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No one has a greater imagination than the man who refuses to accept the obvious.
As the Internet sparked 24/7 global debate, it also brought rapid innovation to the realm of being a dishonest and unforgiving fraud in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Here are some common tactics:
Attacking the source
It’s not new, but it has really come into fashion. This is an Man with innovative additions.
The classic form is “The conclusion of X’s study is flawed because it’s from discredited academic Y.”
But even discredited people can be right about some things. At most, “discrediting” might mean a closer examination of their claims – if they were dishonest rather than sincerely wrong – but not an a priori assumption that they will always be wrong about everything.
And why is academician Y called discredited? This is where things often get interesting. Here’s how:
Circle attack on the source.
“X’s study on the heritability of intelligence is flawed because it was done by discredited academic Y”
“Why do you say Y is discredited?”
“Because he writes about the inheritance of intelligence!”
It is now a popular form of science denial, especially in matters that are increasingly uncontroversial and also religiously denied, such as the heritability of intelligence and all other psychological traits, non-social differences between the sexes, or even the existence of sexes.
You will notice that there is no reference anywhere to the truth or falsity of real science – the a priori rejection of the argument and the author are used as proof of each other.
A similar circular structure, comparable in scale to Avebury, Apple’s new campus, and possibly the rings of Saturn, is also often used to mistakenly support position:
1. Acquire a false belief.
2. Name the small fringe separating it “Experts”.
3. “Experts agree with me!”
That’s how you get “academics agree there are 98 genders” and “scientists say the world will end in 12 years”.
Source trolling
As defined in accurate dictionaryA sourcetroll is someone who is determined not to accept an obvious or well-established opinion under any circumstances, continuing to demand additional evidence long after all reasonable standards of evidence have been satisfied.
To illustrate, think of a chess game I played decades ago in the Boy Scouts against probably the stupidest boy in the troop and possibly the multiverse.
Since I wasn’t Kasparov myself, I quickly checkmated him anyway – but one rule he knew was that you couldn’t take a king. Thus, having received checkmate, he made another move – to another checkmate. I told him it was game over. He said, “No, you can’t take my king. Those are the rules.” So, foolishly, instead of rolling my eyes and walking away, or planting a Swiss army knife in his hippocampus, I spent the next five minutes chasing his lone king across the checkerboard from checkmate to checkmate, despite his refusal to admit defeat 40 moves ago.
This is how it works on the internet.
“Saudi Arabia and the UAE make extensive use of slave labor”
“The source?”
“Source 1; Source 2; Source 3″
“These are definitely isolated cases, is there a source for your claim that it is ‘large’?”
“It’s an established fact known to anyone who’s visited or even shown a passing interest in the region, and international organizations X, Y, Z are working on the problem. That’s a fact. You might as well question gravity.”
“The source?”
Source trolling is dangerous because pretending that malicious trolling is “just asking for evidence” makes all requests for evidence sound like malicious trolling.
Next, two subtypes are distinguished fallacy of association refused to even deal with the uncomfortable idea because it was probably true:
Pitching at public association.
“Statement A was made by academic B, who was once seen with academic C, who once said thing D, so it is safe to say that A is wrong.”
How can a man who was once seen in the same room as the Discredited Author (see above) be right about anything?
This is a transitive problematic property, a very evil principle, but handy when you’re running an inquisition.
A bad person believes in him, thus a bad faith that only other bad people hold.
A bad person believed X, therefore X is wrong, any and all arguments that could ever be used in support of X are by definition wrong, even if they can be interpreted in a different way (extreme moralistic fallacy), and whoever believes in X is a bad person.
“The Nazis sterilized non compos mentis, so intelligence is not inherited, and if you even think to study it or cite the extensive evidence that this is indeed the case, you are Hitler.” If you haven’t seen this before, I congratulate you on staying away from social(istic) (pseudo)scientific Twitter. This is now the standard line of left-wing science denial.
My Latin is almost certainly wrong, but since errors need a Latin name to enter the canon, I would suggest “Malus credebat, ergo malo credo.” To think bad means to believe bad.
Moving from a false association to fresh ground, here’s what:
Requires proving established.
The inspiration was Helen Plakrose’s encounter with an interlocutor who basically said “You say evolution is true, but the burden of proof is on you, since you claim it is true.” the implied meaning seems to be being “Summarize for me hundreds of thousands of pages and two hundred years of study in half a minute in a way that I find satisfactory – which I won’t do, no matter what you say – or you lose the argument by default.”
But if the proof has already been made at the level of civilization, to demand it in each specific case is simply a brake tactic. You don’t ask the salesperson for the complete monetary theory every time you buy a croissant.
In fact, in this case, something like the law of inertia is a good analogy, and the burden of proof is on the person who differs from the established view and wants to change the civilizational consensus – if someone told you that gravity does not exist, the burden of proof is on them, even if they make a negative claim, simply because they make such a wild statement that seeks to overturn the established – and in this case, of course clear – a view.
Like the chess antidigy (opposite of prodigy) in the story above, someone somewhere heard that the burden of proof is on the affirmative and ignored the rest of the rules. It is more accurate to say that something like the law of inertia applies, and the burden of proof is on the one who wants to dramatically change the common understanding of the world – provided that common understanding is based on facts and can be falsified.
A form of science denial today seeks to change what it means to be scientific, to question and change the rules (which have only doubled life expectancy and put men on the moon), rather than to prove and disprove hypotheses using the scientific method, within the rules, and by the rules—part of a larger trend to avoid unwinnable debates on the merits by playing definitional and political games.
Postmodernism is evil. There is no “message” for the correct answer.
There are too many superstitions and moralizing, too many sacred cows and things that would be hard to swallow if they were true, so they can’t be true. But “It’s not science because I don’t want it to be true” is the opposite of the scientific view.
To be clear:
Incorrect: “It’s nice, so it’s true.” (Infantile Epistemology)
Also incorrect: “Unpleasant, therefore true.” (Edgelord’s Epistemology)
That’s right: “Truth is straight to goodness.” (Honest Epistemology)
Today, this is one of the standard methods of villains. Rethinking that they can’t win, “goddamn love of science”, not understanding how it works and not really liking it when it works as it should – impartially, without any trepidation about people’s prejudices and preferences about what would be good if it were true.
PS Bonus if you figure out why Neil is on the cover. (Disclaimer. Got it?)
In related reading, here’s an article about one of three blogs on the Internet that are almost as good as Wisdommination:
PS It is a mistake not to support thinkers whose minds are like polished bronze in the midday sun.
