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, I was never wrong about this being a “skeptical site,” that’s for sure.
🙂
Their parents happened to meet, these boys happened to meet; some sort of chemical alchemy operated so that they cared for each other, and poor Bobby Frank’s dead body was found in the culvert as a result.
– Clarence Darrow
Mung,
Actually, I was (and still am) quite willing to back up my claim.
I offered you a deal:
That seemed to frighten you — I guess you weren’t “in the middle of your comfort zone” — so you declined my offer.
Mung:
keiths:
Mung:
You need to brush up on your logical fallacies. While you’re good at committing them, you’re not so good at recognizing them.
Pointing out your hypocrisy is not an instance of the “tu quoque” fallacy.
Why?
Why is that your standard?
Fine, ask away.
And if I, in your hypothetical example, decline ever so politely (or not politely at all) to provide evidence which would satisfy the court one way or another at a libel trial, what’s it to you?
We’re not The Inquisition, and we’re not any court of law.
You can ask, but you cannot possibly expect to get what you ask for, unless
a) you expect me to agree out of the pure voluntary goodness of my heart to give you what you ask
or
b) you expect to have the power to enforce compliance with your asks.
Where the fuck did that “should” suddenly come from?
And on what basis are you going to set yourself up as arbiter of “allegations” which “should” be retracted, compared to “disagreements” from which we can just “move on”?
How the hell am I supposed to trust you to be able to tell the difference yourself, given that you’ve already said “we [that is, YOU] might get it wrong sometimes” ?
Of course you don’t see the crazy/stupid.
It’s probably that guy thing again.
When – not if – when I make some statement that in your not-so-humble-opinion is “denigrating”, and when – not if – when I “will not even try” to support it (because I’m too busy, or not interested, or whatever) how are we going to collectively decide whether or not we should “refuse to let [it} stand” ?
You know you can’t be trusted to know what’s libel or not. You might be biased – well, all humans are – and you might get it wrong – all humans do.
Oh, I’ve got a fabulous idea! We’ll hold a libel trial. Then the result of the trial will be the deciding factor in whether to let my “denigrating” statement “stand” here.
Goodie, goodie. That means I can get away with anything, short of actual legally-prosecuted libel. **goes off to photoshop Dawkins having … ** Never you mind, Jock, just wait for the surprise!
I don’t either. I’ve done it myself when I felt like it.
I don’t object to you assholes asking for a retraction – or even to you sulking and whining if you don’t get what you want.
But I spit on you acting as if “support or retract” is anything like a moral rule to live by. And I’ll tease the holy hell out of keiths for seeming stupid enough to think that his near-infinite capacity for repetition is going to get different results.
Good boy. Have a cookie.
DNA_Jock:
hotshoe:
Honesty — OK. Dishonesty — not OK. Are these notions utterly alien to you, hotshoe?
The fact remains that you made an allegation and never backed it up, even when requested to do so. So much for “support or retract.”
I offer you a deal too. Don’t lie. Don’t quote-mine. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t misrepresent people. Don’t belittle people. Don’t be a condescending prick. Don’t be an arrogant ass. Don’t be a sanctimonious shit. Don’t be judgmental. …
And I’ll let you ask me all the questions you want.
ETA: Ah hell, who am I fooling. Ask away, deal or no deal.
I was wondering if I could drag you away from the ongoing flame war to discuss why you view my “slander/retract” amendment as “crazy/stupid”.
hotshoe_ reacts,
So that’s a “No” then.
Ok.
🙂
Say that, in answer to your polite question hotshoe says she read it on the cover of The Inquirer in the grocery store. Now must she retract, or can she satisfy your rule if she says JTO (Just their opinion)? Does she have to defend the claim that she DID see it (I mean, maybe she made that up because she hates the guy)? If erik had said he believed blah blah because he read it in some newspaper, would that have made Patrick stop calling him names? I kinda doubt it.
So, when, exactly, is there no obligation to recant? If you’ll forgive me, I get the strong sense that it goes away only when you (or patrick or whoever it is) is satisfied that this (positive?) claim might be true. But why should everyone concur that judgment is important? Are your assessments of what’s a warrantable claim so obviously correct that nobody need fear here?
But I’m making a ton of assumptions here. Maybe “It was in something I read, I think” really will do the trick to get the “RECANT!” squad to dismount their high horses. I should wait to hear. So let’s have the whole, entire rule, please. Not just kit but kaboodle too.
Or, conversely, that it is NOT “just your opinion” or that one is justified in concluding that it’s “not just your opinion”.
In reality, everything is “take it or leave it”. In your style, that’s a little more visible than in some other people’s styles.
Lately, some of the boys around here seem to be confusing a plausible line of gab for an objective method to spare them the responsibility to “take it or leave it”. Sorry boys, there’s no easy out. In the end you still need to make each decision personally (and subjectively) for who to believe – in other words, to go along with some consensus or other that it’s “not just your opinion”.
Whether some statement is a “fact” or not, whether it’s “just my opinion” or not, is completely orthogonal to whether or not I have played the game according to someone’s rules about “supporting [my] claims”. Logically, the two things cannot be connected.
Emotionally, maybe they’re connected. (Seems that way to me.) But this is THE SKEPTICAL ZONE. Not the EMOTION ZONE. Supposedly.
edit -there were supposed to be smilie faces here.
Operator error, I guess.
🙂 🙂
walto,
Well, we’d be having a conversation about the evidence, and the quality thereof. Maybe we’d come to an agreement, maybe not. But the willingness to have the conversation is key. That’s what skepticism is about.
Your speculations about counterfactual hypotheticals notwithstanding.
“Honesty” by keiths’, DNA Jock’s or Patrick’s most arbitrary subjective and hostile determination? No thanks.
I’ll keep with the consensus humanitarian version of honesty, tempered by charitable interpretation, awareness of trustworthiness, and civilized manners (and with a tip of the hat to Jock’s mention of “sane”libel laws) instead.
DIshonesty? When it’s shitlord keiths who is accusing me of dishonesty. I’ll choose to wear that as a badge of honor.
Refusing to submit to your bullshit makes me one of the good guys, by every decent person’s standards.
Hope that helps!
If I falsely accused keiths, as he claimed, I’d love to retract what I said. But I’m still waiting for him to point out how I falsely accused him, even though I asked. And asked. And asked. Seems like it’s a game of heads he wins tails I lose.
Retract what, lol!
So from where I sit, it’s just keiths playing mind games. There’s no real intent there to be honest about anything. He doesn’t really want me to retract anything. That’s the evidence that is out there, but it’s JMO.
I’ll take it! You might have to remind me about the “judgmental” part, though.
It is a weakness with me, but to be fair to myself, it is my only weakness. 🙂
And it just keeps getting better.
Literally translating as ‘you too’ this fallacy is also known as the appeal to hypocrisy. It is commonly employed as an effective red herring because it takes the heat off someone having to defend their argument, and instead shifts the focus back on to the person making the criticism.
Oh look, and no one even asked me for evidence or insisted that I must retract!
Fuck off, douchebag.
I did discuss it. That you don’t happen to like (or understand) any points in my discussion does not give you a right to tell a lie about it.
You should apologize. Of course, we’re not going to have a libel trial about this. So you don’t have to apologize, or retract, or anything at all.
But by your own stated standards, you should.
Mung:
No, it’s just you playing Mung games, and losing badly as usual.
True, but as such it may not be the best foundation for your stainless character.
😉
DNA_Jock:
Spot on, DNA_Jock.
That would carry oh so much more force if it game with evidence attached.
That’s not a fact.
There is no Pope of Skepticism who can back up your statement that it’s “what skepticism is about”.
That’s your subjective opinion, and it might happen to be a well-founded smart opinion, but it’s still only an opinion, not a verifiable fact.
If you would start in with your own stated standard of JMOing what you say, you’d be a much better person.
In my never-humble opinion, of course.
Mung,
Would you like to relive some of your losses? We could invite Rich.
tee hee. That’s so sweet of you to support your team members even when their play is so pathetic.
Keep up the team spirit, boys!
Mung, quoting something:
Mung,
You forgot to bold this part:
My initial argument was that you were being hypocritical, and I defended it. No shift.
This isn’t that hard. Do you really not understand, or are you being deliberately obtuse?
Moved a post to guano.
Neil:
Here’s a link to hotshoe’s comment, for those who want to read it.
Neil, if you insist on guanoing comments, why not post links to them in the original thread?
walto,
You’ve been focusing on hypothetical situations in which there’s disagreement over what constitutes “sufficient evidence” for a claim, but you are avoiding the straightforward cases.
I pointed this out earlier:
Your response was to avoid the question by making a lame Burt Lahr joke.
You’re on record saying this:
You’ve provided no such support for your accusation:
So again, my question:
KN had the decency to retract his claim. Why haven’t you and hotshoe followed suit?
Moved post to guano(2). Noyau is available for flaming.
Depends on what the claims are. If the claim is that scriptures are literally true, then it’s not my job to support this, because it was not my claim. If you failed to identify my actual claims, then you cannot reasonably accuse me of failing to support my claims. So, what did I claim, as per you?
ETA: Note that also Lizzie did not agree that I failed to support my claims. Specifically, I didn’t fail to give a reponse to Patrick’s questions, even though I didn’t think the questions were appropriate given my claims.
A thread titled “Burden tennis” is analogical to “Flame wars”, don’t you think? This here is as good as Noyau.
Alan:
Here’s a link to the comment.
It doesn’t violate the rules, of course.
Attention Folks!
As Lizzie is still absent, I’m going to try and find a little time to help out. Firstly rule-querying belongs in moderation issues and flaming belongs in noyau. I will move any further rule-breaking comments to guano.
Let me ask everyone – does anyone not think participation here is voluntary? People either feel like reading here, commenting here, publishing OPs here or they don’t. Is there any point in being last-man-standing. Being able to shout down minority views is fun (I’ve done it myself at times) but it is ultimately not very satisfying.
There’s a lot of scope between “up to a point, Lord Copper” and “fuck off”.
Alan,
How is your comment relevant to the topic we are discussing in this thread?
keiths,
It’s to point out that insisting on proof is self-defeating in a forum where participation is voluntary. People vote with their feet.
Alan,
We’re not insisting on “proof”, we’re asking people to support their claims. How is that “self-defeating”, and what does the fact that participation is voluntary have to do with it?
Who is “we”? Support your claim that you speak for others.
Of all the annoyances in web discussions, an annoyed moderator acting out his annoyance at the expense of an ongoing discussion is among the worst.
Alan,
If you had read the thread, you’d know who “we” are.
Moved comments to guano. Discussion of moderation belongs in the moderation issues thread.
The guanoed comments are here.
I don’t agree–or with Jock’s last remarks on this. And, as I said, it’s the rub. What happens over and over again here–particularly with you, although with others as well, is that if you don’t like the support proffered, you simply deny it is evidence at all. That’s the basic game rule.
Using the erik example, I encourage you to look and see if patrick’s retract command changed in the slightest after erik made one of his (admittedly poor–but that’s exactly the point) responses. They did not. Just as I predict yours and Jock’s will not after reading this.
You don’t want “evidence” you want evidence that you find convincing. And when THAT is not given, you reply that there has been no evidence (and/or in your case, as mung points out, look for something else to insult about). I don’t know how to make this any clearer, so I’ll give up now.
Re the site, I think we can still hang a “STILL NOT AS OBNO AS UD!” shingle up as a kind of motto. I mean if that’s the goal.
I bet if I falsely accused Richard he’d have the courtesy to tell me how so, unlike some people I know.
“You’re a hypocrite” is not an argument.
#keithsLogicFail
I do think it is voluntary. I keep hoping keiths will voluntarily leave. 🙂
Which is why I resent Patrick and keiths trying to turn this into their own personal “skeptical” fiefdom, and that is precisely what they are attempting to do as can be seen from the heated opposition to their attempted coup.
First, this is not a skeptical site.
Second, there are no rules for being skeptical.
Third, it’s not just people who disagree with you to whom the banner applies.
Fourth, everyone here I think is fully aware that Patrick and keiths play by different rules, yet we don’t demand they to wear a patch identifying themselves as skeptics.
Fifth, I just love the demands that people be forced to recant.
I disagree with this characterization of what you are attempting to do. I think it’s disingenuous.
As things stand today there is absolutely nothing preventing you or anyone else from asking people to support their claims. There’s some other agenda in play here.
#FightForTruth
I do not like to think of myself being treated with such austere benevolence, as raw material to be shaped rather than as a person to be enjoyed.
– Katharine Tait
I am puzzled. What part of the following do you ‘not agree with’?
You seem to concede that the first sentence is correct, and the second is a truism. Do you think that willingness to have the conversation is not key? Do you think that that conversation is not one of Lizzie’s goals for this site?
Or perhaps you think that one of your “If…then” hypotheticals have IN FACT occurred?
For instance, the fracas with Erik was about his repeated (and, on one occasion, quite explicit) refusal to clarify what he meant. I noted at the time that if Erik had conceded “That’s just the way I read it.” I would have moved on. The conversation never did reach the quality of the evidence stage, because he resolutely refused to enter that particular arena.
You, and to a greater extent hotshoe, seem to be laboring under the idea that the “support your claims” gang is seeking some sort of punitive enforcement. I know I’m not; the way I see it, the “should” is derived from the idea that individuals care about the opinion they and others have about themselves.
So it is up to the “the pure voluntary goodness of [one’s] heart” how much an individual cares about how they come across to others. Some variation in mileage has been observed.
Our members are practically always doing what they want to do – what they ‘choose’ to do – but we see to it that they will want to do precisely the things which are best for themselves and the community. Their behavior is determined, yet they’re free.
– T.E. Frazier
Why wouldn’t everyone want this?
#SkepticalUtopia