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.
What is not logical about it?
Do you think it’s logical to accept unsupported claims?
The goals of this site are
Skepticism is a means for achieving those goals. I’m not saying that there should be rules requiring all participants to support their claims, simply that the expectation that this is a skeptical forum and that therefore evidence is important should be clear.
I consider both of those positive claims. An example of a negative claim is “There is no evidence for evolution.” It’s wrong, but it can only be proved wrong by providing the evidence.
Welcome to the club! I’ll make sure you’re on the invite list for the next baby barbeque.
What those people are called are “Gnostic Atheists”, fyi.
The requirement for evidence is an essential component of skepticism.
I contend that it is, based on the goals and other statements included on the Rules page.
This is the core point I’ve been trying to make. This is a skeptical forum and the expectation should be that unsupported assertions will be challenged. Doing so is not personal, it’s not insulting, and it’s not rude, it’s simply a way of determining if a claim is more or less likely to be true.
Complaining about being asked to support one’s claims is not aligned with the goals of this site.
What alternative for evaluating truth claims do you propose?
Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur
An old Roman legal phrase that has helped to shape the modern judicial system. Would you prefer that charges asserted against you without cause should be taken seriously?
To be sure, Hitchens’ restatement shifts the statement toward empiricism, whereas the Latin meaning is more like “without cause” (“the car was black” may be stated without supporting evidence (it “is the evidence” in the proper context), while it is supposed to be predicated on cause/evidence) but in the contexts in which it is normally used, it is evidence that matters. Arguably, any positive statement might come down to evidence, since a mathematical proof is evidence, and factual sensory statements should be based upon evidence.
But feel free to waive your right to have evidence-free charges thrown out for lack of cause if/when you’re unjustly accused of a legal infraction. Because that’s how ID is kept down, by demands for evidence.
Glen Davidson
Patrick,
Yes. As I see it, the only claims that avoid the burden of requiring supporting evidence are universal negatives, which are difficult to support (Hempel notwithstanding) but easy to refute.
Compare the reactions:
“Fair enough.”
[Some time passes.]
“I’d like you to meet my pet swan, Upping-Sunday. He is, I think you’ll agree, black.”
versus
“Photographs, please!”
Again, who has complained about being asked for something? I think you entirely misunderstand the complaints.
I agree with Mung. There’s nothing logical about it.
That does not mean that it is illogical. Rather, logic is silent on what evidence you should accept or reject. Logic doesn’t come into play until you have evidence (or premises).
I thought you’d said earlier that “internal” claims did not have such burdens.
I agree. There seems to be a view around here that there is some infallible starting place regarding what IS evidence, what is GOOD evidence, what evidence is REQUIRED for this or that claim, etc. What is being missed here is that people can’t escape their own categories or axiom systems. These ethics of belief are no less “floaty” than the claims they are assessing.
ETA: Have some people forgotten that this is THE SKEPTICAL ZONE?!?
Or, “evolution isn’t responsible for the adaptation of life on this planet.”
No, I think “the sun is not a star” is indeed a negative claim, so long as you’re not arguing definitions or some such thing (“Pluto is not a planet” isn’t usually a negative statement, but a matter of definition). If you’re saying the sun doesn’t fit normal criteria for “a star,” it’s a negative claim.
Why must there be a definitive answer to whether this claim is positive or negative? Why wouldn’t it depend upon the nature of the discussion?
It happens here all the time Glen. Perhaps this site isn’t so “skeptical” after all.
No, I was pointing out the futility (and rudeness) of demanding evidentiary support for claims about the writer’s internal state on an internet forum. Such ‘internal’ claims usually fall within the JMO category, without further clarification needed.
If you were to say “I am not annoyed at keiths, I am only pretending to be annoyed.”, it would be futile and rude of me to start listing all the times you seemed to be genuinely upset. Why bother? The only non-twerp response would be “Okaaaay” as in “In my opinion, that’s just your opinion”.
“I’m only pretending to be annoyed, and I can prove it. ”
Now that’s an external claim.
But those are the best kinds of comments to leave untouched!
It’s quite logical, especially when you go back to the Latin maxim that Hitchens is paraphrasing. You say something without cause, it can be dismissed with equal (that is, no) cause.
Logic is hardly silent on what evidence you should accept or reject. Contradictory evidence is clearly a problem, and demands that evidence be treated similarly is based in logic. Theorems often underlie the evidence accepted. Logic affects how one even arrives at evidence.
Anyway, of course there are questions of epistemology. But Hitchens’ razor, or the Latin phrase upon which it is based, aren’t addressing questions of epistemology, rather they’re asserting that claims should be treated equitably. A causeless assertion isn’t something that needs to be addressed, it can be countered with a causeless (evidence-free, anyway) negation. Or rather, because the assertion is causeless, you thereby have cause to disregard the claim.
These proverbs play with words, I realize. But they are based on normal understandings, basically, that nothing equals nothing. You have nothing (no cause), so I can treat it as nothing. Which is quite reasonable, even logical.
Glen Davidson
Is that a positive claim or a negative claim?
I completely agree with you about the etiquette aspect–although I’m not sure you’re quite skeptical enough about axiology. 😉
GlenDavidson,
I know you are paraphrasing there and I’m not suggesting you’ve confused anything, but I think it’s generally dangerous to equate reasons with causes. While you may not tangle them up, a lot of people do.
You mean, like I discussed? Naturally I dealt briefly with the sort of discussion in which it is a negative claim.
But of course it matters if it’s a negative assertion or a positive one. Because it is a negative claim in the sort of discussion I mentioned (which is more or less the default) you know that you can counter the claim with evidence for it being a star. A positive claim that implied that it’s no star would be rather different, like if someone said “the sun is a planet.” Then you’d be able to ask, well, what evidence do you have that it’s a planet? You could still bring out evidence that the sun is a star in such a case, so long as those involved in the discussion understand that a star is not a planet and a planet is not a star, but you don’t necessarily have to do so in order to counter the claim, unlike when the negative assertion is made.
Glen Davidson
Mostly I used “cause” because the original phrase involves judicial matters. Accusation without cause. There are always reasons. And legal accusation without cause can be quite scary.
Confusing, to be sure (there are two different meanings of “cause” hanging around, in any case), but the origin of the proverb matters with respect to its meaning.
Good point, though.
Glen Davidson
I thought it was interesting that so many of the sites that keiths’ google search produced simply take ‘positive’ to mean something like ‘implying the existence of something’. On that view (assuming Russell’ theory regarding the analysis of singular terms) both ‘the sun is a star’ and ‘the sun is not a star’ are positive.
That seems overly simplistic to me, and, based on your post, I’m thinking you agree with me about that.
Looks like it to me.
Glen Davidson
It’s ok because I think keiths got a screenshot of it.
Umhmm. If he doesn’t honestly misunderstand the complaints, then he’s doing something worse than simple misunderstanding
I don’t think I could possibly make myself any more clear. I don’t care who asks me for something. I’m not complaining about the mere fact that they ask.
What I complain about is that they’re tedious bullyboys – who perhaps sincerely think they are improving this site by demands for “evidence” from whomever they momentarily disagree with – who aren’t going to win that particular game with me.
And therefore, I complain that they should be smart enough to recognize that. Because I’m not as happy as I could be when I’m around otherwise-smart people who are acting tediously stupid. And I’m only here for my own happiness – not theirs.
So shape up, boys!
Heehee. There’s yer own words back again. What everyone (including you and me, and especially those who shall not be named) misses is that people can’t escape their own categories/axioms about what participating at THE SKEPTICAL ZONE requires.
Personally, I’d say participating here doesn’t require anything. I mean, except showing up, obviously.
But see, that makes me a bad “skeptic” and a failure for Lizzie’s aims. According to some.
Aww, how can I stand to live with my failure.
Easy peasey as it turns out. I can even whistle while I do it.
“Burden of proof” has (at least) two senses that need to be distinguished. One sense is concerned with our reasons for believing/not believing a proposition in the first place, and the second sense concerns the reasons we are obligated to offer, in a particular discussion, in defense of believing/not believing.
It took humans thousands of years to realize that the sun is a star. It’s not at all obvious, and a lot of evidence had to be gathered in order to establish the truth of that proposition. Back in, say, 2000 BCE, the burden of proof would clearly fall on the person making this non-obvious claim.
Now fast-forward to the present. Suppose I mention in a discussion at TSZ that the sun is a star, and someone (let’s say Mung, for verisimilitude) disputes that claim. My claim is clearly a positive one, but the burden of proof does not fall on me. It’s commonly known that the sun is a star, and it’s the consensus opinion of scientists, for good reason. The burden is on Mung to provide evidence and argument against it. If he demands evidence from me, I’m justified in telling him to buzz off and go crack an astronomy book.
Now suppose that Mung actually comes up with a persuasive argument against the stellarity of the sun (here verisimilitude goes out the window — “Mung” and “persuasive argument” go together like peanut butter and battery acid). I am now obligated to show why Mung’s argument fails (if in fact it does) and defend the proposition that the sun is a star.
Throughout this comment I’ve been talking about the same positive claim — that the sun is a star — but the burden of proof has shifted depending on circumstances. It’s far too simplistic to say, as Patrick does, that “the person making the positive claim has the burden of proof.”
Heck, I’m not even a skeptic and I show up.
I don’t even share Lizzie’s commitment to John Stuart Mill-style liberalism, even though “On Liberty” is one of my favorite books.
🙂 🙂
My primary objection to what I understand as your position comes from this comment in Moderation Issues:
I strongly disagree that others are not justified in dismissing your claims when you fail to support them. Without some support, there is no justification to accept them.
This is why I think it’s important to emphasize that this is a skeptical forum. I’m not calling you a liar when I ask for evidence nor am I being deliberately rude. I’m simply applying the tools of skepticism in an attempt to find out what’s more like to be true. That is what I believe should be the default expectation for discussion in a place named The Skeptical Zone.
If you don’t want to participate in that way, that’s fine. I’m not suggesting new rules to create an Unskeptical Activity Committee. Just don’t expect to have your unsupported claims accepted.
(As an aside, the only time I recall you refusing to support a claim is with respect to something you said about Dawkins. I found that somewhat out of character, but I’ll refrain from encouraging you to shape up.)
DNA_Jock,
Even those require supporting evidence. If I claim there are no quadrupeds on Zebulon-5, an earthlike planet 10,000 light-years away, you are justified in asking me for supporting evidence.
hotshoe,
Read that out loud to yourself. Do you actually believe that?
In my book, that’s a positive claim, similar to “There are no black swans in my kitchen”. Claiming that there are no quadrupeds except on earth is a negative claim.
I disagree with your position that claims that conform to the consensus view do not carry any burden of support. This is the Skeptical Zone, after all. To borrow from your example, if you claim that the sun is a star and Mung disputes the claim, you have made a mundane claim. You can support it quite adequately by directing Mung to go crack an astronomy text book; if you are feeling generous, provide a link to Amazon. The ball has crossed the net. No need to tell him to buzz off: it only encourages him and, furthermore, (verisimilitude goes out the window) he might be right.
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Mundane claims, not so much.
Back in 2000 BCE, the claim that the sun is a star would not merely have been non-obvious. It would have been clearly and obviously false.
The meanings of both “sun” and “star” have shifted since that time.
Hey, KN, did you see my question about Virginia Held? (I’m wondering if I should continue to feel guilty about never having cracked her book.)
Neil,
If it had been “obviously false” that the sun was a star, then no rational person would have considered the possibility that it was.
Likewise, if it had been “obviously false” that the Morning Star and the Evening Star were the same object, then no sane person would have suggested it.
I don’t think the people who made those suggestions were irrational or insane. Do you?
In fact, the Sun was one of the seven planets, along with the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Glen Davidson
walto,
No, you should only feel guilty if you read it in seven minutes or less.
Meanings change. Our meanings are finely adapted to our relations with the world around us. If meanings could not change, then we would be mindless mechanical robots.
I don’t even expect to have my supported claims accepted!
No way! I’d be proud! Unfortunately, I’m a slow reader. 🙁
I did see your question. Yesterday was a rough day and my cognitive abilities were over-taxed.
In fact I did not even know she had written on induction. I only know of her work on the ethics of care, and even that I do not know too well. I’ve taught short essays of hers that are readily anthologized but I’ve never read her with any sustained attention.
Neil,
You’re confusing what people believed about the sun with what people meant by “the sun”.
They didn’t believe that the sun was a star, but it doesn’t follow that “the sun” (in whatever local language) meant “that big, blindingly bright thing in the sky that definitely isn’t a star”. It simply meant “that big, blindingly bright thing in the sky.”
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks.
I thought Neil was saying that there just isn’t a sharp distinction between we take to be true about the world and what our words mean. I don’t think that’s a crazy view — Quine, Putnam, and Davidson all defend it explicitly, and a version of it could plausibly be attributed to Wittgenstein.
DNA_Jock:
keiths:
DNA_Jock:
If so, then “There are no black swans” is also a positive claim, because what people meant by it (before they knew about the Australian counterexample) was that there were no black swans on earth. They weren’t making a sweeping statement about the entire cosmos.
And even someone who actually did mean “There are no black swans, period, anywhere in the universe” would still shoulder a burden of proof, despite its being a negative claim. You could legitimately ask such a person “How do you know? What’s your evidence?”
KN,
No, he made a much stronger claim:
He’s claiming that the meaning of “the sun” made it “clearly and obviously false” that the sun is a star, but that’s not correct. As I noted:
And “star” probably meant “tiny dim thing in the sky”. So it would have been trivially obvious that the “big blindingly bright thing in the sky” was not a “tiny dim thing in the sky.”
No.
I’m claiming that the meanings of sun and star made it clearly and obviously false. You have to consider the whole system of meanings, not just one meaning in isolation.