If you have a specific fallacy in mind, name it (or describe it). However, it is not a fallacy to say that one statement is better backed by evidence than another—you need to specify what evidence I am not being clear about, or any logical connections I have missed.
My intended claim was that we should be more aware of the evidence presented. I also do believe that when we are aware of the available evidence, we will come to disregard most of the references we see to the the content and causes of human nature, but this will depend on how you weigh the evidence.
However, if it will make the matter clearer, I can give you an example of evidence-based claims in the field of anthropology.
Here’s one that I hope isn’t too politically charged, but is still interesting: According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook derived from George Peter Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas (1981), which recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies, from 1960-1980, 186 societies were monogamous, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and seven had polyandry.
Claims that could be made based on this include:
Approximately 85% of human cultures accept some form of polygyny.
Most human societies are polygamous.
Humans evolved to be polygamous.
Humans should be polygamous.
Polygamy gives humans a better chance of survival.
Primitive cultures are more likely to be polygamous.
Anthropologists are perverts.
Obviously, some of these claims you would not make unless you had a specific ax you wanted to grind. Some of these claims wouldn’t be supported by the data. Some of these claims would depend on how you, personally, tend to weigh evidence (particularly the normative ones). Even the first claim, the one most supported by the evidence, is questionable if you disagree on the terms (e.g., what constitutes as a distinct culture?). But this is the sort of thing that we (by which I mean pretty much all of us) are used to dealing with in the soft sciences—we know how to navigate these things. Unfortunately, people are much less willing to navigate fuzzy data accurately, and often much less motivated to navigate human data honestly.
I never said you did. I said you were committing the same fallacy as the people who do.
If you have a specific fallacy in mind, name it (or describe it). However, it is not a fallacy to say that one statement is better backed by evidence than another—you need to specify what evidence I am not being clear about, or any logical connections I have missed.
“The evidence isn’t 100% conclusive, therefore we should adopt a position of complete ignorance.”
I read the post as suggesting that we adopt a position of marginally increased skepticism relative to what prevails in common discussion.
My intended claim was that we should be more aware of the evidence presented. I also do believe that when we are aware of the available evidence, we will come to disregard most of the references we see to the the content and causes of human nature, but this will depend on how you weigh the evidence.
However, if it will make the matter clearer, I can give you an example of evidence-based claims in the field of anthropology.
Here’s one that I hope isn’t too politically charged, but is still interesting: According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook derived from George Peter Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas (1981), which recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies, from 1960-1980, 186 societies were monogamous, 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and seven had polyandry.
Claims that could be made based on this include:
Approximately 85% of human cultures accept some form of polygyny.
Most human societies are polygamous.
Humans evolved to be polygamous.
Humans should be polygamous.
Polygamy gives humans a better chance of survival.
Primitive cultures are more likely to be polygamous.
Anthropologists are perverts.
Obviously, some of these claims you would not make unless you had a specific ax you wanted to grind. Some of these claims wouldn’t be supported by the data. Some of these claims would depend on how you, personally, tend to weigh evidence (particularly the normative ones). Even the first claim, the one most supported by the evidence, is questionable if you disagree on the terms (e.g., what constitutes as a distinct culture?). But this is the sort of thing that we (by which I mean pretty much all of us) are used to dealing with in the soft sciences—we know how to navigate these things. Unfortunately, people are much less willing to navigate fuzzy data accurately, and often much less motivated to navigate human data honestly.