Broken windows and civility
Freawaru — thank you for the Geswæpabinn. We really needed it.
It’s easy when you’re arguing passionately about something to feel the other person is stupid, dumb or just plain idiotic. Maybe in other places on or off-line insults and ridicule have been the usual coin of trade. However, here it’s different. We in the IDEA club have consistently felt that’s it very important to argue logically without resorting to ad hominem attacks or other insulting jibes.
I remember a couple years ago seeing a piece in Tompkin’s County Herald Examiner (it was actually a reprint of an address by Edwin J. Feulner at the 2004 Hillsdale Commencement) that succinctly stated this idea. In his address Feulner compared the broken window theory of crime to the breakdown in civility.
The whole address deserves to be read, but I’ll just repeat a couple parts here. Feulner says;
The broken window is their metaphor for a whole host of ways that behavioral norms can break down in a community. If one person scrawls graffiti on a wall, others will soon be at it with their spray cans. If one aggressive panhandler begins working a block, others will soon follow.
In short, once people begin disregarding the norms that keep order in a community, both order and community unravel, sometimes with astonishing speed.
Police in big cities have dramatically cut crime rates by applying this theory. Rather than concentrate on felonies such as robbery and assault, they aggressively enforce laws against relatively minor offenses — graffiti, public drinking, panhandling, littering.
When order is visibly restored at that level, the environment signals: This is a community where behavior does have consequences. If you can’t get away with jumping a turnstile into the subway, you’d better not try armed robbery.
Now all this is a preface. My topic is not crime on city streets, rather I want to speak about incivility in the marketplace of ideas. The broken windows theory is what links the two. . . .
. . .What we’re seeing in the marketplace of ideas today is a disturbing growth of incivility that follows and confirms the broken windows theory. Alas, this breakdown of civil norms is not a failing of either the political left or the right exclusively. It spreads across the political spectrum from one end to the other. . . .
. . .This is how the broken windows theory plays out in the marketplace of ideas. If you want to see it working in real time, try the following: Log on to AOL, and go to one of the live chat rooms reserved for political chat. Someone will post a civil comment on some political topic. Almost immediately, someone else will swing the verbal hammer of incivility, and from there the chat degrades into a food fight, with invective and insult as the main course. . .
. . . Incivility is not a social blunder to be compared with using the wrong fork. Rather, it betrays a defect of character. Incivility is dangerous graffiti, regardless of whether it is spray-painted on a subway car, or embossed on the title page of a book. The broken windows theory shows us the dangers in both cases.
Therefore, let us argue passionately about ideas, but in the heat of an argument let’s remember to respect each other’s (and our own) dignity. Let us remember the difference between an insult and an argument. Let us lay our hammers down.
Hear, hear! Well said (and well argued)…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 6:28 pm
And as to the institution of the Geswæpabinn:
I find it odd (but somehow satisfying) to come to the defense of someone with who’s ideas I generally disagree, but I find Freawaru’s habit of sticking to logical arguments much more interesting and productive than constant ad hominem attacks. After all, I believe that most of us are ultimately motivated by curiosity about the natural world and a desire to understand more about how it works and came to be the way it is. That certainly has been my experience with Freawaru, and so I will do my duty and come to her defense despite our differences. If you want to get into a micturation contest, there’s always Uncommon Dissent…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 6:40 pm
I find Freawaru’s habit of sticking to logical arguments much more interesting and productive than constant ad hominem attacks
What a short memory you have. Why, less than 72 hours ago, Freawaru said this to me:
no self-respecting college student would think it worth their while to talk to you
Then she tried to claim that she meant to say something different. Then she refused — and continues to refuse — to answer simple questions which follow logically from her own claims. Then we see apparent attempts to bury the thread and change the subject. And now we have this little lecture on “civility.”
Is the intelligent design movement a “civil” movement? At the core of the movement is a claim that the world’s biologists are so utterly deluded and prejudiced that they can not seriously acknowledge the “possibility” that every form of live that ever lived on earth was “designed” from top to bottom by a “mysterious alien being.”
And the methodology of the movement is to issue propaganda in the form of “press releases” and promote the teaching of this “scientific controversy” in public schools. But in fact, on planet earth, there is no “scientific controversy”. As I mentioned earlier, when honest scientists gather together to discuss their work, the vacuity of “intelligent design” theory is invoked as a joke, followed inevitably by guffaws.
This is reality. Pointing out this reality is “logical.” There is nothing “uncivil” about pointing out this reality. It is extremely relevant to understanding the “arguments” of the “intelligent design” proponents because those arguments — as we have seen already in these comments over and over again — are based on a pattern of evasion and rhetotrical game-playing.
Ad hominems are not the problem. The problem is dishonesty. Ironically, the Bible puts lying up at the top of its commandments (but below the worship of God, which is undoubtedly significant) but there is no mention of “ad hominems” that I can see.
Once again: the problem is dishonest. We cannot have civil discourse if factual errors and distortions of the truth are not admitted by one side when those errors are plainly pointed out. If one side is allowed to lie, to refuse to respond to questions whenever they feel like it, and to declare certain releveant subjects “off topic” merely because it serves their position to do so, there is no “civil conversation.” Instead, we are left with a vapid and empty conversation which permits the party which lacks credible arguments to declare victory simply by pointing to the apparent “controversy.”
Finally, the difference between blog comments and one-on-one conversation must be acknowledged. In a personal conversation, the sort of tactics employed regularly would never be allowed. I would never let someone get off topic and run away from direct questions in a direct conversation. But such evasiveness is easy to get away with on a blog comments. Haven’t you noticed this?????
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
Again, I don’t want to add to the ridicule (and Amy takes it a bit further than I tend to), but I agree that the problem is not ad hominem attacks, although they don’t help - the problem is the intellectual dishonesty, disingenuousness, and slipperiness of the standard ID arguments.
Not to mention the other problem, as Allen noted with Salvador in his recent EvolutionList post, that many (most?) IDers’ comments reflect a gross misunderstanding or distortion of biology, and science in general.
And I’m personally sick and tired of the poorly-defined philosophical discussions (care to provide testable definitions of Hallmarks, Specified, etc.?), without any interest in actually putting your views to the test.
It’s not science at all - it’s propaganda-like “inquiries.”
Comment by Dan — June 13, 2006 @ 7:20 pm
Dan
the problem is the intellectual dishonesty, disingenuousness, and slipperiness of the standard ID arguments.
Indeed.
And let’s emphasize fairness overall: a major component of creationists’ arguments is “ridicule,” as in, “Look how deluded those scientists are! We are supposed to believe that life arose from nothing, without any evidence?” or “Scientists are trying to deceive children by putting lies in textbooks.”
These are smear tactics. To repeat such things in 2006 — to recite scripts about “junk DNA” being an “argument” for “intelligent design — is simply to promote ignorance. The claims have been debunked, over and over and over again. Honest educated people know the truth which is why — again — scientists around the world ignore creationists and “intelligent design” proponents to the extent they do not disparage them (as is appropriate — we disparage Holocaust deniers and AIDS deniers for the same reasons).
Now, these facts make creationists uncomfortable. They want to ignore them and pretend that they are not related to their “arguments”. But they are related. These facts are the only way to UNDERSTAND why the arguments are being made in the first place and why the arguments take the strange form which they often do.
My advice to the creationists here: if you want to talk about intelligent design, then let’s talk about my hypothesis relating to the magnificent colors on the walls of the Grand Canyon. Were those colors designed by “mysterious alien beings”?
It’s a perfectly legitimate starting point. So let’s go. Let’s have the discussion. What are all the IDEA Club members afraid of?
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
I just wished to implore the Powers That Be to leave the “hobbit” thread intact for future reference.
The ivory-billed woodpecker story is a fascinating topic for philosophers of science for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the opportunity it provides to get close to the ground floor of what (I respectfully believe) is surely going to be the Bigfoot of the 21st century.
Many of issues related to the debate about evolution are present — the sufficiency of evidence for proving certain claims, what constitutes an “extraordinary claim,” what constitutes a reasonable interpretation of data, who qualifies as a “scientist,” the standards for “peer review” as a function of the “sexiness” of the work, etc., etc.
There is an interesting blog devoted to the topic (I wish I had found it earlier!):
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/
Comment by Amy Lester — June 14, 2006 @ 10:42 pm
Wulfgar,
The personal jibes and insults are highly effective at derailing discussion. If a party’s intent is to prevent logical discussion, then jibes and insults are a tool of choice. I’m not so sure appeals for civility will work if certain parties are more interested in shutting down dialogue.
Also, it would be good to for the club to have an idea of the purpose of the weblog. Is it to :
1. get batting practice at debate
2. communicate with the readers
If it is #1, then not a lot of moderation is needed, the weblog is for your practice. You will learn the art of dealing with all sorts of rhetorical ploys and heckling.
If it is for #2, then it would be helpful to enforce civil discourse by moving posts with little substance and disruptive comments off of the thread.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 25, 2006 @ 2:13 am
Salvador,
Thanks for your comments and advice. I suppose the purpose of the blog could probably best be summarized as open inquiry and exchange of ideas– though we definitely realize that we’re getting some visitors who are not interested in that and not really worth discussing things with. And no-one on our side has had much time to spend on the blog lately.
We ought to police it better; probably; but I’m in lab all day– without a computer– and most of the other IDEA’ers are similarly employed for the summer, or else at home where they can’t do much. But we’ll try.
Comment by Freawaru — June 26, 2006 @ 12:12 am
cool
Comment by Anonymous — February 3, 2007 @ 12:02 am