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I feel like this entire article was written without the ability to conceive of another way of thinking or that there are other people who think differently than
by titzer 5y ago
I feel like this entire article was written without the ability to conceive of another way of thinking or that there are other people who think differently than you. They are entirely optimizing for their own ability to mouth off an opinion without doing any hard work. For the author, maybe it's great if people go off with half-cocked, poorly-researched, and fundamentally misguided criticisms that stem from complete misunderstandings. But for me, it annoys me when people write long missives about some stuff they barely understand but feel good to them. They usually aren't trying to understand, they aren't trying to help other people understand, and certainly aren't helping out the authors whom they are criticizing.
Instead, people who do this are just shoveling more confusion, reinforcing tribal lines in some cases, and frankly, muddying the waters.
I'll give an example. Relativity. There is absolutely no doubt in the physics community that Relativity is a.) a thing b.) well-understood mathematically c.) explains physical reality remarkably well, being supported by vast amounts of evidence. And yet general relativity is not yet unified with quantum theory.
Do we need more cranks who a.) do not understand the underlying mathematics and b.) do not understand what the fundamental shortcoming is, in detail, firing off articles "criticizing" it? Hells no. These types of things should be debated by physicists and mathematicians who do actually thoroughly understand these things. Physics journals won't suffer amateur hour, and they shouldn't. Physics journals, and all scientific publishing venues, subject articles to review that try to elevate the level of discourse by checking and re-checking claims.
But the internet is not journals, sure. It's a free-for-all. It has elevated so many random voices to a level of authority that it is not possible to weed through claims at speed; cranks make themselves look like experts. An experts understate their own confidence. The internet is a massive Dunning-Krueger melting pot.
I will absolutely push back on the idea that the problem we have right now is that the expectations are too high. You mean you have to understand what a person is saying, maybe even talking to the person first, before you launch a volley of utter nonsense at them? The humanity.
- paulpauper 5y ago>But for me, it annoys me when people write long missives about some stuff they barely understand but feel good to them. They usually aren't trying to understand, they aren't trying to help other people understand, and certainly aren't helping out the authors whom they are criticizing. This usually happens when people make a snap judgment based off the title and maybe the first few sentences of an article without reading further.
- rcoveson 5y agoThe author seems to want more of this[0] kind of high-quality refutation. Here's another, this time a blog post[1] and a rebuttal[2]. Very different examples, one in medical science and the other just blogosphere musings, but both are public counters to public originals, rather than direct communications with the original's authors. That said, I'm not clear on why the author thinks that we're at a "turning point" in deciding whether it's socially acceptable to just publish an argument against something else that was published. Maybe in the scientific community that's a strict norm? It certainly doesn't seem to be in the blogging community. Maybe the author is worried that good arguments are lost in the semi-private twitter scuffle with the original authors of papers and articles? Maybe they hope that people will respond to broadcasted arguments intended for the general public with counter-arguments that are also broadcasted, instead of directed? I don't know. It feels like I'm missing the article's "prompt". 0. https://kylesheldrick.blogspot.com/2022/03/evidence-of-fabricated-data-in-vitamin.html https://kylesheldrick.blogspot.com/2022/03/evidence-of-fabri... 1. https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einsteins?s=w https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/why-we-stopped-making-einste... 2. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-hoel-on-aristocratic-tutoring?s=r https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/contra-hoel-on-aristoc...
- deadbeeves 5y ago>You mean you have to understand what a person is saying, maybe even talking to the person first, before you launch a volley of utter nonsense at them? But you yourself recognize that the cranks have no qualms doing that, while the experts understate their expertise. The cranks are cranks; they're not going to take the effort to understand something thoroughly before responding to it, because then they wouldn't be cranks anymore. The only alternative is for everyone to shout as loud as they can about what an idiot Steve is for saying that stupid thing he did. Modesty has no place on the Internet. Fire on all cylinders and let Steve defend himself if he wants to.