People who don’t like an argument for political reasons will attack either the argument’s facts or the argument’s reasoning. If the facts are very well-cited, people are less likely to attack the facts. This is bad because we want people to attack the facts; reasoning-based arguments quickly devolve into worthless semantics, whereas fact-based arguments will eventually provide some evidence for or against a political theory. Therefore, some citations, especially the weaker or more controversial citations, should ideally be left out of political arguments.
My critique:
People who don’t like an argument for political reasons will attack its facts and reasoning whenever they see an opportunity to do so—there is no XOR function here. If you are debating politics with barely rational people, you will get into a semantic slugfest regardless of how well-cited your facts are.
I think you overestimate how likely people are to look up un-cited facts. Even if people are twice as likely to modify their opinions when they look up the damning facts themselves as when they read the damning facts in citations provided by an opponent, people are probably ten times as likely to read a citation as they are to go do independent research. Citations may be less effective for each person who reads them, but they’ll be read by far more people, and I think the latter effect is stronger.
Even if your premises are correct, a better response would be to take care to strengthen your reasoning and make your assumptions and definitions explicit. Rather than spend effort weakening the apparent strength of the facts, spend effort enhancing the apparent strength of the syllogism. It’s impossible to eliminate literally all logic/semantics based challenges, but it’s quite doable to write a short essay that preempts all but the silliest semantic challenges, and (assuming you have an audience) people will realize fairly quickly that your lone heckler is trying to show off his rhetorical skills rather than trying to make an important point.
People who don’t like an argument for political reasons will attack its facts and reasoning whenever they see an opportunity to do so—there is no XOR function here.
I never claimed there was, and its entirely irrelevant to the point. I only claimed that they will attack the facts (also, the facts are first on the list and often people stop right there because laziness edit: that’s it, not xor but ‘or else’ aka the garden variety or that stops if first part is true). After they attacked the facts, if the facts are presented, there is a minor decrease to the weight assigned to the world model that has led them to attack the facts. No big effects are claimed. Just usually there is a zero decrease, and that can be significant difference.
Even if your premises are correct, a better response would be to take care to strengthen your reasoning and make your assumptions and definitions explicit.
Strengthening of reasoning is most necessary when you form the opinion. Very often by time people express their opinion, all they are strengthening is the justifications for already formed opinion, what ever that opinion might be.
My summary of your post:
My critique:
People who don’t like an argument for political reasons will attack its facts and reasoning whenever they see an opportunity to do so—there is no XOR function here. If you are debating politics with barely rational people, you will get into a semantic slugfest regardless of how well-cited your facts are.
I think you overestimate how likely people are to look up un-cited facts. Even if people are twice as likely to modify their opinions when they look up the damning facts themselves as when they read the damning facts in citations provided by an opponent, people are probably ten times as likely to read a citation as they are to go do independent research. Citations may be less effective for each person who reads them, but they’ll be read by far more people, and I think the latter effect is stronger.
Even if your premises are correct, a better response would be to take care to strengthen your reasoning and make your assumptions and definitions explicit. Rather than spend effort weakening the apparent strength of the facts, spend effort enhancing the apparent strength of the syllogism. It’s impossible to eliminate literally all logic/semantics based challenges, but it’s quite doable to write a short essay that preempts all but the silliest semantic challenges, and (assuming you have an audience) people will realize fairly quickly that your lone heckler is trying to show off his rhetorical skills rather than trying to make an important point.
I never claimed there was, and its entirely irrelevant to the point. I only claimed that they will attack the facts (also, the facts are first on the list and often people stop right there because laziness edit: that’s it, not xor but ‘or else’ aka the garden variety or that stops if first part is true). After they attacked the facts, if the facts are presented, there is a minor decrease to the weight assigned to the world model that has led them to attack the facts. No big effects are claimed. Just usually there is a zero decrease, and that can be significant difference.
Strengthening of reasoning is most necessary when you form the opinion. Very often by time people express their opinion, all they are strengthening is the justifications for already formed opinion, what ever that opinion might be.