Burden of proof

[Hierophant]

It seems to me that burden of proof is pretty crucial. For instance, given the incredibly low level of burden of proof that Christians will accept (where circular reasoning and arguments from ignorance are accepted as conclusive proof), I think you could "justify" belief in pretty much anything. Also, given the incredibly high levels of burden of proof demanded of atheists (explain every single issue about evolution to me or you lose!), or of anarchists (explain how an anarchist society would work in as much detail as I demand or you lose!), you could prove absolutely nothing at all, even something as obvious as "the Earth is round."

It seems that how much burden of proof one believes one has to shoulder, or how much the opposition has to shoulder, is used as a rationalization and not as a serious tool of inquiry.

[Brad Reddekopp]

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence"
- Christopher Hitchens

Pretty good rule of thumb, says me.

A knowledgeable atheist can quite easily show that what a Christian claims as evidence is not worthy of serious consideration.

As for the statists, what do they have aside from the argument from ignorance? They can't imagine how a peaceful and prosperous society could function without a god -- er, I mean a government -- calling the shots. So, therefore, it couldn't happen. Right?!

[charlesfahringer]

The difference between statism and theism, in that respect, is that statist political theorists have made, and continue to make, correct predictions in their disciplines of claimed expertise. In fact, I would venture that statist political scientists and economists have done far better than their anarchist counterparts. That's not necessarily a fair comparison, though. Statism and anarchism are ultimately distinguished as ethical positions. A state supporter and an anarchist can agree on the exact same set of principles for predicting how one social state leads to others; their real disagreement comes when they decide whether a given state of society is fair or just. So while state economists have made the best predictions on things like the way that increasing the money supply changes industrial production levels, anarchists can agree with the theories underlying these predictions. The relative strength of anarchism, as an intellectual position, comes from its commitment to internal consistency in ethics. Anarchists speak the loudest against state sponsored violence and legally entrenched corporate dishonesty. State-supporting social scientists, on the other hand, sweep these issues under the rug, hoping that a populace which forgets such atrocities will be less likely to change the established power structure.

[Brad Reddekopp]

State-supporting social scientists, on the other hand, sweep these issues under the rug, hoping that a populace which forgets such atrocities will be less likely to change the established power structure.

Good points, Charles. What a surprise to see you here again.

[Hierophant]

We won't say if it's a pleasant or unpleasant surprise...

[charlesfahringer]

If there's any side with a significant risk of being non-scientific, it's the anarchists. You can blame statist political scientists, sociologists, and economists with being amoral technocrats, but there's definitely a system in place for them to update their opinions about social organization based on facts. Consider an article like this. The authors are criminologists with grants from the U.S. Department of Justice; basically, they're academic cops. So it's pretty clear that they are statists, and that any results they reach or any other research they support is influenced by that belief. Nevertheless, they follow a research methodology common to all science: they propose a model (about the way that proposed weapons bans influence manufacture, prices, and ultimately murders committed with a certain weapon); then they discuss the extent to which data supports this hypothesis (the data agrees, but it is also consistent with random fluctuations, e.g. from causes uncontrolled in the data); finally, they address explanations that were not covered in their research in a section for suggested future research. Nothing about that way of doing things favors one set of ideas over another. The authors have very little room to introduce their own biases into the research. From among many ways to design their study, they might choose the one that favors their position, but the overall process of the research (among statist social scientists) includes discussions about the validity of statistical methods and experimental designs for making a given decision. Other than that, they can't change the data and they can't (on their own) change the set of research methods that are considered valid. So this approach prevents researches from arguing for a position just because they prefer it, just as the scientific method should.

This is the common methodology among academic social scientists, most of whom are not anarchists. The leading anarchist or free market thinkers of the past, by comparison, do not ground their arguments in such inscrutable methods. Marx, for example, and most socialist anarchists who followed him, base their opinions on interpretation of major historical changes, a methodology that is very easy to abuse. Market anarchists are no better: the axiomatic approach of von Mises is basically a commitment to being non-scientific. Having said that, there are anarchists, of any variety, who do use statistical methods in their approach to discussing social organization. Still, there's a tendency among anarchist social scientists to avoid using the accepted experimental designs of their disciplines. Anarchy isn't non-scientific, in its own right, but anarchists haven't made the same commitment to scientific methodology as mainstream economists, social and political scientists.

[Hierophant]

You are obviously an imbecile if you seriously believe that statist economics have any validity whatsoever. As for political science, I think it is quite valid- because its objective is to subjugate the planet, and it works very well at that. But it has no connection to reality.