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.
Robert the Bruce and his damn spider. My rule of thumb is “if it ain’t working, try something else!”
Ah, see there’s the rub. People often disagree about those sorts of assertions. I say I’ve supported all my claims re you and patrick; you deny this. You think I should recant, I disagree. That’s life.
How does he know that you know?
🙂 🙂
NOT THE COMFY CHAIR!! X>{
Right, people should expect to be questioned, and people who ask questions should expect to not always get the answers they like. That’s kind of learning to be an adult. Yelling “RECANT” If you don’t get the answer you’d like is not only childish, it’s similar to the attitude Galileo had to deal with.
That was Robert the Bruce? Oh, the things I learn unexpectedly while on the way to some other point!
My dad wrote a couple of papers on folk wisdom, proverbs, and rules of thumb, Turns out reality is complicated – surprise, surprise.
Look before you leap.
And
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
But
He who hesitates is lost.
And
Carpe diem.
Those papers were a long time ago, but if I recollect, the main idea was that usage of converse idioms/proverbs was a way of teaching young folk the shades of gray — in a world where religion, power, and money generally painted everything black and white.
Which, now that I think about it, seems to be an apt point for this discussion about burden-tennis. But I’d have to think about it some more before I could express it well.
I’m sure Patrick is very … impressive … when in his red robes.
hotshoe_,
Let’s not forget what was my family’s favorite growing up –
Great minds think alike.
and
Fools seldom differ.
To return to a recent theme:
“Do you ever get that feeling of deja vu?”
😉
Alan:
Don’t play dumb, Alan. It isn’t necessary, and it doesn’t exactly help your ‘honesty’ case.
Neil not only made the accusation, he reiterated it:
So, what do you think? Is his accusation true or false, and why?
Getting to the heart of The Bruce
hotshoe,
If I recall correctly, this isn’t the first time you’ve used the “you’re such a bore” gambit to try to get yourself off the hot seat. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for you.
walto,
One claim, yes:
…and my point was that whether a claim is positive is irrelevant to where the burden of proof lies.
In this case, the scientific consensus is that the sun is a star, and the burden of proof falls on the person who is disputing that consensus — a negative claim.
Right. I responded to the assumption that the disputing person must be making a “negative claim.” Did you not see that?
When do you possibly find time to for leisure when there’s an entire world out there that needs to be set right?
There’s nothing logical about Hitchens’ Razor.
I would probably not have fared well. When people start issuing demands I become stubborn and dig in my heels. And no, I am not going to support that claim with evidence. Demands for evidence are actually counter-productive. Why not just say “I don’t believe you” and leave it at that?
No case to answer, sweetheart.
What do I think? You must know, Shirley! Mindreader that you are!
Three or four – or maybe a dozen – is my limit.
Please do feel free to resume your hypocritical scolding of me when I’ve repeated it umpteen times like you do.
walto,
That isn’t my assumption. It just happens to be true in the particular example I gave:
“The sun is a star.” — positive claim.
“The sun is not a star.” — negative claim.
Alan,
Why the reluctance to answer my simple question?
Do you think Neil’s quotemining accusation is true, or false, and why?
And why the reluctance to answer my simple question?
Can you provide links so I can have a look at the context?
Because it’s got the word “not” in it or because it was the second one uttered?
Consider this pair:
“I’m not happy today.”
“Sure you are!”
Which one is positive?
I don’t think you understand, Alan. It is only CERTAIN questions which, if not answered require recantations. Others not so much. I have been unable to determine the distinguishing criteria to this point–beyond who is asking the question.
E.g., Patrick says is “postive” claims that must be supported. But as he won’t define “positive,” I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s “Patrick” claims that don’t need to be.
walto,
LMGTFY
Thanks, I found this there. You should read it:
Holder of the burden
When two parties are in a discussion and one asserts a claim that the other disputes, the one who asserts has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim.[1] An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.[2][3] This has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the person criticizing the proposition.[4]
While certain kinds of arguments, such as logical syllogisms, require mathematical or strictly logical proofs, the standard for evidence to meet the burden of proof is usually determined by context and community standards and conventions.[5][6]
keiths,
Keiths
Are you claiming everyone at Google agrees with you? 😯
Yeah, they don’t actually.
walto,
You were confused about positive and negative claims, so I helped you out.
Perhaps next time you could try Googling it yourself.
Meanwhile, regarding the quote — what’s your point?
Does the burden shift if the we reword it like this ?
“I’m unhappy today.”
“no you’re not”
peace
I did not expect that.
🙂
I’m more confused about whether you’re ok. I think you’re spending too much time helping others.
ETA: BTW, according to a number of the sites you suggested you’re wrong that “The sun is not a star” is negative, since it asserts the existence of the sun. Of course, I take your word over any of theirs any day–I just thought you’d like to know, so maybe you could correct them all.
Good question.
Or how about if we shift the order of the assertions:
“You’re not unhappy today”
“I am too.”
Positive or negative?
I am an atheist. I lack belief in God or gods. I don’t know what you call someone who believes God or gods do not exist, but it’s sure as hell isn’t atheist. Don’t confuse those people with me!
Right
likewise
I’m a presuppositionist I lack belief in atheists. I don’t know what you call someone who believes atheists do not exist but it sure as hell isn’t presuppositionist. Don’t confuse those people with me.
😉
peace
No, that is not what skepticism means.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it isn’t.
If they are theists and ID supporters, sure. Otherwise not so much.
I disagree.
This is clearly a meta issues thread and it clearly belongs in Moderation Issues. It should be closed to further comments immediately.
keiths:
Alan:
Below are the quotes, with links. Note, however, that Neil leaped to his quotemining accusation without even bothering to ask about the context. His bizarre claim is that if you don’t provide a link, you’re quotemining. That’s ridiculous, of course, as these four definitions make obvious.
Here are the quotes:
walto:
hotshoe:
Kantian Naturalist:
You’ll find, of course, that the context of those quotes does not change their apparent meaning. They aren’t quote mines.
Neil’s accusation is false.
I’m hoping keiths will post my quote another couple of dozen times. I’m doing jello shots!
Love this guy!
walto:
You can blame Alan for that one:
He’s keeping you, hotshoe and KN on the hot seat. Good for him.
If you are going to be right, you may as well be right all the time.
I think we should take my quotes on the road. I mean, pretty much everybody here must know my views about your eye color and reading prowess by now. Because they’ve been posted many, many times–just have you have liked.
But why limit ourselves to this one site. Couldn’t you start posting this stuff other places too? Do you have Facebook or Twitter accounts or something? The world wants to know!!
Thanks, Alan! (I’m so drunk now!!)
Thanks Alan!
A moderator — most likely Neil — uselessly moved this comment to Guano, despite the fact that it was Alan who brought the questions regarding his honesty into this thread.
Man, I can’t wait until we finally implement this proposal so that only the people who sign up for moderation “service” will be affected by it.
I don’t know how much you’d have to pay me to do jello shots — but I bet it’s more than your non-atoning, tax-thieving, publicschool-teaching (that’s your sin, right?), entrepreneur-dissing self would afford.
On the other hand, I do have an absolutely lovely bottle of wildcrafted gin. (And some popcorn.)
Tell ya what, if you (walto or Alan or whoever) can seduce keiths into reposting those quotes two more times tonight, I’ll waste some of that gin on a straight shot — and let you know for free.
Still hours till midnight chez hotshoe …
Much worse! Though I have taught at a state university, I’m an insurance regulator, attempting to foil the free market system by making insurers pay their claims, charge the rates allowed by law, etc. The kind of stuff that Dickens novels suggested might make the world a little better, and Rand novels screamed have made it much worse.
I know I’ve been instructed to apologize for my lack of ethics and generally to recant for my evil ways. And i’ve seen that that kind of worked for Shostakovich. But I also read about what happened to Winston Smith even after he recanted, so I’m thinking of continuing to resist in spite of repeated demands from the halo boys.