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Tyrrell_McAllister comments on Desirable Dispositions and Rational Actions - Less Wrong
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Condescension is a combination of content and context. When you isolated that quote as especially condescending, I thought that you read something within it that was condescending. I was confused, because the quote could just as well have come from a post arguing that LWers ought to believe that Aumann et al. are right.
It now looks like you and I read the intrinsic meaning of the quote in the same way. The question then is, does that quote, placed in context, somehow make the overall post more condescending than it already was? Wei had already said that his treatment of the AMD was better than that of Aumann et al.. He had already said that these prestigious researchers got it wrong. Do you agree that if this were true, if the experts got it wrong, then we ought to try to understand how that happened, and not just dismiss them as crazy?
Whatever condescension occurred, it occurred as soon as Wei said that he was right and Aumann et al. were wrong. How can drawing a rational inference from that belief make it more condescending?
"They are probably not crazy" strikes me as "damning with faint praise". IMHO, it definitely raises the overall condescension level.
No. Peons claim lords are wrong all the time. It is not even impolite, if you are willing to admit your mistake and withdraw your claim reasonably quickly.
Condescension starts when you attempt to "charitably" analyze the source of the error.
Of course. But if I merely had good reason to believe they were wrong, then my most urgent next step would be to determine whether it were true that they got it wrong. I would begin by communicating with the experts, either privately or through the peer-reviewed literature, so as to get some feedback as to whether they were wrong or I was mistaken. If it does indeed turn out that they were wrong, I would let them take the first shot at explaining the causes of their mistake. I doubt that I would try to analyze the cause of the mistake myself unless I were a trained historian dealing with a mistake at least 50 years old. Or, if I did try (and I probably have), I would hope that someone would point out my presumption.
In this light I can see where 'condescension' fits in. There is a difference between 'descending to be with' and just plain 'being way above'. For example we could label "they are wrong" as arrogant, "they are wrong but we can empathise with them and understand their mistake" as condescending and "They are wrong, that's the kind of person Nobel prizes go to these days?" as "contemptuous" - even though they all operate from the same "I consider myself above in this instance" premise. Wei's paragraph could then be considered to be transferring weight from arrogance and contempt into condescension.
(I still disapprove of Perplexed's implied criticism.)
Okay, I can see this distinction. I can see how, as a matter of social convention, "they are wrong but we should understand their mistake" could come across as more condescending than just "they are wrong". But I really don't like that convention. If an expert is wrong, we really do have an obligation to understand how that happened. Accepting that obligation shouldn't be stigmatized as condescending. (Not that you implied otherwise.)