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.
Patrick,
It’s worth noting that even that is subject to abuse.
Suppose I casually slip this bit of well-poisoning into an exchange:
You challenge me, and I respond:
In that scenario, I clearly haven’t exonerated myself with the after-the-fact qualification.
It doesn’t matter.
If people are going to name names with accusations of bullying, then either move it to Noyau or have it moved to Guano.
Neil,
Intervening would accomplish nothing other than disrupting the continuity of the discussion. Let it go.
What now? Now we can move on. And I don’t see the need for editing: the addendum to the record is sufficient, IMO. However, if you start repeating the claim without the JMO rider, things might get ugly. In the case of your example, however, I would probably just cite Goldbach’s conjecture.
😉
We knew it was your opinion all along. NOW we know that it is JUST your opinion, that is, you have declined to proffer any support.
Now your talking about who might win a round of burden tennis, rather than the rules of the game. All bets are off.
Glen has mentioned the issue, but your paraphrase sounds more like what I wrote to you Feb 21 – 22 on Moderation Issues (3)…
Keiths,
Good point re the unsupported slander; JMO doesn’t cut it.
A retraction is needed there.
That’s why, Jock. See now?
DNA_Jock,
Thanks for that correction. It probably was you and not Glen, then. Sorry for the error.
Yes I agree. Even obviously insinuating someone is, e.g., an anti-semite could require the same sort of treatment.
walto,
Yes. So if that ever happens, we’ll know what to do.
Meh. At least needed some topspin on it. The surprise and annoyance only came after about the 400th insistence upon an answer (with no repetition of the original claim, mind you).
Maybe, but you won’t actually, you know, DO it.
walto,
Patrick’s standard isn’t idiosyncratic. I think almost everyone (except Erik and Gregory) would agree that Erik didn’t support his claims in the Varieties of Religious Language thread. Even Erik probably agrees, though he would never admit it.
The other cases we’ve been discussing are equally straightforward. What evidence did you provide that I am “the biggest liar and quote-miner in these parts”? None. What evidence did hotshoe supply that Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are “sexist jingoist assholes”? Zilch. She explicitly refused to provide any. What evidence did KN offer in support of his claim that “Harris thinks we should kill anyone who looks Muslim “? None whatsoever.
KN had the decency to retract his claim. Why haven’t you and hotshoe followed suit?
FWIW, I think this would be nice sung by Burt Lahr as the cowardly lion. You just have to say “none” and “zilch” the way he said “courage.”
PS: I’m glad we’re out of jello!
BTW, speaking of “slander”–who will draw those lines? When someone starts a remark “Err…” or “Um…” I read that as, “Hey, stupid…” or “BTW, dumbfuck” which, maybe is worse than being called a bully. Should moderators move such remarks to Guano?
I see an excerpt taken out of context with no link to allow readers to easily refer to the original.
My actual position is clearly stated in that original comment.
Err… you seem a little thin-skinned there, mate.
Re Erik’s performance:
Wrong on both counts.
aaaaand on this thread:
Jock to walto: Why do you keep repeating this “Retract” canard?
Walto responds by quoting Patrick thus:
and Walto comments: That’s why, Jock. See now?
But walto skipped Patrick’s next two sentences:
There’s a word for that
ETA: Ninja’ed by Patrick!
Sorry, I should have read Patrick’s post more carefully.
I’ve discussed the IMO, biz above. What is the amount of evidence needed to avoid both the IMO prefix and the requirement for retraction? Erik responded to Patrick’s question a handful of times; Patrick said his evidence was insufficient. (And I don’t remember THOSE posts prefaced with IMO in every case.)
I ask you, Patrick, if Erik now wrote Well, IMO blah blah blah is true, would you have let him off the hook? After all, everybody always knew that blah blah blah was true in his opinion. You might respond, “OK, at least we all know that this is just some random opinion of yours with no support.” Then he’s going to say, “I believe I’ve given you support–you just don’t happen to like it.” And all that would have been accomplished is that there’d be a couple of additional pointless posts.
You think so? keiths is upset because I said he’s a brown-eyed speed reader.
walto,
Err… no.
Ab.so.lutely hilarious.
It has always been JMO. Meaning “Just my opinion” as in “Merely my opinion”.
At least now the reference to Moore’s Paradox makes sense.
Please re-read the conversation in light of this revelation.
Contrast “In my opinion, the flood happened; the bible has been shown to be historically accurate” with “Of course the flood happened; the bible is historically accurate — but [hey] that’s just my opinion.”
The first sentence gets met with “Care to support that?” or (as in fact happened) “What precisely do you mean by that?”, the second sentence can be safely rejoined with “Yeah, opinions are like assholes…”
“Erik responded to Patrick’s question a handful of times”
Naah. Erik’s first ~100 replies to my question, and to Patrick’s, were non-responsive (in the legal sense of the word, rather than the medical).
I don’t agree. Although I admit I don’t remember him responding at all to my questions, or to Patrick when he posted it (i.e., quoted from them) a time or two. But, as I’ve said, one person’s “non-response” is another person’s support. That’s pretty much the problem in a nutshell.
Based on this wildly important (and hi.lar.ious!) distinction, few people are like to add JMO (for precisely the reasons I gave, which you should, um, read again). And what that means is that there will be lots of recantation commands.
In sum. Bad idea–somewhat worse than the IMO preface, IMO.
1) I though you were ignoring me.
2) I thought you never said anything disparaging about God only his followers.
3) Yahweh is not hiding you are covering your eyes and pretending you don’t see.
peace
Is it true that incontrovertible facts are useful fictions?
😉
How is that disparaging to Yahweh? I read it as critical of those claiming that something undetectable exists in his kitchen.
So what the experts believe is your standard for incontrovertible truth?
What kind of experts, Do theologians and philosophers count or just experts that deal with material things?
Who decides who qualifies as an expert?
peace
He says with out evidence that Yahweh is being deceptive (hiding)
No one is saying that something undetectable exists in his kitchen. Yahweh is more than detectable for people with eyes to see.
peace
I said I would for a while, which I did. You really are lacking in reading comprehension.
I thought you didn’t bother to get what I state right. And this strongly supports what I thought. I never said anything like that, rather that I hadn’t been discussing that issue at all when you went strawmanning all over the place, and that it’s not much of an interest of mine. Which it isn’t
As usual, you provide absolutely no reason why I should even begin to consider your vacuous claims.
Glen Davidson
Yes, that’s exactly the kind of thing he’s criticizing! You’ve got it!
Umhmm. Then what are you going to do, move the manners-violating comments to a new location named “Naughty Naughty” – or what?
You do not want to be the Manners Supervisor. Trust me, it’s a thankless job.
Neil and Patrick,
Is the (ever so popular and clever) remark that X lacks reading comprehension skills less of an insult than the remark that X is a bully? If so, why is that, exactly? Fwiw, they both seem like ad homs to me.
Thanks for clarifying.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but it’s not responsive to my question.
I see comments from all the “evidence-needers” in this thread assuming that people are uncomfortable/mind/are surprised by being asked to give evidence.
But you inherently cannot have any evidence to support that belief of yours, because you inherently cannot see into the person to find out if they are actually “uncomfortable” or actually “mind” or are actually “surprised” — as opposed to your own bias making you mis-read their comments as looking like that to you. Your only evidence is your own feelings, your own feeling that if a person replies in a manner you approve of, that person must be upset or uncomfortable or surprised or whatever. Your feelings aren’t evidence!
The only possible evidence for your supposition that a person minds/is surprised by being asked for evidence would be a black and white statement such as “I’m surprised you ask me for evidence of my claim.” But even then, we still have to consider the possibility that the person is being sarcastic or insulting the questioner — which it would be in my case … “I can’t believe you’re stupid enough to question what I just said, that every rational person already knows and agrees with”.
Oh yeah, that sounds like I mind, doesn’t it!
Of course, you don’t have to actually answer my question by trying to provide evidence for your supposition.
And unlike some of the shitlords around here, I won’t even try to make you feel bad about it.
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Edit italics
No, that’s completely stupid and pointless. Instantly you’d be back to unsupported opinion.
I think it’s not just appropriate, it’s wonderfully informative to make some comment about sexist pig Dawkins.
keiths jumps in to whine that’s a slander of poor old Dawkins and demand I retract.
If I care, I’ll point out that it’s merely keith’s unsupported opinion that it’s a “slander”.
And his labeling a comment of mine as a “slander” is in itself a kind of slander of me.
Which of course he should retract. WIth profuse apologies for trying to taint my stainless character by implying that I’m the kind of person who would engage in slanderous comments.
That’s the way you figure it will play out, right?
Reading these comments in the order they were posted, and not looking ahead, I predict a completely non-responsive defense/response in …3 …2 …1 …
I don’t follow
Scientist: There is listeria in the kitchen
Patrick and Glen: Listeria must be hiding because I can’t see it.
Scientist: It’s not hiding you are just not looking in the right way
What is wrong with that response?
hotshoe,
That didn’t happen. You just made it up.
What is wrong with you?
ETA: So much for your “stainless character”.
fifthmonarchyman,
What did Thoreau say?
It’s a nice quote, I think.
walto, to Neil and Patrick:
Who cares? Whether a comment is an insult or not isn’t important. Whether it’s true is much more important.
Are you prepared to present evidence backing both your prioritizing and your “Who cares?” (which I take to mean “nobody cares”)?
hotshoe_,
As humans, we constantly make inferences about other people’s mental states. It’s what we do. Granted, we might get it wrong sometimes, but you appear to be claiming that such inferences are always devoid of evidence, which strikes me as a rather silly claim.
You also appear to be somewhat upset, but I could be wrong about that.
😉
My own sense, for what it’s worth, is that keiths wouldn’t care two straws about these particular assertions if he didn’t take them as insults. Suppose I said Utica, NY has about 30,000 people. Would he post and repost this remark 100 times if I wouldn’t retract it? I don’t think he would. I think he cares solely because he believes he was insulted. The “Truth” doesn’t really have much to do with anything in this case. (I’ve admitted, for example, that I don’t know his eye color.)
So in answer to his Who cares? question, I think the answer is, Pretty much everybody. Certainly keiths, anyhow.
Of course you’re wrong about that.
I already told you (well, not you personally, but in this thread just above) that you were wrong about that.
You don’t choose to pay attention or to believe what I said?
Not my problem.
I just chalk it up to “it’s what guys do”.
And finally, the code is more what you’d call “clarification requests” than actual “recantation commands”. Welcome aboard.
</pirate mode>
I don’t do metaphysical truth.
I like this one from him.
quote:
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
and this one
The universe is wider than our views of it.
end quote:
peace
walto,
Yes.
First, you’re wrong that “who cares” means “nobody cares”. Example:
Friend:
Me:
I’m not arguing that nobody cares, obviously. “Who cares?” means something closer to “Why should I care?”
Regarding the “prioritizing”, it’s simple. People inevitably feel insulted at a forum where their ideas are up for criticism, and that’s true even when comments remain within the rules. To prohibit any comment that could be taken as an insult would defeat the entire purpose of TSZ.
Truth is more important than whether anyone feels insulted.
Thank heavens! That’s what I thought, otherwise my self-deprecating joke would have been just plain rude.
As to the rest, I’m not really following you. Probably a guy thing.
The issue generally comes down to whether what one has is ‘enough’. And what could be more controversial than that? Whether with swan or leprechaun denial, someone is likely to say something like, ‘Well, nobody has ever seen one, have they?’ And then there may be arguing about whether that’s really true.
There simply aren’t failsafe rules to be found here, IMHO. Keiths said, it depends on the prevailing consensus. You say that doesn’t sound very skeptical. I think you’re both right.
ETA: It’s from a page or two up