ata comments on Woo! - Less Wrong

7 Post author: BenAlbahari 21 February 2010 08:19AM

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Comment author: Sniffnoy 21 February 2010 08:54:39AM 8 points [-]

Why the name "woo"? The fact that this is likely to occur in the same context as "woo" as in "woo-woo" makes me uneasy; it seems likely someone not paying attention might actually get them confused. (Well, one is a count noun and one is a mass noun, but...)

Also, can you state the definition more explicitly? It's not clear from the above whether you're considering valid patterns of argument to be woos or not.

Comment author: ata 21 February 2010 09:17:17AM 2 points [-]

Why the name "woo"? The fact that this is likely to occur in the same context as "woo" as in "woo-woo" makes me uneasy; it seems likely someone not paying attention might actually get them confused. (Well, one is a count noun and one is a mass noun, but...)

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of too. Especially since I often hear "woo-woo" itself abbreviated to just "woo". I think it should be renamed, especially since a lot of people interested in the structure of argument are likely to be active in the skeptic community and therefore potentially familiar with the term in its older sense.