How to Obfuscate Debate

I was talking with my good friend Jesse and his buddy last night to ungodly hours and we had some great discussions about information and responsibility.

Jesse sort of let it be known that in no uncertain terms he doesn’t believe that any information is in any way “age appropriate”. He described that overt sexual or graphic violence simply wouldn’t really be interesting to the young, so the idea of protecting them from it is really a kind of like parenting everyone’s kids.

I can see his point, but as an educator and parent myself, I completely disagree. I explained that we have plenty of evidence to show that kids ARE affected by violence and that the human brain doesn’t really develop its reasoning functionality until  25 years of age.

What strikes me is that Jesse, and my friend Mike and my friend Jason often use the same type of argumentation when it comes to trying to prove their point. This of course, crystallized for me well after the discussion, and I think that if I had a chance to consider it I would have brought it up.

There are several fallacies lined up with their particular type of argumentation, and since Jason has accused me at times of not arguing honestly, I’ll try to clarify my reasonings here.

For example, in the conversation Jesse said last night that evolution is a proven fact, that we have enough evidence to show this. Yet when I brought up the developmental physiological understandings of the brain that we have, his answer was this:

“What was the methodology?”

This struck me as very much something Jason would say- and ironically enough I imagined Jason questioning Jesse’s claim on evolution based on the same question: “What is the methodology?”

There are some really great questions we can ask that completely derail and obfuscate a discussion. One of the best is “What is the methodology?” another favourite of mine is “What are your parameters?”

Try it some time. Any conversation you have where someone puts forth even the most agreed upon reality question, “Human beings are oxygen breathers.” Answer with, “What is your methodology for that statement?”

The reason why “methodology” and “parameters” are great at poking holes in any argument is because they are unanswerable. No one can possibly have the best answer when it comes to methodology unless they, themselves, have performed the experiment in question, and followed through with everything including the number crunching afterwards, and a full presentation to a university board’s worth of Old Fellows on Scientific Ethical behaviorism. Even then, we will never get a perfect methodology. We can only work towards good practices and towards good science.  So we go around and around.

Someone asking about methodology isn’t really looking at the results, but instead at possible holes in the argument. In their mind the slightest hole, presents the obvious conclusion that the summation is a false one, and we all need to start back at square zero.

This brings me to the second means to destroy debate. The concept that, should there be one exception in the conclusion you provide, your entire theory will fall apart.

While I wish human beings were as simple as something as natural laws. We’re not. For ever theory there will be at least a portion of people who do not easily fit into the parameters (there’s that word again) of the test subjects.

But that doesn’t change the argument, which goes something like this:

“Since human beings have been assimilating information since their earliest development, there is no appreciable difference between reading pictures on a cave wall to taking in the amount of information we do through the Internet.”

Statements like that to me are akin to saying, “We’ve been making war since the beginning of time, so there is no difference in using a club, or a nuclear bomb.” They are both weapons of war.

Similarly I’ve heard exchanges such as, “Climate change has been with us since the Earth began, therefore what we are experiencing now is nothing new.”

These kind of “either/or” or  “X = Y” responses I find incredible. And more than a little dangerous.

It is very easy to argue minutia by expressing terms like “parameters” and “methodology. It’s easy to suggest that a theory has no relevance if there is an exception to its rule, but neither produce compelling discussions either way, in my opinion.

Instead I argue for Occam’s razor in which the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one. As opposed to focus on methodology, I’d rather focus on two elements: Apparent Intersection of Results and Purpose. Let’s look at those in reverse order:

1. Purpose

The purpose of a study is looked at by two means. What is the intended outcome, and who funds and facilitates the process. The intention of the outcome will almost certainly affect the results, and who funds and facilitates the process of the study or experiment will certainly affect the conclusions made.

For example, if a Big Pharma company expends resources for a research arm of their organization to show that government interference with prices will ultimately affect their ability to produce new and more innovative drugs- their research is in absolute jeopardy of compromise. It would be unreasonable to consider that a private organization would expend so much of their money to prove that they instead desperately need regulation and therefore less profits.

If, on the other hand, a third party, or even a governmental organization with a history of non-partisanship were to have the same study, one could make the case that there is little for that group to gain from either conclusion pro or anti governmental oversight to Big Pharma.

2. Apparent Intersection of Results

This refers to a mass of data produced by many different sources. If there are many studies from different quarters, in different places around the world, all coming to the same conclusion, we have repeatable studies with intersecting results. These provide far more value than single studies, or even multiple studies provided by the same bias source. It is through the reasonable recognition of these multiple studies that we can make general conclusions- those being, “Certain actions appear to be harmful or not.”

For example, while even to this day the definitive link to cancer and smoking cigarettes remains tantalizingly beyond our reach, we have a body of information and multiple studies from credible sources that show tendencies towards cancer in smokers.

Similarly, we have world-wide studies in the positive effects of Public Health Care and Education within a democratic society. We have many many studies and experiments show a variety of actual measurable changes in the Earth’s Climate in the past 100 years. We have very reasonable studies and experiments that would suggest that there is indeed something to the theory of evolution.

While I resist using terms like “Science Fact” with anything we hold true in our modern exploration of the world, I do suggest that “With our best experience and knowledge we believe that…” and while that does not end the debate in any way shape or form (new knowledge is always potentially forthcoming) it should at least quell the pinprick discussions that attempt to look for examples that skew the curve.

Leave us not, in good conscience resort to syllogisms when faced with the multi-faceted elements of human nature. One cannot in all honest conduct make such simple suggestions that “Since murder has occurred since the beginning of time, we’re not experiencing more violence today.” Instead, we must look to trends and tendencies.

Trends and Tendencies

There are compelling reasons why more and more scientists are focusing on trends and tendencies. As we discover the great variety in life, we begin to understand that those elements are really the strongest indicators we have in exactly what the nature of reality is in our world. You will hear scientists speak about atoms and particles having “tendencies towards”, just as you will see sociologists and psychologists describe “trends” in the behaviors of people in community. There are no hard and fast rules. There are very few immutable laws, and to even those we have questions.

So I will always look towards trends and tendencies as best indicators for what is going on in the world, as I will always shy away from those who can always find an exception to the rule. After all, there is no debate about exceptions. The real evidence is in those things that link together. For they provide a pattern of behavior and understanding which can either guide us, if we’re aware, or allow our destruction, if we are not.