failure to take arguments to their logical conclusion
Informal arguments often rely on perceived lack of alternatives to arrive at the conclusions, and thus even if you don’t have any alternatives you can’t trust it.
E.g. “we both seen blerg, and the only way blerg could happen is because of blurp, and therefore, blurp must have happened”, that’s only as trustworthy as your enumeration of the ways blerg could happen is complete, which is usually not at all.
Frequently, otherwise smart (i.e. high IQ individuals), especially those with little training in formal proofs, keep insisting that unless you come up with an alternative cause for blerg, you must believe in blurp, and get rather pissed off at the insolence of being dubious about the blurp without providing an alternative cause for the blerg. (Then when you provide an alternative cause they go on how the blurp must have a probability of ~50%)
Informal arguments often rely on perceived lack of alternatives to arrive at the conclusions, and thus even if you don’t have any alternatives you can’t trust it.
E.g. “we both seen blerg, and the only way blerg could happen is because of blurp, and therefore, blurp must have happened”, that’s only as trustworthy as your enumeration of the ways blerg could happen is complete, which is usually not at all.
Frequently, otherwise smart (i.e. high IQ individuals), especially those with little training in formal proofs, keep insisting that unless you come up with an alternative cause for blerg, you must believe in blurp, and get rather pissed off at the insolence of being dubious about the blurp without providing an alternative cause for the blerg. (Then when you provide an alternative cause they go on how the blurp must have a probability of ~50%)