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RobinZ comments on Self-Congratulatory Rationalism - Less Wrong
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I think you are talking about what's in local parlance is called a "weak prior" vs a "strong prior". Bayesian updating involves assigning relative importance the the prior and to the evidence. A weak prior is easily changed by even not very significant evidence. On the other hand, it takes a lot of solid evidence to move a strong prior.
In this terminology, your pre-roll estimation of the probability of double sixes is a weak prior -- the evidence of an actual roll will totally overwhelm it. But your estimation of the correctness of the modern evolutionary theory is a strong prior -- it will take much convincing evidence to persuade you that the theory is not correct after all.
Of course, the posterior of a previous update becomes the prior of the next update.
Using this language, then, you are saying that prima facie evidence of someone's stupidity should be a minor update to the strong prior that she is actually a smart, reasonable, and coherent human being.
And I don't see why this should be so.
Oh, dear - that's not what I meant at all. I meant that - absent a strong prior - the utterance of a prima facie absurdity should not create a strong prior that the speaker is stupid, unreasonable, or incoherent. It's entirely possible that ten minutes of conversation will suffice to make a strong prior out of this weaker one - there's someone arguing for dualism on a webcomic forum I (in)frequent along the same lines as Chalmers "hard problem of consciousness", and it took less than ten posts to establish pretty confidently that the same refutations would apply - but as the history of DIPS (defense-independent pitching statistics) shows, it's entirely possible for an idea to be as correct as "the earth is a sphere, not a plane" and nevertheless be taken as prima facie absurd.
(As the metaphor implies, DIPS is not quite correct, but it would be more accurate to describe its successors as "fixing DIPS" than as "showing that DIPS was completely wrongheaded".)
Oh, I agree with that.
What I am saying is that evidence of stupidity should lead you to raise your estimates of the probability that the speaker is stupid. The principle of charity should not prevent that from happening. Of course evidence of stupidity should not make you close the case, declare someone irretrievably stupid, and stop considering any further evidence.
As an aside, I treat how a person argues as a much better indicator of stupidity than what he argues. YMMV, of course.
...in the context during which they exhibited the behavior which generated said evidence, of course. In broader contexts, or other contexts? To a much lesser extent, and not (usually) strongly in the strong-prior sense, but again, yes. That you should always be capable of considering further evidence is - I am glad to say - so universally accepted a proposition in this forum that I do not bother to enunciate it, but I take no issue with drawing conclusions from a sufficient body of evidence.
Come to think, you might be amused by this fictional dialogue about a mendacious former politician, illustrating the ridiculousness of conflating "never assume that someone is arguing in bad faith" and "never assert that someone is arguing in bad faith". (The author also posted a sequel, if you enjoy the first.)
I'm afraid that I would have about as much luck barking like a duck as enunciating how I evaluate the intelligence (or reasonableness, or honesty, or...) of those I converse with. YMMV, indeed.