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Because its like trying to argue with gibberish/nonsense, you can't make counter points when you can't decipher any form of cohesive logic in which to counter.
Is there a word or phrase for this?
Here is an example:
Statement: "We can date fossils by looking at the rate of radioactive decay of isotopes in the rocks."
Nonsense Reply: "Well you're wrong, because complex element siphoning is exponential statistically, which means you can't account for filtering out metallic transitional compounds when carbon dating".
Essentially its meant to sound like intelligent debate, but is just complete nonsense.
I see this sort of thing a lot on here, usually in regards to arguments about relationships, human biology, statistics, success, politics, economics, government systems, religion, sex, stereotypes, or other common gag topics.
What do you do when this sort of verbal diarrhea is forced upon you?
On here when it happens, I just delete their reply, as a debate attempt would serve no useful purpose in that situation.
A lot of these replies are written in such a way that it almost sounds like those story telling AI prompt programs wrote them.
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
1Opinion
I don't engage from a debate standpoint. I engage from a relational standpoint. I've read enough debates online to understand that logic almost never works to change someone's mind, unless the person is highly intelligent and secure. A lot of people haven't been taught the skills they need to debate properly or find accurate information. If people feel comfortable with a source, they'll believe the moon is made of cheese and no amount of evidence or rational argument will convince them otherwise.
So, I always begin from an understanding and compassion angle with people, even if what they say is based in stupid nonsense and I could dissect it down to the marrow without breaking a sweat. It's actually worked amazingly well with a number of people. They might not agree fully, but they might balance out their opinion to be less extreme. I consider that a success. But I only do that if I am in the mood, otherwise I just ignore it and move on.
As for what it's called? I am pretty sure you aren't religious, but there is a scripture that I think of on those occasions from the book of Proverbs.
"If a wise man contends with a foolish man,
Whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace...
... A fool vents all his feelings,
But a wise man holds them back."
(Proverbs 29:9, 11)
Basically, it's a waste of time and will go nowhere, because it's not about the truth. It's about validation and attention-seeking. It's why internet trolls exist. Anyway, I hear you and it's annoying.
"I don't engage from a debate standpoint. I engage from a relational standpoint."
- Debates are to resolve problems, relations are to build connections. I'm much more interested in the former when it comes to interacting on websites, but in any case they are not mutually exclusive, and relations with logical people are my preferred relations anyway. In this case however debate would be impossible.
"logic almost never works to change someone's mind, unless the person is highly intelligent and secure."
- If it turns out that they aren't, I block them/cease interaction with them.
Those types of people are insane and I want nothing to do with them unless I'm forced to to resolve a problem.
"A lot of people haven't been taught the skills they need to debate properly or find accurate information."
- So thats not a skill you teach, thats just observational comprehension level. You comprehend more the less you assume, its a matter of personality, of patience, of compassion, of being a mental sponge instead of a bucket with a hole in it. Logical people see assumptions as rude, unsatisfactory, and frustrating, so we feel the urge to verify more. Its desire based, we WANT to know the answers to things.
"As for what it's called? I am pretty sure you aren't religious, but there is a scripture that I think of on those occasions from the book of Proverbs."
- I'm about as anti-religion as it gets, the entire idea that a person should assume something is true without verifying it first is absurd to me, I'm looking for the science community's term for it.
An example of another scientific term in the same vein as this, is the "Gish Gallop", which describes a person rapid fire changing topics or points in a scientific debate so its impossible to keep up with or argue against their inaccuracies and logical flaws.
I'm looking for the term for when a person spits out nonsensical but "intellectual" sounding word salad as "facts", I'm not interested in debating these people, just shutting them down with a word or phrase so they don't try to perpetuate nonsense arguments in person, as blocking only works online.
@TheSpaceGnome I see. I think the scientific term is the Latin word ignoramus, then. Apparently, it was a legal term that a "jury could write on a bill when it considered the prosecution's evidence insufficient". I think that's apropos, in this case.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/ignoramus
My approach is based on observing online debates that never go anywhere. I've rarely seen one based solely in facts that succeeded in persuading the opponent without some kind of relational thread, like "I can see that" or "Can you give me some insight? I'm curious...", etc. We all have different experiences, though. If I only wanted validation of my own opinion, I'd just run around debating people and ignoring how they responded to my points. The rational brain is not accessible if the primal responses are triggered, so my first goal is calming that. :D
www.crisisprevention.com/.../how-the-primal-brain-affects-behavior
I agree that debate and emotion aren't mutually exclusive. I should have said I prioritize addressing the emotions of the person over the technicalities in debate in order to be more effective at persuasion. I believe the intent of debate is to convince, and that's why my first goal is calming the brain. It would be nice to interact with only smart people, but the majority of the population is average and those are the ones that need to understand the ramifications of certain things (think: voting).
Eh, I don't think so. Debate is taught, and it is a skill. Could you clarify what you mean?
@TheSpaceGnome I like that. Gish Gallop... :D
I think that's just called a false premise, or if there's a special name for it then I forgot. It doesn't mean their conclusion is necessarily wrong (you can use bad logic and lies to come to a correct conclusion too), but it does mean that it's useless to defend or recommend that conclusion as logical or true.
So a false premise usually can be described as to how its false.
It has a line of (incorrect) logic that can at least be followed enough to argue against.
This is more like a daisy chain of unrelated false premises that make it so convoluted that there is no singular premise left in the sentence to be analyzed as true or false.
Like if I said wablegovdibonkusgek grongubig velogob fejmuh.
It doesn't mean anything, its just alphabet soup. Its like that but with actual words.
There has to be a word for this, its common enough for scientists to have to put up with it all the time.
Maybe someone else will tell us what it is.
That would be an invalid argument, if the premises don't lead to the conclusion even if they were true. So that would be an invalid argument with false premises.
Really the main issue there is the validity. If you can show someone that even if their premises are true, it still doesn't support their conclusion, that usually convinces them to try to come up with a different argument or at least try to add on a few new premises to make them connect. This may not work, but it's better than just repeating the same false premises over and over, I think.
This answer I agree with, though I was hoping for a name for a specific type of invalid argument.
One that refers to their technique/style of nonsense perpetuation rather than just pointing out the lack of validity.
The Gish gallop for example is a technique/style of nonsense perpetuation. Its also invalid, but its done differently from the word salad one I mentioned in my question.
That's fair. I guess you'd just have to be more specific to know which category it falls into. To do that, it helps to break down and rebuild the argument as logically as you can, and see how it would look in the basic structure. Figure out what kind of argument they're TRYING to make, and you'll have a much better idea of why and where it doesn't work. With the example, I could see how that could be an attempt at a modus tollens, but may have ended up as a "denying the antecedent" modus ponens fallacy instead.
The closest I could find from a search was "de-link", which had the following definition:
"When you say that an opponent’s contention isn’t internally connected. Like saying that their claim doesn’t lead to their warrant, or that their impact isn’t proven by their evidence. Or saying that their contention doesn’t prove/disprove the resolution."
It still seems like that would imply a line of logic though, whereas what I'm referring to is more like if you de-linked everything in all of your sentences.
Maybe that's just a non-argument