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How to Have a Good Argument

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Some people think I like arguing. That's really not precise enough for me to agree. I like good arguments, and I like people who like good arguments. I'm lucky to have a number of people around me who are very good arguers, and I've had many, many nights of pleasant argument. But there are a lot of poor arguers out there. And there are a lot of poor argument habits that all of us occasionally slip into. This post is intended as both a reminder to myself to try and minimize these habits, and a reference to help me explain to others why I think particular arguments are bad. I will tend to use gun control arguments in my examples, as that is a topic that tends to make a lot of people emotional and leads to a high amount of bad arguing.

Don't interrupt - I have no interest in verbal arguments where people continually cut the other off. Work at forcing yourself to allow people to complete their thoughts. If they are making multiple points without providing an opening to respond, make sure that you communicate that you are interrupting because you want to acknowledge and respond to all of your points and you'll get back to the others as soon as you have covered the first one or two.

Make an effort to listen, understand, and respond to what the other person is saying - A good argument is not people trading their favorite talking points. A good argument includes making a sincere effort to accurately understand the other person's position, and responding to these before moving on.  Don't change the topic before addressing the other's points and making it easy for him to respond in turn (e.g. don't rattle off 5 different points before giving them time to respond).  Don't project the views of others who share part of their position onto them without checking to make sure they agree.  Ask them questions to clarify and and confirm their position, before responding. If, for example, someone says "Evolution is only a theory," then they are plainly not arguing about the Theory of Evolution that scientists are talking about, rather they are either not listening to, or willfully distorting, the meaning of the word "theory" in this scientific context.

Don't argue against straw men - Arguing against a caricature of the opposing views instead of the actual views is one of the most tiring of bad argument techniques. And you're using a form of this if, for example, you label of group that shows your particular brand of religious and social beliefs the "Moral Majority" or a group that shares your position against certain gun controls as "2nd Amendment Supporters."  As compelling as it may seem that you have the ONE TRUE understanding of the Bible or the U.S. Constitution, implying with such names that anyone who doesn't happen to share your view is not moral, or not a supporter of 2nd Amendment, etc. etc. just informs people that you are really interested in preaching articles of faith, not exploring the basis for your views with honest argument.

Seek information from sources that know the topic best, don't cherry pick from sources that support your view - Let's say there was a public controversy over whether exposure to polka music leads to dementia, and you leaned toward the position that it does. You can go about collecting information for yourself and your arguments in two basic different ways.  In way one, you can search for sources that that most stridently and self-assuredly warned about the dementia dangers of polka, go out to polkakills.org, and find a list of experts, some of whom have some kind of degrees, and repeat the most convincing sounding arguments you can find for this position.  Another way to seek data is start by asking what potential sources have the most expertise in dementia, which organizations have people who have studied it the most and most rigorously, and seek out these sort of sources to find where they tend to come down on this issue.  Now if you spend a lot of time on polkakills.org you will almost certainly find some way to argue against any countervailing evidence, and various theories to account for why the seemingly more informed sources would not find these arguments compelling.  Perhaps every scientist in the world but Dr. I.M. Crackpot is in the pocket of Big Polka, and willing to see any number of dementia victims suffering in order to keep getting their funding.  Or maybe scientists and doctors are your neighbors and mostly good people with mostly good intentions and the evidence, when assessed by people with the most background in the subject, just doesn't support your position?

Don't use ad hominem arguments unless they are funny - Ad hominem arguments can be great fun, and I use them regularly with my favorite arguing friends (where being referred to as a "bastard" is a satisfying admission that you have either made a good point or scored a quality insult. But outside of their humor value, ad hominem arguments are usually poor arguments. I'm not using "ad hominem" here in the more vulgar sense of simply insulting someone, but rather in the more classic sense -- "to the man," i.e. an argument designed to appeal to a particular person's emotions, rather than logic.  E.g. if you construct a hypothetical situation in an argument about morality set on an imaginary planet with creatures very different from humans, and the hypothetical results in a situation in which your opponent's views lead to supporting slavery or mothers eating their young, then you are probably using an ad hominem argument. I.e. you know that both you are your opponent are predisposed to have a negative emotional reaction against the very ideas -- based on humans and human society, and rather than choose emotionally neutral terms that would let your logic stand on its own, you have tipped the emotional scales to bias reactions.

Don't introduce meaningless comparisons - Let's say someone says that a person in a political party you support did something wrong. If you wish to argue with this, a good argument is NOT "Well blah blah person in the party YOU like did something wrong too!"

Acknowledge when the other has made a good point, and when you haven't thought a particular angle through - To people who are used to bad arguments (i.e. most of us most of the time), it's remarkable how much a single instance of this can improve the quality of an argument. Once you demonstrate that you're willing to accept that someone may have made a challenging point to your position, or that you could use some time to consider some new information or angle rather than shooting off some knee jerk opposition to their every point, people tend to settle down and respond in kind, and you often have a much more rewarding argument.

Be happy to change your mind - I really hate that many people seem to think that "flip flopper" is a terrible thing for a politician to be, or that changing your mind on topic is some kind of sign of weakness. I think just the opposite. I think a politician that doesn't change their position on issues over the years is demonstrating poor critical thinking skills (although he may be worthy of criticism if the change is a convenient one simply to please a new audience). I love arguments that change my mind on something. I love points that expose flaws in my thinking. Of course, the way most of us are built emotionally, it's much easier to accept such corrections when, say, we find them in book, than when we are in the middle of an argument. I think it's a good exercise to actually track lists of things you found you were wrong about, and to focus on valuing opportunities to change your mind, even if they come in the middle of an otherwise specious argument or from a source you think is profoundly wrong on many other things.

Consider what could falsify your view - One of my red flags for irrational views is when someone keeps holding a particular view while their reasons are repeatedly shifting.  E.g. a co-worker told me many years ago that the ONLY thing he had against gays in the military is that they were dishonest -- because they signed a contract stating that they were not gay.  A few years later, that clause was removed. Do you think my co-worker then said, "Oh, well my only reason to be against it is now gone, so now I guess my emotional reaction against it is no longer valid"?  I think you can guess the answer, and probably imagine some of the new ONLY reasons he had to maintain his position.  Or consider the old world creationists who once argued that there were no fossils of "transitional forms" between two species.  When presented with a perfect example of such a fossil, these creationists did not admit they were wrong -- in fact one of them famously pronounced that "Now there are TWO gaps in the fossil record."  Consider what kind of evidence could and should change your mind.  Even better if you can think of evidence that might be eventually accessible.  When Einstein published his theories of relativity he listed multiple experiments that could eventually be done and the results that would disprove the theories. Even if you think evidence against your position is very unlikely, consider what it would take.  Would you change your position against the death penalty if you were shown convincing evidence that it deterred thousands of murders a year?  Would you believe global climate change was not a danger if the majority of climatologists changed to this position?  Would you believe the moon landing was faked if the mainstream news outlets all showed the stage and twenty astronauts confessed to the fraud? What possible evidence could convince you otherwise? If you can't think of any, then perhaps your position is faith based and meaningful argument not possible.

Don't say "Science doesn't know everything." - We kind of covered this in the strawman item, but the fact thats that the consensus of experts has been wrong in the past and that scientists admit that there are many questions they cannot answer well do NOT mean that your crackpot theory against the prevailing evidence is more likely to be true.

Don't confuse the "Appeal to Authority" logical error with the Consensus of Experts - Arguing that God does not exist because Steven Hawking does not believe in him is an example of "Appeal to Authority" logical error. Saying that volcanoes are caused by plate tectonics because the vast majority of volcanologists believe it to be so is NOT an example of this logical error. Neither is arguing that climate change is real and caused largely by humans adding CO2 to the environment based on the consensus of climatologists. Certainly various consensus positions among experts are eventually found to be false. But it is not a logical error to site consensus positions of the experts who have studied the issue most as evidence in support of that position.

Call out your friends using bad argument habits - And welcome them doing the same to you.  We all slip into many of these habits at times. Giving an example of reminding people about good habits will often lead to them pointing out similar errors by you and help make you a better arguer. Honest communication is key to good arguments, so why not politely point out when bad argument habits are making it less rewarding?  Don't use it as a point against them or their argument, just point out that you don't enjoy arguments as much when people indulge these bad habits too often.  If it doesn't seem like they can avoid them, consider whether you really want to continue.  I've made some people angry at me at times by requesting fewer interruptions and simply leaving the argument if this doesn't happen (there's a non-subtle correlation between some of these habits and alcohol intake at times). But why should anyone continue an argument where both sides are not enjoying it?  If you're not in a court of law or helping the president decide whether to invade a foreign country, sometimes it's best just to walk away and perhaps resume another time.

Don't argue with assholes - It seems self evident, but our intuitive and emotional reactions are often not consistent with it. Have a goal to any argument. If the goal is mostly fun, and you're not having any, and change of course is in order.

Review common logical fallacies - If you are not already familiar with them, or even if you haven't thought about them for some time, read through a list of common logical errors.  E.g. there's a good list at http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logical-fallacies

A Note to the Non-Fan

Probably sometime Saturday we'll see the peak in the Facebook posts and blog comments from people who want to make it clear they either dislike or don't care about the Seahawks game. Taking the time to create a post announcing that you do not care about something strikes me as curious, but even more odd to me are that many of these posts will insult the people who do care, implying, if not overtly stating, that they stupid for doing so.

Lord knows I have sometimes insulted people for they ways they choose to enjoy themselves -- the music the like, the art they appreciate, their recreational vehicles, the games they play, their hobbies. I do it a lot less now that I'm older, though. I think one of the reasons is that I just generally value joy more. If people find it in disco, super truck shows, or Thomas Kinkade paintings, so be it. Another reason is that with just about any reasonably popular form of entertainment, no matter how much my tastes differ, I know some fine, interesting, and intelligent people who enjoy that. This can make me feel small for implying all those people were dumb.

Sports fans are certainly easy targets for this sort of thing, and whenever a community's interest starts to peak in some sports team, a number of people feel obliged to point out what a dumb thing these people are doing by investing their time, money and emotions into that. People often imply they're above that sort of thing. They do this even though they have to know that much greater artists than them, better scientists and philosophers, better writers and rockers, have been emotionally invested in various sports. Of course the fact that many great artists and thinkers have been sports fans doesn't make those sports worthy, but it does through doubt on some fairly common implications that you have to be shallow or stupid to care about them.

More to the point, there are no experts in what ways of entertaining ourselves are worthy and which are not. There are no empirical standards. We do not care about sports because they are important, sports are important because we care about them. Sports are generally meaningless outside of the emotion we personally invest in them. It's a bit odd the sort of attachments we make to a group of highly paid athletes just because their home stadium happens to be located in a geographical area that is closer to our own living space than other teams. It's odd, but it's not meaningless -- far from it.

There aren't many things that can set grown men to jumping -- literally jumping -- for joy. There are not a lot of things that can get grandmothers singing along with seven year-olds to AC/DC, waving their signs and pom poms in beat to the music. There aren't many things that can seem to unite a community like the Seattle area -- where you get a "Go Hawks!" from the admin assistant at my doctors office, from the guy working at the pharmacy, from the downtown taxi driver, from any number of strangers on the street. it provides one of those rare moments when it seems like the residents of a large city actually have something in common -- that we're more than just random demographic results of happenstance. Maybe you think that's illusory or silly -- but I sure don't.

And I'm also reminded of how valuable sports can be when I think about the last few years with my wife, as she struggled with cancer. If you've gone through something like that with someone who cared, you know how amazingly valuable it can be to have some pleasant distractions -- to have Dave Neihaus's voice beside you in a hospital or hospice bed, or to feel the joy of a home team rally on one of those rare days when you feel good enough to actually make it down to the ballpark. It's a tender moment for me when I think of LeRoux in yet another hospital bed with her scorebook sitting on her stomach, struggling against the drugs to stay alert to the game, dozing off for a few seconds and snapping awake as Dave lowers his voice and calls the pitch, "LOOOOWWWWW, ball two."

So maybe sports are not for you and maybe you're above such things. Maybe you're justifiably bitter that a community would tax restaurant customers a couple extra cents to fund a ballpark, and that people on modest incomes pay bloated prices for tickets and souveniers that benefit multimillionaires. Maybe you think it's critical that you communicate to your friends and neighbors that their passion and their joy are tragically misplaced and indicate some egregious mental failure on their part. As I said before, Lord knows I can't claim I haven't acted on such feelings. But I also think that I would have done better to pause before voicing or posting my negative comments, taking a moment to shift my thoughts from the things I didn't like or did not respect, and ask myself a couple more questions first.  Questions like "Will this come off as an unfunny insult of people I really don't want to insult?" And "Is that really the sort of person I want to be?"