+Chad Neu, +Craig Trader, and +Maggie Kovacs. Â There's a difference between the statement in my post and the post you're imagining I made and in the process confirming my assertion!
+Maggie Kovacs That's possible.  I believe people are confused about what the word "evidence" means.  "Evidence" is not "proof".
For example, when someone claims "Bush did 9/11", and I think it's absurd, it is evidence that I don't understand their claim. Â After all, the majority of people don't believe that Bush did 9/11. Â The relative chances that I met one of those people who do believe it compared to the chances that someone made a typo or is being sarcastic or is making a point about how the general foreign policy of America over past decades led to the creation of extremists should lead me to assign some, not-insignificant chance that I don't understand.
In your specific example, I think the claim "Bush did 9/11" is absurd on the face of it, but upon further reflection I see that you don't actually believe it and are attempting to make a point…whilst making the point I was making to begin with!
Sometimes people make absurd claims, believe the literal content of their words, and are wrong.  For example, +Craig Trader brings up vaccine=autism claims.  Even in these cases, the absurdity is evidence that we don't understand the claim for all the reasons we just mentioned, but additionally, we have even stronger evidence against the claim.
+Dustin Wyatt You stated a theory; I provided a piece of data that is not consistent with your theory, and tends to disprove it. Unless of course you happen to believe that vaccines cause autism despite all of the evidence to the contrary …
+Scott Robert Lawrence Strong is a relative term.  If you have zero bits of counterfactual evidence then the evidence I speak of is strong.  The strength goes down dependent upon the amount of counterfactual evidence.  If I was writing an essay I would have expanded upon that.
Of course, counterfactual evidence is only the appropriate measure if the claim being made is exactly what the person stating the claim is exactly the claim intended to convey. Â For example, if you claim "Bush did 9/11", and you mean "Bush's foreign policy led to the creation of terrorists" rather than "Bush planned and implemented the attacks himself" or any of the other half-dozen ways that "Bush did 9/11" could be interpreted (but which aren't the first interpretation to spring to mind), my evidence against the latter means nothing.
+Craig Trader I take issue with the claim "tends to disprove it".  Your "piece of data" is entirely consistent with my assertion!  We just have stronger evidence about vaccines and autism than the evidence contained in the absurdity of the claim.
I suspect, but can't be sure, that you're using "theory" in the same manner that creationists say "evolution is just a theory". Â My statement is merely an informal application of Bayesian decision theory, not just some idea I came up with on my own.
I think that the failure in my original statement is in assuming people's intuitive understanding of evidence is consistent with the Bayesian definition of evidence. Â I fall prey to that assumption more often then I'd like to admit.
At one point you say that considering a claim absurd is evidence we don't understand it, which is only true for certain situations and most often not for the "vaccines cause autism" claim. Then you say that "We just have stronger evidence about vaccines and autism than the evidence contained in the absurdity of the claim."
I thought we were disputing the assertion that people dismiss statements because they don't understand them, as evidenced by calling them absurd, rather than an absurd statement somehow being its own evidence of correctness. The latter is how the sentence I quoted reads to me, at any rate. Is this some sort of absurd-ception?
+Legbamel Not-Pop "At one point you say that considering a claim absurd is evidence we don't understand it, which is only true for certain situations and most often not for the "vaccines cause autism" claim"
It is true for all situations. Â In the "vaccines cause autism" claim, it is evidence we don't understand the claimant's true claim. Â However, we have more bits of evidence that we do understand their claim. Â We've heard of Jenny McCarthy. Â We've seen their posts ad-nauseum on Google+ and Facebook. Â We've heard of Andrew Wakefield. Â If we had no knowledge about a vaccines-cause-autism movement, the evidence we glean upon first hearing the "vaccines cause autism" claim would lead a rational agent to gather more evidence rather than accepting the expressed claim as representing the claimants true claim.
Evidence != proof. Â When I say, "evidence that you you don't understand them", what that means is that when you think a claim is absurd, you raise the probability that you're in the possible universe where your interpretation of the stated claim is not the intended interpretation of the stated claim. Â For many claims, in many situations, we have the necessary evidence to privilege other possible universes where we do understand their intended claim with greater probabilities.
You may or may not be "disputing the assertion that people dismiss statements because they don't understand them", but that is certainly not the claim I make. Â That is not a valid position to take. Â I certainly dismiss statements that vaccines cause autism, and me doing so is completely congruent with the idea that absurd claims are evidence that we don't understand the claimants true claim. Â
What if the claim is demonstrably counterfactual?
Amusingly self-referential..
+Gert Sønderby Then it's evidence that they didn't state their actual claim clearly or accurately.
Lizard  people  secretly rule  the world.
What, like vaccines cause autism? That's a pretty clear statement, easy to understand and absolutely absurd.
Bush did 9/11Â
Your inability to understand it doesn't negate it's validity…
" the thing about science is it's true whether you believe it or not"
+Chad Neu, +Craig Trader, and +Maggie Kovacs. Â There's a difference between the statement in my post and the post you're imagining I made and in the process confirming my assertion!
I believe you phrased your claim poorly if this many people misunderstood it.Â
+Maggie Kovacs That's possible.  I believe people are confused about what the word "evidence" means.  "Evidence" is not "proof".
For example, when someone claims "Bush did 9/11", and I think it's absurd, it is evidence that I don't understand their claim. Â After all, the majority of people don't believe that Bush did 9/11. Â The relative chances that I met one of those people who do believe it compared to the chances that someone made a typo or is being sarcastic or is making a point about how the general foreign policy of America over past decades led to the creation of extremists should lead me to assign some, not-insignificant chance that I don't understand.
In your specific example, I think the claim "Bush did 9/11" is absurd on the face of it, but upon further reflection I see that you don't actually believe it and are attempting to make a point…whilst making the point I was making to begin with!
Sometimes people make absurd claims, believe the literal content of their words, and are wrong.  For example, +Craig Trader brings up vaccine=autism claims.  Even in these cases, the absurdity is evidence that we don't understand the claim for all the reasons we just mentioned, but additionally, we have even stronger evidence against the claim.
I'm not going to buy into that definition of 'strong'.
+Dustin Wyatt You stated a theory; I provided a piece of data that is not consistent with your theory, and tends to disprove it. Unless of course you happen to believe that vaccines cause autism despite all of the evidence to the contrary …
+Scott Robert Lawrence Strong is a relative term.  If you have zero bits of counterfactual evidence then the evidence I speak of is strong.  The strength goes down dependent upon the amount of counterfactual evidence.  If I was writing an essay I would have expanded upon that.
Of course, counterfactual evidence is only the appropriate measure if the claim being made is exactly what the person stating the claim is exactly the claim intended to convey. Â For example, if you claim "Bush did 9/11", and you mean "Bush's foreign policy led to the creation of terrorists" rather than "Bush planned and implemented the attacks himself" or any of the other half-dozen ways that "Bush did 9/11" could be interpreted (but which aren't the first interpretation to spring to mind), my evidence against the latter means nothing.
+Craig Trader I take issue with the claim "tends to disprove it".  Your "piece of data" is entirely consistent with my assertion!  We just have stronger evidence about vaccines and autism than the evidence contained in the absurdity of the claim.
I suspect, but can't be sure, that you're using "theory" in the same manner that creationists say "evolution is just a theory". Â My statement is merely an informal application of Bayesian decision theory, not just some idea I came up with on my own.
I think that the failure in my original statement is in assuming people's intuitive understanding of evidence is consistent with the Bayesian definition of evidence. Â I fall prey to that assumption more often then I'd like to admit.
At one point you say that considering a claim absurd is evidence we don't understand it, which is only true for certain situations and most often not for the "vaccines cause autism" claim. Then you say that "We just have stronger evidence about vaccines and autism than the evidence contained in the absurdity of the claim."
I thought we were disputing the assertion that people dismiss statements because they don't understand them, as evidenced by calling them absurd, rather than an absurd statement somehow being its own evidence of correctness. The latter is how the sentence I quoted reads to me, at any rate. Is this some sort of absurd-ception?
+Legbamel Not-Pop "At one point you say that considering a claim absurd is evidence we don't understand it, which is only true for certain situations and most often not for the "vaccines cause autism" claim"
It is true for all situations. Â In the "vaccines cause autism" claim, it is evidence we don't understand the claimant's true claim. Â However, we have more bits of evidence that we do understand their claim. Â We've heard of Jenny McCarthy. Â We've seen their posts ad-nauseum on Google+ and Facebook. Â We've heard of Andrew Wakefield. Â If we had no knowledge about a vaccines-cause-autism movement, the evidence we glean upon first hearing the "vaccines cause autism" claim would lead a rational agent to gather more evidence rather than accepting the expressed claim as representing the claimants true claim.
Evidence != proof. Â When I say, "evidence that you you don't understand them", what that means is that when you think a claim is absurd, you raise the probability that you're in the possible universe where your interpretation of the stated claim is not the intended interpretation of the stated claim. Â For many claims, in many situations, we have the necessary evidence to privilege other possible universes where we do understand their intended claim with greater probabilities.
You may or may not be "disputing the assertion that people dismiss statements because they don't understand them", but that is certainly not the claim I make. Â That is not a valid position to take. Â I certainly dismiss statements that vaccines cause autism, and me doing so is completely congruent with the idea that absurd claims are evidence that we don't understand the claimants true claim. Â