[Air-l] on journals ... | direction of internet research as a discipline

[Charles Ess]

While I should be grading papers, etc., I can't resist pointing out some
basic logical errors -

> Recent jabs a Berniers-Lee in this forum reflects intolerance and does not
> advance the field.

>   At the time the comments remided me of a person sitting at a desk writing
> with disdain about Edison's invention of the light bulb and doing so in the
> light it provided.

The latter is questionable analogy - especially as its generalized
consequence is that no critique is permitted of a technology / artifact,
once that technology / artifact is visited on the world.
So I can't encourage - while writing in a room still illuminated by
incandescent bulbs (not my choice; my house has 'em) - my students to switch
to flourescents and other forms of lighting, despite the fact that the
incandescent bulb is a comparative energy hog?

Hmm.  

The first paragraph risks another logical fallacy - affirming the
consequent:

If one is intolerant, one will criticize "founding fathers" (and personal
heroes).

Someone(s) have criticized f.f./p.h.

Therefore, someone(s) are intolerant.

The fallacy of affirming the consequent confuses a necessary condition
(intolerance) for a sufficient condition (the only possible condition needed
for an outcome - critique).
This excludes the obvious: perhaps one is critical because there is
something to criticize.

To demonstrate intolerance as the sole source of critique, one would have to
show said critique to rest only on intolerance - not, say, logic, evidence,
argument, etc. 

A difficult trick, to be sure - good luck!

cordially,
- c.

Distinguished Research Professor,
Interdisciplinary Studies <http://www.drury.edu/gp21>
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.              Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA       FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html

Information Ethics Fellow, 2006-07, Center for Information Policy Research,
School of Information Studies, UW-Milwaukee
<http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ethics.html>
Co-Editor, International Journal of Internet Research Ethics
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ijire.html
Co-chair, CATaC conferences <www.catacconference.org>
Vice-President, Association of Internet Researchers <www.aoir.org>
Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes
<http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php>

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23