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To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

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Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#171

Post by Nursie »

coldtea wrote: post #168
Nursie wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing that strikes me as a conundrum here is that, if one is aware of deliberately choosing unreality over reality, are you really choosing unreality? I.E. how is it possible to choose fiction as fact in the knowledge it is fiction? I don't really understand the mindset...

> I.E. how is it possible to choose fiction as fact in the knowledge it is fiction? That's just the moment of choice though. Given enough conditioning and getting used to it yourself, it can become as convincing (to your own self) as any reality. Besides, don't people chose convenient truths over reality all the time, creationists or not? Even the belief in science, which usually is a belief in fiction (an ideal of h…

But you would still know that you had a moment of choosing unreality.

Don't people choose convenient fictions? Not people worth knowing, IMHO, no. People that choose inquiry over ignorance are the ones thay actually make stridea out of the darkness and got us where we are today.

"Belief" in science is the wrong way to think about it. Understanding that the scientific method has flaws but is still far superior as a tool to discover what is, rather than proclaim it without evidence or shy away into comforting fictions, seems the best way to approach knowledge.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#173

Post by Nursie »

dagw wrote: post #169
Nursie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the post you reply to is saying that the fact that someone believes fervently in creation over evolution actually makes them an idiot, regardless of IQ. This would be because it is a firm rejection of scientific evidence in favour of belief. Not all forms of faith and belief require you to reject evidence, mind, but this one most certainly does.

I knew a very smart and successful scientist doing biochemistry research at a pharma company who fell squarely in the Intelligent Design camp. Rather than seeing it as a wholesale abandonment of science they simply felt that the evidence of the prevailing scientific view was not that strong, and that ID offered firmer theory for the beginning/evolution of life than any other theory.

In which case they were wrong, and most likely trying to reconcile their religious leanings with their self-image.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#174

Post by dagw »

Nursie wrote: post #173
dagw wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew a very smart and successful scientist doing biochemistry research at a pharma company who fell squarely in the Intelligent Design camp. Rather than seeing it as a wholesale abandonment of science they simply felt that the evidence of the prevailing scientific view was not that strong, and that ID offered firmer theory for the beginning/evolution of life than any other theory.

In which case they were wrong, and most likely trying to reconcile their religious leanings with their self-image.

Well sure, but that doesn't make him an idiot.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#176

Post by dilemma »

alsetmusic wrote: post #65
rayiner wrote: post #16

Learning how to do this is an essential skill. Most people are not idiots. If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational, but because they're starting from a different premise, making different assumptions, or assigning different values to different aspects of the problem. Only when you understand their argument well enough to articulate it in your own words can you effectively presen…

> Only when you understand their argument... I couldn't agree more. As a lifelong believer in science, raised in the Midwest among creationists, I have come into many conversations with intelligent people who somehow place faith in front of evidence. It's demoralizing to realize the frequency that this phenomenon occurs. I've recently scheduled a trip to the Creation Museum to observe the message at its core (half fo…

Your worldview informed by contemporary scientific theories is faith-based. What we believe in today will eventually be proven fundamentally flawed and we'll look no better than the average church goer.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#177

Post by Nursie »

dagw wrote: post #174
Nursie wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case they were wrong, and most likely trying to reconcile their religious leanings with their self-image.

Well sure, but that doesn't make him an idiot.

Depends on your definition. People called me an idiot (well, my partner did) when I hit myself in the hand with a hammer, really hard, while fossil hunting. So hard I had to go to hospital...

But in other respects I'm at least a reasonably intelligent software engineer!

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#178

Post by namaemuta »

shostack wrote: post #161
namaemuta wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, a machine never accuses you of being the responsible of that error. It usually says "there's an error in the line..." but never addresses it towards the programmer even though they know that they are the responsible ones of that mistake. And in fact, that is one of the techniques of conflict management between partners, addressing the problem instead of finding the responsible of it.

Sounds like an opportunity for a more opinionated error logging tool... "@Dave, you seem to have made yet another type error on line 56. @jon recently committed code that didn't fail any integration tests. Why can't you be more like @jon?"

Hmm... I wonder what would be the implications of one with positive reinforcement:

"Wow @Dave! that's the smartest code I've ever seen! just one thing, there's a probably-not-that-important error on line 56"

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#179

Post by crististm »

Nursie wrote: post #153
coldtea wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the post you reply to is saying that the fact that someone believes fervently in creation over evolution actually makes them an idiot, regardless of IQ. That stretches the definition of an idiot considerably. > This would be because it is a firm rejection of scientific evidence in favour of belief. That could be beneficial for one's emotional health (belief in higher power and all that) and thus the smart t…

The specific problem with creationism and "ID" is that they claim to have objective facts but are actually faith. They do not embrace the irrational as you seem to be encouraging. Quite the opposite - they dress up in the clothes of scientific argument whilst actually rejecting the method, yet claim to have objective truth. And personally, yeah, I think anyone that can't cope with reality as it is, that needs comfort…

You might want to remember that while scientific method is pretty useful, it does has a weakness. It has all the bases covered except for the hypothesis.

Where do hypothesis come from?

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#180

Post by 1_player »

dilemma wrote: post #175

Plot twist: You start off telling someone about the ways in which they're right to then proceed to telling them they're wrong, and realize that they are actually right and you are wrong.

That's the best kind of discussion: when one learns something from the other, instead of just exposing different point of views.
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