[HN Gopher] Science relies on constructive criticism. How to kee...
___________________________________________________________________
Science relies on constructive criticism. How to keep it useful and
respectful
Author : nabla9
Score : 78 points
Date : 2021-03-25 08:21 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencemag.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencemag.org)
| mdpopescu wrote:
| Why, exactly, is one supposed to be respectful of - to put it
| mildly - people who are "not even wrong"? What is the purpose of
| that respect or, conversely, what is gained if we dismiss out of
| hand criticism because it is not respectful?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Redefining words to get's one way is now a staple of
| contemporary discourse. The problem with any policy of
| dismissing commentary that is disrespectful is that the
| definition of disrespectful will simply be changed until all
| contrary arguments have been banned for being disrespectful.
| How many times over the past year have common words suddenly
| had new definitions added to them for political expediency?
| Seems like quite a bit and we're told "no, that's always been
| part of the definition" even while print evidence and cached
| Internet Archive records show otherwise.
| avs733 wrote:
| >what is gained if we dismiss out of hand criticism because it
| is not respectful?
|
| As someone who has experienced some of this, the criticism
| isn't being dismissed because its disrespectful. It is being
| dismissed because the disrespect is the point, and the only
| point in many cases. It is not criticism, the criticism is a
| bad faith label to immunize the disrespect from consequences.
| Frost1x wrote:
| You shouldn't dismiss a criticism just because it's delivered
| rudely. At the same time, why deliver a criticism rudely? What
| does that gain over delivering it politely?
|
| Usually, if you're delivering a criticism, the intent is to
| inform the other party of some type of flaw that exists that
| you've observed or experienced. If you hope they fix that flaw,
| you're bound to get better results delivering the criticism
| politely than rudely ("you get more bees with honey than
| vinegar").
|
| Sometimes you do have to deliver the information in a more
| abrasive fashion because you've painfully exhausted all polite
| approaches and the criticism has to be conveyed (usually
| because time sensitivity), but it should not be the first
| approach, it should be a last resort. Personally I argue that
| should only be done if there is a imminent danger of some sort
| (e.g. no, you're wrong the house will explode if we don't turn
| the gas off and put the fire out), otherwise you should simply
| agree to disagree before that point and try again another time
| or hope the other party may think about your argument more.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Because we're human beings, and it doesn't matter how right you
| are if nobody can stand having you around. I'd wager that a
| group of "average" researchers that can be respectful and get
| along is going to get more done than a genius that nobody will
| work with because they're an ass.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| abhayhegde wrote:
| > _What is gained if we dismiss out of hand criticism because
| it is not respectful?_
|
| If I were to understand this correctly (ignore if I
| misinterpret), you are saying out of hand criticism is fine
| since we would gain something, be it necessary correction or
| the undeniable truth. But if you were to criticize and suggest
| an alternative path to the truth, why say it harshly? Why bring
| in unnecessary shame to the person behind all the hard work?
| There is no reason be to so arrogant.
| mdpopescu wrote:
| Sorry, my bad. "Out of hand" was supposed to go with
| "dismiss". "We dismiss without analyzing it because it's un-
| respectful."
|
| As for the second part, I will reuse an answer I've given
| before: I am tired of the lying, and I do consider politeness
| to be lying. "Yes, your children are smart and beautiful" and
| "that dress doesn't make you fat" (your fat does) can only be
| repeated so many times.
|
| A lot of people disagree with me :)
| watwut wrote:
| If your honesty is all about insulting people and never
| something positive, then it says more about you then about
| honesty itself.
|
| Also, you don't have to comment on other people children at
| all. What is even the point of judging whether someone kids
| look beautifully or not? I doubt people comment on your
| beauty either.
| kergonath wrote:
| Being harsh and abrasive is not the same thing as being
| honest. Just respect the people even when you are
| demonstrating that their ideas are stupid. Everyone say
| stupid things at some point, there is no need to be an
| arsehole.
| mdpopescu wrote:
| I understand this, and even agree with it up to a point.
| However, sometimes the gap between worldviews is too
| large.
|
| Here's a few hypotheticals:
|
| - you're a Christian trying to politely explain to a
| Satanist that you dislike sacrificing children to Moloch
|
| - you're a transgender trying to politely explain to a
| rabid transphobe that maybe you have a right to live your
| life as you see fit
|
| - you're a doctor explaining to someone that vaccines are
| not a conspiracy to kill the population
|
| - you're someone genuinely scared of the possibility of
| raised water levels in a few decades talking to the owner
| of a 3 mpg monster truck
|
| Now, how long do you think you can last being polite?
| More to the point, WHY?
| aaron695 wrote:
| > - you're someone genuinely scared of the possibility of
| raised water levels in a few decades talking to the owner
| of a 3 mpg monster truck
|
| Someone 'genuinely scared' of raised water levels in a
| few decades is as nutty as someone who's 'genuinely
| scared' of QAnon or vaccines.
|
| A 3 mpg monster truck owner might have chosen to not have
| any children, so are not raping the planet like breeders.
|
| If I'm - "you're someone genuinely scared " then I'm
| pretty close to mentally ill. If my brain is
| malfunctioning generally it'll be much harder to deal
| with conflict. Why not just _chat_ to someone who owns a
| truck, for my own mental health reasons.
| kergonath wrote:
| Right. In these contexts my reply is usually "fuck off".
| Similarly with people arguing in bad faith. Life is too
| short to waste time with lunatics, but at the same time
| there is no point attacking them.
|
| I have seen few complete nutcases in a scientific
| context, though. But sometimes decent people have strange
| opinions about, say, vaccines, in which case I tend to
| change subject or walk away.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Seems to me like it's a matter of gauging the other
| person's willingness to change their mind (an admittedly
| difficult task in itself). If there is no argument or
| evidence that you could present which would be good
| enough to do so, the entire conversation seems to be
| pointless and it's probably best to just walk away. If
| they _are_ in fact open to being proven wrong, doing so
| politely may still not work (i.e. they may be able to
| counter any point you make), but the odds are better than
| if one does so rudely. All other things being equal, we
| 're more likely to be persuaded by someone we like (or at
| least are neutral toward) than someone we dislike.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Now, how long do you think you can last being polite?
|
| Difficult, I admit. I don't have tons of patience with
| the clearly-wrong-but-backed-by-spurious-arguments-and-
| willing-to-argue-forever types.
|
| > More to the point, WHY?
|
| At least in the case of the doctor, because if the person
| is your patient, _it 's part of your job_. And even if
| they aren't, it's still a health concern. Reach them if
| you can.
|
| Now, there's a place for a verbal smackdown if you're at
| a party, say, and this person starts telling the room
| their anti-vax baloney. It's important that the room not
| believe this person. But still, be as polite as you can.
| watwut wrote:
| If you dont, you have no business to complain when people
| around you start to treat you the same way. Or when they
| finally get sick of you, retaliate and try to push you out.
| EricE wrote:
| "The science is settled!"
|
| Often uttered by people who should know better - or probably do
| but don't care because it's a politically expedient statement.
|
| Not a bad article, but the real elephant in the room these days
| is how to have a dissenting viewpoint and NOT get your carrier
| ruined.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| The media is notorious for spreading "the science is settle",
| and the reaction of the public to label anyone a denier if
| someone doesn't think /exactly/ the same way, has ruined
| science for me.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It shouldn't ruin science for you. It should ruin the media
| and the public for you.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| As pushback continues to mount against this political behavior
| in science, those who created the environment, sensing a loss
| of power, will push more of these "can't we just get along"
| articles in an attempt to silence those pushing back against
| their bullying and political gamesmanship. Far beyond this
| situation, attacking and then suing for peace, then attacking
| and suing for peace, over and over again is a timeless battle
| tactic. Those who want to do science instead of engaging in
| political battles are easy targets for this tactic because they
| just want things to end so they can go back to research. Those
| who wield science as a sword for political purposes of course
| will take advantage of this weakness and the manipulation will
| never end by concession.
|
| If science journalists are serious about wanting peace, they
| can adopt a zero tolerance policy for politics in their
| content, including the passive aggressive writing that attempts
| to sneak in political attacks inside other content. But they
| won't because ultimately the politics are far more important
| than the science. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't have
| gotten into this situation in the first place.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the
| Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently [0]
|
| 1. You should attempt to re-express your target's position so
| clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, "Thanks, I
| wish I'd thought of putting it that way."
|
| 2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they
| are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
|
| 3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
|
| 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of
| rebuttal or criticism.
|
| [0] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/28/daniel-dennett-
| rapo...
| mistermann wrote:
| I wonder how useful to society it would be if there was a
| website that had an implementation of this, so internet
| arguments could be moderated with some structure.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| If you think about your role in an argument as attempting to
| revise your counterparty's beliefs, steps 1-3 represent an
| agreed on prior, and step 4 represents introduction of new
| evidence which you hope to be persuasive. As well, a key piece
| of this Dennett process is demonstrating to your counterparty
| that you are listening and that you have heard them - so that
| there is a better chance that they will listen to you. The
| scientfic process creates a frame for this kind of dialog. A
| polarized political process annihilates the frame, so that
| whatever you say does not matter relative to what I think.
| Kindness begins and ends with the act of listening.
| casefields wrote:
| Throw in Bertrand Russell's Liberal Decalogue and we have a
| great foundation:
|
| 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
|
| 2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing
| evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
|
| 3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to
| succeed.
|
| 4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from
| your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by
| argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon
| authority is unreal and illusory.
|
| 5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are
| always contrary authorities to be found.
|
| 6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious,
| for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
|
| 7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion
| now accepted was once eccentric.
|
| 8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive
| agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the
| former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
|
| 9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient,
| for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
|
| 10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a
| fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is
| happiness.
|
| The Best Answer to Fanaticism--Liberalism:
| https://docdro.id/V5pgUbH
| jfengel wrote:
| Those rules seem oddly out of touch, written in the immediate
| aftermath of World War II, where the best answer to
| fanaticism seemed to be the atomic bomb. They look better
| suited to the faculty club of a university than to a world
| faced with violence, much less to a hostile Internet.
|
| The subtitle of the piece you link to is "The essence of the
| liberal outlook is the belief that men should be free to
| question anything... if they can support their questioning by
| solid arguments". The ellipses are mine, because that "if" is
| such a big if. Much of the failure of discourse today is not
| just failure to craft solid arguments, but to question even
| what it means for an argument to be solid.
|
| This thread is in the context of science and constructive
| criticism, and that should look more like the faculty club
| than the Internet. But very little of HN constitutes
| "constructive criticism of science": we're not in that
| faculty club room, and we're not experts in the domain
| intimately familiar with the state of the art as well as how
| we got there.
|
| These are good maxims to hold when seeking the truth for
| ourselves. But I'm not so sure they'll apply to persuasion of
| others, especially in a hostile environment.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I'm not sure that you _can_ persuade anybody in a hostile
| environment. They 're going to perceive you as hostile, and
| therefore likely to be arguing in bad faith, and therefore
| someone to only be yelled at, not listened to. The only
| thing you can do in that environment is persuade a
| bystander that you can yell louder. And even then, most
| bystanders don't care, they just want both sides to stop
| yelling.
|
| If possible, then, the best thing to do is to make the
| environment less hostile, so that an actual conversation
| can happen. Maybe ask an individual on the other side, one-
| on-one, to give you the five-minute version of what they
| think and why they think that, and then really listen. See
| if a dialog can happen. It may be that, if you engage in
| good faith, the other person also will.
|
| As I said, _if possible_.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| Quite related: "Criticism of Ideas Is Not Harassment" [1]
|
| [1] https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/criticism-of-
| ideas-i...
| avs733 wrote:
| To expand on the other commenter who posted the 'bullying'
| article I think the flipside of this idea is also important to
| remember:
|
| Harassment is not a criticism of ideas.
|
| I work in academia, there are good ideas and bad ideas. There
| are good and bad discussions of good and bad ideas. There are
| well formed and also poorly formed critiques. Rarely can you
| simply categorize something into only one category.
|
| All of these are separate from bad faith actors and asshole
| colleagues. My general rule is if someone feels the need to end
| their 'critique' by explicitly stating it is a criticism not
| harassment, its probably harassment. If it wasn't, the
| criticism would speak for itself and stand on its own.
|
| The simplified and mythicized narratives of how scholarship
| works and the increasing esotericism of some fields discourse
| leave them increasingly open to bad faith attacks.
|
| To the letter you posted, you can easily find signs of what I
| am talking about:
|
| >"First, if there's an institutionalized rule that criticism of
| academic work is harassment, how would Critical Theory, which
| is entirely predicated on criticizing existing systems, have
| emerged? "
|
| This is a straw man, no such idea was proposed in the original
| article. Instead, what the original author did was draw clear
| bounded lines between critique and _sicking the twitter verse
| on academics you disagree with_ and noting that Prof.
| Boghossian did the later and claimed it as the former.
|
| >"Ruth's article criticizes my use of Twitter, but criticism of
| academic ideas should not be locked wholly behind the paywalls
| of scholarly journals because ideas coming out of the academy
| affect everybody. Beyond the academic merits of open inquiry
| and free discourse, the public has a right to know what's
| happening in universities -- especially in public universities
| like Portland State. One reason I use Twitter is to inform the
| public of what is going on in university classrooms and in what
| counts these days as academic scholarship."
|
| Subtle but critical in here is a shift from critiquing ideas in
| academia, in the first sentence, to this entirely different
| idea of 'revealing the truth' in the last one. If he was
| engaged in sincere critique, this paragraph wouldn't end the
| way it does. It is a transition from purporting to criticize
| ideas and engage in scholarly work to trying to shame
| universities for treating certain people's work as scholarship
| in the first place. Its gatekeeping as opposed to critique.
|
| In other words, reading this as an academic, this is weaponized
| and knowing bad faith that relies on the (often unfortunate)
| simplifications that academics have allowed to perpetuate about
| what is and is not scholarship. Put it this way, the original
| article only mentioned people by name once, and used their full
| name. The response used the original authors first name
| repeatedly. That is an intentional slight, especially when
| deployed against female academics, and the author knows it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Boghossian never says anything about 'revealing the truth' in
| that block of text, he merely expresses concern about what's
| being taught in the university classroom. Please do not
| misquote people like that.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Inform the public of what is going on in university
| classrooms and in what counts these days as academic
| scholarship" seems to me to be reasonably paraphrased as
| "revealing the truth". True, the latter phrase has a bit
| more of an edge to it, but the idea is similar enough that
| I'd say Boghossian did in fact say, not those words, but
| that idea.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "If it wasn't, the criticism would speak for itself and stand
| on its own."
|
| [X] for doubt. Getting rid of unwanted criticism by reframing
| it as harassment is an efficient bad faith tactics.
|
| For example, dive into any flamewar about sexual identity and
| you will find someone yelling "so you deny my right to exist"
| as a reply to someone who very clearly does not.
|
| Or dive into any flamewar about the Israeli-Palestinian
| conflict and count all the labels of anti-Semitism and
| Islamophobia.
|
| And the academia seems to be one of the worst offender zones.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Both/and.
|
| Yes, there are those who harass and call it criticism.
| That's wrong, and needs to stop. _And_ there are those who
| receive criticism and call it harassment. That 's _also_
| wrong, and also needs to stop.
|
| And, one layer deeper, on both sides there are people who
| just can't take disagreement, whether because they're thin-
| skinned, or because they are more committed to a _position_
| then they are to _truth_.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Both articles use each other's names at least three times.
| Both articles reference the full name in first use and last
| name on subsequent references.
| zamfi wrote:
| It's worth reading the piece that inspired this one [0] too,
| through.
|
| [0] https://www.chronicle.com/article/when-academic-bullies-
| clai...
| tenkabuto wrote:
| > Academic freedom has been weaponized, cut loose from its
| traditional mooring in intellectual expertise (as has been
| argued by intellectuals expert in the subject, such as Robert
| Post and Joan Scott),
|
| Huh. This phrasing suggests to me that the response article
| (OP) is pretty on point, maybe even more than the author
| explicitly mentions: rather than there being ideologies that
| are beyond reproach or criticism, "experts" are not to be
| questioned.
| avs733 wrote:
| no...its saying exactly the opposite.
|
| questioning is good.
|
| claiming academic freedom to drive targeted Harassment of
| people you do not like is not criticism.
|
| The first article is talking about what is and is not
| criticism, it is not talking about who is and who is not
| allowed to perform critique.
|
| If you and I disagreed in a meeting, even if we had a
| serious argument, I'll accept that as critique. If I
| followed it up by convincing all our coworkers to write you
| emails telling you to kill yourself, that isn't criticism
| thats harassment.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > If you and I disagreed in a meeting, even if we had a
| serious argument, I'll accept that as critique. If I
| followed it up by convincing all our coworkers to write
| you emails telling you to kill yourself, that isn't
| criticism thats harassment.
|
| The broader cancel culture debate, including here on HN,
| made me realize how few people actually understand that
| threats and harassment do not fall under the rubric of
| criticism. Similarly, many people seem to think it's only
| harassment if convicted in a court of law, and if the law
| doesn't bother to pursue cancellers then what they are
| doing must not be harassment. It seems that we free
| speech advocates are not doing a very good job of
| educating people about what is and isn't free speech, or
| at least I thought we had been doing a better job.
| avs733 wrote:
| This 'misunderstanding' is an active effort. It is
| curated propaganda to provide a shield for those who
| engage in such tactics by playing the victim.
| zamfi wrote:
| I'm not sure we're interpreting that passage the same way,
| and I know nothing about this incident beyond these two
| articles, but I imagine most people involved would agree on
| these values:
|
| 1) "Academic freedom" should include the ability to speak
| truths that may be politically unpopular, regardless of
| format, and this includes critique of any academic content,
| ideologically-driven or not
|
| 2) Harassment or deliberate inducement of harassment, or
| actions that are likely to result in harassment, are not
| ok, and this includes both Twitter mobs doxxing and
| academic harassments
|
| These really parallel the whole "free speech" values: say
| whatever you want, but don't yell fire in a crowded
| theater.
|
| In neither case should anyone be forced to listen to you if
| they don't like what you say.
|
| It's hard to tell from these two opinion pieces alone what
| actually happened here (at least, without some serious
| reading-between-the-lines, as the two accounts appear to
| reflect entirely different universes), but I'm curious
| where (if at all) people disagree on these principles.
| jariel wrote:
| Don't yell fire in a crowded theatre ...
|
| But what if the theatre is actually on fire?
|
| Or what if you whisper something quietly and people still
| react like you screamed 'Fire!'?
|
| And that's the whole point: we're not worried about
| people arguing over most things. We're worried when they
| are arguing over truthful things that are sensitive, and
| often ideological. Like 'identity' etc..
|
| The war is real.
|
| Hugely respected academics have had to come out and make
| public statements about it. They are not saying 'oh this
| is a non-issue' they are betting their public identities
| on it.
|
| I really don't much in the way of academics yelling
| 'fire' in theatres i.e. things that are meaningfully
| offensive on an academic level. I only see people people
| reacting to those they disagree with in oppressive ways.
| zamfi wrote:
| Yelling fire in a crowded theater is a metaphor. If the
| theater is on fire, the situation is obviously more
| ambiguous.
|
| > And that's the whole point: we're not worried about
| people arguing over most things. We're worried when they
| are arguing over truthful things that are sensitive, and
| often ideological. Like 'identity' etc..
|
| I'm not worried about people arguing about _anything_ ,
| truthful or not, and I don't have a problem with
| respectful conversation around ideology, large-scale
| protest, or any other communicative action that respects
| individual humans.
|
| I _am_ worried about harassment, sending death threats,
| suicide requests, showing up at someone 's house
| uninvited, etc.
|
| Not many academics are doing this personally, but are
| they complicit in this harassment if they're tweeting
| out-of-context remarks to groups of followers who have
| engaged in this harassment in the past? At least, that's
| the complaint in piece I posted above, without
| endorsement, and I repeat that I do not know the facts in
| question there.
|
| (I am _also_ worried about echo chambers that deceive
| people into holding beliefs through mere repetition, but
| that 's another conversation.)
|
| > I only see people people reacting to those they
| disagree with in oppressive ways.
|
| You and me both -- isn't harassment one of these ways?
| ggm wrote:
| Be in the field or declare your dilettante status.
| kergonath wrote:
| Different people have different ideas about what "the field"
| is. And outsiders can give valuable insights and ideas just
| because they don't always follow the ideas that everyone in
| "the field" has internalised. It is hard for them to go all the
| way though, because they often miss things that are obvious to
| specialists.
|
| You should not dismiss outsiders a priori. Not all of them are
| crackpots.
| ggm wrote:
| I didn't say dismiss. I said declare.
| hntroll666 wrote:
| I'm not seeing the benefit. Being "in the field" is imaginary.
| If a good point is raised, does it matter where it comes from?
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Depends on the Field. I'd say that in Physics for example
| there is almost never any good points raised by those on the
| outside. Should everyone be forced to address every not even
| wrong idea that comes across their desk?
| avs733 wrote:
| Being 'in a field' is not rigidly bounded but it is hardly
| imaginary. It doesn't matter where a good point comes from
| but where a point comes from has a huge impact as to whether
| a point is good.
|
| Being in a field means you are familiar with the content and
| style of discourse. You speak the language, even if the
| language is always English. You know how to communicate ideas
| within group norms. That is useful because it aids shared
| meaning making in any form of communication.
|
| If I stood up as an educator at a ACM conference and started
| talking about 'normalizing to C+' there is serious potential
| for misunderstanding that I'm talking about grading whereas
| y'all might think I'm talking about programming languages. We
| make meaning of information in context as human beings, some
| of that context is local (e.g., the rest of what I'm reading)
| some of it is regional (dialectic, people who ask me at
| restaurants in my area 'do you want a coke' and then clarify
| what kind because coke is a euphemism for soda not Coca
| Cola)...some of it is even broader. The key thing is not all
| of it is shared, and context is key to inferring or
| constructing shared meaning.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rrock wrote:
| Excellent advice. I'd add one more thought for the reviewers side
| of the equation (peer review specifically). Your objective as a
| reviewer is to help the authors present their case. Keeping that
| in mind helps to separate what additional work is essential vs.
| Nice to have if given unlimited time and resources. Beginning
| reviewers tend to lean toward the latter.
|
| It takes training and practice to write useful reviews /
| critiques. Mentors should take the time to do this for their
| trainees.
| dekhn wrote:
| everything about this article applies to arguing on the internet.
| it's really painful to watch these guidelines violated over and
| over. I think the worst violation is to immediately accuse
| anybody who disagrees with you as 'gaslighting'.
| labatyd wrote:
| You forgot screaming "whataboutism" anytime you try to
| introduce a comparable example to a topic where they are
| clearly arguing in bad faith. That has been the single greatest
| weapon in destroying true discourse that I have seen.
| dekhn wrote:
| that's a good point. In many debates, I have to reply to
| people saying "whataboutism actually makes sense in this
| context".
| mistermann wrote:
| Also: gish galloping.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Important to note that criticism is natural and necessary to move
| fields forward. There is a movement across Academia particularly
| in CRT and adjacent fields to equate criticism of an idea or
| theory with bullying or personal harassment which is obviously
| ridiculous.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Big citation needed on the 'movement across Academia'. Most
| Academics I've ever worked with, and folks who are serious
| about their work invite critical thought.
|
| I do see some folks dress up intolerance in the trappings of
| criticism and then feign injury when the academics or others
| refuse to engage with their 'critiques'.
|
| A concrete example is how many folks will use the expression
| "gender critical" to dress up intolerance towards trans and
| non-binary people. There are legitimate discussions to have
| about gender, and there are legitimate critiques of positions
| that can be levied against different viewpoints. But that
| doesn't mean that all criticisms are valid or brought forward
| in good faith.
|
| Some of those criticisms _are_ bullying and harassment and it
| 's important to understand that criticism is a nuanced topic
| and we can't just say, "All criticism good" or "all criticism
| bad" and be done.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Well you're kind of exactly demonstrating my argument.
| Criticism of someone's idea or theory is not harassment of
| that person. It's by definition not ad-hominem
| Pfhreak wrote:
| It's not so simple, unfortunately. Yes, in an ideal world I
| would agree with you -- criticism, when deployed
| reasonably, is not harassment.
|
| But let's look at some concrete ways this could break down.
| I'm going to use HN as an analogy, but swap in whitepapers,
| emails, etc.
|
| Example 1: If I specifically open your comment history, and
| raise critique against only your comments, methodically
| going through them and finding specific things to be
| critical of, is that harassment? I don't do this to anyone
| else, just you. Is it reasonable to feel uncomfortable that
| someone is laser focused on critiquing _only_ your work?
|
| Example 2: It is much easier to offer critique than to
| address critique -- if I intentionally respond to your
| comments/papers with loads of hard to answer but relatively
| meaningless questions, thereby slowing you down, is that
| harassment? An author's time is a limited resource, and if
| I'm deliberately trying to cause them to spend it dealing
| with me, is that harassment? In debate, this is called the
| Gish Gallop and it's widely effective.
|
| Example 3: If I respond to your comments with disingenuous
| questions or criticisms that I know will prompt an
| emotional response in you in an effort to get you to
| respond in a frustrated way, is that harassment? Humans are
| not emotionless automata, and even when we try to maintain
| barriers between ourselves and our ideas, a sufficiently
| needling criticism can eventually get under someone's skin.
|
| Example 4: What if there's a significant power imbalance?
| Let's say you are a tech celebrity and you go onto twitter
| and post, "Look at this person's HN post, can you believe
| this? Hey, everyone, please go write one critical reply to
| their post." You are brigading someone, and sure, a lot of
| the questions might be critical, but the volume and intent
| might not be critical. Is that harassment?
|
| Like many things in engineering, scale and intent matters.
| There's a lot of malicious behavior that can be dressed up
| as "I'm just asking questions". These behaviors can be
| intentional or unintentional and they can make people
| reasonably feel pretty strong emotions like fear, anxiety,
| etc.
|
| Perhaps, in a perfect world, we'd be able to use axioms and
| construct arguments and no one would malaiciously engage
| with the scientific process, but we don't live in that
| world. We live in a world where humans are involved and
| it's messy and emotional and we try to do the right things,
| but there are people who, for whatever reason, think it is
| fun or gain some benefit from stalling those whose
| ideologies differ.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Most of your examples are irrelevant to the discussion
| which is about Science and Academia but largely you are
| describing patterns of stalking behavior which
| tangentially include criticism. The point I was making
| was that people in the CRT circle in particular are
| arguing that by definition, criticism of their ideas or
| theories is bullying/harassment/etc. Which is absurd.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Every one of those examples applies to academia, I chose
| comments but I could easily replace it with academic
| criticism.
|
| > The point I was making was that people in the CRT
| circle in particular are arguing that by definition,
| criticism of their ideas or theories is
| bullying/harassment/etc.
|
| Can you demonstrate this is a widely held belief somehow?
| It reads like a bias you might hold but can't back up
| with data?
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