrum 16y ago
      That particular example, though, is a strong one. McArdle wrote: "Warren and her co-authors defined anyone with $1000 worth of medical bills as having a medical bankruptcy". In fact, the paper used multiple criteria, one of which was $1000 in uncovered medical bills. This is not a pedantic difference, so far as I can see; there's a big difference between having $1000 in bills, some of which is covered, and $1000 in bills, none of which is covered.

CWuestefeld 16y ago

I think that in making an ad hominem argument like that, you ought to at least provide documentation rather than just sling accusations. In my experience, her reasoning has been sound and I'm not aware of a high degree of factual errors in her writings. If you're right, please help us understand. Otherwise you sound like a partisan yourself.

ubernostrum 16y ago
I've posted an example in response to one of the other comments. In the future I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from conflating source criticism with ad hominem attacks; someone who has, in the past, been demonstrated to misrepresent or misreport facts in service to political goals is an unreliable source, and there's no fallacy in pointing this out.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from conflating source criticism with ad hominem attacks I only conflate them because a criticism of the source (as opposed to a criticism of the argument, or objection to a fact) is an ad hominem attack. See wikipedia: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ad_hominem https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ad_hominem An ad hominem, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. You cite an (alleged) characteristic of Ms. McArdle, that she's had factual errors in the past. You have not even mentioned the facts of this article: your argument is based on that characteristic of Ms. McArdle. QED
  - ubernostrum 16y ago
    An ad hominem attack is, or is usually understood to be, fallacious and as such an invalid point. But bringing up a past record of unreliability in a given source is neither fallacious nor invalid; it is in fact extremely relevant when considering how carefully to examine claims made or how thoroughly to check sources cited. In other words: "this person has been known in the past to misrepresent/misreport things" is perfectly valid to point out, as such a source should be taken with a grain of salt and subjected to scrutiny. Megan McArdle is one such source.
    - CWuestefeld 16y ago
      I went back and looked at your original post. You said Bear that in mind when considering arguments she makes. Based on this, I think I may have been a little harsh. You didn't cite specifics in her history, nor did you make specific objection to the argument or facts of the OP. However, you also didn't explicitly say they're wrong; you advised vigilance. As there's nothing wrong with that, I now think I owe you some apology. That said, I still believe that you came across like a partisan mudslinger. And I stand by my claim that an effort to defeat an argument by addressing its author rather than its argument or facts, is by definition an ad hominem attack. If you go read the OP, you'll find that it's really an exercise in balance. There's not much factual in it, nor does there need to be. Nor does she really come out on one side of the argument or the other. All she's saying is that the situation isn't as simple as "the government identified a problem and fixed it for us", and I think she makes that point well.
  - loumf 16y ago
    But it's very difficult to argue against reasoning if you don't believe the facts they are derived from. If you don't have time to do the research yourself, you tend to trust past behavior. She's been caught manipulating facts to support her point-of-view -- so, I can't accept her "givens" without research. I think pointing out that someone has been documented doing this in the past is enough to warrant not accepting the premise until verified.
loumf 16y ago
There are many, but this one is lengthy http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22/abject_ignorance/ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22... and another http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/07/25/megan-mcardle-is-just-andrew-breitbart-with-a-broken-calculator/ http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/07/25/megan-mcardle-is-jus... It's not her reasoning -- usually it's her "facts".
korch 16y ago
Can we get a new Internet-Meme-Law like Godwin's, to say the moment anyone invokes ad hominem without specifying what the personal insult was, they automatically lose the argument?

jseliger 16y ago

Megan McArdle has a long and well-documented history of playing somewhat loosely with her facts in order to make political points Do you have any citations for / examples of this? I ask because she's a) pretty scrupulous IME and b) is very good about making "mea cuplas" when she's not.

ubernostrum 16y ago
Here's one example of a McArdle debunking: http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/why-friends-dont-let-friends-cite-the-atlantics-business-and-economics-editor-further-to-the-megan-mcardle-is-always-wrong-chronicles/ http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/why-friends-do... Many more are lurking around the internet, should you feel inclined to dig them up.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  I found that criticism less than persuasive. If a person says that $1000 in medical bills is to low a threshold to declare a bankruptcy to be due to medical expenses, then the fact that the actual threshold the study used was even lower ($1000 in medical bills or A or B or C) doesn't detract from the argument and merely makes the critic look bad. All the other specific criticisms seem to be either equally pedantic, or matters where there could be a reasonable difference of opinion expect for his proper criticism of her for getting the response rate of the survey wrong which does significantly effect one of the points Megan raised in the article that was being debunked.
  - ubernostrum 16y ago
    That particular example, though, is a strong one. McArdle wrote: "Warren and her co-authors defined anyone with $1000 worth of medical bills as having a medical bankruptcy". In fact, the paper used multiple criteria, one of which was $1000 in uncovered medical bills. This is not a pedantic difference, so far as I can see; there's a big difference between having $1000 in bills, some of which is covered, and $1000 in bills, none of which is covered.