
Facts Do Not Persuade - naringas
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/09/03/wittgensteins-revenge/
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wussboy
I’ve read dozens of articles like this and my complaint is always the same:
“Just because we can’t know everything, doesn’t mean we can’t know anything.”

Yes, maybe a buffalo stepped on the thermometer. But the temperature was
SOMETHING and just because you don’t trust your thermometer doesn’t mean the
temperature is unknowable.

And I found the glorification of free speech at the end troubling. Is free
speech good? Yes. Is it the greatest good? Not at all. To say we shouldn’t
strive to know anything concretely because we might suppress free speech seems
like sheer folly.

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Tainnor
Ribbonfarm being weird as usual.

There's centuries of deliberation about what knowledge is, how we can obtain
such knowledge and what its value is. Of course, the author ignores all of
that and tries to "reinvent the wheel", badly.

Apart from the (true, but not very original) observations that a) you can
easily mislead with decontextualised facts, b) trust is necessary in a world
where you can't verify everything yourself and c) people are not necessarily
persuaded by facts, the article doesn't seem to have much content. He also
completely lost me when it seems he's trying to make a case for the existence
of UFOs. In an article that describes the importance of trust, I find it a bit
ironic that he's basically coming off as a crank.

But more importantly, this article has a decidedly anti-science vibe. And
while it is important to be careful with science and understand its flaws and
limitations, historically it has again and again shown to be the best tool for
advancing our understanding of the world.

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jart
> Objects traveling 5,000 miles per hour and making 90-degree turns without
> slowing down have been recorded by radar that can only detect physical
> objects.

Really? Got links to more info? It amuses me that the blogger voices concerns
over pop scientists omitting context from their claims, and then fails to
include context for his own.

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codyb
I was a bit confused by that tangent. By the title of the article I was hoping
for a bit of psychological insight on how people react to facts in certain
conversations and then suddenly I’m asking “is the author trying to convince
me aliens are flying space craft now?”

The rest was a bit of a ramble as well. The main tenets of the fact trust,
context, and the third one seemed interesting though.

~~~
jart
Yeah the philosophy is a bit cray. Trust and curation are the key words. Those
were smart to point out. Curation is great. Folks only let those they respect
most do curation for them. It's about the most esteemed role there is. It
makes collective information processing scalable. Omitting details when
filtering information through layers of humans is the point. Transparency
enables good curators to address any concerns relating to that. For example,
programming and mathematics have pretty much already invented the blockchain
of facts the author is describing, with things like GNU Make or
Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms. The latter is a great way to have more depth if you
think normal arithmetic alone isn't factual enough. Some people even use math
for theology with theorem provers like coq, but the conclusions they come to
only really apply afaik if you believe in certain assumptions like the ability
to divide good from non-good.

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ggghhhfff
I think this author is in fact correct that science isn’t typically concerned
with absolute, eternal truths but rather circumstantial truths or whatever
hypothesis best maps onto available evidence.

One of the hallmarks of critical thinking is being able to move past black-
and-white reasoning. Critical thinking entails comprehension of the ambiguity
and gray area present within most debates. Any individual who feels as though
there exist ideas which are irrefutable even in the face of many other
similarly viable explanations is clearly not thinking rationally.

I’m sure radar has indeed recorded objects in the air going very fast and
turning rapidly, but as mentioned in the article, there is likely additional
context which has been omitted. Thus, I don’t feel any need to fact check this
individual, as there is no need to verify such a vague claim which lacks
almost any context whatsoever. Hopefully both author and reader understand
that claims made without context or citations are not meant to be interpreted
as authoritative, definitive examples.

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speculator14
I LOLed at the attempt to prove that facts do not persuade by linking to a
bunch of psychology studies. And not one reference to Aristotle? However, the
author's general thrust is correct, as anybody could tell you.

