The thread that Matt and Madeline have had running for the last few days has gone toxic. However, at the end of the thread… there is this comment (from Matt)
Whats clear from the thread above is that there is an element of secular types who think that fairly personal name calling and attacks on peoples character, as well as ridiculous sterotypes, defamation and ridicule, some how counts as a rational justification for there position. They apparently believe bullying people in this way to submit to their position is appropriate. I do not, and anyone who calls himself a scientist and is commited to reason should share this conclusion.
It really does not matter who wrote this. It is reminder of the basic rules of debate:
- Play the ball, not the man (Nihil ad hominem). The above statement is not to be adjudged as correct by any reader because Matt wrote it. Check out the thread to see if he was correct.
- Use logic. If A is not B and C is not B, it does not mean that A is C. It means it is not B. Venn diagrams help. Training in formal logic or mathematics (B. Russell would have said these are the same things) helps.
- Your life experience is truly precious, but that does not make it true. I spend much of my professional life struggling with designing and implementing trials of interventions… because the plural of your anecdote is … a case series, and that does not tell me if the intervention worked. Data helps. Literature helps.
- Don’t argue from analogy, or I feel… your feelings have got very little influence as to if your argument is true (and if you don’t believe that, try reading some peer reviewer’s comments on your work).
- And… the web is made up a pile of sites. The site is owned and paid for by someone. For instance, this site is paid for by me… really for me. If you come into the site and pick a fight — graffitti the walls if you will — you are being a troll. Matt’s nice. He tolerates trolls. I don’t
Some days I despair… for this essay (which I have written before, and has been written by many other people far wiser than I) should not be needed, for these were the issues that used to be taught to pre-teenagers in grammar and rhetoric. These are not quaint standards. They are the tools of reasoning, and without them we do not have craft, science, scholarship… and the discernment to see the beautiful, the good and the true.
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