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2500 years later, Aristotle is still correct, and the three modes of rhetoric must work in concert or you're doomed to fail. Logos, Ethos, Pathos: you need all

2500 years later, Aristotle is still correct, and the three modes of rhetoric must work in concert or you're doomed to fail. Logos, Ethos, Pathos: you need all three. "This is true. I am trustworthy. This true thing is important." It is very frustrating, especially to many of my fellow scientists, that bellowing "THIS IS TRUE" as loudly as possible is insufficient. But it is insufficient.

programminggeek 5y ago
The "I am trustworthy" part is totally taken for granted and too many supposedly trustworthy people lie straight to the public face just to maintain the narrative they are pursuing.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  Ethos is the hardest claim to assert. You have to live that one out; your community must, quite literally, bear witness to your actions which earn trust.
  - dgb23 5y ago
    It seems that many like to believe and follow leaders who affirm their beliefs even when they are caught lying repeatedly about important things. Posturing loudly and demonstrating confidence seems to trump all of the other principles for many. It's similar but more emphasized with chimpanzees. The problem is that we're not chimpanzees. We are smart enough to make very powerful technology, but not smart enough to use it sustainably.
    - canadaduane 5y ago
      > Posturing loudly and demonstrating confidence seems to trump all of the other principles for many. Nice word choice.
  - hacknat 5y ago
    Ethos is very hard, but pathos is harder, especially in secular society. Let me be clear, I think arguments about ethos generate the most argumentation and heat right now, but the silent killer is really pathos. People feel comfortable arguing ethos. Most people will not argue pathos openly though. We have a crisis of pathos in our culture. How do you claim that something is important without an appeal to authority? You can't. We live in a culture that is fragmenting its sources of authority; different groups of people have different sources of authority. Here's a good example. The external dialogue that a lot of conservatives give on climate change is that scientists can't be trusted. The internal dialogue that a lot of them (though not all) engage in goes something like, "The earth doesn't matter. God is going to come back and set things right. So we don't need to worry about it anyway."
    - hprotagonist 5y ago
      Nah, the Pathetic appeal is easy. It isn't sustainable, but the simplest form of Pathos is "Hey, fuck THOSE guys, right? You're better than they are, you're special! Git 'em!", and we're practically swimming in it right now.
      - hacknat 5y ago
        I don't know. Ostensibly it looks like pathos is easy right now. Politics seems super intense right now, but it also seems super fake. Mostly I think shows of pathos are fake right now. Getting people to actually do things and act seems like the hardest thing right now. Posting on social media doesn't count.
  - glitchc 5y ago
    This requirement places too high a burden on one person. Only a saint (or God) could achieve the standard claimed here. Objectivity on topics should be sufficient. Scientists who lose their objectivity cease to contribute usefully to the discussion.
    - hprotagonist 5y ago
      Only God could be Objective; that whole Descarte's Demon thing makes True claims based on empirical observations a lot more fraught than you'd really like it to be, even in the best of cases where everyone agrees on: what language game we're playing today, what "an observation" is, that it was faithfully reported, and so on. Nobody's perfect; what builds the sort of trust that permits action is a history of publically doing one's best: I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. Do that, and you'll earn your Ethical appeal easily enough.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Not having a conflicting political agenda that coincides with your experimental results goes a long way with establishing ethos, as well.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  > too many supposedly trustworthy people lie straight to the public face just to maintain the narrative This is particularly apropos in the wake of Russell Brand's recent video on FB's Fact Checkers for Covid 19 vaccine information [1] funded by BigPharma, having a huge financial stake in bigpharma, and intentionally hiding their funding by BigPharma, and not adding a notification that the fact checkers are in fact funded/invested by/in BigPharma. I am starting to read completely disinterested 3rd party sources more, because weighing the pros and cons of a thing is more challenging when the supposed experts are deliberating concealing material relationships. Some old Emeritus professor, already retired, with several phds and just a passing bit of information often gives great criticism of a thing without having any stake in the outcome. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc
motohagiography 5y ago
Was going to comment that it is not science that solves political issues, but rather, engineering. Even logos, ethos, and pathos together do not prevail over trebuchet.
- Espressosaurus 5y ago
  Engineering doesn't solve political issues either. War is politics by another means.
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    I was thinking about this the other day; politics, war and climate. Americans (of which I am one) are very good at looking at political threats in terms of "others" and versus. Democrats vs. Republicans. America vs. ISIL, etc, etc. When it comes to fighting a more amorphous, but equally viable threat, like climate change, we have a hard time grasping the threat. It causes fire damage to California, Oregon and Washington; flood and wind damage to Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Arkansas (at least); a migrant crisis at our southern borders; and shipment and food supply issues. If a foreign threat were causing these issues, no political force would stop "either side" from stumping to stop it. Yet, here we are, waiting it out. The Republicans denying and the Democrats in endless debate, unable to take action. Both sides unable to take action against an ongoing asymmetric war, waged upon us by a new form of enemy that we have created over the last century.
    - canadaduane 5y ago
      Well said! As a Canadian living in the US, I encountered the "us vs. them" culture as very subtle but real. It's like everything is a football game here, and that is the only way to frame things such that it gets attention.
version_five 5y ago
In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Statements about importance are value judgements that no doubt you have made, but are not really science and are basically political. An easy example, "covid restrictions curb covid" may be true and you can provide experimental evidence. "We need to impose restrictions" makes a judgement about the overall situation under the restrictions being preferable to the one without them. This is not a scientific call, this is a societal judgement. People too often pretend that an action immediately follows from some identified causal relationship. Smoking kills you does not immediately imply you should quit smoking, without the intermediate step of "you value your later life and health more than the ongoing benefits you get from smoking" (disclaimer, nonsmoker)
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  >In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Strictly speaking no, but that's more of a long digression on epistemology than what I think you mean. (but think of indiana jones here: "archaeology is concerned with _fact_, not _truth_ ...") My role as a scientist is to work diligently to understand, as best as we are able, the natural world. Yet, "I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth."
  - Domenic_S 5y ago
    The point, I think, is that laypeople and scientists alike fall further and further into the fallacy of appeal to authority: 'a scientist said it's true, therefore it is true!' (for simplicity, true == a fact correctly expressed). That thing may be true, but the rising disdain for not accepting a conclusion when the evidence isn't presented alongside is worrisome. The difference between science and religion is that science draws conclusions from reproducible research. Yet - especially now - many people take the naked word of 'a scientist' the same way a religious fanatic takes the word of their spiritual leader. This definition gave me a lot of clarity: an expert is someone who has, can get, can make, or can cause to be made - and presents - evidence that supports their conclusions.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
What to do when it's true, but the proponent isn't trustworthy? Just say no?
- phkahler 5y ago
  Find another source. If it's true there should be evidence other than the proponents words.
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Maybe scientists should stick to their labs? You can invent a cure for cancer, but that doesn't automatically make you a good politician or leader.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  You need all three rhetorical modes in your lab too. Trust me!
teslaberry 5y ago
it is remarkeable how many people, at the highest levels of academia and otherwise still don't understand this or are disingenuous about why these three things together are so important, above all. truth does not stand on an island. many things have varrying degrees of truth and thus one must ask why one truth is being brought to your attention and not other truths ( trustworthiness , and importance ) the bringer of truth must have sincere intentions for his subject who he brings the truth to, and the bringer must also have discretion, because you don't want any moron wasting your time with brittany spiers views on physics. truth can be totally irrelevant an unimportant, or worse, it can be important but brought to you for the wrong reasons, such as blocking out other truths that are judged more essential for the subject, by the bringer of truth.
jvanderbot 5y ago
More concretely, there are also concerns with one side judging their own arguments (be them of any of the big three types) as valid without concern for their ability to convince others. If you treat logos, pathos, and ethos as a self-certified checklist, you are doomed to fail as well. You must provide arguments of each three types that are convincing to others. Above all else, preaching to the choir is (IMHO) the biggest problem in my political environment (USA).
- hobs 5y ago
  In the context of politicians in the USA they will not perceive its a problem until it stop working. Given how strong gerrymandering is there's no benefit to reaching out to the other side, just hold the line while scoring political points.
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    There are many other problems as well, but I think the topic of conversation in this thread is the oratory skills of policy makers, which might explain a few downvotes.
phkahler 5y ago
"This is true" obviously needs to come from someone trustworthy or it is irrelevant. This is why I categorically ignore everything from Dr Fauci. He's known to have lied to the public before to influence behavior. Since I'd have verify his claims from some other source anyway, there's no sense using him as a source at all.
- patpending 5y ago
  I know his recommendations have changed over time, but can you cite well documented instances where he lied?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month. If they were giving proper advice instead of telling people that covid wasn't a big deal at the time then maybe that disaster could have been averted from the start? At the time the dangers of covid spread was well documented based on how quickly it got into Italy, but at the time it was the democrat party line to downplay the disease to avoid racism against the Chinese so that was the line Fauci took. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask-60-minutes-2020-03-08/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask... > "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes. > While masks may block some droplets, Fauci said, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.
    - patpending 5y ago
      > He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month. I don't see how that is necessarily a lie. It could have been the best public health recommendation he could make at the time based on the available information. Research into how best to use masks is ongoing, so I would not expect today's masking recommendations to be the same as tomorrow's.
chmsky00 5y ago
Yep. Science is three things; space, time, field effects. Human gossip is societies field effect. A thing may be true but politics is obfuscating the importance.
alistairSH 5y ago
It is very frustrating, especially to many of my fellow scientists, that bellowing "THIS IS TRUE" as loudly as possible is insufficient. But it is insufficient. While I understand your argument, I'm believe there's something more going on. Taking COVID, for example. From the pro-science side, we get: "COVID is a dangerous virus. We should take X, Y, Z actions" from somebody with a PhD in public health, medicine, or similar. And from the anti-science side, we get: "It's fake. It's the flu. X wasn't perfect, therefore X, Y, Z are all a plot to make you magnetic" from somebody on YouTube with no credential beyond being on Youtube. I guess what I'm saying is there's something fundamentally broken about how people process information. All the Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in the world doesn't help when a significant portion of the population is brainwashed.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > And from the anti-science side, we get: "It's fake. It's the flu. X wasn't perfect, therefore X, Y, Z are all a plot to make you magnetic" from somebody on YouTube with no credential beyond being on Youtube. Then why do we see articles saying that Youtube etc bans people with great credentials who are anti vax? There are people with great credentials on every side of every argument. Great credentials doesn't stop you from being an idiot or being wrong. If you believe the first person with great credentials you see, and that person happened to be anti vacc, would you be anti vax? Sounds like it to me. I'm pro vaccine, but I am strongly anti blindly listening to people with credentials.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    Sorry, should have been more clear... I'll take Fauci's word over somebody on Youtube (regardless of that Youtuber's purported credentials). Fauci has a career in public health. Random Youtuber, I have no idea if they even have thee credentials they claim. And there's a big difference between a scientist saying "people with previous COVID infections have more anti-bodies than those with vaccinations" and Joe Rogan saying "COVID is fake/just the flu". The first is potentially true and most of us aren't qualified to either verify it or derive any course of action from it - regardless of it's truth, vaccination is probably the appropriate action for any individual (better safe than sorry). Using the statement as a argument to avoid vaccination is bad policy. The second is on outright fabrication, yet we still have a significant portion of the population believing that crap.
dragontamer 5y ago
> Logos, Ethos, Pathos: you need all three. "This is true. I am trustworthy. This true thing is important." This ivermectin thing basically proves that logos isn't useful. Ethos + Pathos alone can convince a large population of people. The Apple "Reality Distortion Field" was never about logic. It was about making people feel good about buying Apple products. That's fine, because Apple has decent enough products (I don't like them myself, but I can see why some others would like them). But today, we can apply the "Reality Distortion Field" to any subject. Most recently: ivermectin. ------------- What I don't get: why are people choosing to push snake oil (like ivermectin), instead of pushing the drugs that do work (3 different vaccines, dexamethasone, and monoclonal antibodies)? Society has developed working treatments for COVID19: dexamethasone cut the death rate in half IIRC, and monoclonal antibodies cut it in half yet again. And yet, people are seeking treatments that straight up have no evidence of working. I can put papers up for the efficacy of dexamethasone + monoclonal antibodies, and how this cocktail saves the lives of countless people across this country. But then I'm suddenly left in a "Russet's teapot" scenario where I'm apparently supposed to prove-a-negation when discussing ivermectin (even if countless papers fail to distinguish ivermectin from the null-hypothesis). People's brains turn off. Because today's reality distortion fields / marketing / propaganda are much, much stronger than logic. --------- Let me tell you how to do things in today's world. 1. Automatically find the people who have the poorest logic. Use ads, memes, and other such "low-quality" discussion points to find the lowest functioning brains. For example, clickbait headlines or "Nigerian Prince" scams. The dumber the argument, the better. 2. Reasonable people will ignore you. The only people who will interact with you are people with weaker argument skills. Spend as much time convincing _this_ group of your benefits. 3. Make it fun: give them memes to share with their friends. Even if its a bad / crappy argument, that's okay. That's what memes are about. 4. Sit back and relax as your crowd automatically spreads whatever argument you want amongst their friends and family. Now they're doing the hard work for you. 5. Bonus points: get enough people moving as a crowd, and even smart people start to get drawn into the masses. You'll start finding apologists who make better arguments on behalf of you. Keep up with the meme culture and pick/choose the best arguments. Crowdsource your marketing: the memes that become popular are the arguments you want to use. At no point is "working" on logos actually beneficial to building a RDF (reality distortion field). You can build ethos + pathos simultaneously by just seeding opinions into a crowd through meme culture. Bonus points#2: Use really, really bad arguments (World is flat. Lets to go Mars. 9/11 was a hoax. Hydroxychloroquine can save you from COVID19) as practice. The better you get at seeding bad arguments, the better you get at seeding any argument.
8note 5y ago
How do your fellow scientists get work through peer review without showing that it is trustworthy? And how do they get funding to do science without showing its important?
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
To your point, American anti-intellectualism continuously undermines the "I am trustworthy" aspect of science. For a country whose current rise to prominence was so clearly aided by technology, and whose future relevance depends on technical innovation in an uncertain global future... We are so lucky that COVID is only going to kill a million americans or so (700k and counting, probably 850k by Jan 1st), if this was the death rates of smallpox or the black death... ye gods. Our lack of respect in science is a huge part of vaccine hesitancy and our key role in continuing the pandemic. The news media are terrible because for decades they have reduced science and technology either to simplistic caricatures, star trek gobbledygook, or even worse the WELL THEY SAID THIS, NOW THEY SAY THAT. The general media's constant use of the high school nerd trope for all science and technology proficiency has been a long term failure in the progress of our civilization. Only, and only, because such proficiency leads generally to some degrees of upper middle class money to vast wealth is the reason it hasn't been worse. But that media trope has always colored all science and technology policy as culturally "well, that's what the nerds say, and they aren't cool or fun". Possibly it goes back to how most ultra-rich """elite""" made their money in America: by control and exploitation. People that have influence and position distrust science, because it is complicated and unknown and preys on their paranoia, and so often for industrialists produces complications to their overall plan of "make money by selling products, offloading the actual environmental cost/impact of those products on ... anyone else". Maybe I'm paranoid, but it does seem with the mastery of social media propaganda/manipulation by monied interests, sowing distrust in science is now at an all time high. So the business-friendly right will distrust science because it threatens their money and power. The apathetic center won't like science because it isn't cool. The left... well, scientists are generally white and male so they are distrusted by identity activists, and the rest of the left is too disorganized to rally around science policy effectively.

programminggeek 5y ago

The "I am trustworthy" part is totally taken for granted and too many supposedly trustworthy people lie straight to the public face just to maintain the narrative they are pursuing.

hprotagonist 5y ago
Ethos is the hardest claim to assert. You have to live that one out; your community must, quite literally, bear witness to your actions which earn trust.
- dgb23 5y ago
  It seems that many like to believe and follow leaders who affirm their beliefs even when they are caught lying repeatedly about important things. Posturing loudly and demonstrating confidence seems to trump all of the other principles for many. It's similar but more emphasized with chimpanzees. The problem is that we're not chimpanzees. We are smart enough to make very powerful technology, but not smart enough to use it sustainably.
  - canadaduane 5y ago
    > Posturing loudly and demonstrating confidence seems to trump all of the other principles for many. Nice word choice.
- hacknat 5y ago
  Ethos is very hard, but pathos is harder, especially in secular society. Let me be clear, I think arguments about ethos generate the most argumentation and heat right now, but the silent killer is really pathos. People feel comfortable arguing ethos. Most people will not argue pathos openly though. We have a crisis of pathos in our culture. How do you claim that something is important without an appeal to authority? You can't. We live in a culture that is fragmenting its sources of authority; different groups of people have different sources of authority. Here's a good example. The external dialogue that a lot of conservatives give on climate change is that scientists can't be trusted. The internal dialogue that a lot of them (though not all) engage in goes something like, "The earth doesn't matter. God is going to come back and set things right. So we don't need to worry about it anyway."
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    Nah, the Pathetic appeal is easy. It isn't sustainable, but the simplest form of Pathos is "Hey, fuck THOSE guys, right? You're better than they are, you're special! Git 'em!", and we're practically swimming in it right now.
    - hacknat 5y ago
      I don't know. Ostensibly it looks like pathos is easy right now. Politics seems super intense right now, but it also seems super fake. Mostly I think shows of pathos are fake right now. Getting people to actually do things and act seems like the hardest thing right now. Posting on social media doesn't count.
- glitchc 5y ago
  This requirement places too high a burden on one person. Only a saint (or God) could achieve the standard claimed here. Objectivity on topics should be sufficient. Scientists who lose their objectivity cease to contribute usefully to the discussion.
  - hprotagonist 5y ago
    Only God could be Objective; that whole Descarte's Demon thing makes True claims based on empirical observations a lot more fraught than you'd really like it to be, even in the best of cases where everyone agrees on: what language game we're playing today, what "an observation" is, that it was faithfully reported, and so on. Nobody's perfect; what builds the sort of trust that permits action is a history of publically doing one's best: I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen. Do that, and you'll earn your Ethical appeal easily enough.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Not having a conflicting political agenda that coincides with your experimental results goes a long way with establishing ethos, as well.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> too many supposedly trustworthy people lie straight to the public face just to maintain the narrative This is particularly apropos in the wake of Russell Brand's recent video on FB's Fact Checkers for Covid 19 vaccine information [1] funded by BigPharma, having a huge financial stake in bigpharma, and intentionally hiding their funding by BigPharma, and not adding a notification that the fact checkers are in fact funded/invested by/in BigPharma. I am starting to read completely disinterested 3rd party sources more, because weighing the pros and cons of a thing is more challenging when the supposed experts are deliberating concealing material relationships. Some old Emeritus professor, already retired, with several phds and just a passing bit of information often gives great criticism of a thing without having any stake in the outcome. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc

motohagiography 5y ago

Was going to comment that it is not science that solves political issues, but rather, engineering. Even logos, ethos, and pathos together do not prevail over trebuchet.

Espressosaurus 5y ago
Engineering doesn't solve political issues either. War is politics by another means.
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  I was thinking about this the other day; politics, war and climate. Americans (of which I am one) are very good at looking at political threats in terms of "others" and versus. Democrats vs. Republicans. America vs. ISIL, etc, etc. When it comes to fighting a more amorphous, but equally viable threat, like climate change, we have a hard time grasping the threat. It causes fire damage to California, Oregon and Washington; flood and wind damage to Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Arkansas (at least); a migrant crisis at our southern borders; and shipment and food supply issues. If a foreign threat were causing these issues, no political force would stop "either side" from stumping to stop it. Yet, here we are, waiting it out. The Republicans denying and the Democrats in endless debate, unable to take action. Both sides unable to take action against an ongoing asymmetric war, waged upon us by a new form of enemy that we have created over the last century.
  - canadaduane 5y ago
    Well said! As a Canadian living in the US, I encountered the "us vs. them" culture as very subtle but real. It's like everything is a football game here, and that is the only way to frame things such that it gets attention.

version_five 5y ago

In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Statements about importance are value judgements that no doubt you have made, but are not really science and are basically political. An easy example, "covid restrictions curb covid" may be true and you can provide experimental evidence. "We need to impose restrictions" makes a judgement about the overall situation under the restrictions being preferable to the one without them. This is not a scientific call, this is a societal judgement. People too often pretend that an action immediately follows from some identified causal relationship. Smoking kills you does not immediately imply you should quit smoking, without the intermediate step of "you value your later life and health more than the ongoing benefits you get from smoking" (disclaimer, nonsmoker)

hprotagonist 5y ago
>In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Strictly speaking no, but that's more of a long digression on epistemology than what I think you mean. (but think of indiana jones here: "archaeology is concerned with _fact_, not _truth_ ...") My role as a scientist is to work diligently to understand, as best as we are able, the natural world. Yet, "I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth."
- Domenic_S 5y ago
  The point, I think, is that laypeople and scientists alike fall further and further into the fallacy of appeal to authority: 'a scientist said it's true, therefore it is true!' (for simplicity, true == a fact correctly expressed). That thing may be true, but the rising disdain for not accepting a conclusion when the evidence isn't presented alongside is worrisome. The difference between science and religion is that science draws conclusions from reproducible research. Yet - especially now - many people take the naked word of 'a scientist' the same way a religious fanatic takes the word of their spiritual leader. This definition gave me a lot of clarity: an expert is someone who has, can get, can make, or can cause to be made - and presents - evidence that supports their conclusions.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

What to do when it's true, but the proponent isn't trustworthy? Just say no?

phkahler 5y ago
Find another source. If it's true there should be evidence other than the proponents words.

AniseAbyss 5y ago

Maybe scientists should stick to their labs? You can invent a cure for cancer, but that doesn't automatically make you a good politician or leader.

hprotagonist 5y ago
You need all three rhetorical modes in your lab too. Trust me!

teslaberry 5y ago

it is remarkeable how many people, at the highest levels of academia and otherwise still don't understand this or are disingenuous about why these three things together are so important, above all. truth does not stand on an island. many things have varrying degrees of truth and thus one must ask why one truth is being brought to your attention and not other truths ( trustworthiness , and importance ) the bringer of truth must have sincere intentions for his subject who he brings the truth to, and the bringer must also have discretion, because you don't want any moron wasting your time with brittany spiers views on physics. truth can be totally irrelevant an unimportant, or worse, it can be important but brought to you for the wrong reasons, such as blocking out other truths that are judged more essential for the subject, by the bringer of truth.

jvanderbot 5y ago

More concretely, there are also concerns with one side judging their own arguments (be them of any of the big three types) as valid without concern for their ability to convince others. If you treat logos, pathos, and ethos as a self-certified checklist, you are doomed to fail as well. You must provide arguments of each three types that are convincing to others. Above all else, preaching to the choir is (IMHO) the biggest problem in my political environment (USA).

hobs 5y ago
In the context of politicians in the USA they will not perceive its a problem until it stop working. Given how strong gerrymandering is there's no benefit to reaching out to the other side, just hold the line while scoring political points.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  There are many other problems as well, but I think the topic of conversation in this thread is the oratory skills of policy makers, which might explain a few downvotes.

phkahler 5y ago

"This is true" obviously needs to come from someone trustworthy or it is irrelevant. This is why I categorically ignore everything from Dr Fauci. He's known to have lied to the public before to influence behavior. Since I'd have verify his claims from some other source anyway, there's no sense using him as a source at all.

patpending 5y ago
I know his recommendations have changed over time, but can you cite well documented instances where he lied?
- Jensson 5y ago
  He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month. If they were giving proper advice instead of telling people that covid wasn't a big deal at the time then maybe that disaster could have been averted from the start? At the time the dangers of covid spread was well documented based on how quickly it got into Italy, but at the time it was the democrat party line to downplay the disease to avoid racism against the Chinese so that was the line Fauci took. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask-60-minutes-2020-03-08/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask... > "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes. > While masks may block some droplets, Fauci said, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.
  - patpending 5y ago
    > He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month. I don't see how that is necessarily a lie. It could have been the best public health recommendation he could make at the time based on the available information. Research into how best to use masks is ongoing, so I would not expect today's masking recommendations to be the same as tomorrow's.

chmsky00 5y ago

Yep. Science is three things; space, time, field effects. Human gossip is societies field effect. A thing may be true but politics is obfuscating the importance.

alistairSH 5y ago

It is very frustrating, especially to many of my fellow scientists, that bellowing "THIS IS TRUE" as loudly as possible is insufficient. But it is insufficient. While I understand your argument, I'm believe there's something more going on. Taking COVID, for example. From the pro-science side, we get: "COVID is a dangerous virus. We should take X, Y, Z actions" from somebody with a PhD in public health, medicine, or similar. And from the anti-science side, we get: "It's fake. It's the flu. X wasn't perfect, therefore X, Y, Z are all a plot to make you magnetic" from somebody on YouTube with no credential beyond being on Youtube. I guess what I'm saying is there's something fundamentally broken about how people process information. All the Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in the world doesn't help when a significant portion of the population is brainwashed.

Jensson 5y ago
> And from the anti-science side, we get: "It's fake. It's the flu. X wasn't perfect, therefore X, Y, Z are all a plot to make you magnetic" from somebody on YouTube with no credential beyond being on Youtube. Then why do we see articles saying that Youtube etc bans people with great credentials who are anti vax? There are people with great credentials on every side of every argument. Great credentials doesn't stop you from being an idiot or being wrong. If you believe the first person with great credentials you see, and that person happened to be anti vacc, would you be anti vax? Sounds like it to me. I'm pro vaccine, but I am strongly anti blindly listening to people with credentials.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Sorry, should have been more clear... I'll take Fauci's word over somebody on Youtube (regardless of that Youtuber's purported credentials). Fauci has a career in public health. Random Youtuber, I have no idea if they even have thee credentials they claim. And there's a big difference between a scientist saying "people with previous COVID infections have more anti-bodies than those with vaccinations" and Joe Rogan saying "COVID is fake/just the flu". The first is potentially true and most of us aren't qualified to either verify it or derive any course of action from it - regardless of it's truth, vaccination is probably the appropriate action for any individual (better safe than sorry). Using the statement as a argument to avoid vaccination is bad policy. The second is on outright fabrication, yet we still have a significant portion of the population believing that crap.

dragontamer 5y ago

> Logos, Ethos, Pathos: you need all three. "This is true. I am trustworthy. This true thing is important." This ivermectin thing basically proves that logos isn't useful. Ethos + Pathos alone can convince a large population of people. The Apple "Reality Distortion Field" was never about logic. It was about making people feel good about buying Apple products. That's fine, because Apple has decent enough products (I don't like them myself, but I can see why some others would like them). But today, we can apply the "Reality Distortion Field" to any subject. Most recently: ivermectin. ------------- What I don't get: why are people choosing to push snake oil (like ivermectin), instead of pushing the drugs that do work (3 different vaccines, dexamethasone, and monoclonal antibodies)? Society has developed working treatments for COVID19: dexamethasone cut the death rate in half IIRC, and monoclonal antibodies cut it in half yet again. And yet, people are seeking treatments that straight up have no evidence of working. I can put papers up for the efficacy of dexamethasone + monoclonal antibodies, and how this cocktail saves the lives of countless people across this country. But then I'm suddenly left in a "Russet's teapot" scenario where I'm apparently supposed to prove-a-negation when discussing ivermectin (even if countless papers fail to distinguish ivermectin from the null-hypothesis). People's brains turn off. Because today's reality distortion fields / marketing / propaganda are much, much stronger than logic. --------- Let me tell you how to do things in today's world. 1. Automatically find the people who have the poorest logic. Use ads, memes, and other such "low-quality" discussion points to find the lowest functioning brains. For example, clickbait headlines or "Nigerian Prince" scams. The dumber the argument, the better. 2. Reasonable people will ignore you. The only people who will interact with you are people with weaker argument skills. Spend as much time convincing _this_ group of your benefits. 3. Make it fun: give them memes to share with their friends. Even if its a bad / crappy argument, that's okay. That's what memes are about. 4. Sit back and relax as your crowd automatically spreads whatever argument you want amongst their friends and family. Now they're doing the hard work for you. 5. Bonus points: get enough people moving as a crowd, and even smart people start to get drawn into the masses. You'll start finding apologists who make better arguments on behalf of you. Keep up with the meme culture and pick/choose the best arguments. Crowdsource your marketing: the memes that become popular are the arguments you want to use. At no point is "working" on logos actually beneficial to building a RDF (reality distortion field). You can build ethos + pathos simultaneously by just seeding opinions into a crowd through meme culture. Bonus points#2: Use really, really bad arguments (World is flat. Lets to go Mars. 9/11 was a hoax. Hydroxychloroquine can save you from COVID19) as practice. The better you get at seeding bad arguments, the better you get at seeding any argument.

8note 5y ago

How do your fellow scientists get work through peer review without showing that it is trustworthy? And how do they get funding to do science without showing its important?

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

To your point, American anti-intellectualism continuously undermines the "I am trustworthy" aspect of science. For a country whose current rise to prominence was so clearly aided by technology, and whose future relevance depends on technical innovation in an uncertain global future... We are so lucky that COVID is only going to kill a million americans or so (700k and counting, probably 850k by Jan 1st), if this was the death rates of smallpox or the black death... ye gods. Our lack of respect in science is a huge part of vaccine hesitancy and our key role in continuing the pandemic. The news media are terrible because for decades they have reduced science and technology either to simplistic caricatures, star trek gobbledygook, or even worse the WELL THEY SAID THIS, NOW THEY SAY THAT. The general media's constant use of the high school nerd trope for all science and technology proficiency has been a long term failure in the progress of our civilization. Only, and only, because such proficiency leads generally to some degrees of upper middle class money to vast wealth is the reason it hasn't been worse. But that media trope has always colored all science and technology policy as culturally "well, that's what the nerds say, and they aren't cool or fun". Possibly it goes back to how most ultra-rich """elite""" made their money in America: by control and exploitation. People that have influence and position distrust science, because it is complicated and unknown and preys on their paranoia, and so often for industrialists produces complications to their overall plan of "make money by selling products, offloading the actual environmental cost/impact of those products on ... anyone else". Maybe I'm paranoid, but it does seem with the mastery of social media propaganda/manipulation by monied interests, sowing distrust in science is now at an all time high. So the business-friendly right will distrust science because it threatens their money and power. The apathetic center won't like science because it isn't cool. The left... well, scientists are generally white and male so they are distrusted by identity activists, and the rest of the left is too disorganized to rally around science policy effectively.