"Outside View!" as Conversation-Halter

Abstract

In "conversation halters", I pointed out a number of arguments which are particularly pernicious, not just because of their inherent flaws, but because they attempt to chop off further debate - an "argument stops here!" traffic sign, with some implicit penalty (at least in the mind of the speaker) for trying to continue further. This is not the right traffic signal to send, unless the state of knowledge is such as to make an actual halt a good idea. Maybe if you've got a replicable, replicated series of experiments that squarely target the issue and settle it with strong significance and large effect sizes (or great power and null effects), you could say, "Now we know." Or if the other is blatantly privileging the hypothesis - starting with something improbable, and offering no positive evidence to believe it - then it may be time to throw up hands and walk away. (Privileging the hypothesis is the state people tend to be driven to, when they start with a bad idea and then witness the defeat of all the positive arguments they thought they had.) Or you could simply run out of time, but then you just say, "I'm out of time", not "here the gathering of arguments should end." But there's also another justification for ending argument-gathering that has recently seen some advocacy on Less Wrong.