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Logical fallacies in software engineering

artur-martsinkovskyi.github.io

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Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#31

Post by wincy »

wolfgke wrote: post #21
marcosdumay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this correct in English? The equivalent on my first language (Portuguese) is very clearly wrong, but I've seen the English version in more than one book.

> Isn't this correct in English? I, as a non-native English speaker, would write "thrice at perception, dexterity and mind work" (instead of "both at perception, dexterity and mind work"), but I am not sure whether this is overly formal (it is, in my experience, often the case that when you try to translate how you would express something in German into English, you land at something overly formal, since in German th…

An American native speaker would certainly understand and not raise an eyebrow at using “both” in this context, even though technically it means two not three.

Using “thrice” is sort of archaic and formal (like you mentioned) and people would maybe make a good natured joke about being “fancy” if you used the word “thrice” often in conversation.

Oddly though twice has none of the baggage of thrice, and is used all the time. My four year old knows and uses twice, but doesn’t know what thrice means.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#32

Post by 0xffff2 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #8
johnr2 wrote: post #5

"both at perception, dexterity and mind work" Off-by-one error ;-)

Isn't this correct in English? The equivalent on my first language (Portuguese) is very clearly wrong, but I've seen the English version in more than one book.

It's definitely not technically correct. "Both" in English unambiguously refers to two things.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#33

Post by ummonk »

marcosdumay wrote: post #8
johnr2 wrote: post #5

"both at perception, dexterity and mind work" Off-by-one error ;-)

Isn't this correct in English? The equivalent on my first language (Portuguese) is very clearly wrong, but I've seen the English version in more than one book.

"Both" refers to two. If you're referring to the the lack of a serial comma, it isn't "incorrect" in American English but should be, and most style guides recommend using the serial comma.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#34

Post by chadash »

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it.

You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree with him, and you might even be right, but given his expertise in chess, his move is most likely going to be better than yours and it's worth considering (unless, of course, you are chess master at his level). The same thing is true with software. Some people are really strong engineers with really strong expertise in a specific domain. If you follow their advice within their domain of expertise, you might not come to the optimal solution, but you'll probably come to a good enough solution. Of course, there are exceptions, but in my personal experience, I've seen more people mess up by not following experts' advice than by following it.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#35

Post by zzzcpan »

matt4077 wrote: post #27
zzzcpan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appeal to authority is a fallacy exactly because you can't trust New York Times just as you can't trust @TheyAreTryingToKillYou241234, but you do. An authoritative opinion is not an evidence.

So how are you supposed to make an informed choice on vaccination? You can't trust the NYT, apparently, and probably not the New England Journal of Medicine, either? Do you just count the number of sources supporting the different views? That would seem to be some other, equally bad, form of fallacy. Is there any sort of evidence that is valid in your critical eyes that can be transmitted electronically? Or does anyo…

In simple terms I'd say there are authoritative opinions and there is evidence presented by authorities. You may trust some authorities to provide you with all the necessary evidence to form an opinion, seek evidence from multiple independent authorities, etc. and form an informed opinion. But you cannot trust an authoritative opinion in a newspaper. Newspapers exist to make people trust them, to appeal to authority so they can influence people's opinions arbitrarily any way they see fit and sell that influence, pretty much guaranteeing you are not exposed to an informed opinion.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#37

Post by shados »

chadash wrote: post #34

> Appeal to authority (argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it. You have to be careful with this one. When someone has enough credibility, sometimes you need to question yourself if you disagree. If you are playing chess and Gary Kasparov comes along and tells you what your next move should be, you can disagree w…

Good points. I feel software engineering as a field is growing a lot slower than it could, for a couple of reason.

The first is what you mention: everyone ignores lessons from the past and try to relearn everything from scratch, reinventing the wheel and best practices over and over and over, making the same mistakes again and again. Some communities also heavily encourages concepts like how experience doesn't matter, best practices aren't a thing, etc.

The second (and part of the reason the first is a thing), is the amount of people acting as experts that really aren't. Even big names and pseudo-celebrities in the field frequently have no idea what they're talking about. Once people realize this, they start questioning everything.

And thus, we're stuck in software engineering stone age. Being unable to separate the good stuff from the bullshit is holding us back a lot.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#38

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Udik wrote: post #18
stupidcar wrote: post #7

The "nirvana fallacy" is definitely one I commonly see on Hacker News. The ease with which people jump from "thing x is imperfect" to "thing x is worthless" is mind-boggling. This is usually coupled with familiarity bias, where the flaws of any existing technology are discounted vs. those of a new technology.

A fallacy I've noticed often in sw engineering, and might fall under the nirvana fallacy definition, is the assumption that there is one best tool for doing things- the one that supports the largest amount of use cases. An metaphor I like to use is that of the software engineer buying a tank instead of a car: fits more people, drives on all terrain, basically indestructible, and in case an enemy is blocking the road…

Not to mention the regulatory issues.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#39

Post by MaxBarraclough »

tirumaraiselvan wrote: post #14
wazanator wrote: post #6

Needs my favorite, "age = wisdom & knowledge". "Bob's been here for fifteen years and if he says java applets are still the way to go then they must be."

Appeal to authority - mentioned in the article.

It's not strictly identical, as it introduces ageism.

Re: Logical fallacies in software engineering

#40

Post by matt4077 »

zzzcpan wrote: post #35
matt4077 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how are you supposed to make an informed choice on vaccination? You can't trust the NYT, apparently, and probably not the New England Journal of Medicine, either? Do you just count the number of sources supporting the different views? That would seem to be some other, equally bad, form of fallacy. Is there any sort of evidence that is valid in your critical eyes that can be transmitted electronically? Or does anyo…

In simple terms I'd say there are authoritative opinions and there is evidence presented by authorities. You may trust some authorities to provide you with all the necessary evidence to form an opinion, seek evidence from multiple independent authorities, etc. and form an informed opinion. But you cannot trust an authoritative opinion in a newspaper. Newspapers exist to make people trust them, to appeal to authority…

I don't quite the distinction you're making. A paper being published in a reputable journal is almost by definition relying on its authority. Even if they allow you to download the underlying data, it won't contain any personal identifying information of trial participants that you could verify.

> Newspapers exist to make people trust them, to appeal to authority so they can influence people's opinions arbitrarily any way they see fit and sell that influence

That just reads like some conspiracy theory. Newspapers get people to trust them by being reliable. I don't need to evaluate every single story they run when I have done so with some subset and usually found them to be correct.

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