Leafy comments on Open Thread: February 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong

10 Post author: CronoDAS 16 February 2010 08:29AM

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Comment author: Leafy 19 February 2010 02:20:09PM 3 points [-]

It is common practice, when debating an issue with someone, to cite examples.

Has anyone else ever noticed how your entire argument can be undermined by stating a single example or fact which is does not stand up to scrutiny, even though your argument may be valid and all other examples robust?

Is this a common phenomenon? Does it have a name? What is the thought process that underlies it and what can you do to rescue your position once this has occurred?

Comment author: wnoise 19 February 2010 11:10:16PM *  3 points [-]

It takes effort to evaluate examples. Revealing that one example is bad raises the possibility that others are bad as well, because the methods for choosing examples are correlated with the examples chosen. The two obvious reasons for a bad example are:

  1. You missed that this was a bad example, so why should I trust your interpretation or understanding of your other examples?
  2. You know this is a bad example, and included it anyway, so why should I trust any of your other examples?
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