Want to get docked a letter grade on your argument?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Call it “evidence-based”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seriouslly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are seeing this phrase from an awful lot of groups, especially media, to try and market themselves as authoritative, objective, and \u201cnot fake\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Dishonorable mention to Minnesota and National Public Radio who’ve been leading with the equally-dumb “fact-based”). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phrase isn’t “meaningless”, per se<\/em> – but it does prey on the gullibility of the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Virtually every argument that goes past the level of the thesis statement is based on some kind of \u201cevidence\u201c or another, including every single conspiracy theory that more than three people share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flat earth theory is \u201cevidence-based\u201c: the evidence is too narrow in scope, obsolete or just plain wrong, but it is in fact evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phrenology \u2013 the practice of medicine based around measuring bumps on peoples heads – what evidence-based. It turned out the evidence led to a faulty conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hair strand analysis -= the story of the structure of hair – was considered as infallible as DNA is today, for purposes of evidence in criminal proceedings. The “evidence-based” study of hair strands was considered so authoritative it sent many people to death row over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it turned out that the interpretation of the evidence, as knowledge of other ividence grew, meant that hair strand analysis turned out to be completely useless for establishing identity, and is today not a whole not more respected than phrenology or the flat earth theroy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Evidence is not a conclusioni. It’s not distilled truth, in and of itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Evidence is <\/em>the “table stakes” in a rational, informed debate that gets us, eventually, to <\/em>the truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone who treats that phrase otherwise deserves a sound mocking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Want to get docked a letter grade on your argument? Call it “evidence-based”. Seriouslly. We are seeing this phrase from an awful lot of groups, especially media, to try and market themselves as authoritative, objective, and \u201cnot fake\u201c. (Dishonorable mention to Minnesota and National Public Radio who’ve been leading with the equally-dumb “fact-based”). The phrase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79926,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79923\/revisions\/79926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}