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The Worst Argument In The World

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Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#121

Post by makomk »

emil0r wrote: post #96
Lockyy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The motors are not just motors, they just happen to be motors right now. I think it is the selfish gene that describes the path from a protein structure that facilitates the movement of molecules across the cell's membrane into a motor with a flagellum attached. These things that are claimed to fall apart when a single step is removed were not there from the ground up to provide that specific function, separately the…

Don't you think what you're writing as a reply is a bit vague? How would you describe the evolution of the coagulation system? What different systems existed before the coagulation system that fell together into the current system? From what I remember from the book the coagulation system looked to be one monolithic piece and not built up of smaller systems.

His reply is a bit vague, but as I recall this has actually been studied and it turns out that (for instance) other animals have blood coagulation systems that are lacking several of the 30 supposedly essential parts and still work fine - see e.g. http://creationwiki.org/Blood_clotting_is_irreducibly_comple... and the usual anti-creationism resources. Similarly, the supposedly "irreducably complex" bacterial motors turn out to be made of components that originally evolved for other purposes and were repurposed.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#122

Post by fusiongyro »

brandoncapecci wrote: post #113
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

It's pretty disappointing to me that people would downvote you for saying what seemed so obvious. Conservatism in America is always associated with a decision making process dictated by religion. He attacks creationism with evolution and the Christianity's disapproval of euthanasia and abortion. These generalizations are neutral since the right will stand by these fallacies. Where the bias comes to play is when he sa…

> Conservatism in America is always associated with a decision making process dictated by religion.

That seems to be the case today, but I don't think it was always that way. The original idea of conservatism as I understand it is basically to avoid seeing everything as an emergency and to avoid seeing every emergency as the exclusive domain of the state. Conservatism is about moving slowly (conservatively) to avoid making unnecessary changes that turn out to be mistakes. In short, to defuse alarmism with calm, reasoned debate. In fact, today, arguing that we should tear down vast amounts of the government simply because they were erected by liberals is also a dramatic change that an old-fashioned conservative would have some trouble agreeing to.

It's pretty sad that both political parties in this country are mostly defined by not being the other one. I would appreciate having a conservative party of this stripe to choose. I think the closest thing we have is the Modern Whig party, which is tellingly considered centrist.

Edit: I'm having trouble imagining how the above could merit downvotes without replies.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#123

Post by sophacles »

mseebach wrote: post #43

This seems disingenuous to me. Already by calling what's essentially rhetoric "arguments", he's building a huge strawman. Take abortion - according to opponents a fetus is a living human being, and actively and purposefully killing a living human being is murder in the Charles Manson style. The argument for abortion isn't that it's somehow OK to kill really young human, it's that fetuses aren't independent human bein…

This seems disingenuous to me. Already by calling what's essentially rhetoric "arguments", he's building a huge strawman.

You're being funny right? I mean it has to be intentional that you are opening this contrary reply with a statement in the form of what TFA calls "The worst argument int he world" .

In case you aren't, or other posters don't see it:

The term argument has a technical and colloquial meaning. Technical means it is a well thought out, logically built position in a debate. Colloquially it means roughly "a statement in opposition". Rhetoric as used above largely means "statements meant to sway a person to one position, based on a mixture of fact and emotional response". Of course this is regularly a big part of rhetoric, but it also is the act of clear communication via careful composition of words. My rhetoric classes in college never taught me to pander to emotion, but rather lay out my statements in a clear way to make my point - techniques that are required for both clear logical argument (technical sense) and populist panderings (the common connotation of statements like "mere rhetoric"). So how does the parent's statement follow the form of WAITW? Well it says that the "arguments" (second form) are mere rhetoric, therefore discussing how to deal with them with logic must also be mere rhetoric. It completely misses the part where these types of 'argument' are common to daily political discourse in the US and many other places as well, so learning to not make the argument and to counter it is productive in helping people understand the actual issues.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#124

Post by makomk »

StavrosK wrote: post #85
slurgfest wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you thought it was constructive to turn HN into a sounding board for your personal complaints about 'left-leaning argumentoids'. Setting aside the utility of providing more 'examples' of inflammatory political statements on HN, why maintain such thoroughgoing political bias? If the intent is to discuss forms of argument then the bias is only distracting. If the intent is to catalogue stereotypes or c…

That was exactly his point. It was illuminating to hear some Worst Arguments in the World that I have sometimes used without realizing. I don't see why everyone is getting so riled up.

Except for the first one (and even that's debatable - if memory serves me correctly, "George Washington was a traitor" is generally used by the left-wing to demonstrate why categories like "traitor" aren't useful, rather than as a serious argument against Washington) they're not actually examples of the Worst Argument in the World though.

For instance, the fact that guns kill people is still just as effective as an argument for gun control even though not all guns kill people. Or take his point about how only parts of evolution have been proved - that's actually a particularly obnoxious kind of fallacious reasoning that creationists use a lot. There's always going to be gaps in our knowlege of the exact details of evolution because not all transitional forms survive and because there aren't enough researchers out there to investigate every single gene and biological pathway. But not (yet) knowing the exact details is not evidence that evolution is impossible - indeed, pretty much all of the supposedly "irreducably complex" features that creationists claim couldn't have been created by evolution have been proved to have evolved.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#125

Post by thebigshane »

scarmig wrote: post #73
slurgfest wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really no point in this unless you are arguing with someone who is trying to be honest to begin with. In that situation you don't need so much artifice anyway.

Well, I'd say there's a continuum of honesty. And intellectual generosity tends to beget intellectual generosity in the other person--and, for thoughtful undecided onlookers, makes them more amendable toward considering your side. For instance, speaking from both sides of the experience, someone who is engaged but being sniping or nasty in a political debate might well see that you're giving their point an honest go…

note: I'm not refuting your central point, I agree with it, but this line made me smile...

   there's only a limited amount of fun to be had in poking 
   holes in the small without really addressing their 
   motivating concern
The internet and tv news would disagree with you that the fun is limited. It appears definitely unlimited.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#126

Post by emil0r »

makomk wrote: post #121
emil0r wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think what you're writing as a reply is a bit vague? How would you describe the evolution of the coagulation system? What different systems existed before the coagulation system that fell together into the current system? From what I remember from the book the coagulation system looked to be one monolithic piece and not built up of smaller systems.

His reply is a bit vague, but as I recall this has actually been studied and it turns out that (for instance) other animals have blood coagulation systems that are lacking several of the 30 supposedly essential parts and still work fine - see e.g. http://creationwiki.org/Blood_clotting_is_irreducibly_comple... and the usual anti-creationism resources. Similarly, the supposedly "irreducably complex" bacterial motors t…

Thank you for the link. Was really interesting to read Behe's response to the critique.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#127

Post by makmanalp »

tokenadult wrote: post #2

I read the interesting submitted article and its comments right after it was submitted here on Hacker News. The worst argument in the world (a general FORM of argument) is described this way in the submitted article: "I declare the Worst Argument In The World to be this: 'X is in a category whose archetypal member has certain features. Therefore, we should judge X as if it also had those features, even though it does…

Yup, this is also known as the argument from fallacy or the fallacy fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Which is the false notion that when you refute a single false point, the opponent's whole argument is false.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#128

Post by [deleted] »

gjm11 wrote: post #92
jessedhillon wrote: post #79

This is great, but who does this appeal to? The small minority who actually takes the time to reflect on their own assumptions, is open to refactoring their own thinking and possesses the maturity to accept the wrongness of their own arguments? Almost all public "debates", on topics of any importance, are merely shouting matches where two or more sides reiterate rationalizations for their already-held notions of the…

> The small minority who actually takes the time to reflect on their own assumptions, is open to refactoring their own thinking and possesses the maturity to accept the wrongness of their own arguments? Well, yes, that would be exactly the target audience of Less Wrong. Do you have a problem with that? (Of course (1) posting this isn't going to make bad arguments disappear from the world and (2) someone whose goal is…

[deleted]

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#129

Post by stfu »

adastra wrote: post #41
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

This post has so much flame-bait in it I almost wonder if it's a meta-post-- a practical joke to see how many people go after these various politically-charged statements rather than comment on the article itself. I'll assume it's not though. In which case, I really don't see how adding more politically-charged examples to this discussion, or any other for that matter, is at all productive.

Truly entertaining bashfest. I am already looking forward to all the copy-cat blog posts trying to ride on that wave.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#130

Post by calinet6 »

sophacles wrote: post #120
slurgfest wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you thought it was constructive to turn HN into a sounding board for your personal complaints about 'left-leaning argumentoids'. Setting aside the utility of providing more 'examples' of inflammatory political statements on HN, why maintain such thoroughgoing political bias? If the intent is to discuss forms of argument then the bias is only distracting. If the intent is to catalogue stereotypes or c…

Wow, this is quite possibly the most disingenuous thing I've ever read, or it is the most brilliant troll ever: Poe factor: 1. The poster said "look I'm afraid too many people will miss the point about the form of argument because the article has a lot of examples against a common set of opinions representative of political collective of people. As such, here are some other arguments that follow the exact same patter…

I think we can all agree that as far as understanding the unimaginable complexity of life, the universe, and everything goes, the human race is pretty much Screwed with a capital F.
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