Take a simple statement, "all swans are white." The validity (or not) of this has nothing to do with the identity of who utters it. It's merely a statement about swans, to be tested by looking for a non-white swan.
The key test of an idea is not: whose is it? It's: does it accord with facts and reasoning?
This is one reason why this blog is (thinly) anonymous. Debate should be a dispassionate investigation of facts and theories. Someone's identity matters insofar as it explains their Bayesian priors - no more.
If we personalize debate, it becomes merely a battle of egos, which leads to a politics dominates by tittle-tattle and spin.
Worse still, identifying authority with particular persons leads to an anti-democratic deference to charlatans.
So, anonymity has its advantages.
The key test of an idea is not: whose is it? It's: does it accord with facts and reasoning?
This is one reason why this blog is (thinly) anonymous. Debate should be a dispassionate investigation of facts and theories. Someone's identity matters insofar as it explains their Bayesian priors - no more.
If we personalize debate, it becomes merely a battle of egos, which leads to a politics dominates by tittle-tattle and spin.
Worse still, identifying authority with particular persons leads to an anti-democratic deference to charlatans.
So, anonymity has its advantages.
Em compensação, este blogue deve ser do menos anónimo que há - num só clique, os leitores até ficam a saber aonde trabalho (por outro lado, como eu sou um absoluto desconhecido, até podia por uma fotocópia do BI, com número e fotografia, que era a mesma coisa que ser anónimo)
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