Anatol Rapoport’s Rules: How to compose a successful critical commentary by Daniel Dennett

* 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.

* You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).

* You should mention anything you have learned from your target.

* Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Step 1 is analagous to steel-manning, aka the principle of charity. This is to avoid the act of straw-manning.

from the amazing book, [easyazon_link identifier="0393348784" locale="US" tag="emcrit-20"]Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking[/easyazon_link]

Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement

for more on this

What would it take to Change Your Mind?

Ask your subject, what would need to change for them to change their belief?

More questions to ask yourself

Grice's Maxims

* 4 Maxims that can serve as a guide-map to conversation and argument

Anti-Good Argumentation

* Some tips for evil debate

Logical Fallacies

* Avoiding Logical Fallacies

* More on logical fallacies

* How to craft a good argument

The Book to Buy

[easyazon_image align="none" height="66" identifier="1615192255" locale="US" src="http://emcrit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/61jZofXRoUL.SL75.jpg" tag="emcrit-20" width="75"]

[easyazon_link identifier="1615192255" locale="US" tag="emcrit-20"]An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments[/easyazon_link]

Ten Commandments of Rational Debate

by trolling2day1

The ones I see infecting FOAM debate again and again

Three logical fallacies, two seen universally and the other unique to medicine. The former two are the status quo bias and the bad-bayesian bias and the latter is Benefit/Harm Evidence Equalization.

Status Quo Bias

Thinking b/c we do things a certain way, there is evidence behind this way

Bad-Bayesian Bias

See Rich Carden's discussion of Baye

Benefit/Harm Evidence Equalization

Harm requires markedly less evidence of lower quality than benefit

An Example

responses to the Wee on the modification of scalper-finger-bougie technique