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gwern comments on 6 Tips for Productive Arguments - Less Wrong
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The most important tip for online arguing, for anything which you expect ever to be discussed again, is to keep a canonical master source which does your arguing for you. (The backfire effect means you owe it to the other person to present your best case and not a sketchy paraphrase of what you have enough energy to write down at that random moment; it's irresponsible to do otherwise.)
For example, if you are arguing about the historical Jesus and your argument does not consist of citations and hyperlinks with some prepositional phrases interspersed, you are doing it wrong. If I'm arguing about brain size correlation with intelligence, I stick the references into the appropriate Wikipedia article and refer to that henceforth. If I'm arguing about modafinil, I either link to the relevant section in Wikipedia or my article, or I edit a cleaned-up version of the argument into my article. If I'm arguing that Moody 2008 drastically undermines the value of dual n-back for IQ on the DNB ML, you can be sure that it's going into my FAQ. If I don't yet have an article or essay on it but it's still a topic I am interested in like how IQ contributes to peace and economic growth, then I will just accumulate citations in comments until I do have something. If I can't put it in LW, gwern.net, or Wikipedia - then I store it in Evernote!
This is an old observation: healthy intellectual communities have both transient discussions (a mailing list) and a static topical repository (an FAQ or wiki). Unfortunately, often there is no latter, so you have to make your own.
Suggestions like that quickly degenerate into appeal to authority, or biased selection of sources, with no substance to it (no actual argument being made; imagine arguing mathematics like this, for extreme example; you make a proof, you ask person that disagrees to show what step, exactly, is wrong, they refer to 'expert' conclusions, 99% of the time simply because they can't do math, not because they are organized). I usually don't need your cherry-picking of references from wikipedia, I have wikipedia for that.
So in other words, this strategy degenerates into several steps higher up the hierarchy of disagreement than just about every other online argument...
Okay, let me clarify: the problem of unproductive argument stems from the reality that people are a: bad truth finders, b: usually don't care to find truth and c: are prone to backwards thought from proposition to justifications, which is acceptable [because of limited computing power and difficulty to do it other way around].
The tip is awesome when you are right (and I totally agree that it is great to have references and so on). When you are wrong, which is more than half of the problem (as much of the time BOTH sides are wrong), it is extremely obtuse. I'd rather prefer people dump out something closer to why they actually believe the argument, rather than how they justify them. Yes, that makes for poor show, but it is more truthful. Why you believe something, is [often] not accurate citation. It is [often] the poor paraphrasing.
Just look at the 'tips' for productive arguments. Is there a tip number 1: drop your position ASAP if you are wrong? Hell frigging no (not that it would work either, though, that's not how arguing ever works).
edit: to clarify more. Consider climate debates. Those are terrible. Now, you can have naive honest folk who says he ain't trusting no climate scientist. You can have naive honest folk who says, he ain't trusting no oil company. And you can have two pseudo-climate-scientific dudes, arguing by obtusely citing studies at each other, not understanding a single thing about the climate modelling, generating a lot of noise that looks good but neither of them would ever change the view even if they seen all the studies they citing in exact same light. But they are merely the sophisticated version of former folks, who hide their actual beliefs. The cranks that make up some form of crank climate theory, are not as bad as those two types of climate-arguing folks. The former folks talking about politics, they generate some argument, they won't agree because one's authoritarian and other liberal, but they at least make that clear. The cranks, they generate cranky theories. The citingpeople, they generate pure deception as to who they are.
I've done my best to make this a habit, and it really isn't that hard to do, especially over the internet. Once you 'bite the bullet' the first time it seems to get easier to do in the future. I've even been able to concede points of contention in real life (when appropriate). Is it automatic? No, you have to keep it in the back of your mind, just like you have to keep in mind the possibility that you're rationalizing. You also have to act on it which, for me, does seem to get easier the more I do it.
This sort of goes with the need to constantly try to recognize when you are rationalizing. If you are looking up a storm of quotes, articles, posts etc. to back up your point and overwhelm your 'opponent', this should set off alarm bells. The problem is that those who spend a lot of time correcting people who are obviously wrong by providing them with large amounts of correct information also seem prone to taking the same approach to a position that merely seems obviously wrong for reasons they might not be totally conscious of themselves. They then engage in some rapid fire confirmation bias, throw a bunch of links up and try to 'overpower the opponent'. This is something to be aware of. If the position you're engaging seems wrong but you don't have a clear-cut, well evidenced reason why this is, you should take some time to consider why you want it to be right.
When facing someone who is engaging in this behavior (perhaps they are dismissing something you think is sensible, be it strong AI or cryonics, or existential risk, what have you) there are some heuristics you can use. In online debates in particular, I can usually figure out pretty quickly if the other person understands the citations they make by choosing one they seem to place some emphasis on and looking at it carefully, then posing questions about the details.
I've found that you can usually press the 'citingpeople' into revealing their underlying motivations in a variety of ways. One way is sort of poor - simply guess at their motivations and suggest that as truth. They will feel the need to defend their motivations and clarify. The major drawback is that this can also shut down the discussion. An alternative is to suggest a good-sounding motivation as truth - this doesn't feel like an attack, and they may engage it. The drawback is that this may encourage them to take up the suggested motivation as their own. At this point, some of their citations will likely not be in line with their adopted position, but pointing this out can cause backtracking and can also shut down discussion if pressed. Neither approach guarantees us clear insight into the motivations of the other person, but the latter can be a good heuristic (akin to the 'steel man suggestion). Really, I can't think of a cut-and-dried solution to situations in which people try to build up a wall of citations - each situation I can think of required a different approach depending on the nature of the position and the attitude of the other person.
Anyway, I think that in the context of all of the other suggestions and the basic etiquette at LW, the suggestions are fine, and the situation you're worried about would typically only obtain if someone were cherry picking a few of these ideas without making effort to adjust their way of thinking. Recognizing your motivation for wanting something to be true is an important step in recognizing when you're defending a position for poor reasons, and this motivation should be presented upfront whenever possible (this also allows the other person to more easily pinpoint your true rejection).
One should either cite the prevailing scientific opinion (e.g. on global warming), or present a novel scientific argument (where you cite the data you use). Other stuff really is nonsense. You can't usefully second-guess science. Citing studies that support your opinion is cherry picking, and is bad.
Consider a drug trial; there were 2000 cases where drug did better than placebo, and 500 cases where it did worse. If each trial was a study, the wikipedia page would likely link to 20 links showing that it did better than placebo, including the meta-study, and 20 that it did worse. If it was edited to have 40 links that it did better, it'll have 40 links that it did worse. How silly is the debate, where people just cite the cases they pick? Pointlessly silly.
On top of that people (outside lesswrong mostly) really don't understand how to process scientific studies. If there is a calculation that CO2 causes warming, then if calculation is not incorrect, or some very basic physics is not incorrect, CO2 does cause warming. There's no 'countering' of this study. The effect won't go anywhere, what ever you do. The only thing one could do is to argue that CO2 somehow also causes cooling; an entirely new mechanism. E.g. if snow was black, rather than white, and ground was white rather than dark, one could argue that warming removes the snow, leading in decrease in absorption, and decreasing the impact of the warming. Alas snow is white and ground is dark, so warming does cause further warming via this mechanics, and the only thing you can do is to come up with some other mechanism here that does the opposite. And so on. (You could disprove those by e.g. finding that snow, really, is dark, and ground, really, is white., or by finding that CO2 doesn't really absorb IR, but that's it).
People don't understand difference between calculating predictions, and just free-form hypothesising that may well be wrong, and needs to be tested with experiment, etc etc.
(i choose global warming because I trust it is not a controversial issue on LW, but I do want something that is generally controversial and not so crazy as to not be believed by anyone)
It might very well be possible that the calculation is correct, and the basic physics is correct, and yet an increase in CO2 emissions does not lead to warming -- because there's some mechanism that simultaneously increases CO2 absorption, or causes cooling (as you said, though in a less counterfactual way), or whatever. It could also be possible that your measurements of CO2 levels were incorrect.
Thus, you could -- hypothetically -- "counter" the study (in this scenario) by revealing the errors in the measurements, or by demonstrating additional mechanisms that invalidate the end effects.
If there was a mechanism that simultaneously increased CO2 absorption, the levels wouldn't have been rising. For the measurements, you mean, like vast conspiracy that over reports the coal that is being burnt? Yes, that is possible, of course.
One shouldn't do motivated search, though. There is a zillion other mechanisms going on, of course, that increase, and decrease the effects. All the immediately obvious ones amplify the effect (e.g. warming releases CO2 and methane from all kinds of sources where it is dissolved; the snow is white and melts earlier in spring, etc). Of course, if one is to start doing motivated search either way, one could remain ignorant of those and collect the ones that work in opposite, and successfully 'counter' the warming. But that's cherry picking. If one is to just look around and report on what one sees there is a giant number of amplifying mechanisms, and few if any opposite mechanisms; which depend on the temperature and are thus incapable of entirely negating the warming because they need warming to work.
I was thinking of a scenario where you measured CO2 emissions, but forgot to measure absorption (I acknowledge that such a scenario is contrived, but I think you get the idea).
That's a possibility as well, but I was thinking about more innocuous things like sample contamination, malfunctioning GPS cables, etc.
In all of these cases, your math is correct, and your basic physics is correct, and yet the conclusion is still wrong.
You mean like the fact that clouds are white and form more when it's warmer.
Do they, really? Last time I checked they formed pretty well at -20c and at +35c . Ohh, i see knee jerk reaction happening - they may form a bit more at +35c in your place (here they are white, and also form more in winter). Okay, 55 degrees of difference may make a difference, now what?
There comes another common failure mode: animism. Even if you find temperature dependent effects that are opposite, they have to be quite strong to produce any notable difference of temperature as a result of 2 degree difference in temperature, at the many points of the temperature range, to get yourself any compensation beyond small %. It's only the biological systems, that tend to implement PID controllers, which do counter any deviations from equilibrium, even little ones, in a way not dependent on their magnitude.
Hm, I think higher up the hierarchy of abstraction is generally bad, when it comes to disagreements. People so easily get trapped into arguing because someone else is arguing back, and it's even easier when you're not being concrete.
I didn't say abstraction, I said disagreement.
Ah, okay. I still think you have to be careful of degenerating into bad stuff anyhow - if the argument becomes about cherry-picking rather than the evidence, that could be worse than arguing without those sources.
Which one on the list is appeal to authority or quotation of a piece of text one is not himself qualified to understand? (i only briefly skimmed and didn't really see it). (Looks like DH1 is the only one mentioning references to authorities, in the way of accusation of lack of authority).
DH4, argument. Pointing out what authorities say on the question is contradiction (the authorities contradict your claim) plus evidence (which authorities where).
Cherry picking, combined with typically putting words into authorities mouths. But I agree that if it is an accepted consensus rather than cherry-picked authorities, then it's pretty effective. (edit: Unfortunately of course, one probably knows of the consensus long before the argument)
I think we all seem to be forgetting that the point of this article is to help us enage in more productive debates, in which two rational people who hold different beliefs on an issue come together and satisfy Aumann's Agreement Theorem- which is to say, at least one person becomes persuaded to hold a different position from the one they started with. Presumably these people are aware of the relevant literature on the subject of their argument; the reason they're on a forum (or comment section, etc.) instead of at their local library is that they want to engage directly with an actual proponent of another position. If they're less than rational, they might be entering the argument to persuade others of their position, but nobody's there for a suggested reading list. If neither opponent has anything to add besides a list of sources, then it's not an argument- it's a book club.
Also, make sure that position is closer to the truth. Don't forget that part.
And that's another important point: Trading recommended reading lists does nothing to sift out the truth. You can find a number of books xor articles espousing virtually any position, but part of the function of a rational argument is to present arguments that respond effectively to the other person's points. Anyone can just read books and devise brilliant refutations of the arguments therein; the real test is whether those brilliant refutations can withstand an intelligent, rational "opponent" who is willing and able to thoroughly deconstruct it from a perspective outside of your own mind.