Gunnar_Zarncke comments on The ecological rationality of the bad old fallacies - Less Wrong

7 Post author: velisar 19 March 2014 11:39AM

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Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 19 March 2014 12:03:51PM *  1 point [-]

A quote from that paper:

If a style of argumentation has survived critics for millennia, we can ask several questions: Could it be that there are evolutionary programs running in our heads that systematically push us to do the same things? Are those based on inferences that correlate with good fitness? Where does epistemic value differ from ecologic utility? Do the fallacists have some observation bias; do we suffer from the Focusing illusion (Schkade & Kahneman, 1998) when observing a bad argument?

I have this heard called the fallacy fallacy (though rational wiki sees that differently).

Comment author: velisar 19 March 2014 12:14:02PM 0 points [-]

You are correct; but the Argument from fallacy is still pretty uninformative.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 19 March 2014 12:46:14PM 1 point [-]

Agreed. But it kind of means that some evolution of fallacies trending toward more complex argumentation patterns is taking place. Or? I'm not versed in the classics but I take it that they didn't have this large an (anti-)tool-set.

Comment author: velisar 19 March 2014 03:09:06PM 0 points [-]

I think any preoccupation, if it exists long enough, results in great refinements. The are people good a African rare languages, mineral water, all sorts of (noble!) sports, torture - why should't people get better at something as common as argumentation.

But we're advocating a look the other way around, to the more basic processes, they may say something about how humans work. And indeed, it would be easier with less sophisticated arguers.

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