Scott Adams’ Post Is Like Rain on Your Wedding Day
Scott Adams has a neat post explaining “How to Know You Won a Political Debate on the Internet.” For example, if your opponent “recasts your opinion to include an ‘absolute’ word, such as every, always, never, all, completely, universally, and the like, you are seeing cognitive dissonance.”
So I liked Adams’ post at this point. I have personally had such a realization, for example when a hostile emailer told me today that I cry over defenseless rich people (because I had opposed the emailer’s call to reduce income inequality) I knew I had won our short-lived argument. He had to attribute a ridiculous view to me rather than deal with my actual argument.
But then I was troubled by Adams’ next example:
Analogy
Analogies are good for explaining concepts for the first time. But they have no value in debate. Analogies are not logic, and they are not relevant facts. An analogy is literally just two things that remind you of each other on at least one dimension. When I see a cauliflower, it reminds me of a human brain, but that doesn’t mean you should eat brains in your salad. When your debate opponents retreat to analogies, it is because they have no rational arguments. You won.
There’s a reason your plumber never describes the source of your leak with an analogy. He just points to the problem and says it needs to be repaired or replaced. No one needs an analogy when facts and reason can do the job.
Yikes! This had me worried, because I use analogies all the time. And what really made me squirm was Adams’ talking about the plumber example. I had to admit, he was totally right: If a plumber starting using an analogy with me, I’d get suspicious that he didn’t know what he was doing.
But I soon relaxed, and realized I had won my (implicit) debate with Adams, over the fairness and relevance of analogies in online debate. After all, we had been talking about political arguments, and he goes and brings up plumbers.
At first I thought it was funny that he tried to argue against using analogies by using an analogy but then I thought maybe that was the point all along. Since his analogy didn’t convince anyone to stop using analogies he proved that it was a useless way to win a debate.
Good catch! I too thought the analogy one was not useful. Argument from analogy is a fallacy, but analogy is essential to explain things. It becomes a difficult task to discern if the analogy is used to illustrate a point, or to further the argument.
If you then have to justify your point by using the exact method you are criticising, it underlines the pointlessness of it as a useful criteria.
Anyway, I would not necessarily object to my plumber using an analogy. “The leak was caused by the ice expanding, the pipe burst like a balloon”
The other criteria were more useful. Psychic psychiatrist illusion is useful, as sometimes people attribute motivations they can not know as a way of dismissing an argument. Assuming that someone would support Clinton whatever the situation, for example, when the argument is about Trump.
Not one of his best, and there have been some doozies to compete with.
It seems almost cruel to point it out but … Bob’s “good catch” was a joke, implicitly conceding he has no answer to Adams on this point. I understand why you missed it though: it requires conceiving the possibility of admitting error.
How cool is that!
“After all, we had been talking about political arguments, and he goes and brings up plumbers.”
Well done!
Mark-up pricing in Belgium. It was that magic moment.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-up-pricing-in-belgium.html
Who the heck made Scott Adams an authority on winning arguments on the internet, anyway?
Scott Adams. He’s appealing to his own authority.
Good catch, Bob.
I tend to employ analogies myself so I also had to admit Adams had a point when he had criticized analogy-as-argument in a previous post. But upon further thought, his point seems shallower to me than it appears on first glance, especially with broad statements like “[analogies] have no value in debate” and “when your opponents retreat to analogies, it is because they have no rational argument”. I think this seems to ignore that debates also necessarily consist of some clarification in the communication of your argument or general thought process, at least to the audience, if not the opponent. I mean Adams himself says analogies are “good for explaining concepts” – does “explaining concepts” have no place in debate?
For example, I think it’s useful and almost necessary with many people in the course of reframing or explaining the coercive powers of the state to draw an analogy. I kthink Michael Huemer does this effectively in his talks, and I would characterize those again not as arguments but clarifications of the sort of concepts he’s denouncing. I would assume many libertarians could relate to this and probably think of a number of instances where they’ve done something similar.
At this point I expect that Adams or a supporter of his argument to restate that he does support analogies as explanatory tools, but doesn’t this just break down to a point where person A is apparently determining whether or not they’ve won any argument based on what they think was the intent of person B’s rhetoric? That seems kind of antithetical to the entire purpose of debate.
Bob Murphy thinks he won the debate because Scott Adams used an analogy as an argument. Scott Adams thinks that no, he won the debate because the analogy wasn’t an argument, it was an explanation and his actual argument was stronger than Bob’s. This is the rubric we’re supposed to use? I mean I guess at the end of the day I’m quibbling about a blog post telling me when it’s OK to feel a smug sense of self-satisfaction about my political beliefs, but still …
The analogy in debates is about teaching the other person. Help him understand what younare trying to say
Isn’t the plumber thing an example of why analogies are bad, rather than an analogy of why they are bad ?
I thought it was an analogy of an example.
Haha!
In the midst of his analogy, Scott claims that plumbers [i}never[/i] describe problems with analogies.
Huh.
At least Scott Adams’ post didn’t get a terrible song stuck in my head.
Who would have thought? It figures.
Another example of Adam’s criteria not working. In a recent post he wrote
“Watch the clip for the Absurd Absolute tell for cognitive dissonance that happens at ten seconds in. The scientist defines the opposition argument with the absurd absolutes “anything” and “everything.” Whenever you see your opposition create a strawman argument with absurd absolutes, it means you won the debate.”
OK, so “whenever you see”, that means every time you see that – oh dear, an absurd absolute “every time”. That means Adams lost again.
His “How to Know you Won A Discussion” post is not working out too well.
This is weak even for you Harold. Adams comment is not a strawman rephrasing of his adversary’s case. So it’s not self-referential. So even on it’s own terms your argument just doesn’t work. But of course it’s worse than that since you are lying about what Adams said. Here is the correct quote: “When your debate opponent recasts your point as an absurd absolute, you won the debate.” Your fake quote is not in the article at all.
“But of course it’s worse than that since you are lying about what Adams said.”
Accusations of lying are quite serious. They should be at least half checked before being bandied about.
The quote is a cut and paste from the article.
Here it is again, pasted in with no typing from me.
“Watch the clip for the Absurd Absolute tell for cognitive dissonance that happens at ten seconds in. The scientist defines the opposition argument with the absurd absolutes “anything” and “everything.” Whenever you see your opposition create a strawman argument with absurd absolutes, it means you won the debate. ”
You could have said that you could not find that quote, so could I confirm it was correct. But you assumed I was lying with no evidence, other than the fact that you couldn’t see the quote, perhaps because you were looking in the wrong place.
Analogy is one of the most powerful tools for explaining the unfamiliar and complex to the ignorant and superstitious. It has been used successfully from Newton’s apple to Christ’s sermons in the Gospels. While any analogy (either figurative or literal) will at some time break down does not mean they are not useful tools in explaining theories or beliefs. at least the first time If there is any meaning to this blog post, I have to believe it is in the examination of the assertion that one can Know You Won a Political Debate on the Internet
Bitter, I tend to agree. There are many instances where I clearly have won the argument here, yet somehow everyone else fails to see it!
If Adam’s little scheme was useful in demonstrating when one had won an argument it would be useful indeed. However, it is just an attempt to re-package well established logical fallacies in user friendly form, but ultimately fails to do what it says.
Nice approach to Adams’ post, Murphy.
I disagree with his contention:
“But they have no value in debate. Analogies are not logic, and they are not relevant facts.”
This presumes the dubious notion that every event, every argument, every truth, is completely isolated and “inert”. That EVERY fact is the outcome of special and unique circumstances that apply to that fact alone and no other.
That is wrong because logic itself is transposable from fact to fact. Logic is not about necessary relationships of one fact alone. It is about the necessary relationships that bind every fact. We don’t say “If A, then A” for ONLY the case of this exact apple I have in my hand. “If A, then A” applies to every possible object or fact.
The reason why analogies work is because it clarifies and tests the proposed logic in a person’s argument. If transposing it results in nonsense, then that person is making a flawed argument.
I mean, Adams’ would not respond to a rebuttal with “You are falsely presuming that A is always equal to A. I am just saying A is equal to A in this one special case. Your analogy is not relevant because I am talking about apples and you are talking about oranges.”
Apples and oranges do have common characteristics, and that is where analogies play a role.