Burden tennis is an intellectual parlor game, wherein the players “hit” the “burden of proof” across the net from one side to the other. We see this expressed as “the burden is in your court” or “the burden of proof is yours”, with often both sides making similar statements.
Burden tennis can be a fun game to watch, but it is sometimes wiser to avoid being a participant.
Note: I did not invent the term “burden tennis”. I saw that being used on the net somewhere many years ago. But it seems like a good term.
This post is really a reply to Patrick’s post in the moderation thread. I’ve started a new thread, because the discussion really doesn’t belong there.
As far as I know, the expression “burden of proof” comes from law. With the assumption that the defendent is innocent until the charges are proved, the burden of proof is initially with the prosecution.
Even in courts, the standard of evidence is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” for criminal trials, and “the preponderance of evidence” for civil trials. Both of those standards fall short of “demonstrated fact”. And both are ambiguous in meaning and ultimately up to the subjective judgment of the jurors.
I largely agree with hotshoe_ about this. The frequent demand for facts sometimes gets out of hand.
If I had required factual evidence for everything that my school teachers said, I would never have graduated out of kindergarten. The demand for evidence seems to come from the idea that “knowledge is justified true belief.” I see that as an absurd definition of knowledge. Children do learn from stories such as “Little Red Riding Hood” even though they know it is fiction. They aren’t learning facts. They are learning ways of interacting with other people and with the external world.
If I open a newspaper (either print or online), I may come across a sudoku puzzle and a crossword puzzle. Solving the sudoku puzzle is completely a matter of facts and logical reasoning. But solving a crossword puzzle has very little to do with facts. The clues are often ambiguous, and deliberately so. We never know if we have the correct answer to a specific clue, where “correct” means “intended by the puzzle author.” But, when we are done, we see that all of the answers fit together in such a way that it is highly likely that we have the correct solution.
In what follows, I’ll use the terms “sudoku evidence” and “crossword evidence”.
Sudoku evidence: demonstrated facts that lead to a logical conclusion.
Crossword evidence: things all fit together in such a way that the conclusion seems highly likely (or “consilience”).
When I deny that “knowledge = justified true belief”, I’m really suggesting that the bulk of our knowledge is in the form of a wealth of causal connections into the world such as would allow us to make good decisions based on crossword evidence.
Most of what we do and learn in life depends on crossword evidence, rather than sudoku evidence. At this forum, we sometimes see Frankie/JoeG asserting that there is no evidence for evolution. Presumably he is talking about sudoku evidence, and he might be right about that. But there’s a wealth of crossword evidence.
So, back to the burden of proof.
My own view is that the burden of proof lies with the one who wants to persuade others. When hotshoe_ says “Now I accept that as a consequence you may choose not to believe that I have stated a fact” she is saying that she is not particularly concerned whether others are persuaded. So, on my view, there is no burden of proof. And if others do not accept what she said, there is no burden of proof on them either. There can be a lot of useful and informative discussion without playing burden tennis. And most of our decision making in ordinary life is based on crossword evidence. Likewise, science is very much dependent on crossword evidence. Mathematics mostly depends on sudoku evidence. However, setting up a new and useful axiom system can depend on crossword evidence.
Open for discussion.
Well, then, you suck. JMO.
Wanting it “in writing” is a fucking controlling-asshole thing to want. I mean, JMO.
Because everyone knows YOU are the one paying for the server at TSZ just like you’re paying for that hypothetical big shindig, and therefore of course you should control what goes on the “invitation”.
Oh wait, you mean, you were just trying to do Lizzie a big favor by writing down what should go on HER invitations?
Yeah, I’m sure she needs that!
Thank your for making perfectly clear that this is all about you (collective “skeptic” dudebros) wanting license to behave as self-justified jerks to point at and mock whomever you take a momentary dislike to.
In your hypothetical, you’re listening to conversations amongst your party guests, but what’s wrong? No one is whispering mean things about the Bad Brother in Law – because all of them are decent people who have civilized manners – every single one of them politely pretends not to notice that BBiL didn’t obey the particular dress style you “codified”.
It’s not like you can throw the BBiL out — thank god you don’t want to be the overt asshole with the power to start that scene — besides, it would piss off your wife (it’s your hypothetical wife’s hypothetical brother, right? ) But you feel like you’re going to vomit if you have to see him standing there a minute longer, happy as a clam, not suffering any social sanction whatsoever for his transgression. Why, he’s anathema!!!
So what’s a sad jerk to do? I know! You’ll start a loud, repetitive, offensive conversation with anyone who will listen about how some people are so rude that they ignore the party host’s expectations, and you’ll go get a copy of the invitation and wave it around and point out “it says black tie right there, see”. And you’ll feel perfectly justified in being a boor, because after all you’re factually correct: that invitation you so carefully worded does indeed say “black tie”.
I feel sorry for your wife. I mean, your hypothetical wife.
And for every other guest at your party who doesn’t happen to be a dudebro jerk thinking that it’s more important to be right than to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves.
.
.
.
.
It’s not as if we haven’t already seen how this plays out in every social space where the atheo-skeptic dudebros get to put their desires “in writing”.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Which is what some of us are trying to avoid here … by not giving the bros any more written license to be septic than what they already have – or think they have.
Deep rifts!!
DNA-Jock is sliming out of the responsibility for making an “I” (or “we” — perhaps the collective ducebro-we, remains to be seen exactly who is onboard) statement.
In his world, expectations are just floating around in space like Platonic ideals.
NO no no.
He could be telling the truth if he said
As such, I expect participants …” (or like I said, he could try for “WE expect participants” … if he thinks we’re going to put this to a vote and his collective is going to win)
Of course, the rest of the words in his statement remain problematical, but at least he could make it honest.
hotshoe:
Oh, the irony! I guess self-awareness wasn’t on the syllabus at Hotshoe High.
Some impressions concerning the commentariat at TSZ:
Pretty much everyone at TSZ seems to understand that
People understand that those behaviors are desirable, but some commenters are much better at them than others. Those who are good at them tend not to object when they are asked to support their claims. They expect to be challenged and they enjoy defending their positions. They know how to do so effectively, they enjoy the give-and-take, and they understand that it’s part and parcel of posting at a skeptical site.
The commenters who are bad at those things tend to be the ones who bitch and moan even at the idea that they should be expected to support their claims when challenged. Why? It’s simple. They’re bad at it. When they try to do it, they often fail, and public failure is humiliating to them. It challenges their inflated and/or propped-up self-images.
So they face a dilemma. They can emulate the desirable behaviors listed above, which means honestly acknowledging their (frequent) failures, at great cost to their self-images; or they can employ compensatory strategies like false accusations, unsupportable claims, and evasions. The competent commenters tend not to face that dilemma because their failures are far less frequent and typically not a serious threat to their self-images.
In effect, when you ask an incompetent commenter with an inflated or propped-up self-image to support false or untenable claims, you are holding a mirror up to him or her. They’re often furious at those who hold up the mirror, and they will lash out irrationally.
The false accusations are a comfort to them. When they toss out a false accusation, they can at least say to themselves, “Hey, I responded. I must actually be in the game.” The truth is, they’ve conceded the game, because by resorting to lies they are admitting that they can’t actually make a truthful argument in favor of their claims. They’ve lost again.
Your analysis does not go all the way, keiths.
In addition to commenters who fail to support their claims, we have commenters who ask others to support claims without acknowledging that there are different ways to support claims. If there is no agreed standard of support, there can be no objective assessment of support for a claim. Take for example the wildly disparate theories of truth that we have here or the different opinions whether logical proof is proof or whether metaphysics has any validity alongside with physics.
If the standard of support is exclusively “empirical”, “evidential”, or “scientific”, then whatever we mean by “empirical”, “evidential” or “scientific” cannot be questioned, can it? So, as a minimum, I suggest that we should acknowledge that there is a plurality to the standard of support of claims, and the asker should be explicit as to what kind of standard of support he operates on when asking to support claims. If the standard of support is not agreed on, meaningful discussion cannot follow.
Exactly! You’ll have run out of playmates.
Erik,
The way to support your claim that the literal interpretation of the Genesis account is true…
…would have been to supply evidence that the literal interpretation of the Genesis account is true.
You failed to do that. Honestly acknowledging your failure would have come at great cost to your self-image. Hence your months-long evasions of Patrick’s straightforward questions.
Keith’s,
I bet if someone trips and falls down, you point and say “look, they fell down!”
keiths:
Alan:
That doesn’t follow at all, Alan.
Patrick already explained it to you:
Patrick:
Alan:
Patrick:
Alan, you are among the unskilled commenters I mentioned above who find it excruciatingly painful to acknowledge their failures. In fact, given the absurd and infantile lengths to which you have gone in order to avoid admitting a mistake, I would say that you probably find it more painful than anyone else here at TSZ.
It’s a deadly combination: you make a lot of mistakes, and you find it excruciatingly painful to acknowledge them. It’s no wonder you’ve been so consistently unhappy about skepticism at The Skeptical Zone.
My failure to supply evidence that the literal interpretation of the Genesis account is true only with severe qualifications. Qualifications such as:
– While I claimed that scripture should be possible to interpret literally (along with other ways which are more important), I never claimed that Genesis is scripture. To grant that Genesis is scripture is not so simple for me, as I am not Christian – surely you should have taken this into account.
– Even if for the sake of the argument we grant that Genesis is scripture according to my definition, it has proven impossible to convey to anyone in this forum what it means to be scripture as distinct genre from all other genres. We only got as close as equating it to folklore. Somewhat different standards of literal evidence apply to folklore as distinguished from scripture, but if not distinguished from scripture, then in terms of folklore the evidence cannot be disputed, just like literal evidence for the war of Troy as depicted in Iliad cannot be disputed.
– As long as we don’t agree on what it means to be scripture, we also cannot agree on what it means to provide evidence for its truth.
– My claim cannot be summarized as “literal interpretation of the Genesis account is true”. It’s more fairly summarized as “literal interpretation of scripture is true (along with other more important interpretations)”. Actual crux of the problem was my claim that “the flood literally happened”. For this claim, there is plenty of scriptural/folkloristic support around the world, along with the naturalist contention that “floods happen all the time” which does not disprove the flood, but rather confirms it. If this evidence is insufficient, the inquisitor should be careful to clarify his standard for evidence.
So, you are free to say that I failed to provide evidence for my claim, except that we disagree about the standard of evidence and about my actual claim. Sort of substantial disagreement, isn’t it?
Erik,
Yes, you did:
Let it go, Erik. You failed rather spectacularly in that thread, and now you’re making it worse. Why not just accept your failure and move on? Maybe you’ll do better next time.
What better example!
And the other points are irrelevant?
As to letting go, try follow your own advice.
I think you need to make this more explicit. keiths isn’t getting it.
Well, keiths probably doesn’t even know there’s something to get. 🙁
Poor baby.
Alan, to point out mistakes — even if done in a way that you personally consider to be impolite — is perfectly fine and perfectly in line with Lizzie’s intentions for this site. She’s made that clear.
You need to come to grips with the fact that this is The Skeptical Zone, not Alan’s Safe Space.
Erik, I’m sure you know I don’t like you. But I genuinely mean this as friendly advice: let go yourself of any hope that keiths can and/or will “let go” of something.
I think you’ll be much happier if you decide to only poke him with a very long stick and not to try to engage him directly.
What concerns me is the possibility of this site turning into a twilight zone.
Alan,
Don’t project your personal discomfort onto everyone else. People here have been pointing out each others’ mistakes for years — politely and impolitely — and TSZ has not turned into a ghost town. It’s bustling.
hotshoe, in Noyau:
hotshoe,
As DNA_Jock pointed out to you:
He’s right, hotshoe. It is a silly claim. All of us here, including your very own self, routinely make inferences about other people’s mental states based on what they say, how they behave, and what they write.
I maintain that Alan finds it excruciatingly painful to admit mistakes, and I have plenty of evidence to back up my claim.
It’s already a twilight zone when moderator s have no clue of inevitable moderator responsibilities concerning staying on topic.
Now guano my comment and not yours to prove my point.
hotshoe,
Speaking of false claims, you irresponsibly made one here because you couldn’t be bothered to check the evidence beforehand.
I demonstrated its falsity here. Your response was to quietly slink away.
You’ve spoken of your “stainless character” and said this of yourself:
Your self-image is laughably inflated, but you could make it just a smidgen less laughable by withdrawing your false accusation. Please do so.
I keep waiting for someone to tell me what adding the expectation language would actually DO? How would anything here change? How, without an actual rule attached, could it alter the content, form, style, etc. of the discussion one iota?
The genesis of this bruhaha, as I’ve already mentioned, was that Patrick didn’t like being criticized for criticizing Erik (who I think is correct about metaphysics above, btw). Patrick says he doesn’t want a new rule prohibiting criticism of him for criticizing Erik, though. What to do?
I’ve indicated the solution above. We secure Patrick’s ability to criticize Erik (even as some would say, bully him) on any thread he wants to do so without fear of being guanoed. He can mention what he thinks skepticism requires, reiterate keiths’ lovely priority list above and classify posters here in accordance with it: all that stuff, too!
But since not everybody may agree with his posts/posters taxonomy, those who don’t will get to respond that they think (falsely and unfairly, no doubt!) that he’s being a sanctimonious prick. And they, too, will not be faced with a penalty for expressing their (surely wrong!) opinions.
As this plan loosens the moderation rules, we know it must have the support of keiths and Patrick who regularly tell us they don’t like moderation rules (PERIOD), but what say the rest of you??
Such a change is bound to reduce rancour and clarify the importance of skepticism at this site, no?
Neil says don’t do anything, but I don’t see how that could help when Patrick and others think we MUST do something to indicate that Skepticism Rulz. Jock says, just do the expectation thing, (but see my first paragraph above and hotshoe’s brother-in-law discussion on that).
So, I wait for a hearing on my proposal. Currently, I think it stands me and the two anti-rules guys FOR, and Neil (who thinks Noyau is sufficient) and Jock (who says Noyau plus the wedding invite plan is better) AGAINST.
So, by my count, my side is winning!! Let’s keep the votes coming in!
Attempt to get back on topic: hotshoe , you had some observations about my wedding invitation analogy:
Exactly. In this analogy, I am a lowly wedding planner. Lizzie is the host.
That would be my hope, yes, that they will notice AND pretend not to notice, for the reasons you outline here.
By “statement” are you referring to the insert, or the entire paragraph?
As for the rest of your diatribe, you appear to have me confused with someone else.
ET fix link
What do you think this expectation language sans rule would actually DO, Jock? And how would it accomplish it?
Erik,
I’ll copy your comment and reply in the moderation issues thread.
Walto, what do you think that the paragraph does without the insertion?
Can you put it here, please?
ETA with your proposed insertion in bold maybe? Thanks.
I’m still unclear on what the problem is that requires a solution.
Wouldn’t it be formally more correct to put up an OP with a poll?
Yes, you’re right. Just trying to get an informal sense here. I haven’t put my proposal in legalese yet–removing your name and Patrick’s, etc as I’d have to do. Want to get a general idea of support first.
This is where my point about participation here being entirely voluntary comes in. As it stands, within very broad limits we allow anyone to comment as they have time and inclination. People can disagree, challenge ideas, ask for evidence, point out that evidence is lacking and so on. Whether this works very much depends on at least some minimal mutual respect and tolerance.
I agree that a concise summary of the aims and rules all in one place is overdue but that’s Lizzie’s job to do or delegate.
My approach is somewhat different. I figure there MUST be a problem, since Patrick, keiths and Jock have expressed their dissatisfaction with the status quo. What I’m unclear about is how their ‘expectation’ suggestion/letter-to-Lizzie could handle this concern. I suppose that every time they disagreed with somebody about something here they could paste it as showing that they are right and the other person is wrong, as some sort of support for their own position. You think that might be it? Not sure what else it could do.
Thanks to the precision of your ETA, I misinterpreted it as meaning “Nevermind, I found it”.
Here’s the paragraph in question, with the insert already bolded…
Thanks. After looking at it again, I don’t think it does much of anything, either with or without the insertion. The expectation without it has done nothing to date so far as I can tell, and the insertion will simply allow those who think they are more attuned to its ‘spirit’ to paste it with a feeling of self-satisfaction (and mucho chest-thumping) when they are losing an argument or can’t get somebody to respond to them the way they’d like.
That’s the only effect I can see it engendering myself. What do you think?
I think it will make it easier for the polite guests to come to their private conclusion that the brother-in-law is an asshole.
I’d like to hope that it would also reduce the motivation for the groom, say, to publicly and repeatedly berate him for being an asshole, because that would be rather dickish on his part. Hey, a guy can hope, right?
Indeed. And I don’t blame you for that. Was it Fitzgerald who wrote, ‘Hope is the easiest thing to keep alive in a man’?
Whoever wrote it, it’s a nice quote, and useful to remember here, where there are so many theists about.
walto goes for another easy lie:
What I actually wrote:
As I noted above:
Great stuff, but it really should be in an OP. It’d have more, I don’t know, heft or weight, that way.
Totally desrves that!
Care to retract your lie, walto?
Suck it, keiths.
Oh, sorry, I meant to say “How could I be so foolish as to persist in my error in the face of the loving chastisement by the red-robe wearer? His only mission here is to save my soul, after all. Thank you, god, for sending poor unworthy me your representative keiths for my salvation!”
No, wait, that was keiths’ manic delusion about how this game should play out.
My final answer:
Suck it, keiths.
No, the answer is that it’s the “lowly wedding planner’s” job to do, says DNA-Jock, with his hand up waving furiously hoping for recognition from tTeacher.
hotshoe,
Pretty hard for you to maintain your inflated self-image when the mirror is held up to your face, isn’t it?
I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning.
My response is to your claim that there are no rules for skepticism. You’re wrong.
There’s a fascinating authoritarian streak that runs through many religious people (as well as those on the regressive left). Can you really conceive of no other alternative?
The culture of a site is influenced both by the goals and rules that make up its structure and the actions of its participants. I would like to encourage greater skepticism in the culture here. I think that intention is implicit in the site goals already, so what I’m proposing isn’t a great change.
It means that people should expect to be asked for evidence when they make unsupported assertions. It means that reason, logic, and critical thinking are encouraged. It means that participants understand that baseless claims can be summarily dismissed.
Skepticism is required to achieve the goals of this site. The only thing I’m proposing is that the nature of this site be made explicit.
Not bad. I’d like to see something about skepticism being not just expected but encouraged. Nonetheless, if all Lizzie added was this it would certainly be an improvement.
C’mon, Mung, we know you hang out at UD.