7 ms·

There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point.

ddingus 12y ago
I use the word "dodge" and that is one of a number of things people do to avoid having to deal with information they find difficult to process. A while back, I decided to compile a list of these behaviors seen on a smaller, guilty pleasure type of site I enjoy. Here are the major ones seen very frequently: 1. Subject change 2. False comparison 3. Claim of too many opponents 4. Silence 5. Claim to either be a member of, or opponents of discussion being members of club, with said membership somehow required to complete what is otherwise a non-rational conclusion. 6. Claim of overall subject and or implications of subject complexity being greater than scope of discussion; therefore, it’s all a waste of time. (You would not understand) 7. Transformation of rational point at hand to emotional one. 8. The bible. 9. Redefinition of common words. 10. Personal attack. 11. Obsfucation. (however you spell it) 12. Excess verbosity. What I did was post this, put names on it, including my own, and then start citing it when the behavior is seen. I expected people to moderate the behaviors and perhaps improve dialog. What actually happened was the behaviors intensified! They created new ones, and started using them in combination: Subject change, excess verbosity, silence was very common. Blow up the dialog to prevent realizations or consensus, then go silent to let it all fade away. Then do it again, and again... Now, something good did happen. Participants who get it, tended to add their own observations to the list, and a bond formed between them. This helped differentiate the dialog some, and high clarity material, rational material was easier to identify and that dialog did improve. But the noise makers also improved, making better noise, more frequently, division went up, and the overall tone of the place was harder to enjoy. This led me to another realization: We very often want to frame things as debate when the truth is we are often doing advocacy. Advocacy has three components: Reason, character, emotion. Advocacy is a super set of debate. Effective advocates employ all three and here is the kicker: They will trump an effective debater in a dialog. Interesting isn't it?
- protonfish 12y ago
  Nice list. I try to reserve my downvotes for these behaviors especially excessive verbosity, redefinition of common words and other non-substanitive content. I think I am going to add the now common request for citation (seriously, you are on the Internet, google it yourself, man.) I am all about reading different points of view but they they should contribute something new.
  - ddingus 12y ago
    Use the phrase "add value" for this. Calling for people to add value requires them to make material, original contributions to a dialog, not just quote, cut, paste and link. Link dropping is the worst. People won't actually express themselves. They will just collect information and drop it into a dialog like a trump, or battle card, rendering the whole thing a mess. A call to add value helps push back on garbage like this. As for "Google it", that cuts both ways. It can be valid for a person to cite the burden of proof as being yours. If you are pushing something not peer-reviewed and logically sound, supporting what you say needs to be the dominant norm. More work for you, but if you establish that norm, it also means the clowns, asses, dullards, zealots, etc... will have a much harder time establishing overall group credence. Not as simple as it seems, is it?
    - protonfish 12y ago
      Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy. But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court to find evidence for disproof. The existence or non-existence of a published supporting article is neither proof nor disproof.
      - ddingus 12y ago
        Yes, in debate that is true. In advocacy it is NOT TRUE. Let that sink in for a while... :) Most of the time we are doing advocacy. Let that sink in too. Now, let's discuss what that really means: It means people who want their way more than they want to be right or just or true, etc... can and will dominate a discussion with effective advocacy techniques whether or not they have rational merit. Secondly, emotional arguments are only partially rational, yet they carry very significant weight. Being logically right, yet having that result feel bad, or cruel, or unjust is a very significant part of policy discussions. For an example, this is why libertarians often do not gain traction in many policy discussions. (no slight on liberitarians, just an example) They are typically, and often brutally rational, dismissing emotional and character arguments entirely. Somebody who can read a room, employ effective advocacy, and who can provide emotional, character and a fair degree of rational support will win the day almost every time.
ddingus 12y ago
Notably, I also found out a few other dynamics: Personification trumps vilification and ridicule. Let's take something really ugly, like abortion. People will post up the ugly pictures and they will post up their favorite slogans, and they will denigrate opponents with brutalities like, "baby killer" This kind of noise completely destroys rational advocacy / debate on the topic, which is why religion and politics are often discouraged in technical and other discussion venues. Now, personify it. I took a story from Brazil where a 9 year old girl was raped by her father, her mother wanted to get an abortion for her, and the church, state, father and others wanted to deny the girl that. Instead of the usual advocacy path, I asked people what they personally would say to the little girl who doesn't want to carry a pregnancy. This required they simulate the scenario, and express their thoughts as actions, or virtual actions in this case, rather than just pull out their favorite "pokemon battle card" type sayings... Amazingly, the dialog split into two camps! The majority of participants answered honestly, and were quite disturbed at the experience. The majority said they would not tell the little girl no, regardless of their personal beliefs / preferences. It was the human thing to do. For those ideologues who were being absolutist about it, they would not answer, because they would reveal cracks in their black and white vision of things, so they vilified instead! And it was intense. The rest of the group turned on them, and they got shouted down. Secondly, that experience changed the group dynamics. Abortion noise is no longer tolerated like it was before. It's potency as a distraction is now much less in that venue. The personification really impacted people. Edit: One absolutist actually said the right answer was to cut the girl open after she has carried the baby far enough along to be viable. The group response to this was harsh, and they were banned. I personally took a lot of heat for that disturbing approach and had to apologize for the rough dialog. And I did, citing my interest in finding out what trumps what. This was well received, but the whole thing was expensive emotionally. Honestly, this is one of the few times I've ever seen the noise machine beat back into submission like that. Lesson there somewhere. (Yes, this is an area of interest of mine, and I've been running little experiments for some time as the problem identified in this thread is growing rapidly and we have few answers. I find the use of data intriguing, and I plan to do some reading to better understand what other options we may have.)
- protonfish 12y ago
Natsu 12y ago
> There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point. I'd be careful about this one. People don't always have the same news sources, so what constitutes "common knowledge" for one person might be alien to another. Personally, I expect myself to be able to provide a citation for anything reasonably controversial or not widely known and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with asking someone to show their work. After all, there's the opposite side of this coin: someone who isn't giving evidence because they cannot. I mean, if I claim to have a unicorn in my garage, I can't reasonably expect everyone to accept it on my say-so. I know that's not at all the scenario you have in mind, but I think you'd hate to have someone engaged in such behavior justifying it with your logic when that's not what you meant at all.
- protonfish 12y ago
  A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, and what is submitted to be published is heavily filtered, and the final articles are being paywalls, how can a plea for citations be a legitimate request? If you are claiming you have a unicorn in your garage, I don't want citations - I want EVIDENCE. A picture would be a fine place to start. I can't imagine any citation being of value either pro or con. In a discussion I want to read evidence or reason - everything else is filler.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    > A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, I think you just exposed the root of this. You're thinking a citation has to be a scientific paper or something equivalent. I'm saying that when you argue something, you should be willing to cite ordinary evidence, of which a scientific paper is just one kind. A photo would be a perfectly reasonable thing to cite as evidence.

ddingus 12y ago

I use the word "dodge" and that is one of a number of things people do to avoid having to deal with information they find difficult to process. A while back, I decided to compile a list of these behaviors seen on a smaller, guilty pleasure type of site I enjoy. Here are the major ones seen very frequently: 1. Subject change 2. False comparison 3. Claim of too many opponents 4. Silence 5. Claim to either be a member of, or opponents of discussion being members of club, with said membership somehow required to complete what is otherwise a non-rational conclusion. 6. Claim of overall subject and or implications of subject complexity being greater than scope of discussion; therefore, it’s all a waste of time. (You would not understand) 7. Transformation of rational point at hand to emotional one. 8. The bible. 9. Redefinition of common words. 10. Personal attack. 11. Obsfucation. (however you spell it) 12. Excess verbosity. What I did was post this, put names on it, including my own, and then start citing it when the behavior is seen. I expected people to moderate the behaviors and perhaps improve dialog. What actually happened was the behaviors intensified! They created new ones, and started using them in combination: Subject change, excess verbosity, silence was very common. Blow up the dialog to prevent realizations or consensus, then go silent to let it all fade away. Then do it again, and again... Now, something good did happen. Participants who get it, tended to add their own observations to the list, and a bond formed between them. This helped differentiate the dialog some, and high clarity material, rational material was easier to identify and that dialog did improve. But the noise makers also improved, making better noise, more frequently, division went up, and the overall tone of the place was harder to enjoy. This led me to another realization: We very often want to frame things as debate when the truth is we are often doing advocacy. Advocacy has three components: Reason, character, emotion. Advocacy is a super set of debate. Effective advocates employ all three and here is the kicker: They will trump an effective debater in a dialog. Interesting isn't it?

protonfish 12y ago
Nice list. I try to reserve my downvotes for these behaviors especially excessive verbosity, redefinition of common words and other non-substanitive content. I think I am going to add the now common request for citation (seriously, you are on the Internet, google it yourself, man.) I am all about reading different points of view but they they should contribute something new.
- ddingus 12y ago
  Use the phrase "add value" for this. Calling for people to add value requires them to make material, original contributions to a dialog, not just quote, cut, paste and link. Link dropping is the worst. People won't actually express themselves. They will just collect information and drop it into a dialog like a trump, or battle card, rendering the whole thing a mess. A call to add value helps push back on garbage like this. As for "Google it", that cuts both ways. It can be valid for a person to cite the burden of proof as being yours. If you are pushing something not peer-reviewed and logically sound, supporting what you say needs to be the dominant norm. More work for you, but if you establish that norm, it also means the clowns, asses, dullards, zealots, etc... will have a much harder time establishing overall group credence. Not as simple as it seems, is it?
  - protonfish 12y ago
    Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy. But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court to find evidence for disproof. The existence or non-existence of a published supporting article is neither proof nor disproof.
    - ddingus 12y ago
      Yes, in debate that is true. In advocacy it is NOT TRUE. Let that sink in for a while... :) Most of the time we are doing advocacy. Let that sink in too. Now, let's discuss what that really means: It means people who want their way more than they want to be right or just or true, etc... can and will dominate a discussion with effective advocacy techniques whether or not they have rational merit. Secondly, emotional arguments are only partially rational, yet they carry very significant weight. Being logically right, yet having that result feel bad, or cruel, or unjust is a very significant part of policy discussions. For an example, this is why libertarians often do not gain traction in many policy discussions. (no slight on liberitarians, just an example) They are typically, and often brutally rational, dismissing emotional and character arguments entirely. Somebody who can read a room, employ effective advocacy, and who can provide emotional, character and a fair degree of rational support will win the day almost every time.

ddingus 12y ago

Notably, I also found out a few other dynamics: Personification trumps vilification and ridicule. Let's take something really ugly, like abortion. People will post up the ugly pictures and they will post up their favorite slogans, and they will denigrate opponents with brutalities like, "baby killer" This kind of noise completely destroys rational advocacy / debate on the topic, which is why religion and politics are often discouraged in technical and other discussion venues. Now, personify it. I took a story from Brazil where a 9 year old girl was raped by her father, her mother wanted to get an abortion for her, and the church, state, father and others wanted to deny the girl that. Instead of the usual advocacy path, I asked people what they personally would say to the little girl who doesn't want to carry a pregnancy. This required they simulate the scenario, and express their thoughts as actions, or virtual actions in this case, rather than just pull out their favorite "pokemon battle card" type sayings... Amazingly, the dialog split into two camps! The majority of participants answered honestly, and were quite disturbed at the experience. The majority said they would not tell the little girl no, regardless of their personal beliefs / preferences. It was the human thing to do. For those ideologues who were being absolutist about it, they would not answer, because they would reveal cracks in their black and white vision of things, so they vilified instead! And it was intense. The rest of the group turned on them, and they got shouted down. Secondly, that experience changed the group dynamics. Abortion noise is no longer tolerated like it was before. It's potency as a distraction is now much less in that venue. The personification really impacted people. Edit: One absolutist actually said the right answer was to cut the girl open after she has carried the baby far enough along to be viable. The group response to this was harsh, and they were banned. I personally took a lot of heat for that disturbing approach and had to apologize for the rough dialog. And I did, citing my interest in finding out what trumps what. This was well received, but the whole thing was expensive emotionally. Honestly, this is one of the few times I've ever seen the noise machine beat back into submission like that. Lesson there somewhere. (Yes, this is an area of interest of mine, and I've been running little experiments for some time as the problem identified in this thread is growing rapidly and we have few answers. I find the use of data intriguing, and I plan to do some reading to better understand what other options we may have.)

protonfish 12y ago

Natsu 12y ago

> There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point. I'd be careful about this one. People don't always have the same news sources, so what constitutes "common knowledge" for one person might be alien to another. Personally, I expect myself to be able to provide a citation for anything reasonably controversial or not widely known and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with asking someone to show their work. After all, there's the opposite side of this coin: someone who isn't giving evidence because they cannot. I mean, if I claim to have a unicorn in my garage, I can't reasonably expect everyone to accept it on my say-so. I know that's not at all the scenario you have in mind, but I think you'd hate to have someone engaged in such behavior justifying it with your logic when that's not what you meant at all.

protonfish 12y ago
A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, and what is submitted to be published is heavily filtered, and the final articles are being paywalls, how can a plea for citations be a legitimate request? If you are claiming you have a unicorn in your garage, I don't want citations - I want EVIDENCE. A picture would be a fine place to start. I can't imagine any citation being of value either pro or con. In a discussion I want to read evidence or reason - everything else is filler.
- Natsu 12y ago
  > A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, I think you just exposed the root of this. You're thinking a citation has to be a scientific paper or something equivalent. I'm saying that when you argue something, you should be willing to cite ordinary evidence, of which a scientific paper is just one kind. A photo would be a perfectly reasonable thing to cite as evidence.