[_dps]

No one would have objected to a comment like: "One school of philosophy holds that thinking is inherently linguistic, so in that sense animals probably can't think."

People are objecting to the unsubstantiated, doctrinaire, insistence on this very narrow definition to the exclusion of all others, including the ones used by people who research animal cognition for a living.

I don't see why anyone should exclusively care what Descartes has to say about it when we have an additional 400 years of science after his death that suggests he didn't have the whole picture.

[weirdstuff]

I'm not really biased one way or the other on the upthread conversation, however I think you'll find the Descartes' thinking continues to underlie a great deal of what we call modern science (or more precisely: our defining interpretation of universal phenomenon) and many of the applications that come with that.

You can find great nuggets in modern work just as you can find great nuggets in older work, too. It's not that disposable!

[tpeo]

Why should they object to it, though? If an unsubstantiated claim can't be said to be anything other than an opinion, then it's just his opinion. Plus, it doesn't really matter whether he was being "doctrinaire" or not, because nothing was actually being imposed of me. I'm not being forced to subscribe to this view, I'm not being threatened (e.g. with getting a low grade, being fired, being burned at the stake). And I doubt he would have insisted in his view, too, if it weren't for the response it caused.

Furthermore, I don't believe anyone should exclusively care about Descartes' thought on the matter, whether in the light of contemporary science or not. I just tallied my thoughts as they came, really. But I do believe that there's a way to reply to comments which maximizes the likelihood of there being at least some degree of mutual understanding and which minimizes the likelihood of conflict, and that is to have a charitable, unassuming reading of the comment in question, and to not take offense. And that people should either have that, or not to discuss at all. Else, they might as well talk to the wind.

The whole exchange of comments we have in mind, for instance, was to little or no benefit to everyone involved, being little else than comments of "uh huh" and "nuh huh" back and forth.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

OP literally started their comment with "No." and followed it up with 3–4 blanket assertions.

Slatestarcodex has a comment policy (http://slatestarcodex.com/comments/) that I think is very relevant here too because I think that's how people implicitly judge most comments—"If you make a comment here, it had better be either true and necessary, true and kind, or kind and necessary."

OP's statement was not 100% true so it should at least have been necessary / relevant AND kind / humbly put. It wasn't kind.

[tpeo]

I didn't say he was kind.

I am good to people who are good.

I am also good to people who are not good.

Because Virtue is goodness.

People should be thought as being free to speak their mind in whatever way it suits them. Not because they should, but because they will. And when the time comes, it's up to me whether to make an issue of it or not. And in so far as I know, I'd rather not.

[AsyncAwait]

It has nothing to do with being kind. It has a lot do do with contributing to the discussion with something useful. Just asserting things without any evidence is not useful and thus downvoted to make more room for more useful comments nearer where people would see them, that's all.

[tpeo]

I disagree that a comment has to be sourced to be a contribution to the discussion. Whether or not something can be a contribution depends entirely on what people expect from comments. If all I expect is to have a little bit of thought, it doesn't really need to pack on citations, and even a question might suffice.

Which might sound dilletante-ish, but isn't really out of place for anyone reading a pop-sci article on animal cognition during a Saturday evening, on their spare time.

As for downvoting or upvoting, I've never seen any actual evidence that either does anything useful.

[AsyncAwait]

There's a difference between a comment stating an opinion having no citations, (I think that...) and one supposedly stating facts, (You cannot have...). At least if we want HN to maintain a higher quality of discussion than 4chan.