disumbrationist wrote:
They may be of interest to psychologists, but they don't serve to determine the truth or falsity of conservative beliefs, which has entirely to do with the logical structure of such beliefs. However, this literature is used on blogs - like the one you linked to - as sort of a sophisticated ad hominem. You're wrong because you have a shitty personality, and here's the data to prove it. I can see how, after arguing with someone for hours who is immune to rational arguments, you might then reach for Social Psychology to explain your predicament.
Arguing is the real issue I think. I try not to argue but to discuss. One result though of my style, is that invariably whatever camp the other party is, quite a few assume that I am in the other, and apparently construct a "strawman" of myself, and then engage in mind reading.
This I admit, amuses me.
None the less and despite these setbacks, I have in the past, won people over to my point of view
on a specific issue. I attribute this to my being willing to explore their side in a non-confrontational manner. For example before I got banned :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... ent-410909
Yes I do understand that you believe that the majority are being “forced to accept a change in social standardsâ€, my question is where is the harm?
Can you give some examples where suppressing homosexual expression has shown to be a benefit to society?
One of the benefits is sometimes I am shown to be wrong on one of my points. That is always a win for me. Sometimes I get a bonus when the other party has seen that I am willing to conceed where they are right, is now more ready and willing to listen where I think they are wrong. I have noticed though that it is usually a conservative who is willing to do this.
disumbrationist wrote:
However, since we deal with individuals and not Conservatives as a group, we can't assume what's true for the mean has any bearing on the individual (the oft overlooked
Ecological Fallacy). So, in general, I'm skeptical of both the firmness of the conclusions of such studies, and their relevance.
If we had a functioning skeptical community at the current time, things like this would be our main occupation. Both Orac and ERV do this well; they are adept at separating out the good and useful science from the bad. PZ was decent at this too, especially within his area of expertise. It shames me that the community is currently focusing so much on personalities and ZOMG INTERNETS DRAMA XD. I can only hope that people will learn that elevator etiquette, t-shirt etiquette, and such are
not serious business, and at least mix in some skepticism in with their grudge colllecting.
Interestingly, the Ecological Fallacy reappears in the confusion over Privilege. Privilege is a perfectly well-behaved concept so long as you're comparing the average values of groups, say the relative rates at which whites and blacks are unjustly harassed by the police. We can use these comparisons to infer that,
if nothing else is known about someone than that they are a member of group X, they
might be treated differently than if they were of group Y. But this will take the form of a probabilistic statement, and could be refuted by further information about the person. That is about the extent of it; you are looking at populations, not individuals. So, if you say to someone that they are Privileged, you are misusing terminology that correctly describes groups to describe an individual.
If you say someone is Privileged and use this to discount what they argue, you have deftly combined the Ecological fallacy with the
ad hominem circumstantial and truly deserve a round of applause.
I pretty much agree with the above, although I must note that Ecological fallacy could be avoided with just a little "common sense" in my view, and failing that I always recommend this book:
Straight and Crooked Thinking by Robert H. Thouless ISBN 0-330-24127-3
http://neglectedbooks.com/?p=336
"a classic guide to ferreting out untruths, half-truths, and other distortions of facts in political and social discussions"
