The Burden of Proof: Why People Must Support Their Arguments

https://effectiviology.com/burden-of-proof/

by EndXA • 7 years ago

59 67 7 years ago

Sure, but how does this work in todays era where feelings/opinion are considered by many to be the same as fact or at least valid support for an argument?

rexpop2• 7 years ago

Is that really what's happening "in today's era"? I think this is a smear tactic--an ad-hominem, if you will--employed by some parties to discredit others.

Take, for example, the following slogan:

Facts don't care about your feelings.

To me, that reads as a straw man. The enemy is defined to be in opposition to fact, when a more generous reading might be the inclusion of feelings among the facts. After all, we are being sensitive to our environment, and the internal impact of that environment actually matters. I find it funny to think that a person would design any system that impacts humans without considering the feelings it might engender. Without consideration of feelings, we may as well design systems for lifeless rocks.

nilskidoo3• 7 years ago

But so much of what gets branded as fake news really is just a matter of undesirable opinion or inconvenient truth though. Just because we really, really like the idea of a thing, or vice versa, does not make it concrete and provable. That's voodoo, not reality.

NegatioN• 7 years ago

Whether or not feelings should be included as proof for something depends a whole lot on: are the feelings of this person relevant to the argument at hand.

1. Global warming is not untrue because someone feels a certain way about it. 2. I might have offended someone based on how they feel. Or a system might be oppressive based on how someone feels

That's as far as I'm willing to let feelings serve as proof anyhow.

tunesmith• 7 years ago

Depends on your argument, doesn't it? If it's a normative conclusion then it by definition ultimately rests on one or more personal values.

The only times feelings/opinion don't matter are if you are making a strictly is/fact based argument/conclusion.

swebs• 7 years ago

There are certain scientific topics that have become politically charged for one reason or another, where arguing on the stance backed by science is considered heresy. You can be downvoted, banned, and even doxxed or harassed depending on how polarized the online group you're posting to is. Even if the proof you provide would be sufficient for any other topic, it will be meticulously picked apart and dismissed for any reason at all that they could scrounge up. People have already decided their conclusion and think any evidence that conflicts with it must be faulty.

tlear• 7 years ago

You get called some kind of -ist and kicked out. Argument over.

Vast majority of people are utterly incapable of debate (this is not new). What is new is that it became normal not be embarrassed by that, in fact being incapable of debate is considered a plus.

I treasure few friends I have that I can debate things with, so rare.

AQuantized• 7 years ago

How did you come to this conclusion? I suppose I can think of a few societies where debate was valued, but it seems like the exception rather than the norm, historically. Acquaintance with the types of abstraction that are often useful for debate also seem to be more prevalent now.

davesque2• 7 years ago

It works by pointing out how that state of affairs is untenable. One thing that helps a person who supports their arguments with good evidence is that their ideas eventually turn out to be more consistent than those of a person who would do otherwise. Rational arguments have a tendency to stand up more on their own. On the other hand, emotional arguments, which are based on unjustified assumptions or opinions, often turn out to be inconsistent and force their defenders to ignore contradictions that are implied by the argument.

flukus• 7 years ago

Sure, but how does this work in todays era where feelings/opinion are considered by many to be the same as fact or at least valid support for an argument?

Perhaps this happens on a larger scale now but I don't think this is anything new, just look at presidential debates, the "winner" is typically the better orator, not the person who cites sources and is factually correct. Go back just a few decades more and "demonstrably true" is a concept largely confined to mathematics.

johnny22• 7 years ago

today's era? that doesn't sound right. When wasn't it the case?

nilskidoo3• 7 years ago

This is unbelievably pertinent. We've grown so accustomed in this virtual world of having avatars and proxies to hide behind, like books judged by their covers with studies showing most folks do not even read beyond headlines, that we want that face value BS to transfer to IRL, thus giving us identity politics and the like. We want to be judged (and judged positively at that) for our packaging and Halloween costumes we present to the world, instead of provable merits. What we'd like rather than who we truly are. And as a one-two punch, the general response is that not enough persons put their proverbial or literal money where their mouths are but where they want their mouths to be.

ABCLAW2• 7 years ago

In such cases, it can be valuable to shift the burden of proof back to your opponent in order to get them to at least justify their line of questioning before answering those questions.

This article skates around with this idea of 'shifting the burden of proof'. It does so to avoid actually discussing the fact that some people in discussions are not there in good faith.

There's nothing to prove in a question, so how do you shift a burden of proof in respect of a line of questioning? The article attempts to equate questioning the motives or intentions behind a line of inquiry and the burden of proof. These are not the same thing.

whereas in civil cases the plaintiff might have a more lenient burden of proof, such as the standard of “preponderance of the evidence”, which is the requirement that more than half of the evidence that is presented will support your case.

What the fuck? This isn't right.

dragonwriter3• 7 years ago

> whereas in civil cases the plaintiff might have a more lenient burden of proof, such as the standard of “preponderance of the evidence”, which is the requirement that more than half of the evidence that is presented will support your case.
What the fuck? This isn't right.

It's very close to correct; preponderance of the evidence is the dominant civil standard of proof in the US, though it is more accurately summarized as requiring that the trier of fact (jury or judge, depending on whether it is a jury trial or not) must find your claim to be more likely true than not based on the evidence. (“More than half of the evidence” sort of implies that it's just volume of evidence at issue, which is potentially misleading.)

ABCLAW2• 7 years ago

It's not close to correct. It is wrong. The article literally links to the correct test, but the author's language cobbles together of a few sub-links worth of half-digested material that the author doesn't understand to avoid plagiarizing the legal dictionary.

There is no quantitative assessment of how much evidence supports one side or the other in the test at all.

Ignoring how ironic it is to make a mistake of this type, it's particularly grating because adding more evidence to one side of a dispute doesn't necessarily add to how much we believe their position, yet most of the article's statements regarding proof are made with that assumption. He equates evidence with proof (or at least an element in approaching proof), but fails to address the connection between evidence, pre-existing belief and interpretation.

This is why people talk past each other. This is why different news orgs can 'spin' the same facts in opposite directions. Ignoring that complexity leads to mistakes.

This error is consistent and the top parent comment in this comments section notes a particularly glaring weakness in the non-bayesian approach.

solidsnack90003• 7 years ago

It isn’t right, indeed. The “standard of proof” and the “burden of proof” are different things. The burden of proof is about who must prove or what must be proven; whereas the standard of proof is about how thorough that proof needs to be before we make a determination.

A lot of the controversy about stuff like “sealioning” or when to act on claims of irregular behavior is due to failing to distinguish burden of proof and standard of proof.

threatofrain3• 7 years ago

There's burden of proof when people agree there is, not merely when an argument is issued. I operate on the idea that if you want something, it is that desire which convicts you with a burden to actualize it. If I say Pi is 3.14 (a false but useful statement), I feel it's the burden of those who want the knowledge to prove it to themselves what's real.

It's different, of course, if we're talking about special contexts like law. Then the burden of proof is formal because society has agreed upon it.

dragonwriter3• 7 years ago

I operate on the idea that if you want something, it is that desire which convicts you with a burden to actualize it.

Sure, and if you want people to believe your conclusions, that's why you have the burden of establishing the truth of those conclusions to the audience.

threatofrain3• 7 years ago

Yes so if people want things from each other they should ask what’s sufficient motivation for the other party to continue dealing with you.

The negotiation or balance of interests will produce a sort of equilibrium.

Proof is just a good in a negotiation, and it’s pretty costly, as opposed to conjecture.

WSJ wants to be heard but not for free. The market finds the intermediate price to read their analysis. The burden is on both WSJ and the audience to satisfy their interests.

solidsnack90003• 7 years ago

An argument is “a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong.”.

If you just claim something — like that Pi is 3.14 — without supporting it, it’s not an argument. You are free to assert whatever you want — there is no obligation to offer an argument. It is when you undertake to convince — in any context — that you accept a burden of proof. This is the case in logic, law, public policy...in those areas where we are looking for shared agreement and shared understanding.

We can’t ask that others believe us “just because”.

revskill3• 7 years ago

So, is burden of proof a good thing ?

It's fine for me to listen to an argument without proof. If i'm interested, i could discover myself in many cases.

Providing a proof is not free knowledge. Providing an argument is free.

I can relate me in today's conversations. Sometimes i provide an argument for the topic. Maybe i'm not interested into the details of the why, i just leave it for viewer to know the "what", not the "why", and i'm fine with it.

zaroth• 7 years ago

Providing a proof is not free knowledge. Providing an argument is free.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Formulating a cohesive statement requires effort, which can include supporting evidence if you are aware of it.

If you make claims and not only fail to support your case but don’t even know yourself if what you’re saying is true, that’s called conjecture. It can be entertaining but is unlikely to be persuasive.

If you intend to persuade your audience, the audience should demand proof and you should have to provide it.

technothrasher• 7 years ago

Or more concisely, Hitchens' Razor: that which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

revskill3• 7 years ago

OK, for example, there's an argument in tech world about one technology: Does X scale ? or Is X faster than Y ?...

Providing a details answer on these kinds of arguments require a bunch of technical details, man hours of works,...

And on my side, i'd like to pay for those details if it's worth for my choice. Even if the person who said it doesn't say about evidence, i don't require him to provide it for free for me.

threatofrain3• 7 years ago

In my view, the audience's negotiating position still isn't inherently strong enough to demand a performance to prove a claim. Shouldn't burden first and foremost be decided by willingness to pay?

In a sense WSJ is making claims with snippets of their article and headlines. Do they have a burden to prove themselves by revealing the rest of the article to me, as well as their source material? Without me even paying? But what if WSJ isn't motivated to do anything for me unless I pay them? Are they failing their burden?

austincheney9• 7 years ago

Burden of proof fallacy occurs as a form of red herring, an attempt to kill an argument by distraction through evidence requests.

People form all kinds of biased or disagreeable opinions for manners of reasons. If you think evidence is lacking in an opinion do your own research and provide a superior counter argument. Lazy people asking for sources without any contribution to a conversation or effort to find sources of their own is something I blanket downvote.

If you think an opinion is incredibly ignorant or utterly depraved you aren’t forced to engage it by feeding the troll. Attempting to kill the bad opinion through lazy evidence requests just contributes an alternate form of trolling.

Ultimately it comes down to motive. You can generally tell when someone is trying to move a conversation forward or simply adding noise.

opportune• 7 years ago

I think it really depends. It needs to be used in good faith. I have seen "burden of proof" requests made in the case of very obvious common knowledge type of information, which is a red herring. But if you see an outlandish claim that you suspect is not backed up by credible evidence, I don't see asking for proof as a red herring at all. It's necessary to keep people honest.

If you think an opinion is incredibly ignorant or utterly depraved you aren’t forced to engage it by feeding the troll. Attempting to kill the bad opinion through lazy evidence requests just contributes an alternate form of trolling.

This holds up in internet discussions, but not in all dialogues. For example, scientists and politicians could do terribly stupid/harmful/wasteful things if they aren't held accountable for demonstrably false statements.

austincheney9• 7 years ago

Then ask a well reasoned question. There is no burden of proof on questions. Compensating for weak communication by making evidence requests is less helpful than it sounds.

TomMckenny2• 7 years ago

The reason burden of proof is on the person making the argument is that it is trivial to come up with arguments that are not falsifiable. And for any non-falsifiable claim you can make a contradictory non-falsifiable claim.

So if you can accurately say of some claim "there is no evidence of that" then the claim is completely refuted. Thus asking for evidence is a polite way of pointing out when something is completely made up.

Sure, if someone makes a claim that is widely established, like climate change or natural selection, then of course some rando on the web asking for yet more evidence is probably trying to derail the conversation.

But if a claim is not widely established, like intelligent design, then a request for evidence is perfectly reasonable. There can be no a-priori convincing counter argument without referring to facts in the real world. Indeed, almost not claim is refutable a-priori without real world facts.

So given an unreasonable and unsupported claim on the internet I suppose we can 1) assume the poster is a troll and ignore them or 2) assume they and the audience are genuine and point out their statement is unsupported and therefore false. Whether one actually wants to go around correcting people being wrong in the Internet is another question. But a guy's gotta procrastinate somehow.

austincheney9• 7 years ago

This isn't law. This isn't a scientific journal or theory of medicine. It is commentary on the internet. If there is an unsubstantiated claim you have two good faith choices:

1. Ignore it.

2. If, and only if, you are actually interested in exploring the comment deeper than ask a proper question kindly probing for specificity or help with understanding.

There is some false notion that assertions must be proven. It is commentary on the internet. If you really REALLY want it proven, in the spirit of science, you will independently attempt to reproduce the experiment or research.

jancsika• 7 years ago

I'm having a hard time understanding how an evidence request could kill an argument.

Suppose someone says Beethoven revolutionized music because unlike other composers he wrote kickass songs in C minor.

Suppose I reply that writing music in C minor isn't on its own revolutionary, and many other composers from that period or earlier wrote pieces in C minor.

Suppose that someone then demands I provide them with evidence.

Suppose I give two famous pieces of evidence: Mozart's Fantasia in C minor, K. 475 and Mozart's piano concerto in C minor, K. 491. Perhaps I even put a little icing on the cake and mention that Beethoven reportedly heard a performance of that Mozart concerto and told a colleague, "We'll never be able to write anything like that!"

What possible benefit would there have been if I had refrained from writing that last paragraph? From what I can see the discussion was essentially just noise until I offered up evidence to support a claim. It cost me nearly nothing to write it, while I would have risked a descent into snobbery if I hadn't.

austincheney9• 7 years ago

Suppose I reply that

Then you have a difference of opinion. The other person is free to accept or deny your opinion.

mannykannot• 7 years ago

You cannot prove a general claim, such as 'requesting evidence never harms an argument', with a single example that provides support for it.

One class of bad-faith demands for evidence is the rhetorical ploy of trying to suggest that an argument is lacking evidence by demanding absolute proof where 'only' strong scientific evidence exists - see climate-change denial and anti-vaxxing for examples.

digitaltrees• 7 years ago

I disagree. Conclusions require propositions to draw an inference. If I say “the moon is made of cheese”. That is a conclusion that can’t be supported on its face and lacks any propositions to evaluate the reasonableness of the statement.

If I say the “moon appears to melt in a manner similar to cheese on earth, so it must be made of cheese” that proposition can be evaluated to determine to what extent it supports the conclusion.

Asking for support of a conclusion or questioning whether a proposition actually supports an inference is totally legitimate in a debate.

Attacking one proposition while ignoring others, pretending that a proposition that clearly supports a conclusion doesn’t; those are invalid.

I agree you can often tell when someone is being ridiculous and adding noise (I like that phrase in this context) or trying to prove a preconceived argument rather than being open to changing in the face of evidence.

austincheney9• 7 years ago

If I say

So what? The person to whom you are speaking can disagree with you and leave it at that. Commentary need not be proven and may be completely ridiculous, or perhaps you merely think it is ridiculous. Either way if the subject were important to you then you would independently put forth you own independent exploration into the subject matter.

jammygit• 7 years ago

I've heard of these evidence requests as being a form of intellectual denial of service attack in public debates

drewrv• 7 years ago

I have asked for a citation numerous times because I was genuinely curious to learn more about a topic. Not all discourse online is combative.

davvolun7• 7 years ago

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there ;)

davvolun7• 7 years ago

I literally could not disagree with you more.

Arguing with someone on the internet (while almost always pointless) means I'm talking with someone whose motivations I don't know. Are they being disingenuous, trolling, are they quoting something exactly but missed the context?

On the internet, you don't get the benefit of the doubt -- you need to prove to me that you're making an attempt at having a real conversation, and if you can't provide a source that you presumably have already seen -- but I haven't -- that is nearly the lowest barrier of proof I can set.

austincheney9• 7 years ago

On the internet, you don't get the benefit of the doubt -- you need to prove to me

Why? Why not disprove it yourself? In science theories can never be proven, but they can certainly be disproved. Mandating people never form an original opinion without first proving it to you sounds incredibly ignorant and hopelessly entitled.

CptFribble• 7 years ago

This sort of thing plays well on HN, where we're all engineers and programmers, but it assumes the reader is rational.

People do not make decisions rationally. We think and act emotionally, up to and including ideas and assumptions about each other, what constitutes acceptable behavior, and basic facts about the universe.

Ordinary people don't know or care about the rules of "reasoned discourse."

You're not wrong, though.

davesque2• 7 years ago

I'm pretty surprised by some of the reactions I'm seeing to this. To me, this article reads just like a logic or debate text book and there's nothing really controversial here.

TomMckenny2• 7 years ago

It is exactly that, no more controversial than a logic text book. But post-truth views seem to be getting slowly internalized where opinion is considered another kind of fact.

There were similar debates pre-enlightenment where mystic revelations were given equal or more weight than the "always deceptive" real world.

MrTonyD• 7 years ago

Knowledge can be gain through proven datapoints and unproven datapoints. Insisting on proof reflects a particular type of ignorance -- the ignorance of someone who hasn't deeply reflected on the history of the advancement of knowledge.

Bendingo• 7 years ago

Knowledge can be gain through [...] unproven datapoints

I'm sorry, I don't see how that's possible. Could you explain please?

The Burden of Proof: Why People Must Support Their Arguments

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