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No, specifically they say: > The most admired arguments are made with data, > but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data > tend to be ancillary

No, specifically they say: > The most admired arguments are made with data, > but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data > tend to be ancillary concerns. That's a concern I often share: "the data" can so often be a "winner's history".

cloakandswagger 7y ago
Data is the best tool we have. It can be cherry-picked and tainted for sure, but I'd much prefer debates be governed by that instead of whose argument is the most "humane"/morally superior
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  > prefer debates be governed by [cherry-picked data] instead of whose argument is the most "humane" To be overly generous, that's a false dichotomy. There's a time and place for humane arguments and, in the absence of complete "data" (whatever THAT means), that may be all you have. At the end of the day, we're all emotional creatures and this often justifiably dominates considerations of human affairs. Not everything can be boiled down to problems in first order logic.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    > There's a time and place for humane arguments and, in the absence of complete "data" (whatever THAT means), that may be all you have. I'm trying to be charitable here, but it's difficult not to conclude that you're setting up the data as never being sufficient e.g. "whatever THAT means" in order to support humane arguments over data based arguments.
  - crumpets 7y ago
    >"data" (whatever THAT means) Holy shit. Observable evidence.
- ckris 7y ago
  I don't really see it though. The article seems pretty clear on what kind of discussion they think is unproductive. One can argue whether text is data, but it still has structure and meaning. When they say "ill-advised citation" or "logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify" that is what they are arguing. You own argument seem much more a moral one though. For one it doesn't even say what you said it says. For example: > accusing HN commenters [...] abusing unreliable tools like "data" and "logic" to counter "humane arguments" Actually says: > humane arguments are dismissed as emotional or irrational It doesn't say that human arguments are countered with data or logic. That statement is never made. It doesn't imply it either. If it was to be read as implied it would still be logic and data used in incorrect ways. So it seems hard to favor data if you don't even look at the text at hand. Instead you seem to pretty much make a "slippery slope" argument, which if not outright is at least close to a moral argument. That questioning data dismisses the role of data, and that this leads to anti-intellectualism. Therefor we shouldn't question data in this way. That is, they are morally wrong to do it. Instead of the less moral argument that misuse of data is what leads to people questioning it. You also back this up with all kinds of appeal to emotion from it being "a smug, flowery dismissal" to "basically saying I wish these annoying nerds would stop thinking". I don't see that reading as factual. If anything the article seems to argue that people should start thinking. One could argue that their reasoning for why people isn't thinking is incorrect, but that doesn't change the actual meaning in relation to thinking (that they think people should be thinking more). So again you are not arguing the text, but your moral conclusion from the text. The more critical reading of your comments would simply be that you don't see the problem with data and therefor you don't understand the article's concerns nor the problems with your own comments. Which is pretty much what the article argues people don't do after observing this very forum. I have a hard time even reconciling your one sentence in this comment. Because you are essentially saying that you rather have flawed data than a humane or morally superior argument. But that again seems very much in itself like a morally superior argument. It rests on that data is always better than a humane argument. Even when incorrect, and potentially more incorrect, than a humane argument.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    I saw parent commenter as making an epistemological argument rather than a moral one. There are two fundamentally different sources of truth: ethical consensus and physical data. They are ultimately incompatible, in that only a single option can be your ultimate source of truth. Albeit other(s) can be valued to some degree. The issue they took, and I would take too, with that portion of the New Yorker article is that it attacks the idea of physical data as a valid, supreme source of truth. Consequently, the rhetorical paraphrasing of the passage into the comment dismissing nerds seems on point. Objectively, the humanities has a poor track record of getting pissy and taking cheap shots at science as a viable supreme source of knowledge.
AcerbicZero 7y ago
The nice thing about having discussions based on fact is that if "the data" is bad, its just another avenue for discussion. That doesn't mean we have to re-hash everything from first principals, and it certainly doesn't mean that compelling rhetoric + poor data might "win", but it sure does help. People can have a productive discussion on the veracity (origins/malleability are not good reasons to ignore data by themselves in my opinion) of the data, other data can be presented to support or contradict the original point, and in a perfect world perhaps both sides would come away a little more aware of an issue.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  > The nice thing about having discussions based on fact... Certainly that kind of positivist approach is valuable and warranted for much but not all of the subject-matter on HN. If you're discussing technical subject matter, stuff like the inner workings of regular expressions, programming language features, electronic components, sure, it's all about "the facts". Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. And NO, sorry, pure facts may not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.
  - eitland 7y ago
    > Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. I'll bite. Data can do a lot to improve discussions about history, politics and business. I'd also argue that data can improve discussions about seemingly subjective things such as design. > And NO, sorry, pure facts many not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter. In fact I'd say that I'm close to saying those are the only discussions worth having about certain topics. If I like a design and you don't that brings us nowhere. If either of us can bring some data and say 72% of the testers prefered it strongly, - but colorblind people struggled with it - that is something that might give both of us some value and might lead to better results.

cloakandswagger 7y ago

Data is the best tool we have. It can be cherry-picked and tainted for sure, but I'd much prefer debates be governed by that instead of whose argument is the most "humane"/morally superior

crispyambulance 7y ago
> prefer debates be governed by [cherry-picked data] instead of whose argument is the most "humane" To be overly generous, that's a false dichotomy. There's a time and place for humane arguments and, in the absence of complete "data" (whatever THAT means), that may be all you have. At the end of the day, we're all emotional creatures and this often justifiably dominates considerations of human affairs. Not everything can be boiled down to problems in first order logic.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  > There's a time and place for humane arguments and, in the absence of complete "data" (whatever THAT means), that may be all you have. I'm trying to be charitable here, but it's difficult not to conclude that you're setting up the data as never being sufficient e.g. "whatever THAT means" in order to support humane arguments over data based arguments.
- crumpets 7y ago
  >"data" (whatever THAT means) Holy shit. Observable evidence.
ckris 7y ago
I don't really see it though. The article seems pretty clear on what kind of discussion they think is unproductive. One can argue whether text is data, but it still has structure and meaning. When they say "ill-advised citation" or "logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify" that is what they are arguing. You own argument seem much more a moral one though. For one it doesn't even say what you said it says. For example: > accusing HN commenters [...] abusing unreliable tools like "data" and "logic" to counter "humane arguments" Actually says: > humane arguments are dismissed as emotional or irrational It doesn't say that human arguments are countered with data or logic. That statement is never made. It doesn't imply it either. If it was to be read as implied it would still be logic and data used in incorrect ways. So it seems hard to favor data if you don't even look at the text at hand. Instead you seem to pretty much make a "slippery slope" argument, which if not outright is at least close to a moral argument. That questioning data dismisses the role of data, and that this leads to anti-intellectualism. Therefor we shouldn't question data in this way. That is, they are morally wrong to do it. Instead of the less moral argument that misuse of data is what leads to people questioning it. You also back this up with all kinds of appeal to emotion from it being "a smug, flowery dismissal" to "basically saying I wish these annoying nerds would stop thinking". I don't see that reading as factual. If anything the article seems to argue that people should start thinking. One could argue that their reasoning for why people isn't thinking is incorrect, but that doesn't change the actual meaning in relation to thinking (that they think people should be thinking more). So again you are not arguing the text, but your moral conclusion from the text. The more critical reading of your comments would simply be that you don't see the problem with data and therefor you don't understand the article's concerns nor the problems with your own comments. Which is pretty much what the article argues people don't do after observing this very forum. I have a hard time even reconciling your one sentence in this comment. Because you are essentially saying that you rather have flawed data than a humane or morally superior argument. But that again seems very much in itself like a morally superior argument. It rests on that data is always better than a humane argument. Even when incorrect, and potentially more incorrect, than a humane argument.
- ethbro 7y ago
  I saw parent commenter as making an epistemological argument rather than a moral one. There are two fundamentally different sources of truth: ethical consensus and physical data. They are ultimately incompatible, in that only a single option can be your ultimate source of truth. Albeit other(s) can be valued to some degree. The issue they took, and I would take too, with that portion of the New Yorker article is that it attacks the idea of physical data as a valid, supreme source of truth. Consequently, the rhetorical paraphrasing of the passage into the comment dismissing nerds seems on point. Objectively, the humanities has a poor track record of getting pissy and taking cheap shots at science as a viable supreme source of knowledge.

AcerbicZero 7y ago

The nice thing about having discussions based on fact is that if "the data" is bad, its just another avenue for discussion. That doesn't mean we have to re-hash everything from first principals, and it certainly doesn't mean that compelling rhetoric + poor data might "win", but it sure does help. People can have a productive discussion on the veracity (origins/malleability are not good reasons to ignore data by themselves in my opinion) of the data, other data can be presented to support or contradict the original point, and in a perfect world perhaps both sides would come away a little more aware of an issue.

crispyambulance 7y ago
> The nice thing about having discussions based on fact... Certainly that kind of positivist approach is valuable and warranted for much but not all of the subject-matter on HN. If you're discussing technical subject matter, stuff like the inner workings of regular expressions, programming language features, electronic components, sure, it's all about "the facts". Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. And NO, sorry, pure facts may not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter.
- eitland 7y ago
  > Things are different, however, in discussions about human affairs, political, inter-personal topics, social movements, historical interpretations, art, design, music, aesthetics, business and other topics in the human experience. These discussions DO EXIST on HN. I'll bite. Data can do a lot to improve discussions about history, politics and business. I'd also argue that data can improve discussions about seemingly subjective things such as design. > And NO, sorry, pure facts many not be enough or might be incomplete or out-of-reach for that subject-matter. In fact I'd say that I'm close to saying those are the only discussions worth having about certain topics. If I like a design and you don't that brings us nowhere. If either of us can bring some data and say 72% of the testers prefered it strongly, - but colorblind people struggled with it - that is something that might give both of us some value and might lead to better results.