Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014

polymathwannabe

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Sightings:

Arguments that aren't actually arguments: argument by tribal affiliation was certainly in full force, as well as a certain general condescension bordering on insult.
Statistical illiteracy: in an only minor variant of your hypothetical exchange, I said that very few people are doing too much exercise (tacitly, relative to the number of people who are doing too little), to which someone replied that they had once overtrained to their detriment, as if this disproved my point.

I was also struck by how weird it was that people were nitpicking totally incidental parts of my post, which, even if granted, didn't actually deduct from the essence of what I was saying. This seemed like a sort of "argument by attrition", or even just a way of saying "go away; we can tell you're not one of us."

A general pattern I've noticed: when processing an argument to which they are hostile, people often parse generalizations as unsympathetically as they can. General statements which would ordinarily pass without a second thought are taken as absolutes and then "disproved" by citations of noncentral examples and weird edge cases. I think this is pretty bad faith, and it seems common enough. Do we have a name for it? (I have to stop myself doing it sometimes.)

Your symbolic arguments made me laugh.

I was also struck by how weird it was that people were nitpicking totally incidental parts of my post, which, even if granted, didn't actually deduct from the essence of what I was saying.

I see this in lots of places where it's clearly not an argument by attrition. There's a sizable fraction of people on the Internet who are just over-literal.

2A1987dM12y

There's this issue though -- what matters is not the fraction of people who exercise too much among the general population, is the fraction of people who exercise too much among the people you're telling to exercise more to.

6zedzed12y

I'd call it being uncharitable. Extremely so, in this case. Salviati: blah blah blah Exercise increases lifespan blah blah blah Simplicio: THAT'S NOT TRUE THERE EXISTS AN EXCEPTION YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS INVALID Because we're talking about being uncharitable, let's be charitable for a moment. Simplicio, in fact, made the mathematically proper counterargument: he produced a counterexample to a for-all claim. And finding one flaw with a mathematical proof is, in fact, sufficient to disregard the entire thing. Clearly, though, Simplicio's argument is horrible and nobody should ever make it. If we check out the errata for Linear Algebra Done Right, we find that Dr. Axler derped some coefficients on page 81. His proof is incorrect, but any reasonable person can easily see how the coefficients were derped and what the correct coefficients were, and it's a trivial matter to change the proof to a correct proof. Analogously, the proper response to an argument that's technically incorrect, but has an obvious correct argument that you know the author was making even if they phrased it poorly, is to replace the incorrect argument with the correct argument, not scream about the incorrect argument. Anyone who does anything differently should have their internet privileges revoked. It's more than a trivial inconvenience to write (and read) "the overwhelming scientific consensus indicates that, for most individuals, increasing exercise increases lifespan, although there's a few studies that may suggest the opposite, and there's a few outliers for whom increased exercise reduces lifespan" instead of "exercise increases lifespan". So, now our argument looks like Salviati: blah blah blah Exercise increases lifespan blah blah blah Simplicio: THAT'S NOT TRUE THERE EXISTS AN EXCEPTION YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS INVALID Salviati: Principle of charity, bro Now, if Simplicio applies principle of charity, then they'll never make arguments like that again, and we've resolved the probl