Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 307 posts

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

#251

Post by dragonwriter »

DigitalJack wrote: post #216
annnnd wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The Supreme Court does not itself have a constitutional mandate to decide on the meaning of the constitution and the constitutionality of laws.

I disagree. The judicial branch, within which the Supreme Court is established as the paramount actor, has the Constitutional role of resolving all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which cases and controversies often, in their resolution, require determining the meaning of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

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

#252

Post by AstralStorm »

humanrebar wrote: post #155
AstralStorm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The probabilities cannot be calculated as we do not have interstellar travel required to inspect worlds that evolve separately from our own. So, that is no argument, just speculation. Same problem as with Drake's equitation and aliens. A stronger argument is that we have managed to create building blocks of life from basic physics and chemistry. No superpowers required for that. At least we can see how the stars begi…

> A stronger argument is that we have managed to create building blocks of life from basic physics and chemistry. No superpowers required for that. No. Just some creators.

No, just a few known laws of physics and chemistry. The conditions required are expected to happen spontaneously during planet formation.

We just don't have a handle on how common those conditions are. And many other subsequent conditions, for cellular life, for multicellular, for tissues and organs. Finally, for intelligence and sapience.

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

#253

Post by dragonwriter »

DigitalJack wrote: post #200
dalke wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "ID (which is often breathlessly conflated with creationism)," I think you do a misfavor by using the phrase "breathlessly conflated" in a comment which supports being aware that others may be "starting from a different premise", etc. It doesn't help that the authors of a "Of Pandas and People", an ID textbook, effectively did a search and replace in early drafts of "creationism" with "intelligent design", and "int…

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

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

There are Constitutional restrictions on both what government can cause to be taught in public schools and the techniques which government can direct be used to teach those things, arising through the various provisions of the Constitution that constrain the powers of States, particularly the 14th Amendment.

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

#254

Post by AstralStorm »

coldtea wrote: post #138
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…

> I have come into many conversations with intelligent people who somehow place faith in front of evidence. Which can be a very intelligent and rational thing to do. It all depends on the end goal ("discover how the world actually works" vs "calm your soul through belief in a higher power", etc.). People can do very stupid things (dangerous to them, to the detriment of their health, social relations, etc) in pursuit…

If the goal is irrational, the method to achieve it does not matter.

Ex falso quod libet.

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

#255

Post by crististm »

Nursie wrote: post #236
Karunamon wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does a hypothesis need to be defined by the scientific method? Because a thing which you believe and yet is not defined by the scientific method (or rather, empiricism) is known as "faith", a concept which you and the rest of this thread has spent a good deal of energy attacking.

A hypothesis is not something that you believe though, it is something subject to test.

The underlying issue is that having faith in Empiricism(1) is reasonable but having faith in God is ignorance.

Quoting Hamming: "A man was fishing with a net in the sea. He concluded that there is no smaller fish in the sea than what he caught". (s/fishing net/scientific method)

(1)Empiricism modulo quantum effects - and here we go again.

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

#256

Post by dalke »

DigitalJack wrote: post #216
annnnd wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While we could have an engaging conversation on judicial review in the US, including the implied powers derived from Article III and Article VI, the Federalist papers, the state ratification debates, and English common law, I prefer to point to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_the_United_... .

I do disagree with your statement that Chief Justice Marshall 'decided that is what the court was going to do', as the everyone in the ratification debate, including the Anti-Federalists, believed that federal courts could find a statue to be unconstitutional. Marbury v. Madison was the first to exercise that power. The 1796 case of Hylton v. United States, under Chief Justice Ellsworth, shows that judicial review for constitutionality was not new to Marshall.

My earlier comment was "after Edwards v. Aguillard settled that teaching creationism in public schools was not constitutional". I believe this is clearly in the context of the post-Marbury v. Madison tradition of the last 200 years.

Your followup comment was "There are no constitutional restrictions on what can be taught in schools." As you are coming from a different tradition, and a distinctly minority and non-influential one, I think you would have been more clear had you written "The Constitution doesn't say the Supreme Court has the right to decide what can be taught in schools."

Otherwise, we were under the incorrect belief that summarizing Edwards v. Aguillard would be enough to show that your statement was incorrect.

Under the US legal tradition since the early 1960s, schools are not part of a free exercise of religion. See Engel v. Vitale, Abington School District v. Schempp, and related cases dealing with prayer in school for the logic.

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

#257

Post by crististm »

Nursie wrote: post #241
Nursie wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's the whole point of a belief - here is something I know to be true. As compared to a hypothesis - here is an idea that should be tested by investigation, I make no prior judgement to its truth

--edit-- I can't help feeling we've wandered off-piste here. The point I was trying to make is that the origin of a hypothesis is not really important, just that before it is accepted as true or false it is tested. --edit-- this wasn't actually an edit so much as a reply. Oops!

Yes, the origin of hypothesis is irrelevant. I was using hypothesis origin only as a means to prove that scientific method does not apply to all things.

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

#258

Post by AstralStorm »

donw wrote: post #55
geowwy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational... It's interesting to compare this POV with the Scott Adams'. In his school of thought all people are mostly irrational, even if they think otherwise: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147595892021/how-persuaders-see...

Oddly enough, I think that both of these viewpoints work together very nicely. Human beings are, generally speaking, irrational. We have a sort of flashlight'o'rationality that we can shine on specific things for periods of time, but most of how we behave is guided by a mixture of instinct, culture, emotion, and our life experiences. It is pretty well-established that even highly rational people tend to choose a posi…

Heh, but unconscious instincts can be quite rational, just in non-obvious ways.

In other words, they are responses to internal and external states, which means there is a reason for them. To find the actual source, we have to delve into many branches of philosophy and science.

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

#259

Post by AstralStorm »

piyush_soni wrote: post #46
geowwy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational... It's interesting to compare this POV with the Scott Adams'. In his school of thought all people are mostly irrational, even if they think otherwise: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147595892021/how-persuaders-see...

I think the whole reason "first tell them how they are right, then how they are wrong" works is that most people are irrational.

Wrong, they rationally prefer hedonic feeling.

How did you feel about this post? ;-)

Valid logic, different premises.

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

#260

Post by AstralStorm »

Artoemius wrote: post #75
jaywunder wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this is an important skill to have, I've also learned over time that there are certain types of people where it's easier to let them "be right" and accommodate the consequences Generally when that happens to me I've come across what I like to call a "fundamental argument." Where neither party is correct and neither party is wrong. A good example of this is "do you believe in religion" because nobody can prove…

> nobody can prove or disprove the existence of a higher being or a religion. You don't believe in something just because you cannot disprove it. You must have some evidence to believe it in the first place. Otherwise, you would believe in all kinds of celestial teapots.

You're assuming that the need to be right overrides society and belonging - security. For most people it does not.
Post reply on HN