Interesting piece by @deeveebee in the Grauniad.
And the selective case Peter Whoriskey in the Washington Post.
Month: April 2016
The Logic of Real Arguments
The Logic of Real Arguments is the title of a Cambridge University reference work by Alec Fisher, first published in 1988. I’m reading the 2004 second edition in response to a request from Lee Beaumont to help with some Wikiversity course material on clear thinking. The best basis of good real-life decisions is of course my main topic so I was intrigued to read a title I’d not come across before.
I’m starting with little hope of finding any magic bullet, but the book itself starts well. Formal logics are relegated to an appendix, so the author can launch in with what really needs to be known – it starts epistemological. In summary:
- Don’t worry about definitions of terms until later – (“hold your definition” as Dan Dennett would say) – they will ultimately be worked out in the process. Just follow your intuition and common sense understanding of reason.
- Grasp the outlines of what is being argued, like definitions, we can refine and add qualifications later. There are methods and frameworks but real argumentation is not mechanical or algorithmic, it’s always more complicated.
- Not only are the actual assertions, premises, reasoning and conclusions often entirely implicit in real natural language arguments, but interpreting any of these also depends on understanding the apparent but implicit and subjective intentions of whoever is making the case. Implication and intent are always ambiguous, so always default to charity with respect to the quality of the argument. Assume the best, aim to agree where possible. Analyse and test on that basis.
- [Aside – one of Fisher’s references is Stephen Toulmin’s (1958) The Uses of Argument. Toulmin’s (1990) Cosmopolis and (2001) Return to Reason have been influential on my own journey.]
So far so good.
In fact it seems inexorably to be leading to my own conclusion, that no amount of careful – even formal – logical argumentation will be 100% right outside of an artificially bounded control volume under laboratory conditions. ie never in real life arguments. No real argument can be completely consistent.
Gödel already tells us this.
The bad news is most of the rest of the book is analytical. I guess that figures, if your objective is to teach students what’s wrong. So-called critical thinking aimed at dissecting the arguments of others. Lots of classic examples – Galileo’s included – to analyse and hone those cutting skills, but so far no obvious alternatives for what makes a “good” real-life decision-making rationale?
One example of Fisher’s classic examples is A J Ayer’s logical refutation of Descartes mind-matter duality. Obviously he was right to refute it since Cartesian duality is obviously wrong, and it’s a good example to understand how Ayer demonstrated that. Proving people wrong, finding fault with the arguments of others is easy. Unfortunately Fisher’s own conclusion is worrying.
“[Ayer’s] absolute division between science and philosophy is a mistake.”
Well no. Ayer makes no such error, what he actually says is:
“[The manner] of conceiving the distinction between mind and matter is at fault. In short our problem is not scientific but philosophical”
Clearly what Ayer intends “in short” is nothing “absolute”, more:
… not [wholly] scientific but [also at least in some part] philosophical.
Whatever happened to charity, Mr Fisher?
Anyway, after more examples, including Popperian and Kuhnian bases for good scientific arguments, Fisher concludes with what has been his main focus from the start – the philosophy of his Assertability Question, which asks:
What …. would justify me in asserting C? or
What would I have to know or believe to be justified in accepting C?
It’s about epistemology. It’s about – what. It’s not about – is. It’s not about – is C true or false?
It does not ask anything about proving truth or falsity.
Which probably explains why the formal logical tools and methods are relegated to an appendix. They are merely tools in the hands of the wise. Tools (knives & files, like Aristotle’s analytic knife and Okham’s razor) contain constraints, but no intrinsic wisdom. We murder to dissect.
Which is pretty much the conclusion of this three-way discussion on The Limits to Logic from 2014 (5th talk lower down). Logic is a useful tool for testing consistency, but is never sufficient for a complete rationale – Gödel again – and even when demonstrating inconsistency, it can’t actually help you decide if the assertions, the conclusion or the underlying model & premises are necessarily wrong.
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Post Notes:
It’s complicated:
And this (apparently serious?) summary of how to interact with philosophers, seems to cover some of the same key ground – especially the broad agreement BEFORE detailed analytical dissection. And charity – make the effort to understand the philosopher’s actual motives and avoid presumptious (accidental) ad-hominem criticism.
Muslims and “Western” Values
(This is just a collecting post so far for material coming out of the ICM Poll reported on by Trevor Phillips. He will be broadcasting tomorrow, Wednesday, but so much has already been said, so many selective click-bait headlines, I wanted to capture a few inputs for some more considered writing afterwards. This is me thinking out loud for now.)
Black & White Morality? – Just yesterday, before picking-up the ICM Muslims Poll story, I picked-up on the article by Julian Baggini on how people like their morality to be simple, even though reality, in action, is inevitably more complex. (I started to add post-notes to that, now being brought forward here, and below.)
It’s Complicated? – Of course the just complicated enough reality has been a “memetic” theme of mine as long as I can remember, but I posted specifically on that quite recently.
The Pitfalls of Islamaphobia? – Douglas Murray commenting on Trevor Phillips piece in the Sunday Times ahead of his own documentary on the ICM Poll findings. The PC problems with seeing a reaction to multiculturalism as hate-driven, phobic, Islamophobic. Islam really does have some problems worth us all addressing.
Post-Multiculturalism? – @KenanMalik’s considered tweeting on what the poll really seems to say (copy pasted below for now.) And Malik has now posted his own piece.
Safe Spaces in Academia? – Also yesterday, Jonathan Haidt and Stephen Fry both on what’s wrong in the “safe spaces” saga. [More on Stephen Fry and Rationalism here.] Part of the simplistication problem, the tendency to want to keep controversial complicating factors out one’s own debate. No one has a right “to be platformed” by anyone else, but no-one should be banned or no-platformed simply for having a view controversial – even offensive – to your own debate. Managing a debate agenda is a crucial right and need, too many different variables in one time and place is everything and nothing, chaotic and ultimately regressive. All very sad because it is of course, nothing whatsoever to do with what the idea of safe space was originally meant to be in academia. The very opposite in fact: A space insulated from the real world, so that you now can experiment in that learning environment with the riskiest ideas (and substances) without hurting anyone else now or yourself later in the real world. The more controversial the better the learning opportunity.
Mediaeval Practices? – as progress – eg Halal meat in Asda – and a lot more on LGBTI issues. Surely most UK / EU supply chain meat has been dual (halal certifiable) for some decades? Is US intensive beef production any more humane than traditional halal? How much in practice is halal symbolically ceremonial, rather than actual butchery practice? And more.
Normal? – a PC elephant in the room is making any distinction between respect for universality of rights, and what is considered normal in public behaviour. I’m a straight, atheist, white, guy – but none of those is normally front and centre in my daily life. Unlike concern for our human ecosystem in thought and action, which is. Normal. Normally front and centre. A difficult word for PC reasons. Normal in the many statistical senses of average expectations, and normal in the sense of some normalising tendency towards that norm. Even the existence of any norms. A level playing field doesn’t imply a uniformly flat distribution of reality. Tough one for some regressive lefties, that one, even some of the less regressive. (Here a classic example – Germaine Greer no less, gets into confusion between stereotypically “normal” gender and reality of transgender individuals.)
Western Values? – have been the PC elephant all along. Simply contrasting “British” or Western” or “UN Universal Human” rights and values against aspects of Islamic (and other) religious tradition and practice is seen as bigotted and racist by many. Even today we see news of Saudi, and all members of the Muslim Cooperation Organisation, rejecting any overt reference to LGBTI rights in a UN context. Hat-tip to @AMDWaters for retweeting many links on these issues. Complicated by the fact that the UN declaration on freedom of thought and expression which includes freedoms of religious expression is often annoyingly abbreviated to “Freedom of Religious Expression.” With good reason, I am allowed to criticise your religion and reject its practices where I deem they fail to meet universal human rights. It’s the goodness and the reason that matter. Values. Universal human values cannot be couched in detailed statutes and case law covering every example. Making everything explicit legal is not helpful.
All Truth is Good? – but not all truth is good to say. African proverb. Hat-tip to @DavidGurteen. What you believe deep down, cannot always be what is overtly expressed in every situation. That’s not hypocritical, it’s normal to layer reality. See “normal” above. And see Maajid Nawaz on Muslim attitude to gays. Have been struck before by gay inconsistencies in Islam. T E Lawrence made references in 1916 to men using each other to comfort and slake their lusts. My own experience of hairy-arsed construction workers in Balochistan in the 1980’s included a surprising number of gay couples, surprisingly camp too. Today I know (ex-)Muslim gays. Taqiya? It’s only a big deal if someone chooses to make it so, and then you challenge their motives. And East meets West again today in Baloch.
Lightening the Mood? What “some Muslims really think of what British Muslims think”. Baroness Warsi in a longer twitter conversation as Muslims take the piss out of how diverse a group is represented. Apologism some call it when humour is on the other foot. And how about this for a mockery. And here is Theos contribution – understanding how not to react is every bit as important. And follow-up from that meta-Muslim thread, after broadcast of the documentary.
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[Holding notes from yesterday:
Later yesterday, same story from Stephen Fry
“The regressive left, coming after language and free speech”.
“Deep infantilism in modern society …. people needed to grow up”.
“In terms of how they think, they can’t bear complexity, the idea that things aren’t easy to understand.”
“They want to be told, or they want to be able to decide and say, this is good, and this is bad, and anything that conflicts with that is not to be borne.”
(More on Stephen Fry and Rationalism here.)
And also : Jonathan Haidt on “safe spaces” in academe – the same topic that prompted Fry above. The original point of safe spaces was so students could experiment with the whackiest ideas – and substances – available, free from censure and later repercussions, and safely away from the rest of us currently leading normal lives.]
[And Post Post Note : probably not the right place to put this, but I wanted to capture it. There was a poll of UK Muslim opinion released today, with obvious click-bait headlines in various media, and the usual sarky piss-taking comments on Twitter. Be thankful for Kenan Malik digging in to the actual findings:
My original comment on the Grauniad story this morning:
“Good analysis, provided people actually read the detail behind the PC headline?”
Malik’s later analysis, latest first:
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 2 minutes agoMuch of this is similar to previous polls, suggesting issues that need confronting, but not necessarily as the headlines present them.
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 3 minutes agoAnd there is a greater sense of not feeling British within the general population than among Muslims (17% vs 11%) 4/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 4 minutes agoFor instance,Muslims feel more strongly that they ‘belong to Britain’ than does the general population (86% vs 83%) 3/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 4 minutes ago…but also a considerable sense of attachment to Britain and to social responsibility. 2/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 5 minutes agoWhat the poll seems to show is a deep well of social conservatism, a more polarised community that most imagine… 1/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 5 minutes ago…you look at the figure for the general population – which is 27% – more than double that for Muslims. 2/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 5 minutes agoPoll shows 13% of British Muslims can understand why Muslim might be attracted to radical groups. Which might seem a high figure, until… 1/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 7 minutes agoBut the poll also shows only 30 per cent of general population would. In fact it’s a lower fig for gen pop than for Muslims (30% vs 34%) 2/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 7 minutes agoThe Times today reports that ‘only 1 in 3 of British Muslims would tip off the police if someone close was involved in terrorism’. 1/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 minutes agoThe poll is, as one might imagine, complex in what it reveals, and far more so than the headlines might suggest. For instance…
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 minutes agoFinal few tweets about the ICM/C4 Muslim poll before I get down to some proper work. The full details are here: http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Mulims-full-suite-data-plus-topline.pdf …
Adil Ray
@adilray 6 hours agoIn 2011. We had 2.7 Muslims. 700,000 lived in local authorities where they made up more than 20%. See census.
Kenan Malik @kenanmalik
Would be interesting to check what percentage of British Muslims live in areas of more than 20% concentration. https://twitter.com/ShirazMaher/status/719458615896186880 …
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 6 hours agoKenan Malik Retweeted Shiraz Maher
Would be interesting to check what percentage of British Muslims live in areas of more than 20% concentration.
Shiraz Maher @ShirazMaher
Important points from
@adilray this morning pointing out that@Channel4 poll only quizzed Muslims living in areas of 20% density or more. 1/Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoNot that they thought it should be ‘encouraged by society’. 2/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoCorrection to previous ‘Muslim poll’ tweets. Should have said Pew poll found 39% of US Muslims think ‘homosexuality should be accepted’ 1/2
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoIt would be unfortunate if the debate around this poll, as already seems to be happening, ignored the wider context. 15/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoOr of different social policies in different Western countries. The likelihood is that it is a combination of all three. 14/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoThe differences could be the result of different countries of origins, of the different developments of migrant communities… 13/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoThe differences between attitudes of British, French and US Muslims can plausibly be attributed to a number of factors. 12/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoAccording to Pew poll 39% of US Muslims think ‘homosexuality should be encouraged by society’ 7/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoAccording to Ifop poll, 81% French Muslims think women should have equal rights, 38% support right to abortion, etc. 6/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoHere, for instance, is an Ifop poll of French Muslims: http://www.ifop.com/media/pressdocument/343-1-document_file.pdf … And a Pew poll on US Muslims: http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf … 5/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoThe social attitudes of British Muslims tend to be far more conservative than those of Muslims in many other Western countries. 4/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoIn 2013, for instance, there was a YouGov/University of Lancaster poll for
@lindawoodhead: http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/mm7go89rhi/YouGov-University%20of%20Lancaster-Survey-Results-Faith-Matters-130130.pdf … 3/Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoThis is not the first poll to have shown the deep social conservatism of British Muslims. 2/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoOn the ICM/C4/Trevor Phillips Muslim poll ” I will write something properly on this soon. In the meantime a few quick thoughts. 1/
I don’t have any proper data on this, but from personal experience British Muslims were more liberal on these issues 25 years ago. 10/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoBritish Muslims, on the other hand, seem to have become more conservative on such social issues. 9/
Kenan Malik
@kenanmalik 8 hours agoOver past 25 years, people of most faiths in Britain have become more liberal on issues such as homosexuality and women’s rights. 8/
…. probably should have tagged and storyfied that!
And here Douglas Murray in The Spectator unpicks what Trevor Phillips has learned about Islamaphobia from the survey.]
Decisive Simplicity vs Thoughtful Subtlety?
Yes, but?
Fascinating piece from Julian Baggini in the Grauniad today.
Not yet had chance to read the underlying academic reference material linked, but so many points consistent with experience.
Simple beats complicated, and that’s fine, …
… but not where popularity determines the measure of trust in knowledge, decisions in outcomes.
Being decisive, holding strong and clear views is fine, …
… but the holding of them should not be dogmatic.
“Strong views, lightly held” is the mantra I’ve picked up from Johnnie Moore and friends.
More later.
The underlying theory of moral psychology seems to be basic “trolleyology“. Decisions look simple – they look like arithmetic and logic – until you have to actually think about acting on one yourself. Agency changes everything.
Jonathan McLatchie and the Case for Intelligent Design.
Attended an interesting event at Teeside Sceptics in the Pub last night, to hear Jonathan McLatchie talking on “The Case For Intelligent Design”.
His case – that the best description for evolution involves “intelligent cause” as well as random events – is entirely scientific, though obviously the quality and validity of the science is impossible to judge in a single – at times highly technical – presentation.
[Post Note : Audio recording here on YouTube.]
Though not part of his case, it is worth noting that McLatchie is a christian theist, and indeed runs an “apologetics-academy” ministry proselytising Christianity over atheism, islam and judaism, aiming to arm Christianity with scientific tools. In that environment he’s no stranger to controversial debate and vitriolic reaction and accusations of bigotry. He freely admits that his intelligent cause mechanism is indeed the Christian God, though in the context of the evening’s topic it was not appropriate to attempt all the theological arguments about how such an agent god would actually intervene in the workings of nature, nor in any creationist cosmological first cause. He’s clearly armed and ready for such debates however. If you were a cynic you might easily see his scientific case as personally motivated by these aims and the density of technical detail as some kind of smokescreen.
Giving his science the objective benefit of doubt requires some tough science as well as subtle philosophical understanding of what can actually be known about what exists. The fact that the average scientist is happy to throw rocks at philosophers is unlikely to prove helpful.
The basic argument – that “some” intelligent cause must exist – is that evolutionary events must meet some criteria of “complex specificity” of outcome within constraints of probability and time available in the design space. If it can’t meet these, there must be something directing the probability better than random chance. (So far the argument says nothing about how, simply that it must be.)
For what it’s worth I actually believe that. That is I believe the logic and I believe there is already evidence of evolution directed by intelligence. This does of course beg questions of what we mean by intelligence, as well as the evidence for it.
There are many classic Climbing Mount Improbable examples postulated and studied, starting with William Paley’s watchmaker and the complexity of the human eye, and including (so-called) sub-optimal designs in the arrangement of retinal blood supply and the routing of the laryngeal nerve around the aorta.
McLatchie’s evidence uses the case of bacterium flagella, also an established case-study with established controversy but where McLatchie believes his arguments have already rebutted criticisms made to date. We were certainly in no position to further that highly technical scientific debate in any detail on the night.
There were questions around the logic:
- Questions of our “anthropic” perception of improbability, all the way from cosmogeny to complex design. All I will say for now, is that the two extreme anthropic arguments are too easily dismissed and there are more subtle and more significant anthropic effects to be recognised. Science however continues to be (literally) ignorant of epistemology.
- Questions around the availability of alternative amino-acid & protein manipulation mechanisms that might reduce the improbability. Not much more I can add on this topic.
- Questions of how the size of the design space is always narrower than the theoretical number of permutations, due to permutations already consumed in, and in new constraints created in, the objects and patterns already arisen by prior evolution. Several of the audience raised different versions of this question, but they were never really acknowledged as significant.
- Questions of how “intelligent cause” may in fact be in those prior-evolved natural patterns, rather than in any supernatural external agent. This wasn’t addressed directly, but the question of the intervention between intelligent consciousness and physics was, and was dismissed with the “but science can’t explain that anyway”. McLatchie admitted to being a Cartesian dualist – seeing his god in the stuff of super-physical consciousness. Here I differ. For me consciousness and free-will are already explained by natural science. They are simply denied by greedy reductionist materialist physicists, who indeed not only fail to explain, but regularly dismiss such things as a non-existent or epiphenomenal illusions because (obviously) they can’t explain them. No prizes for guessing who’ll be proven wrong here.
Anyway, interesting stuff. The science needs working though by those that can, but it won’t change the facts. It will evolve a better definition of intelligent design, without the need for any supernatural god.
[Post Note: a subsequent event which demonstrates that deniers are dumber than intelligent designers .]
[Post Note: And, controversial fiction, but it makes you think.]