[trominos]

He is certainly attacking ESR's character, but I think that the old mantra that we should always address an argument and not the person delivering it isn't entirely fair. The strongest reason for this, in my opinion, is that most complex systems can't be thoroughly analyzed with any objectivity, because it's impossible to consciously process all the available data; there's just too much going on. So whenever somebody argues about a complex system, there's a very implicit part of their argument that involves which data they choose to present. A bystander who's trying to follow (and validate or invalidate) a logical argument can't always tell if the choice of data is unbiased, and of course looking at all available data takes the bystander as much time as it took the arguer to formulate the argument in the first place.

So USUALLY what an unbiased observer will do is proceed with caution: see what the arguer's point is, see how it fits with the observer's intuition (because this is the same as appealing to the observer's subconscious, which in most cases has processed far more data relevant to some issue than has their conscious mind), and see whether the data seems overwhelming enough that its conclusion couldn't be the result of biased data selection on the part of the arguer. But this method often fails. Without formulating your own opinion by immersing yourself in data, you just can't be sure whether you're looking at a legitimate picture of an issue. That's why whenever I hear a convincing argument about something complex, I only provisionally believe whatever I've just been convinced of. And that's why an argument's author actually matters if the argument relates to a sufficiently complex system.

Now, arguments about simple (by which I really mean "completely specified") systems aren't victim to this weakness -- mathematical proof, for instance, can actually be really verified by an observer without the observer doing the same work that the discover did, as can many logical arguments in the hard sciences.

But what ESR is trying to show here is that some particular set of scientists committed scientific fraud. This is a) a value judgment and b) depends substantially on context.

So I think that it is not only reasonable but very much a good thing that ieure pointed out that ESR is a nutjob. Now I know that even if I find his post compelling, he has no intellectual honesty and the data he's showing me have been carefully selected from the unimaginably vast amounts of data in the world because they happen to support his worldview. Maybe he's still right -- but ieure's post is still very much relevant.

[jimbokun]

"So I think that it is not only reasonable but very much a good thing that ieure pointed out that ESR is a nutjob."

That was a very sophisticated formulation of "I don't listen to people whose politics I disagree with."

That is exactly the problem of the entire Republican party, and you seem to be saying that the principle is sound (just as long as it is directed at "them" and not "you").

It saddens and surprises me that you and your up-voters seem to be endorsing ad hominem as sound debating practice. Of all places, I would hate to see Hacker News descend to this level.

[trominos]

> That was a very sophisticated formulation of "I don't listen to people whose politics I disagree with."

It wasn't. It was an argument for believing that "in many cases it matters where the arguments that I hear come from."

Let me be clear: I don't like the fact that I think this policy is right. I just think it's right.

And let me also be clear that in many or most cases it makes sense to disregard the source of an argument. In most exchanges on HN, the people involved all implicitly agree on the data that's being argued from, and in those cases I tend to think that we don't ever need to think about people's biases.

But the fundamental belief underlying the "we can always disregard an argument's source" movement is that sufficiently logical and dispassionate people can validate or invalidate an argument very easily (compared to the work it took to formulate the argument in the first place). I really really would like this to be true. I just don't think it is, IN GENERAL.

To reiterate why: I think it's perfectly possible to follow a logical train of thought without actually re-deriving that train of thought -- and so I think that we can untangle argument and arguer when arguments are purely logical -- but if an argument is based on data from a complex system I don't think it's possible to determine if that data was chosen in an unbiased manner without actually looking at all the available data and essentially re-deriving the arguer's conclusion.

Combine that with two hopefully-obvious (and hopefully-true) premises: first, that a large data set on any sufficiently complex system contains individual data points that support any given belief about that system,

and second, that most really complex systems can't be considered completely logically, because there's so much going on, and must instead be approached by looking at data, and I think it follows that you need to think about the source of any argument about a complex system when you're deciding whether you (provisionally) believe it.

Incidentally, I find it genuinely ironic that your post is actually a not-particularly-sophisticated example of "I don't listen to people whose politics I disagree with," since you ignored my argument based on my dissenting conclusion.

[jimbokun]

"...but if an argument is based on data from a complex system I don't think it's possible to determine if that data was chosen in an unbiased manner without actually looking at all the available data and essentially re-deriving the arguer's conclusion."

But this is exactly what I come to Hacker News for. In this case, there are definitely HN readers who can understand the code ESR is talking about, and pretty quickly figure out if there are flaws in ESR's reasoning regarding the code in question.

Once we have the actual flaws in his reasoning, his tea-baggery or whatever become completely irrelevant, because we have much more solid reasons for rejecting his conclusions. If this were a different forum, with no participants well versed in technology, mathematics, and the scientific method, maybe you need to consider the motivation of the arguer when considering the validity of the argument. HN is not that forum.

[jbooth]

I think a better formulation is "I don't listen to people who've shown that they're not going to argue in good faith". If ESR has really been in deep teabagger territory, then the fact that he's smart really has nothing to do with it -- he's not seeking truth, he's seeking confirmation, so who cares about his conclusions.

[drunkpotato]

I was not aware that one could only upvote a position one agrees with. I upvoted because it is an interesting argument cogently made, not because I agree with the premises or conclusion.

[Estragon]

  the old mantra that we should always address an argument
  and not the person delivering it isn't entirely fair.

At some point, the only sane thing to do is flip the bozo bit. Life's too short.