"Yes, but what are your credentials, Mr Stross?"
antipope.org
antipope.org
The reason the student needs the source is that 'quals' are used to quickly legitimize a person's argument. In policy debate, unrefuted arguments are considered true. Thus, there's little time for intelligently evaluating what a person is saying, as long as they have 'quals' and you can get to the next piece of evidence ('cards'). The most outrageous argument from a PhD might be preferred in debate over a rational argument from an intelligent person, like Charlie Stross. edit: That's why he can't just say 'as Stross says...' like the commenters suggest. As an example, this past year my debate topic was mental health. I often cited Robert Whitaker, who is a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for psychiatric journalism, was the former director of publications at HMS, and has written two books on psychiatric medications. Yet, because he did not have an MD or PhD, debaters sneered at his qualifications, rather than evaluate his arguments.
I also find it highly likely that Stross's article is being used because of this paragraph "Historically, crossing oceans and setting up farmsteads on new lands conveniently stripped of indigenous inhabitants by disease has been a cost-effective proposition. But the scale factor involved in space travel is strongly counter-intuitive."
This is because debaters often don't respond to the other's policy proposition, but rather kritik their position by indicting the philosophical ideas behind it. For example, an affirmative debater might advocate colonizing a planet, and a negative debater could ignore this and talk about how the affirmative is really based on white-power dominance of other cultures, and thus they should lose.
My quals: debater in a different type of debate
Why didn't you just cite the research he is talking about? All of the authors of the actual studies have PhDs.
A lawyer, of course -- need you even ask? <g> [EDIT: IAAL but I wasn't a debater.] [EDIT 2: Or a cable news commentator.]
edited for clarity.
It's always been so. Socrates' greatest enemy wasn't Aristophanes. They were the Sophists - teachers who would teach debating skills with no regard for truth. This kind of "debate" and the worldview behind it is the most insidious kind of cynicism.
I'm guessing that calling someone a "Sophist" was like calling them an "academic". Even people who are academics themselves will do it, to try and drum up a bit of street cred.
Not that I like it - that is why I am a software developer, not a politician. The real hacker mindset would be to try to figure out how people's minds work and take advantage of it (for a greater good, of course).
On the surface it seems stupid to think that an un-refuted argument should be considered true. But arguments are evaluated that way in policy debates for a very specific reason -- the purpose of debate is not to discover the truth, it is to win an argument. That's the whole point of the activity. If you don't like it, you don't have to play.
That's actually the reason I quit during my sophomore year, but it doesn't make debate a worthless activity. Nothing taught me to work harder or think faster.
Debate is like working out. It's not real, so certain considerations go out the window. Under your logic, running on a treadmill is a bad idea because you're not actually going anywhere. But the point of debate isn't to discover the truth, it's to sharpen your understanding and wit.
Where debate goes wrong is when you stay in it too long. After a certain point the skills become harder and harder to transfer to other parts of your life. And a lot of the people in it, as you might be able to imagine, are pretty arrogant know-it-alls.
After I left debate, I had to re-socialize myself back into the world of normal people who don't argue with each other all day for fun. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but all my friends were debaters and all my time was spent researching, debating, or arguing with them about literally everything. That's just how debaters tend to spend their free time.
I find this style of debating tedious in the same way. Why run on a treadmill when you can run outside?
How do you distinguish between an 'excuse' and a 'reason'? It seems the terms are near-synonyms, only distinguishable to the extent one is an insult.
Running gives you better health, so if you value your health then running, even on treadmill, already gives you something of values.
It makes no sense to compare debate to radically different activities (like programming or starting a startup). I'm not arguing that debate was the best thing that anyone can do, rather that it's a worthwhile and not totally bullshit activity. I understand if you don't want to do it (different strokes for different folks) but I gained a lot from it and I think it deserves a certain amount of respect. I would never disparage a tennis player for having wasted his time just because I find it tedious running back and forth. I would respect him and want to learn about tennis from him.
This isn't a particularly good defense if the opposition to this sort of thing is that it teaches students to favor winning arguments over being right (meaning everyone who didn't participate still has to live in a culture built on that preference).
After a while, it gets boring. That's why I quit. But the activity actually gave me a great appreciation for the limits of my knowledge and the relationship of words to truth. Once you realize that a good argument can be made for almost anything, you start questioning the default rationalizations we all grow up with.
To solve this problem, the NFL (National Forensic League) created a new form of debate, called Public Forum, that focuses on clear, persuasive rhetoric at the expense of detailed research. And now it is starting to mutate just like Lincoln-Douglas.
I think that fast-talking and reliance on out-of-context quotes is sort of the dominant strategy for any kind of debate. As long as there is a rule than an unrefuted argument stands as true, quantity will inevitably become more important than quality, and the credentials of a source will be more important than what it actually says.
This process doesn't occur when judges are allowed to make their decision based on persuasive speech and rhetoric as much as on logic, but debate judging is already so subjective that this presents a problem for many people.
I never liked the alternate forms of debate that attempt to re-create some golden era of slow talking persuasion because the decisions made are often arbitrary. I prefer a value-neutral environment where I can be assured a more objective basis for judgement.
Not that regular-speed CX is a bastion of logical thought, but at least it encourages more creativity and better rhetorical skill. How often are you going to be debating anyone outside the actual "sport" at 300 words a minute?
What is he really looking for here? A PhD in astronomy? Someone with those credentials is more likely to have studied patterns electromagnetic spectra than the logistics of travelling to and colonizing another world...
What he's really asking is, has this person spent a meaningful amount of time reflecting on this issue (if his works discuss it, one would imagine he would have) and engaged in peer-reviewed exchange of ideas (in the Journal of Space Exploration?) - SciFi author is a better set of credentials than any other formal qualification I can think of.
(A 'Gish Gallop' is the practice, perfected by Creationist Duane Gish in his 'debates' with actual scientists, of asking so many questions the other side has no time to respond to all of them. Unanswered questions are deemed to have 'stumped' the scientist and regarded as a victory among the kinds of people who want Gish to have victories.)
One of them spins fictional tales which, while based on enough facts to help the reader suspend disbelief, are ultimately driven by the desire to create a specific emotional effect. Every word is calculated, every character (including the narrator) is designed with an eye toward eliciting a specific response from the reader. A successful work invites the reader to collaborate in the construction of a mental universe which is vivid enough that the reader truly and deeply experiences the emotional state that the author is trying to evoke. Of course, once the reader escapes the spell and gets a good night's sleep, he or she usually recognizes that any similarity between the fictional world and the actual world is likely to be purely coincidental... although some works of fiction are so powerful that the reader's personality is forever altered, only sometimes for the better.
Whereas the other one gets paid by a publisher.
So let me issue the usual warning: The reason we don't feed trolls is not just to discourage them. Feeding trolls is unhealthy for you. They drag you away from reality and (see xkcd/386) interfere with your sleep. We must be cautious about trying to conclude anything about the nature of education, credentials, society, or even the troll itself from the words of a troll, or while under the immediate influence of the words of a troll. All we can conclude is that we have buttons and those buttons can be pressed.
> in the hypothetical case of a planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future extinction of the human species cannot affect you if you are already dead: strictly speaking, it should be of no personal concern.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/munging-address/
It's important not to harm innocent bystanders when altering an email address for posting on the Web.
It's toxic in multiple ways. First is the assumption that those who have learned on their own as Charlie has are incompetent. Worse still, is the assumption that people with some certificate or degree automatically have whatever technical/language/business/artistic skill their paper says they do.
In some cases, especially the hard sciences, the connection is strong. In others, such as literature, it's hit and miss. In a few fields, such as business or film, a PHD is probably a negative indicator. Those headed for the top get lured away before going that far with formalized training.
However, as a great (and I believe unaccredited) playright once said, a fool and his money are soon parted.
I am by no means someone "heading for the top" and maybe this was just an oddity. But for me PhD was one of the most unstructured things I have ever done. There was little that could be called "formalized training".
For most part you was left to your own devices. There were long to medium term milestones that needed to be hit. But that was about it.
If you needed to learn something new for your work, you just did it on your own using whatever learning methods suited you. Sometimes there were classes that could help. But for the most part, by the time you are actually in to your research, there wouldn't be many classes that are suitable for you anyway. At least one of my lab mates lived the autodidact's dream ;) [Even me to some extent, now that I think about it]
"Formality" was required only when writing out research. (This was technical field; you need the precision)
Anyway just a note.
But I think there's a big caveat here in that "numpty@gmail.com" doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. That sounds harsh but it is important because stupid people tend to be more trusting in authority figures. For good reason.
Evolutionarily speaking someone who is lacking intelligence is less likely to survive and following someone who seems to excel in that area increases their chance of survival greatly. Less than intelligent people being in positions of authority seems like a relatively new development in human evolution since I'd assume it stems from the transfer of wealth between generations (which wasn't possible until technology gave us the ability to create and maintain assets of some significance). So for most of human history a stupid person was better off following an authority figure and I'm sure the instinct is still embedded in people like this.
Which in turn makes him trust in meaningless pieces of paper that convey authority rather than his own assessment of the ideas presented.
Social Darwinism is not the mode of operation for industrialized nations so it's debatable whether there are any significant evolutionary fitness functions in place in the first world.
But I wouldn't make that statement outright. It is heretical.
The funny thing about evolution and rhetoric is that evolution is usually used to create acceptance for the policies that will make the fitness function a reality. (eg. mutilating the reproductive organs of those who score low on IQ tests)
This is very likely untrue, according to thorough statisticians and professional geneticists.
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Genes-Success-Professiona...
If you have a citation for professionally published research on the point I would be happy to look it up. More good information about the subject can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...
for readers who would like to look up the facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence
"At present rates of fertility and mortality and in the absence of changes within countries, the average IQ of the young world population would decline by 1.34 points per decade and the average per capita income would decline by 0.79% per year."[25]"
I don't thinnk IQ is the right measure for that... IQ is defined in terms of the average intelligence (really, it's the median, but unless the distribution is strongly skewed, it's almost the same).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/...
that is still going on. The statement that the world population's IQ is expected to decline is directly contradicted by the Flynn Effect,
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flynns-effe...
http://www.psychometrics.ppsis.cam.ac.uk/news.13.htm
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/nurtural-intelligence/
http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/...
the observed steady rise in IQ scores across a large variety of countries over the last century.
It is impossible (for now) to develop enough expertise in every subject you may ever encounter to be able to assess the fundamentals of that subject on your own. Thus, expertise is used as a reasonable signal when sorting out "correct" ideas from "incorrect" ideas. (I would point out that the still-often-requested return of points displays on HN comments usually alludes to this: people asking for it say they want it because it helps them sort out what's "good" from what's not.)
> But I think there's a big caveat here in that "numpty@gmail.com" doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.
The most that we could conclude from the correspondence is that he is either intellectually lazy -- either temporarily, possibly as a result of a deadline, or more long term -- or that he is behaving as a result of his educational environment. There is no way to determine his intelligence from this tiny little exchange, which invalidates the rest of your comment.
One of the worst things that a "smart" person can do is look for evidence of stupidity in the people around them.
Put me in a room with an expert in a topical area and a professionally trained liar. If I know nothing about the area, and these two people are having a debate, I will be able to tell which one is the expert, not by knowing his qualifications -- he may not have any-- but by being able to evaluate the quality of the arguments.
Even if the liar is equally qualified to the expert but is lying, you can tell.
It is not that they are lying that gives them away, it is that they must, inevitably, make poorer arguments.
The very idea of "Expertise" is a renunciation of intellectual thought.
I have spent most of my adult life believing that most people were as smart as me, and that they might just not be as well informed as me.
I cannot say whether it is stupidity that is the problem, and I certainly never went looking for the evidence of it, but I have been, at long last, forced to conclude that most people are trained not to think and spend much of their lives avoiding it. This reliance on credentials is a crutch and an excuse for not thinking. Credentials are useful to know the basis for debate, or someone's background, not for determining whether they are correct or not.
I believe people are being taught not to think, and this is one of the methods.
Given that every major field of study that I'm aware of has aspects which are hotly debated by that field's experts -- people who have spent more time researching, studying, and contributing to that field than the vast majority of programmers have spent programming -- I'm disinclined to believe that it's possible for you or anyone to sort out fact from fiction just by listening to a debate about it.
To come back to the subject that started all this, interstellar space travel, there are piles and piles and piles of theories and facts and data that are probably well understood by only a handful of people on the entire planet. So, if you know nothing -- or little -- about the practical and theoretical complications and possibilities of space travel, and you hear from someone that claims to have some conclusions on the matter, it's reasonable to ask about their qualifications on the subject as a signal about whether or not they are full of shit.
Space travel is something I am interested in, like many geeks of my generation. But I don't presume to have even enough knowledge on the matter to figure out who's full of crap and who isn't. Heck, just recently, someone from Johnson Space Center spoke up on a Reddit thread about the space shuttle, when a Redditor asked why the shuttle wasn't left there for additional storage or as an escape vehicle. Of the various reasons that the qualified person gave in answering the question, I think maybe one of them was one that I'd thought of ahead of time.
The more I learn about everything, the more I realize that I know nothing. Asking someone about their expertise doesn't mean I'm not thinking; quite the opposite.
I really love it when people start arguments this way. You take the right to refute just about all the things that s/he claimed, but in reality only address at most one.
> One of the more hilarious traits that most programmers seem to share is their belief that they can logically deduce what's true and what's not in fields in which they don't even know the basics.
I think you're jumping to conclusions too early. How did you assess that it's most programmers that share this trait?
Remember, this is Hacker News. Really, there's a plant called Living Stone, and it obviously isn't a stone, but in my experiences, the conversation and ideas presented and discussed here are way different from most other conversations, so I tend to conclude that there are many people contributing to HN that are in an essential way very similar to me, if not ideologically, they certainly are on levels of intellect and curiosity. So I'd say that it's far away from the general programmer. Many, if not most of the programmers (I can't really say, because my sample has been to small and biased to confirm general conclusions, which I intuitively feel are true) are just that - programmers. It's their day job, one they perform, rather mechanically. While programming is certainly a skill unlike any other, and thus learning programming gives you some new, unique knowledge, it doesn't necessarily make you a great, independent, provoking, curious thinker.
Also, I am guessing that the reason that HN seems to be dominated by programmers is simply that internet/forums are the medium of choice for many programmers (familiarity&convenience). I'm positive that there are many other groups of equally inspiring people from completely different professions, having similar conversations.
> Given that every major field of study that I'm aware of has aspects which are hotly debated by that field's experts.
From what I see, hot debates = flamewars are more popular in the general population, particularly in politics, than in academic/expert circles. Flamewars occur when debates are ego-, not truth-based. When people want to win, not to find the truth (or achieve any other, external/impersonal given objective). Again, can't speak for all fields of knowledge, but (1) in mathematics, from what I've experienced, people are mostly interested in research. Ideas are usually merited by how powerful/broad they are, and by how simple and elegant/beautiful they are. Sometimes, one particular idea wins over the others (e.g. measure theory as the basis of probability), othertimes, multiple ideas are found useful (e.g. Riemann/Darboux integral, or Itô/Stratonovich stochastic integral). (2) In physics, ideas are merited based on how well they can predict experimental results, and the only debates happening are where there simply isn't no correct/experimentally confirmed theory yet. Furthermore, everyone acknowledges that any and all theories are necessarily incomplete, and improvements are possible, even expected (e.g. Newton -> Einstein). I'm less familiar with soft sciences, but from what I've seen, in e.g. (3) psychology, many different ideas and explanations coexist, because they each have certain predictive/explanative potential.
People in the general public, on the other hand, usually just hear bits and pieces from one field of knowledge, and then assume that they know everything, or that that single idea is necessarily the best. An expert, on the other hand, has a broader overview of the field and can see that even conflicting ideas can complement each other and be useful when considered together.
> So, if you know nothing -- or little -- about the practical and theoretical complications and possibilities of space travel
I know almost nothing about space travel, but still I believe that there are huge complications and it's improbably in the near future. I can make such conclusions from simple everyday facts (if we haven't accomplished it yet, it probably means that it's hard or very expensive), observations (meteors -> there are rocks flying in space that burn in the Earth's atmosphere -> spaceships have no atmosphere -> ships might be endangered by space rocks) and basic knowledge (Newton's laws => besides accelerating to acceptable speeds, ships must be able to decelerate as well - not that this is a huge problem per se, but it makes space travel a bit more complicated, and it's a fact most people don't consider). That being said, I am perfectly willing to admit, I hope to actually, that I'm wrong, either by experts or by the technological advancement. However, I would never ever ever trust an expert, no matter what his formal and anecdotal qualifications are, if s/he weren't able to convincingly (=with logically sound arguments) address the above considerations.
> Asking someone about their expertise doesn't mean I'm not thinking
Beforehand, it makes sense to ask an expert - they are, we usually assume, trusted by a lot of people, which is an implicit signal that we can trust them as well. However, afterwards, it is an intellectual imperative to consider and reconsider her/his arguments based on logical merit, not on credentials. I.e., an expert could still lie. Asking an expert is useful for expanding knowledge, not informing an opinion. But then, it really makes no sense to hold prejudice against knowledge you can get from other people, simply because they aren't formally experts.
Care to link the thread?
I suggest picking up a copy of Why People Believe Weird Things. It may be eye-opening for you.
I'll ignore the evolutionary argument, but I still think your central thesis is incorrect. Everyone is better off following an authority figure sometimes, because it is rare that you always know enough to make a solid decision purely on the facts.
For example, many people rely on PG as a guide for companies to invest in and/or follow. Oddly though this is one area where due diligence can probably reasonably be done. But there are areas where it is more difficult.
These fall into a few buckets:
1. Knowledge based. How many people here believe Wiles proved FLT? How many actually understand the proof? How many have taken his word and the word of other mathematicians? Honestly, I haven't even looked at the proof. Frankly, I'm not sure if it would make a difference if I did. It would probably take more five years of actual math training for me to understand it -- and I'm probably in the top 1% in math for the general population. I defer to authority because I frankly don't have the ability to effectively assess it today with my current skillset.
2. Resources. I trust the food I buy at Safeway or Whole Foods is relatively safe. I don't have the resources to test food for various bacteria and such. I rely on authorities who have resources that I don't.
3. Choice. Almost all books I read are recommended by someone I consider an authority. Whether it is a molecular biology book, a book on measure theory, or even which JS book to read -- I read the ones recommended by people who I view as authorities. Sure I could review every book available and then choose one, but it doesn't seem like a good use of time, and furthermore, since I don't know much about molecular biology, I don't really know if the text is even factually accurate.
When I buy appliances/electronics I almost always consult the web to find authoritative review sites that strongly guide my purchasing -- especially in areas I know little about, like dishwashing machines.
4. Turtles. At what point must you finally concede to an authority? As I noted I'm reading a book on molecular biology, written by prominent molecular biologists, recommended by a prominent molecular biologist. Do I trust what I'm reading in the book, or do I have a microscope by my side at all time verifying each and every statement I read? "It says that DNA looks like this for every animal, but have they looked at my dog's DNA? Grover!" At some point, for some things, you have to say that it's authorities all the way down
When presented with an argument that they cannot debate, people will demand a "citation" or "credentials". In both cases, they are pretending like you have made a logical fallacy.
Saying "I've got a degree in auto-body repair from West Alameda Tech, therefore, java is a terrible language" is obviously pointless. You can see how the degree has no bearing on computer science.
But if the degree were in computer science, the argument would still be argument from authority. But the debators then switch to debating whose degree is better.
You find this a lot in political debates whereby somehow, politicians (who often do not have very useful degrees, as they tend to be lawyers rather than engineers or scientists) somewow are magically transmorgrified into "authorities" on whatever subject they have an opinion about.
And you-- as an engineer, or scientist or economist, are expected to somehow cite credentials that are superior to theirs.... as a politician? Any credential would be superior to what amounts to being a paid liar, but of course this is letting your debate opponent set the terms anyway, and thus your PhD in computer science with Donald Knuth as your thesis advisor means nothing compared to the authority of some ex-TV comedian who managed to parlay that fame into a senate position.
Another variation of this is the demand for a "citation", invariably from opponents whose citations, if you can drag one out of them, are to blog posts, which are themselves essentially another variation of the argument from authority.
The real problem here is, these are tactics whose effect, of not their purpose, is to eliminate reasoning and thought from debate.
They are excuses to ignore the quality of an argument and thus ignore the need to address that argument, or make a counter argument. Instead, they jump to the position of arguing from a logical fallacy, which precludes from possibility the idea that their opponent might be making a good, logical, rational argument.
If you find yourself asking people for citations or for their credentials, check to see if you've narrowed your objection to a particular fact, or if you can argue against the logic they are using.
Otherwise, they should rightly consider you to have conceded by trying to move the debate onto a false basis, where, at best your position rests on a logical fallacy.
Most of the job listings I see, on a daily basis call for a computer science degree, and its almost never qualified with (or equivalent experience).
This is a recent phenomenon and I have a feeling it has to do with the glut of comp-sci graduates that got stuffed in the pipeline since the first dot com bubble. Now they are mostly just hiring their own kind to perpetuate an artificial scarcity and keep their value up.
I miss the days when I could work, and learn, alongside a motley crew of developers from all kinds of backgrounds, and the cream, not the credentialed, would rise to the top.
Hackers care about code, full stop.
Since I don't have a degree, I've learned that you need to bypass this nonsense with personal contact. The only time I ever had a problem was in an interview with a guy who had /two/ PhDs, who handed me his biz card (with two degrees on it) and who said that he had two degrees several times while introducing himself, and who the company jettisoned a few months later (because he was obnoxious and impossible to work with).
Build your network and don't sweat the paperwork.
I'm not sure if that's a flaw with me, or with everyone else.
It seems entirely reasonable to engage with things one doesnt know about, and writing being one valid way of doing so.
Mentally tag everything ever written as if the author had said "IMO" at the end. Even people who do know what they are talking about can be wrong or interpreted wrongly. This is almost a variant on the theme of proof by appeal to authority.
Internet tough guys are so cool.
I'd like to think he gets a large amount of emails a day and the fact that this person wanted credentials but decided to email rather than research further could have hit a nerve.
Just look so far as the final response shown:
> I think that you shouldn't write articles under the mindset that you know what you're talking about...
> Hello, I'm citing your work for a debate article I'm using > about space colonization and how it is improbable. I do > need credentials however, and I've yet to find them online. > If you could reply with your credentials that'd be great.
No harm in that email, very simple.
But then the blogger went on to whip out his e-peen and tell the kid to go to his wikipedia rather than just write "I'm a self taught novelist who thoroughly researches his topics he writes about but doesn't have credentials in the traditional sense".
EDIT: I apparently have no idea how to do quotes on HN despite my valiant attempt to do so. I apologize.
Using two spaces indentation can work
Furthermore, perhaps this is culturally dependent, but nothing about those questions strikes me as genuine.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't have posted this email exchange on my own blog if it was me because I feel it would portray me in a negative light. To each his own I suppose.
EDIT: The student was also in the wrong; he was being presumptuous. The best way to deal with these people is just move on.