Dear David,
You wrote: “Yes, and yet… It’s too easy to apply the standard critique. I remain deeply baffled. I’m interested in world views that are so different to my own and which I find impossible to comprehend. In Melbourne we are having a rolling series of public demonstrations. Participants are angry, committed and, from where I see it, not very nice. It’s too easy to be critical and dismiss them for all the ‘right’ reasons. Do we have to take sides? There must be other ways, or am I deluded?”
While the information graphic titled “Techniques of Science Denial” is heuristic and humorous, it’s not about taking sides or even about whether one agrees with conclusions or not. It involves valid argumentation in research as against invalid argumentation.
If you change this from entertaining and humorous visual representation to outline form, it is easy to see why most of these argumentative techniques create problems. This was designed as a chart rather than an outline, so there are minor problems — for example, there is a 2.6.1 but no 2.6.2. If you overlook this aspect of the outline structure to focus on the issues, the topics and their value become clear.
The issue is not agreement or disagreement, but rather the use of slippery argumentation to secure agreement with the conclusions of an article — or the use of poor arguments in a PhD thesis.
1 Fake Experts: 1.1 Bulk Fake Experts; 1.2 Magnified Minority; 1.3 Fake Debate
2 Logical Fallacies: 2.1 Ad Hominem; 2.2 Misrepresentation; 2.2.1 Straw Man; 2.3 Ambiguity; 2.4 Oversimplification; 2.4.1 False Choice; 2.4.2 Single Cause; 2.5 False Analogy; 2.6 Red Herring; 2.6.1 Blowfish; 2.7 Slippery Slope
3 Impossible Expectations: 3.1 Moving Goalposts
4 Cherry Picking: 4.1 Anecdote; 4.2 Slothful Induction; 4.3 Quote Mining
5 Conspiracy Theories; 5.1 Contradictory; 5.2 Overriding Suspicion; 5.3 Nefarious Intent; 5.4 Something Must Be Wrong; 5.5 Persecuted Victim; 5.6 Immune to Evidence; 5.7 Re-interpreting Randomness
While most of these terms are well known, some are less common. For example, there is a specific variety of red herring arguments known as blowfish arguments. Chris Cook, the creator of the FLICC model, describes this as “...the technique of laser-focusing on an inconsequential methodological aspect of scientific research blowing it out of proportion in order to distract from the bigger picture.”
https://theconversation.com/what-do-gorilla-suits-and-blowfish-fallacies-have-to-do-with-climate-change-72560 <https://theconversation.com/what-do-gorilla-suits-and-blowfish-fallacies-have-to-do-with-climate-change-72560>
Cook himself has done significant work on the problem of moving goalposts. An approach employed in many fields is the technique known as “registered reports.” The registered report operates in two steps — first, the methods are described, reviewed, and registered in advance. Second, researchers do the work, reporting the results when the research is complete. While this technique offers several interesting advantages, it also prevents researchers from moving the goalposts under way. If the methods used in the report do not conform to the registered information, changes are obvious. An article by Chris Cook titled "What’s next for Registered Reports” offers a good overview of the issues. It was published in Nature 573, pp. 187-189 (2019).
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02674-6 <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02674-6>
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02674-6 <https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02674-6>
There are relatively few studies in design research that would benefit from registered reporting, but there are some. Nevertheless, some studies in design research — including PhD theses — are flawed by moving goalposts. Greater rigour on this issue would benefit the field.
Alex Velasco’s entertaining infographic focuses on another topic entirely. The FLICC model presents classic methods of bad argumentation. Alex’s model provides a well known motive for making bad arguments. While this is indeed a problem, it’s different problem. That’s the kind of thing that Erik Conway and Naomi Oreskes discuss in their book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Conway and Oreskes have an informative web site with a section in which they discuss some of the bad argumentation that hired voices use in the effort to deny good science:
https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org <https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/>
That’s two posts on this topic, so that will do it for me.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/ <http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/>
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Visiting Professor | Faculty of Engineering | Lund University ||| Email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman <https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman> | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn <http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/>
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