Why are you asking for evidence for my claim, and not the parent's "another possibility"?
I'm getting tired of this new fad of dismissing someone's comment by demanding evidence for it.
I'm getting tired of this new fad of dismissing someone's comment by demanding evidence for it.
You say this so matter-of-factly but it's actually quite a claim. I think people are right to call you on it.
I understand there is a general feeling that past generations "made do with less" and "had greater moral fiber" and so on, but I'm also a little suspicious of that kind of thinking.
I made no claim about greater moral fiber, but if you think that past generations didn't "make do with less", you're now making an extraordinary against-the-grain claim. So, "give us a citation proving why you should be suspicious of that comment". See how annoying that is?
Secondly, if not trying to to convince someone else, nobody needs evidence for ideas they already believe.
But since you were making a strong claim, asking for evidence means giving you the chance to show that you have convincing reasons for your opinion.
Of course, if you don't have evidence, that's fine, too. Just don't expect to change anyone's mind.
Cool, it's easy: then provide some, please. Provide some citations for it rather than just accepting the common knowledge, since common knowledge is often wrong.
> asking for evidence means giving you the chance to show that you have convincing reasons for your opinion.
No. Asking someone for more information, or asking someone to round out the idea more is giving the chance to show convincing reasons. Asking bluntly for a citational proof is mere dismissal.
1. Companies are motivated to increase profits. [1]
2. Increasing consumption is one way to increase profits. [2]
3. Generally applicable techniques for increasing easily measurable business statistics have been developed and improved. [3]
4. Consumption is one such statistic. [4]
5. People are more likely to eat food they enjoy, even if they know it's unhealthy. [5]
Thus it is plausible that companies have found ways to increase consumption by "hitting people's reward centers".
6. People get fat when they eat more. [6]
Therefore this plausible statement provides an explanation for increased obesity.
I hope this is enough evidence for you. Note that I don't think citations are the be all and end all of evidence. They are a useful tool in academic discussion, but in more informal settings, appealing to common knowledge is usually enough, unless it's that common knowledge itself that is under doubt.
When you eventually provide evidence for your claim that people exercise their willpower less, I won't require citations for everything. I'd like to see a well-reasoned argument, however.
[1] Henry Hazlitt, "Economics in One Lesson", pp. 141: The Function of Profits
[2] Elementary mathematics: if you make a certain profit on each item sold and consumed, increased consumption increases profit.
[3] e.g. https://www.mv-research.com/research/pricing
[4] If you keep books on your sales, you have already measured it.
[5] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431915...
[6] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2009/10/14/ajcn.2009...
It doesn't say much for 'being easy' when you have to pad out your list of six with two non-citations, two irrelevant citations, and a difficult-to-source one.
> When you eventually provide evidence for your claim that people exercise their willpower less, I won't require citations for everything.
"When I give you evidence, you won't require evidence"?
> I hope this is enough evidence for you.
It's worth noting that I didn't demand evidence for the original claim; I only demanded it as an illustrative point to people that were demanding it of me.
You also didn't seem to be very interested in the book, since you couldn't find it on the internet: https://mises.org/system/tdf/Henry%20Hazlitt%20Economics%20i...
Your problem seems to be that you conflate evidence (something that gives you more information) with citations (a means to point to evidence someone else has already collected). When someone asks for evidence, they don't necessarily need citations. You could just refer to something they already know, and provide a logical argument from there. That is also why I didn't bother linking to a mathematics textbook for [2], since I'm pretty sure you have already been exposed to the necessary concepts.
Maybe that's the case in the lunch room in an academic department, but it's definitely not the case in internet forums. When someone demands evidence on a forum, they don't mean "walk me through it", they mean "show me the external source that supports it". They mean 'evidence' like a lawyer or a historian would use the term, not 'logical reasoning'.