Commandments of rational debate

[freetrader]

Found this elsewhere today, thought I'll post it here as a good reminder to myself and everyone else to keep the debate on this forum rational and thus intellectually stimulating.
Feel free to point me to it when I ignore it!

"The 12 Commandments of Rational Debate"

1. Thou shall not attack a person's character but the argument itself. ("Ad hominem")

2. Thou shall not misrepresent or exaggerate a person's argument in order to make it easier to attack. ("Straw Man Fallacy)

3. Thou shall not use small numbers to represent the whole. ("Hasty Generalization")

4. Thou shall not argue thy position by assuming one of its premises is true. ("Begging the Question")

5. Thou shall not claim that because something occurred before, it must be the cause. ("Post Hoc/False Claim")

6. Thou shall not reduce the argument down to two possibilities. ("Fake Dichotomy")

7. Thou shall not argue that because of our ignorance that the claim must be true or false. ("Ad Ignorantiam")

8. Thou shall not lay the burden of proof onto him who is questioning the claim. ("Burden of Proof Reversal")

9. Thou shall not assume "this" follows "that" when "it" has no logical connection. ("Non Sequitur")

10. Thou shall not claim that because a premise is popular, therefore, it must be true. ("Bandwagon Fallacy" / "Argumentum ad populum")

11. Thou shall not appeal to an outside party to claim support. ("Appeal to Authority")

12. Thou shall not claim moral authority. ("Moral high ground fallacy")

 

[Bagatell]

13. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I can probably recall specific times Core/BS devs have broken every single one of these, just off the top of my head.

There was another thread about this somewhere on this forum...

 

[theZerg]

14. Do not invent details about a claim, refute these details and thereby presume to have refuted the original claim.

15. Do not refute claims that were never made.
For example: that xthinblocks helps latency.

 

[Erdogan]

13. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

When incompetence can not explain it, look to fraud.
When fraud can not explain it, look to evil.

At that point, replace discussion with sunlight, mirrors, garlic and wooden sticks. (Can we throw in some randomness and hashes...)

 

[freetrader]

@lunar just linked a pic from a good article , a link to which I'd like to add to this thread:

http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517

 

[AdrianX]

13. Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

yes my though is if 13, stick to 1-12 to resolve. then if 1 abandon.