This is a classic and good, but I could not imagine you writing this today. In the 2019 SSC climate it’s just not ok to be off-handedly positive about education.
Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2013)
61–64 of 64 posts
Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2013)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the (or at least an ) underlying issue is the conflation of arguments with their respective fallacies. Saying "98% of climate scientists agree that AGW is happening" IS an argument from authority, but it's not an argument-from-authority fallacy, because they are in fact authorities and we should listen to them. It's only argument-from-authority if there isn't sufficient evidence that this authority is most li…
> Saying "98% of climate scientists agree that AGW is happening" IS an argument from authority, but it's not an argument-from-authority fallacy, because they are in fact authorities and we should listen to them. That is the claim that people make when they make an argument from authority. That doesn't make it not a logical fallacy. > It's only argument-from-authority if there isn't sufficient evidence that this autho…
> Sometimes this works (the Earth orbits the Sun) and sometimes it doesn't (sanitizing hands/scalpels is actually a good idea between dissecting cadavers and doing c-sections).
This is actually a perfect example of the difference between argument-from-authority and argument-from-authority-fallacy!
Galileo didn't say "the Earth orbits the Sun because I say so and shut up." He said "the Earth orbits the Sun, here take a look."
Not fallacy.
The physicians who refused to wash their hands didn't say "washing hands has no measurable impact on mortality and here's our data to prove it", they said "gentleman doctors do not have dirty hands, and shut up."
Fallacy.
Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2013)
#63Happy to see this here again. I suspect that argument from authority, like "goto considered harmful" and Moore's Law, have entered the public consciousness in a warped popular form that barely resembles the original. In topics in which I am not a subject matter expert, I can and should defer to the actual subject matter experts, absent very compelling evidence to the contrary. I'm not perfect at this, but I first rea…
I have never actually met a person who buys the flat earth story. As far as I can tell, the Big Lie is that there are any "flat earthers" at all.
On YouTube, there are a few small clusters of crazies with cameras, posting videos. They don't count, due to deeper motives that drive YouTube exhibitionism. The YouTube flat earther is not operating for the standpoint of honesty. They want clicks and views, and acting out in strange ways will net them high counts. The stranger the better.
Meanwhile, the original flat earth prank seems to be a thing that famous basketball players were messing around with, just after the 2016 election. Mostly, seeming to target Shaquille Oneal as a goof, and get him to express confusion and maybe take it with a grain of salt, which would then be stretched to him buying it, hook line and sinker. Not unlike the "fish are not wet" video.
In the post election climate, however, it grew into a life of its own, and now we have people like you pushing the concept as if people really live the prank as if it were their lifestyle, and that what you see on YouTube is not simply personas hamming it up for the camera.
Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2013)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saying "98% of climate scientists agree that AGW is happening" IS an argument from authority, but it's not an argument-from-authority fallacy, because they are in fact authorities and we should listen to them. That is the claim that people make when they make an argument from authority. That doesn't make it not a logical fallacy. > It's only argument-from-authority if there isn't sufficient evidence that this autho…
> That is the claim that people make when they make an argument from authority. That doesn't make it not a logical fallacy. This is the point where branding things as fallacies breaks down, and is very much the point of the article. Calling “argument from authority” on somebody’s point is one of the weakest rebuttals you can provide, because you’re not really tackling the substance of the argument. In this case, “98%…
> Ultimately, nobody is an expert on everything, and heuristic thinking has to take over at some point. Overwhelming expert consensus is a damn good heuristic to go by.
Sometimes.
I don't know enough about physics to even really understand the standard model. I still believe that it's pretty much true.
However this approach is a bit limited. There simply aren't experts in macroeconomics that could convince me of anything on an appeal to authority basis in that same way.
Ultimately, arguments are much cleaner and more convincing if you can simply and directly argue the point. For those arguments that are not so amenable, expert consensus may be a practical alternative, but at best it's a least bad choice, not something to be lauded.