No. I am not the person who is declared to have lost, I am a third party. I happen to think both parties to the debate are wrong in different ways (actually, in some respects in the same ways, as in my view they share some mistaken assumptions), but one of them frequently argues dishonestly (and seems to mostly get away with it) while the other, so far as I can see, does not.
That has been done, by his opponent, at some length.
Actually I think the length and complexity and level of detail that this debate has got into goes a long way towards explaining why this tactic has been effective with some people. They don’t want to make the effort to properly understand the complex issues.
So you are looking for a spell that will convince him to give up?
Do you really think there is some term out there that you could mutter (let’s call it “Merton”), upon which he will be struck cold, able on to say, “I concede.”?
Yeah, I was very tired when I saw Rhythmdvl’s post.
As I said, it has been going on for 40 years. Both sides have presented a number of alleged “killer” experiments, and both have have proved very adept in explaining their opponent’s results away.
Yes, that occurred to me, except in this case the declaration of victory is supposed to help bring real victory (and might even work), whereas in Vietnam it was really a way of admitting defeat without saying it.
Well, obviously your position, “There are shortcomings to both the cases made by Professor A and Professor B. But when Professor A stated “My side has been amply proven; the debate is over,” Professor A did so prematurely” is not winning converts (or at least not as many converts as you hoped).
So, now you are looking for a handy little of convincing those who have heard your case and remain skeptical. It is a little like this colloquy from A Few Good Men:
We get it. You strenuously object to declaring the debate over.
As Sam Weinberg knew, just pressing on about how convicted you are of your own position is not going to win over your skeptics. Nor will merely restating your position for the second, or third, or tenth time. You need to find out why they think the debate is settled, why they don’t buy your position that some of the questions are still factually unsettled. You need to move the ball forward. And an incantation of “BZZZZT: Appeal to Premature Declaration of Victory. Professor A to the penalty box” ain’t gonna do it.
It really does look like a strategy worth mentioning in the study of rhetoric. In any case, an academically nice way to say things might be; the claim of person A that the debate has been won is begging the question against person B. This might not be quite accurate, however.
Yeah. The OP says he is looking for a politic way of saying “Professor A is just saying his side has won in order to avoid having to answer lingering doubts and/or open questions that remain regarding the theory he has proposed.”
Now, for at least two reasons, I think some punches are being pulled. First, there is a perfectly politic way of putting that: “The Theory A camp contends that their theory has been amply proven. This claim notwithstanding, some questions remain, notably Q1, Q2, and Q3, all of which point the way to a continuing research program that must be completed before Theory A can fairly be called settled.”
Second, this debate has been raging for forty years, so it seems likely that all sides have gotten a full airing. This airing has probably also even included the improbable charge that it is too premature (after forty years!) to say that one side is winning.
Overall, I do think (indeed, I strenuously think) that I am right and that the OP is on a fool’s errand, looking for the mot juste that will in an instant convince all his skeptics and detractors that he was right all along.
In other words, it really is no different from the sentiment that has always animated these fallacy nomenclature questions: What snappy little two- to three-word phrase (preferably in Latin or Greek) can I intone to make my opponents immediately capitulate to my side?
If i were indeed looking for a mot juste that would in an instant convince all my skeptics and detractors that I was right all along, I am sure I would indeed be on a fools errand. However, that is something that is only happening in your head. I have no such hope or expectation. I am simply looking for a pithy way of expressing a certain point.
Anyway, as a commentator on rather than a significant participant in this debate I do not really have any skeptics or detractors to convince. I am merely concerned to alert those who have not followed the debate closely, but who may be affected by its outcome, that A cannot be taken at his word when he announces that it is over. In that regard he is, as gms453 so succinctly put it, lying. There is no question that the debate continues (and, indeed, A continues to participate in it). People are sometimes taken in by lies, and I have recently come across instances of people who have been taken in this one.
The scenario described in your previous post bears virtually no relation to the actual situation I am concerned with (let alone to the original question). You seem to made it up for yourself almost entirely from whole cloth.
You also seem to assume that A must be right, and that there are nothing but “lingering doubts”. Given that you do not even know what the debate is about, your only grounds for thinking so are that I have told you that he has said he is right. It looks like his tactic has worked on you, at least.
Schopenhauer basically wrote the book on this sort of thing, and he identifies it as a special case of non causae ut causae, where a conclusion is proposed to follow even though it doesn’t. Also related is ignoratio elenchi, where one party establishes a conclusion that is not what he ought to have established, or in fact what he claims to have established.