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Vladimir_M comments on Several Topics that May or May Not deserve their own Post - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (69)
I downvoted this for making self-assured apodictic assertions about difficult and controversial topics, without any supporting argument and in a way that implies that reasonable disagreement is impossible.
[Retracted the second part of the comment, which asserted there was a contradiction between "firmly believ[ing]" and "ambiguous," i.e. not clearly false, evidence. See the discussion below.]
I suspect that native English speakers are much more likely to use the phrase "firmly believe" idiomatically as shorthand for "I have a very high confidence level in," whereas a non-native speaker may take it literally to mean "I place an unshakeable probability of [asymptotically approaching] 1 on".
It could be that I'm making this mistake. If a native English speaker (including you, if you are one) can confirm that I am misunderstanding the phrase as expressing a higher degree of certainty than it actually is, I will retract that part of the comment.
I am a native English speaker, and have probably used the phrase idiomatically at some point, but I shall not presume to speak for the author of the post.
Looking at the other comments and other examples of the use of the phrase, it does seem like I have made a mistake here, so I am retracting the second part of the comment.
I read "ambiguous-at-best" as describing the evidence in support of the parental choices.
So do I. "Ambiguous-at-best" implies that some of the evidence offered against the proposition is ambiguous, i.e. not provably false. Which in turn implies that believing the proposition firmly is unjustified.
The language is loose. But in a less atheistic forum, I might say the evidence of God is "ambiguous, at best." I'd never say that evidence against God is ambiguous.
Functionally, it's a politeness-induced vagueness, not intended as a precise statement of the OP's confidence in the state of the evidence. Or so I read it.
And calling people out based on politeness-based vagueness is an aggressive stance that does not appear to be justified in this instance. Particularly since:
is a valid, interesting, and totally independent criticism.
Point taken. I retracted that part of the comment.