Two hours ago I conceded the analogy was poorly chosen. I'm not sure what else you have to say.
It's not clear to me what you of my writings you think are logical nonsense.
It's the quip about "your outrage contradicts findings in research". A contradiction occurs when it's logically impossible for two propositions to both be true at the same time. My disappointment (not outrage) is a sentiment, not a proposition; it can't contradict anything.
And you may be disappointed, but research says
that people form opinions very quickly. To try
to take a stance that this should not be the
case is a little odd. So I guess I don't
understand your point.
How is it odd, exactly, to be disappointed that people form opinions based on knee-jerk reactions rather than thoughtful consideration?
Ah - I see. Thanks for the clarification. You see, when you wrote:
... you can't be bothered to read more than
five words before formulating an opinion ...
... it sounded a lot like you were annoyed, bordering perhaps on being outraged. To be annoyed, or even simply disappointed, with things that simply are the case seems illogical. Research suggests that rapid formation of opinion is the norm. You were disappointed/annoyed/outraged/whatever. To be so is perhaps reasonable, but certainly counter-indicated.
(BTW - I've taken the opportunity to remove the grammatical error - hope you don't mind.)
Perhaps I shouldn't've used the word "contradiction," but since you were insisting that treating writings as pure logic is wrong, I thought it not inappropriate. "My bad" seems to be the recent vernacular for that.
With regards agreeing that the analogy is poorly chosen, and whether I have anything to say to add to that, you said this:
I agree that Derek's analogy was poorly chosen for
his audience. Clearly, he should have anticipated
that people would be pedantic enough to bikeshed
over whether or not fish actually realize they are
in water.
Then here you say:
Two hours ago I conceded the analogy was
poorly chosen. I'm not sure what else you
have to say.
There is more than one way for an analogy to be poorly chosen.
Let P be the point you want to make. Let A be the situation you want to use as an analogy. Let f be the mapping from A to P. You understand, of course, that I'm using these purely for convenience of expression, and not because I want to be mathematically precise.
Then we have f:A->P. There are several things we want of a good analogy.
The analogy A should be something we are familiar with and agree with, thereby making it easier to see the point that is in it.
The mapping should carry that point into the new situation, thereby forming the necessary association.
Another point is that f should in some sense be "natural" and not excessively tortured.
But to me, above all, A should be true!
So there's more than one aspect of the poor chosenedness of an analogy. One is when it doesn't assist the point. One is when it's too tortured to be effective. And one is when it simply isn't true.
To me, that makes the opening comments more than just bike-shedding.
And that actually brings me to the main reason I wrote this additional comment.
You write:
How is it odd, exactly, to be disappointed that
people form opinions based on knee-jerk reactions
rather than thoughtful consideration?
I don't think it's odd to be disappointed. I think it's perfectly reasonable. It's odd to take a stance that it shouldn't be otherwise. Perhaps you don't.
But in all this my point is that ...
Good writing takes that into account and works with it, not against it.
The analogy was poorly chosen - we agree. That makes using it an example of bad writing. Good communicators need to avoid such mistakes, and understanding the thought and emotional processes inherent in their readers can help.
Your very first comment in this thread was:
It's an analogy, not a logical conditional.
I was trying to demonstrate that that's not really the point. The point is that for many of his expected audience it's actually an actively bad analogy. Giving the author credit and trying to work out how it could be a good analogy - which is what's expected of good authors - is what leads down the never ending, unfulfilling, pointless meanderings about logic versus language, knee-jerk reactions, disappointment that things are the way they are, and so on.
Let's see if we agree on these:
* Good writing is hard.
* Working at it is worth-while.
* Having people point out your mistakes is of value.
* Bad analogies can detract from the effectiveness of a piece.
* Internet debates often get side-tracked down pointless side-issues.
* People form opinions (disappointingly) quickly
* Good writing takes that into account and tries to use it positively.
