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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

#211

Post by mcguire »

johngalt wrote: post #25
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…

Someone could also disagree with me because they are correct and I am in error. They may have knowledge or perspective that I lack. My first step is to try and find something they know that I don't before crafting persuasive arguments. Maximize for total knowledge not winning arguments.

As an aside, this approach fails badly when responding to an attack on a paper presentation at an academic conference.

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

#212

Post by Nursie »

crististm wrote: post #207
Nursie wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From hunches, partial observations, suggestions from prior research, various other sources of questions about what may or may not be correct that warrants further investigation. I'm not sure how that's a weakness?

My point is to make you think about bootstrapping the hypothesis issue. Yes, an intelligent agent will do exactly what you suggested. And by the way, what you said was exactly a hypothesis. What exactly did you do to generate it? Where did that text/ideas come from? When you come to the bottom of it you'll probably find something that you can't explain. You'll have to think about something and that will lead to somet…

I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about any more.

You seem to be trying to say that the use of hunches and soft knowledge to form the basis of inquiry and test somehow contradicts or weakens the idea that the world around us can be best understood by the scientific method.

"Hypothesis" is not knowledge, nor are such generated by magic, and they only become knowledge when tested (or contradicted).

As for the last bit, sorry you've degenerated into talking nonsense.

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

#213

Post by coldtea »

Nursie wrote: post #204
coldtea wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't people choose convenient fictions? Not people worth knowing, IMHO, no. That's a convenient fiction to believe, but I haven't found it to be true in anybody.

That would be an opinion of mine, not a belief, that people worth knowing try not to hold on to fictions. Whether they end up doing so is less important, they choose not to whenever the choice is apparent.

Not so sure about those "people worth knowing".

I've known wonderful artists and creative persons who absolutely could not give a flying duck for the "reality".

Was the person here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319061/ worth knowing?

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

#214

Post by mcguire »

sergiosgc wrote: post #159
ehnto wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found programmers to be far more receptive to blunt criticism than my other non-programmer friends. I think it's just a frame of mind to accept that will be wrong a lot and that is fine. It would take a whole lot of cognitive dissonance to get through a decent sized software project and imagine it is all flawless or couldn't be even slightly better in some way.

I have also found a "reverse" effect. Engineers in general (not just software guys), tend to not assign blame to errors, especially in panic situations. People declare errors as a matter of fact ("the database load is beyond the roof"), not as a result of wrongful actions ("your commit thrashed the database"). Both ends of behavior are the result of being confronted often with error, be it caused by wrongful action o…

I'm afraid I have to disagree, partially. In any given situation, you're right.

But it's often necessary to get programmers to change their behavior, since what they are doing is causing the problems, and programmers are no better than anyone else at changing behavior in response to criticism.

Design and code reviews are particular hot spots, which is why most I have seen had become just check offs.

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

#215

Post by reitanqild »

marklgr wrote: post #114
reitanqild wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creationist, son of creationists here :-) Although I guess there are creationists and there are creationists: If you ask me about science I will answer with science. I did well in school, including biology and introduction to astrophysics. If you hold a gun to my head and ask if I still belive this nonsense about the world being created I'd guess I'd say yes (if I can't get around to disarming you, I don't like armed…

No snark, but I guess white supremacists also find their model pretty useful. The obvious question is, does anything go, provided it makes some people feel good somehow?

I'm obviously biased but I feel the comparison is a bit weird.

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

#216

Post by DigitalJack »

annnnd wrote: post #205
DigitalJack wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no constitutional restrictions on what can be taught in schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard "Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the law was specifically intended to advance a partic…

The constitution has meaning apart from whatever a given Supreme Court says. They try to decipher it, but they don't create its meaning.

We may be bound legally by their ruling, but that is simply a matter of law and tradition. The Supreme Court does not itself have a constitutional mandate to decide on the meaning of the constitution and the constitutionality of laws. It started when a chief justice decided that is what the court was going to do in 1803, and everyone went along with it.

The concepts of case law and judicial review are simply traditions of our legal system.

The constitutional clause in question says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." That to me seems to say the government shouldn't be screwing with it one way or the other.

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

#217

Post by crististm »

Nursie wrote: post #212
crististm wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is to make you think about bootstrapping the hypothesis issue. Yes, an intelligent agent will do exactly what you suggested. And by the way, what you said was exactly a hypothesis. What exactly did you do to generate it? Where did that text/ideas come from? When you come to the bottom of it you'll probably find something that you can't explain. You'll have to think about something and that will lead to somet…

I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about any more. You seem to be trying to say that the use of hunches and soft knowledge to form the basis of inquiry and test somehow contradicts or weakens the idea that the world around us can be best understood by the scientific method. "Hypothesis" is not knowledge, nor are such generated by magic, and they only become knowledge when tested (or contradicted). As for the…

Let's go from "hypothesis" are not being generated by magic.

I'm asking: how can I generate hypothesis? Are you in possession of a scientific method for generating hypothesis? Can you share it?

Scientific method can do so much but I guess you have made up your mind already.

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

#218

Post by overcast »

This is one of the essential points outlined in Dale Carnegie's seminal "How to win friends and influence people". This should be required reading for EVERYONE before graduating high school, and revisited regularly. I read it at least once a year.

Begin with praise and honest appreciation. People will do things begrudgingly for criticism and an iron-fisted leader, but they will work wonders when they are praised and appreciated.

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

#219

Post by mcguire »

vintermann wrote: post #102
alsetmusic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Imagine that there's a meteor heading towards earth. All evidence suggests that it will hit in three days, and wipe out all multicellular life - it's a big one. What do you do? How do you live your life your last three days? One school of thought says, disregard the evidence. Assert, against it all, that the meteor is going to miss. Or if that's hard, decide to trust someone who asserts it (this is usually easier). T…

Hey! That's Pascal's wager.

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

#220

Post by Nursie »

coldtea wrote: post #213
Nursie wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an opinion of mine, not a belief, that people worth knowing try not to hold on to fictions. Whether they end up doing so is less important, they choose not to whenever the choice is apparent.

Not so sure about those "people worth knowing". I've known wonderful artists and creative persons who absolutely could not give a flying duck for the "reality". Was the person here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319061/ worth knowing?

A fun story, but not making pretensions to objective reality, which creationism certainly does.
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