—There are responsible op-ed pages (like the WSJ)—
Cough cough… before of after they started measuring every comidity by it’s value in gold? Before or after they concluded that the Clintons had Vincent Foster killed to cover up… something? The WSJ is remarkably good paper, but even conservatives admit that it’s editorial department is populated by quite a high level of quacks and loons.
Editorials are lousy places in general not because their facts are or are not always true, but because the short polemic format makes for some remarkably bad interpretations of even the most solid facts, as well as things like considerable sins of ommision.
—Third parties make for objectivity, IMO.—
I’m not sure that this is really true. Third parties have their own intellectual biases, approaches, and limitations on their knowledge, even if they are largely uninvolved in a particular debate. Oftentimes, third parties are the LEAST informed sources.
Given the fact the I have the debating skills of yam, I’d like to see a thread, such as this one, dedicated to the Protocol of Debating in GD
I think it would be very helpful (for me anyway) to have a thread that took a debatable topic such as Gun Control or Gays in the military, and create a “mock” debate that could be scrutinzed not only on it’s topic, but more importantly, for the debating tools provided.
Each response could be critiqued on it’s value, or lack of, to the thread at hand as it pertains to debating techniques.
Though it seems somewhat of a pipedream to see this idea materialize, it sure would give people, such as myself a local reference for debating skills.
It bugs me when people post something like “my mom was gay and then she decided she wasn’t and that means people can convert from being gay”. A single incident rarely proves anything except about that specific incident. We all know that anecdotes are pretty poor technique.
But there are other times when anecdotes are essential to allowing other people to see the mind set of other people. For example, in a thread about Israel, a person posting their personal experiences with living in Israel might provide a lot more incite into why things happen the way they happen. There are some things that facts and figures can’t convey- no statistic will ever convey the hopelessness of poverty, or explain adequately what it feels like to be a Black person looking for a job in a White town, or what it means to live in a war zone.
I’d be very interested in finding some good guidelines as to when anecdotes are appropriate and when they are not.
In debates, it’s always good to keep an open mind and accept the possibility that you could be wrong. There is no shame in rethinking or modifying your position when presented with evidence you may not have been aware of or considered.
Reports of personal experience are perfectly valid for (a) illustrating or amplifying the views which you hold, or (b) explaining why you hold those views. But they have less validity in supporting an argument that other people should hold those views also.
The more scientific or technical a paper is, the more you might question a single author as opposed to multiple authors. Not a hard and fast rule by any means, but a bit of a clue in some cases.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I was not intending to imply that there was a correlation between the number of authors and quality. I also wonder when I see 10 or 15 or 20 authors listed. But just as an interested lay person who occasionally browses the LANL archives, if I am trying to figure out if a paper is interesting or just cranky, I have noted that most cranks don’t have collaborators.
Apos, it is true that sometimes third parties are uninformed, but it is also true that first-parties are often biased. There is a very real trade-off here if you are looking for a cite to do more than pump data out for you to analyze (which is often the case).
But I would doubt there is any real criteria that exist for determination of a good cite. We have here rules of thumb that seem to work in some cases. What makes it through this sifter is just going to have to do, I think.
…
I tend to think: if a debate can be settled with cites, it isn’t much of a debate. They are useful, of course, in correcting others, but here is where most people request a cite (knowing one won’t be found) instead of demonstrating the opposite. I don’t think that’s very ignorance-fighting, but I must admit I am not chief among ignorance-fighters to begin with!
What’s your point here? A decision to measure commodities by their value in gold is not a fact that would be cited. (The actual value in gold is a fact, and could be cited from this source). And the conclusion about Foster is also clearly opinion and not fact. That’s even assuming that your claims here are true, which I highly doubt.
—Apos, it is true that sometimes third parties are uninformed, but it is also true that first-parties are often biased. There is a very real trade-off here if you are looking for a cite to do more than pump data out for you to analyze (which is often the case).—
As I noted, third parties can be both uninformed AND just as biased. There is no reason to suspect that someone is impartial and objective simply because they don’t have a direct stake in an issue. It pays to be just as skeptical of bias in third party cases as in first party cases.
—A decision to measure commodities by their value in gold is not a fact that would be cited.—
You obviously aren’t a routine reader of their editorial page if you don’t know to what this refers.
The WSJ has a long history of very soberly and forcefully and continually arguing that what our economy really needs is to go back on a gold standard. We can have a discussion on how wacked out that idea in some other forum, but it’s just one of the many strange obsessions that the editorial page has that make economists slap their heads in disbelief. And that’s just economics. I don’t think we even want to get into things like Whitewater.
—And the conclusion about Foster is also clearly opinion and not fact. That’s even assuming that your claims here are true, which I highly doubt.—
Perhaps an opinion at first, but then a habitual reference to as a fact when listing the crimes of the Clintons against all humanity. The point is, we’re talking about it being “resposible” in the same sense that december thinks that the NYT editorial page is not. But if that means thorwing around totally unsupported accusations, performing mind-reading on opponents, and generally just slandering everyone within reach left and right, I’m not sure I see any difference.
—I don’t.—
Well, you can always learn. Though I really hope your image of what rational conservatives are like isn’t exclusively formulated around the voices that dominate the WSJ ed page…
If you are going to use an op-ed piece for a factual assertion, wouldn’t it make sense to do a bit more research and find the information you need from another non op-ed source.
Is it a good idea to set strict guidelines as to what is and what isn’t an appropriate cite? As noted by even sven, anecdotal evidence sometimes detracts from the argument and sometimes adds to it. Even an op-ed piece can be germane to the issue being discussed if the discussion revolves around the support that a position has.
The only qualm I have with this is that sometimes statistics aren’t clear as to what they mean and a cetain amount of explanation is needed.
Repeat: “not a fact that would be cited”. If someone argues that we must return to a gold standard, and uses the WSJ’s opinion on as a cite, he has cited opinion as fact. But no problem with the editorial per se, and no problem with using any facts that the editorial happens to contain.
You might not see a difference if the issue is the “responsibility” of the WSJ editorial writers. What we are discussing here is the reliability of their facts. Unless you can show me that they present Clinton murdering Foster as being a fact (and I don’t believe you can), your point is moot.
Don’t worry about me - I’m doing OK as it is.
I can’t say I’m a regular reader of the WSJ (or any other) editorial page, but I’ve read quite a lot of it over the years, and it is pretty much mainstream conservative (as opposed to moderate conservative - but I would think it is to the left of the National Review) and very well written. I don’t believe that “even conservatives” admit that it has a high level of quacks and loons (though there may be one or two conservatives out there who do think so - there’s one or two of everything out there).
One of the central problems with any debate that touches on ideological perpective issues is how to define the spectrum - everyone tends to put their own position as close to the center as they reasonably think they can get away with, and define the rest of the spectrum from that vantage point. Here, it would seem that you are far enough left that you see the WSJ as being populated by quacks and loons. So there are probably people who are conservative from your perspective who agree with you, but they are likely not what is commonly referred to as conservative. I suppose these would be your “rational conservatives” as opposed to your “irrational conservatives”, i.e. the conservatives that you really disagree with.
One final note - I would suggest that you cease your habit of quoting other people’s words by using dash marks. It makes it somewhat difficult for the slower people like myself to sort out your words from those of your opponents. The SDMB has this most excellent quote function that you can use. There are other iconoclasts who prefer their own systems - italics, boldface etc., but yours is the worst, for which reason I usually skip all your posts. (For some reason this one cought my eye - probably because it was very short.)
I see. You’re right, I think, single author papers might be a bit more “cranky” or way out there than multiple author papers. However, the most interesting ones are single author cranky papers that survive peer review. Those are the ones that shake things up. Dijkstra’s “Gotos considered harmful” letter had no co-authors, after all!
Eh? All of these positions cited “facts” to support their contention.
—Here, it would seem that you are far enough left that you see the WSJ as being populated by quacks and loons.—
No, I’m one of those conservatives (aside from some social issues and libertarian notions). I think I’m pretty intolerant of ridiculous ideas and rhetoric on both the right and left.
A lot of my criticism is based on the economic side of things. The split between the economic reporting in the paper, and the advocacy of certain economic policies that live far outside of the conservative economic mainstream is a pretty big chasm. Supply side economics, for instance, is NOT the same thing as conservative economics, and never was, though the paper certianly liked to pretend it was (even its heyday it was largely a creature of the WSJ journalists and a few outsider economists: and they gave Reagan’s otherwise pleasant econ policy is one big black eye, as well as crippling Dole). Neither is the unbelievably silly drive to go back to the gold standard. Both of these policies were argued for with great venom at anyone who dared question them, and were presented using extremely confused, and even boldly dishonest, grasp of economic reality.
Perhaps I do have a strange take on conservatism: but my take is largely taken from conservative economists and policy wonks, not from columnists like Peggy Noonan. I’m probably not a huge fan of columnists and editorials in general.
—I would suggest that you cease your habit of quoting other people’s words by using dash marks.—
Okay.
—There are other iconoclasts who prefer their own systems - italics, boldface etc., but yours is the worst, for which reason I usually skip all your posts.—
