The insta-contrarians in comments latest volley is that I am illogical therefore I am wrong. Well, folks, I am not Spock. Logic should be employed as part of an eclectic approach to analyzing the issues we talk about on here but it shouldn't be used as the sole tool in the tool kit. A link regarding critical thinking was provided to dispute this assertion.
Interestingly, the link provided by one of these ICs (insta-contrarians) had this to say about critical thinking.
The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal.
First, I agree completely with this statement. This is the framework I use to instruct young people. Second, this is an ideal and it would be very difficult to achieve it in one's lifetime. I know that I fall short of this ideal. We all do.
But I think I can say without much doubt that the ICs in comments come nowhere near this on nearly every issue. The only time they do is when I say something with which they agree. Surprise, surprise. We are on the same side of the argument so they win!
Want some examples?
1. I have yet to see any honesty in facing personal biases from the ICs. I have admitted several times on here that I have a horrible bias against Muslims.
2. I have yet to see any sort of flexibility regarding liberal and progressive policies from the ICs. They are all bad. I have stated many times on here that Reagan did many things he had to do given the context of his time and that he was right to do them. I've admitted that the Laffer curve works in countries with high tax rates and, possibly, with corporate taxes. It also works on a micro level.
3. I have yet to see any open minded analysis of climate change from the ICs. They are all warmists! I, however, have stated many times that I'd like to see more data but that the methods used in support of climate change are sound. This was recently confirmed by THREE independent panels (see: peer review).
If you ICs are the critical thinkers that you claim to be, demonstrate to me how you live by this definition above. If you reject the definition, that's fine. Why?
No doubt this will solve nothing and we'll quickly be back to personal insults and more "logic" based thinking.
29 comments:
Ahh, the perfect place to retry the deleted comment, because this was the topic.
M, go back and reread that portion you quoted again. Go ahead. I'll wait. Now read it again. And again.
Notice a couple of other key concepts in there? For example, "well-informed", "trustful of reason", "fair-minded in evaluation", and so forth.
Your definition of "open-minded" would trump these other concepts, asking us to accept irrational and illogical arguments, and discarding everything which we are well informed of. Remember, proper critical thinking uses as much valid information as possible to reach a conclusion.
Always being "open" to everything that comes down the pike, regardless of its validity, or lack thereof, is not actual critical thinking.
Think about it; "EVALUATION" is the process examining ideas and concepts to determine their validity and filtering out the ones which are invalid.
You think we're not open minded because we discard your claims very quickly. But easily identified logic errors (such as your routine logical fallacies such as the strawman and genetic fallacies) are easily spotted and fail the evaluation process.
I am actually open minded to arguments which are factually based, take in and fit with as much evidence as possible, and which use valid logic and reasoning. As a result, I do change my mind from time to time as I encounter better ideas and arguments. You just don't see it happening in my arguments with you because your own claims are so wildly lacking in these attributes.
Mark, do you even try to retrieve comments Blogger deletes? Because this was the exact topic I was attempting to respond to.
And yes, I tried to repost it here. And Blogger ate it, again; exactly as I predicted. There are no links, no porn, no swearing, no spam of any kind in that comment.
And now Blogger is eating all my responses again. How conveeeeeeenient.
A new label - ICs - eh? Didn't you get the memo about the no labels movement?
Also, is labeling and compartmentalizing - and as much as possible marginalizing - all some part of critical thinking that you skipped over?
Oh, and probably the biggest criticism I (and the "ICs") have is that you so rarely provide facts to support your opinions - which is something that tends to advance an argument above the harangue of a street-corner preacher. Case in point - as businessmen, what differentiates "accredited investors" and McGuire from Buffett or Gates? You insist the former is some evil force and the latter are beneficent - apparently based on how they are disposing of their wealth (not how they accumulated it). If your general premise of "the rich fuck you over" is valid - it should apply to Buffett, Gates (and from an earlier thread Jobs and Wozniak). Neither you nor your chorus have chimed in about that. If you want this to be taken as something more reality based than a religious belief, speak to it (or simply admit that it is a religious belief).
MARK IS WRONG BECAUSE HE IS _______.
How can you be wrong Mark? You haven't answered the question yet. Refusing to answer the question makes you ridiculous, as the entire point of it was to find a baseline in you factbase. You know, we were being inquisitive, wanting to be clear about issues, order complex issues, seeking relevant information and it is a question repeated and repeated - therefore we are focused in inquiry.
YOU are the one stymieing the critical thought process.
>It was born out of discussion (the latest in a series) which can best be described as MARK IS WRONG BECAUSE HE IS _______.
Pure horse manure. It would be far more accurate to say that the exchanges go like this:
Mark: Statement.
Commenters: Question about statement?
Mark: Ignore question.
Commenters: Question about statement?
Mark: Try to claim question is already answered.
Commenters: Question isn't answered. Question?
Mark: You aren't as reflective as me. (Or other such irrelevant hand waving that still avoids the question.)
Commenters: Mark = dumbass.
So yes, it certainly ends up there, but not until we've grown tired of your serial refusal to answer basic questions about your positions. Pretending it starts there is just that - pretending.
>This very tedious tactic has been going on for quite some time and it makes me wonder just how insecure some of my posters are in their ideology and beliefs.
One word: projection. How many times have we started asking you about one of your positions only to get responses about how "reflective" you are, about how our brains are wired differently, how we don't engage in critical analysis that is good enough for you. All of those things are just wordier ways of saying "I'm smart, you're dumb" while avoiding whatever question we are raising. It wouldn't surprise me if you think that you have taken some kind of high road w.r.t. personal insults. Far from it - you just try to cloak them in more innocuous sounding language. To quote DJ - you fool no one.
Btw - blogger seems to eat my comments that range on the long side - anything greater than 3 paragraphs seems to get eaten unless I split it up. That's the only thing I've noticed w.r.t. the eaten comment syndrome.
One word: projection
Yes, yes - remember your question to me M, about McDonalds advertising? You admitted that you reflexively went to get a hamburger after one of their ads on TV. You assumed I did as well. I recall this was in the context of a corporation forcing you to do something that you didn't want to do, something that was against your best interests.
Care to discuss that further?
Well, to amuse myself and give M an excuse to avoid my other points, let's talk about his 3 items.
1) Bully for you M that you recognize your animus toward Muslims. I have no less or more respect for Muslims, in general, than I do for Christians, in general. However, being cognizant of a bias is no particular thing of glory. Being able to think beyond that bias is what differentiates the critical thinker from the run of the mill bigot.
2) Being a fan of Reagan or not is not based on critical thinking. Being able to work through what effects his policies produced is. Also, just because you have a fondness for the odd conservative does not create a quid pro quo that anyone else have a reciprocal fondness for the odd liberal.
3) The climate is changing. Anyone who denies that knows nothing about our planet and it's history. The climate was changing long before man ever burned a piece of wood, let alone coal or oil. It is the presumption, based on scant evidence, that mankind is producing a catastrophe that is in question. Since secular enviro-weenies aren't inclined to preach God's judgement, they opt for Gaia's doom. In either case it is millenarian nonsense - a hardy staple of human foolishness.
Okay, I'll give it a shot. I'll post my comment in three parts and see if Blogger throws any of it into the bit bucket again. I'll give some time between each part to make sure they stay in order if Blogger "loses it" again.
But I still think Mark isn't even trying to retrieve those comments.
(Part 1 of 3)
M, go back and reread that portion you quoted again. Go ahead. I'll wait. Now read it again. And again.
Notice a couple of other key concepts in there? For example, "well-informed", "trustful of reason", "fair-minded in evaluation", and so forth.
(Part 2 of 3)
Your definition of "open-minded" would trump these other concepts, asking us to accept irrational and illogical arguments, and discarding everything which we are well informed of. Remember, proper critical thinking uses as much valid information as possible to reach a conclusion.
Always being "open" to everything that comes down the pike, regardless of its validity, or lack thereof, is not actually critical thinking.
Think about it; "EVALUATION" is the process examining ideas and concepts to determine their validity and filtering out the ones which are invalid.
(Part 3 of 3)
You think we're not open minded because we discard your claims very quickly. But easily identified logic errors (such as your routine logical fallacies such as the strawman and genetic fallacies) are easily spotted and fail the evaluation process.
I am actually open minded to arguments which are factually based, take in and fit with as much evidence as possible, and which use valid logic and reasoning. As a result, I do change my mind from time to time as I encounter better ideas and arguments. You just don't see it happening in my arguments with you because your own claims are so wildly lacking in these attributes.
Well look at that. It appears that all three parts stuck. And the only changes I made were to split it into three parts, add the part headers, and change the word "actual" to "actually" in part 2.
Ain't it great when an overly aggressive filter provides cover for comments M doesn't like?
"You haven't answered the question yet."
"until we've grown tired of your serial refusal to answer basic questions about your positions."
I did answer them. You just didn't like my answer.
And 13 comments already? Hmmm...a great rush, once again, "to prove me wrong." Looks like I'm on the right track again.
Juris-the facts about the Laffer curve bear themselves out. They are how I stated them. Fondness doesn't enter into to it. Of course, I didn't discuss how the Laffer curve fails on a macro level or how revenue actually went down under Reagan--those would be the negatives.
"In either case it is millenarian nonsense - a hardy staple of human foolishness."
Great. Then dispute the evidence. Why is it that you are allowed to make a claim like this and I can't? I realize that climate change is a vast subject so pick a piece of data or two that proves climate change is man made and analyze it.
ST-no one else seems to have an issue at this time except you. I'm not a tech wiz so I have no clue how to retrieve the comments in Blogger.
As to your bit about the quote, again, I will repeat that I have admitted that I fall short of this ideal. Do you? The problem is that arguments are illogical or irrational because you don't like them. To me, you are not very flexible at all. Forget about my claims for a moment. Name one liberal or progressive idea that has merit. And evaluate why this is the case.
As of yet, I haven't seen much in comments that shows any desire to adhere to this ideal or even try to come close. If you aren't even going to adhere to your own sources, your analysis of me lacks any sort of foundation and has zero validity.
I'm also done with the game playing so if you want to address the issue here, please do so. Otherwise, look forward to my post tomorrow regarding how a corporation allowed the death of a 16 year old in the name of profit.
M rises like a trout to the fly... Great. Then dispute the evidence.
I've actually looked into it - I recall that I brought homogenisation of the data to your attention. That's where the AGW theorists cook the data to get the desired result. Beyond the poor initial quality of the data we have (let alone its state after homogenisation), there is the general scarcity of data. So, it is all based on modeling that can't be validated (because there is too little data to get a good level of confidence on the model). It ends up being "trust me, I'm a modeler" - which is damn sloppy science.
Or, if you were disputing my contention about millenarian nonsense, I can point you to any number of cults that have predicted (incorrectly I might point out) the end of the world.
Also, Of course, I didn't discuss how the Laffer curve fails on a macro level or how revenue actually went down under Reagan
Laffer's premise, like Keynesian fiscal effects, is something that happens over time (say like 1982 to 89 or later), not in two years ('82-'84). If you think you proved something about Reagan's tax policy by quoting Mankiw (from '80-'84) you are ridiculously wrong (as Reagan's tax cut couldn't have had an effect before he was in office, could it?). Up through the Clinton years, tax receipts increased faster than federal spending - we were in budget surplus. THAT says more about Laffer than anything you have had to say. Only the obscene spending of Bush and the Congressional Republicans screwed that all up.
And not a peep about what distinguishes the McGuires [boo! hiss!] from the Buffetts [yay! clap-clap]. I really do expect you to put up on that M - one of these days.
I did answer them. You just didn't like my answer.
Sadly M your polemics raise many more questions than you ever answer. You didn't even address half of my points - and at that, only the ones I would've considered least relevant. I guess I'll have to edit myself better and not leave you such outs.
> The problem is that arguments are illogical or irrational because you don't like them.
So when you use a known logical fallacy to make a claim, the fact that it is Invalid Logic has nothing to do with it? So maybe I should just start answering all your claims with "liver", because I don't like "liver" either, and both seem to have the exact same rational basis to you.
> To me, you are not very flexible at all.
Damn straight. I'm not very flexible in my own opinion either. Truth is inflexible. Logic is inflexible. That's. Just. How. They. Work! If you try to claim that 2+2 is something other than 4, I'm going to be just as annoyingly obstinate as ever because 4 is the only answer which is correct!
> If you aren't even going to adhere to your own sources,
That's what I find so frustrating about you. I AM adhering to my source; THE WHOLE DARN THING!! You're the one trying to pick out parts of it and using them to undermine and ignore the rest of it.
The problem with you, Marxy, is that you make claims, avoid using reason to support those claims, sometimes even asserting that reason has no place in such a debate, and then expect us to consider such claims reasonable.
> no one else seems to have an issue at this time except you.
Ummm, look back at the top. Haplo9 has had trouble. Angela has also complained about losing comments. I'm just the one writing the long posts that are likely to get stripped and complaining about it the most.
Did you even look at that link which documented the new spam management? Here's a similar like from Blogger.com's own blog:
http://bit.ly/eyZOol
You don't have to be any more technical than you already are to follow those instructions. After all, you did set up a blog in the first place.
> And 13 comments already? Hmmm...a great rush, once again, "to prove me wrong."
There you go with the category errors again. Comment count has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are right or wrong.
Furthermore, 4 of those comments were only about Blogger deleting comments. Another 3 of them were really 1 comment split into 3 because of Blogger's too aggressive filtering.
That means there were only actually 7 comments responding to your post.
"Are we learning yet?"
I did answer them. You just didn't like my answer.
Hypothetically Mark, you are asked the question 'The glass is full, or it is not.'
If you answer 'purple'*, then not only will I not like your answer, but since the question is either yes or no and you did not answer within those parameters - then you did not answer the question.
* such an answer would also not be entirely unexpected either.
Otherwise, look forward to my post tomorrow regarding how a corporation allowed the death of a 16 year old in the name of profit.
So what M - are you going to claim that as proof that the rich fuck over everyone? If the rich do that, why can't you point to how YOU have been fucked over? Why hasn't anyone from your chorus provided an example from their own life?
How is that going to explain the difference between McGuire and Buffett, between the evil fuck-you-over rich, and the few good ones?
>I did answer them. You just didn't like my answer.
Whatever myths help get you through the day dude. You won't find much sympathy for your dishonesty here though.
>I'm also done with the game playing
Always cracks me up when Mark says something like this. Asking Mark to clarify his positions is "game playing." Pointing out when he refuses to do so is "game playing." Expecting him to show some smidgeon of intellectual integrity is "game playing."
>I guess I'll have to edit myself better and not leave you such outs.
Maybe you'll have more luck than me. I've tried to simplify questions down to yes/no questions - he either ignores them or says they are too simplistic. (Which is kind of funny because the reason I simplify them in the first place is to try to get him to answer a damn question straightforwardly.)
Oh, and given the Spock reference, here is my answer to the character that best represents M. My thanks to whomever put that montage together.
"You won't find much sympathy for your dishonesty here though."
I'm finished with the dance like a monkey-win the argument games. Evaluate my posts using the critical thinking ideal listed here. You can start by doing so with my post this morning regarding Cigna. Let's see if you can stay on topic and keep away from the hyper micro analysis of me personally. That goes for all of you.
Juris-I'll have a post up in the next week or two about climate change and we can discuss the issue of the data at that point.
The data regarding the Laffer curve simply doesn't bear out what you are stating and it's not simply in Reagan's first term. The spending during both terms of the Reagan administration negated any positive effects that the model may have produced. And remember there are other reasons for tax revenue to increase other than tax cuts. More people entering the work force is an example. Wasn't that the case during the Clinton years?
So let me get this straight…
You claim to be right, therefore "winning the debate" is a perfectly legitimate concept if you're the one winning.
But if we claim to be right, "winning the debate" is an evil concept.
Right?
Nice double-standard you got there, Marxy.
> Evaluate my posts using the critical thinking ideal listed here.
I did. And your response wasn't a logical argument, but that you "don't like the 'game'". You might was well have simply said, "Brussel sprouts!" It would have been just as rational.
>I'm finished with the dance like a monkey-win the argument games.
*shrug*. You haven't defended your positions before, you won't in the future. In short, nothing changes - you don't learn anything. I do appreciate the implicit concession that you can't defend your positions though. It's something we've known for quite some time.
>Evaluate my posts using the critical thinking ideal listed here.
Once again, shrug. You haven't a clue how to engage in critical thinking. To you, it's just some random words that you can use to try to ignore comments that don't agree with you. You've never understood - if you want to convince us of anything, you'll have to do it on some rational basis, rather than simply asserting that your positions are better.
Ah, but I do. We were given a definition. I intend to attempt ot adhere to it. Do you? That will mean that you are going to have to accept that liberals are right sometimes. I don't think you can do it. I gave my three examples. Do you have three you'd like to share?
> Ah, but I do [engage in critical thinking]. We were given a definition. I intend to attempt ot adhere to it.
33 minutes earlier… (http://bit.ly/hAv4Fy)
> It is about faith, after all, and not logic.
Riiiiigggghhhhttt. You claim to engage in critical thinking, except that you refuse to use parts of critical thinking that get in your way (and are so central to critical thinking that critical thinking ceases to be possible if you remove them).
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