Anatol Rapoport’s Rules: How to compose a successful critical commentary by Daniel Dennett
- You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
- You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
- You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
- Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Step 1 is analagous to steel-manning, aka the principle of charity. This is to avoid the act of straw-manning.
from the amazing book, [easyazon_link identifier=”0393348784″ locale=”US” tag=”emcrit-20″]Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking[/easyazon_link]
Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement
for more on this
What would it take to Change Your Mind?
Ask your subject, what would need to change for them to change their belief?
More questions to ask yourself
Grice's Maxims
- 4 Maxims that can serve as a guide-map to conversation and argument
Anti-Good Argumentation
- Some tips for evil debate
Logical Fallacies
- Avoiding Logical Fallacies
- More on logical fallacies
- How to craft a good argument
The Book to Buy
[easyazon_image align=”none” height=”66″ identifier=”1615192255″ locale=”US” src=”https://emcrit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/61jZofXRoUL.SL75.jpg” tag=”emcrit-20″ width=”75″]
[easyazon_link identifier=”1615192255″ locale=”US” tag=”emcrit-20″]An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments[/easyazon_link]
Ten Commandments of Rational Debate
The ones I see infecting FOAM debate again and again
Three logical fallacies, two seen universally and the other unique to medicine. The former two are the status quo bias and the bad-bayesian bias and the latter is Benefit/Harm Evidence Equalization.
Status Quo Bias
Thinking b/c we do things a certain way, there is evidence behind this way
Bad-Bayesian Bias
See Rich Carden's discussion of Baye
Benefit/Harm Evidence Equalization
Harm requires markedly less evidence of lower quality than benefit
An Example
responses to the Wee on the modification of scalper-finger-bougie technique
Hey Scott, I'm sorry for calling you out on Twitter like that, but the stance you have taken in regards to hold up conflation in bougie cric is a kind of a load of crap. I mean no disrespect when I say that because I trust you a ton, I do my own fact finding as well, but to me that seems way out of character for you to watch a video of someone else, not you, performing a skill very incorrectly, and then allowing that to change your game plan. This is very sensitive ground you are walking on here and people will take this a run without even trying to wrap their head around what they just saw. This where social media can be problematic. In the end, hold up isn't the problem, it's a lack of appropriate training that is that issue. We can't allow the lowest common denominator to win here. We have to constantly make sure that bar is held high! Again no disrespect but I felt I had to speak up. Thanks for your time!
- First Read the Missing Manual
- If you want to put a 3-part response up, respond to your own tweet not the original
- If people haven't responded after the 1st round or so, REMOVE them from the thread
- Consider creating a unique #hashtag and taking everyone's handle from the thread to give room to write
- or Better yet, take it off twitter to REDDIT where threaded comments of any length can be placed
Additional New Information
More on EMCrit
- Wee – Warning: Nothing Useful Here – Politics and Why I'm “Divorcing” Twitter(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Podcast 234 – Pardon Me, I Couldn't Help but Overhear or How to go from being an Ass-hole to an AYS-hole on Twitter
Additional Resources
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Great stuff, might add two more pitfalls: (1) ego investment There is a natural tendency to become personally invested in a concept or treatment. If someone then challenges this concept, we respond in an emotional and irrational fashion, as if we were being personally attacked. (2) “winner fallacy” or “cage-match fallacy” This is the belief that if an argument continues for long enough, a “winner” with the “truth” will emerge victoriously from it. This may be valid in theoretical mathematics or physics, but it often doesn’t work in medicine. There are many topics for which insufficient evidence exists. Arguments about… Read more »
just excellent!!
Very good emcrit podcast!!