David_Gerard comments on In Defense of Tone Arguments - Less Wrong

24 Post author: OrphanWilde 19 July 2012 07:48PM

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Comment author: David_Gerard 19 July 2012 11:01:59PM 4 points [-]

Dawkins, of course, has a pile of them. While this selection is obviously lacking in arguments against, it is precisely the thing you just asked for.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 20 July 2012 01:30:23PM 0 points [-]

I'll have to concede that point then. Most of those weren't strong believers to begin with, but the presence of one refutes my argument, leaving me with the weaker form "The God Delusion does more damage than good."

Comment author: David_Gerard 20 July 2012 03:33:32PM * 10 points [-]

leaving me with the weaker form "The God Delusion does more damage than good."

I look forward to your substantiation, on a more robust basis than personal feeling.

Comment author: OrphanWilde comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: David_Gerard 20 July 2012 08:56:59PM * 6 points [-]

That comes across as an attempt at a witty answer, but it avoids the substantial question I asked: You have claimed "The God Delusion does more damage than good." How do you support this claim, with something more than personal opinion? I ask that you substantiate the claim on a more robust basis than "I feel like it does", given that you literally didn't think the book worked at all until this thread snowed you under with examples, suggesting your personal feeling on the book is not well calibrated with its effectiveness in the world (as others have already alluded to), thus putting into slight question the chain of logic you considered it a good example of.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 27 July 2012 04:00:13AM 1 point [-]

I'm responding again: Short summary is, my apologies. I took out my irritation about the way the responses focused laser-like on something I didn't intend to talk about (note to self: people talk about what they want to talk about, not what I want to talk about) on you; you actually provided evidence, and put the argument to rest relatively quickly, and I should have tapped out explicitly then, instead of getting sarcastic and rude and hoping that would be the end of it.

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Comment author: David_Gerard 20 July 2012 10:46:33PM 7 points [-]

But I paid attention to tone and everything!

Comment author: OrphanWilde comment score below threshold [+] (2 children)

Comment author: fubarobfusco 20 July 2012 10:10:47PM 4 points [-]

Conservation of expected evidence applies here. If you believe that people responding to your attack on Dawkins constitutes evidence for that attack, then in order to be consistent you have to believe that if people had ignored your attack, then this would be evidence against the attack. Do you believe that?

Comment author: OrphanWilde 24 July 2012 06:09:21AM -1 points [-]

Only provided Dawkins was not in strong support here. There's an asymmetry, because two things have to be true for people to ignore the substance of the argument in favor of the example - they have to care about the substance of the example, and then they have to be offended by the characterization of it. If they don't care about Dawkins, there won't be much to be offended about to begin with.

A implies B does not imply that B implies A.

But none of that matters, because that was a tongue-in-cheek response to somebody pursuing a line of argument about something I didn't care about. It was not a serious response.

David_Gerard comments on In Defense of Tone Arguments - Less Wrong

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