Complegalitarian Comments 101: Guideline Number Two

*Don’t forget about the Comment Contest (here, scroll to bottom)! 

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2. Support your claims with evidence

 Say I am just really concerned about egals and odor, something I believe is important to address and discuss.  What this guideline means to me is that I need to think twice before stating, “All egals smell funny.” 

What would be better is something like,

“I’ve wondered if there is a correlation between egalitarians and bad odor, because I think it is a real problem, one I’ve run into a lot.  So when I ran across this study [link], my concerns were validated.  This study seems to say that many egals do smell bad, especially compared to comps.  I find this concerning.” 

Or perhaps I could also say,

“I’ve wondered about egals and odor for a long time.  I now believe that egals do smell funny.  This book ____, by popular egal author ___, says that egals like to smell funny.  Here is the quote.  “blah blah blah blah blah,” from page 34 of the book.   I find this concerning.” 

I could also support my claim this way:

“I’m concerned about a correlation this study ____ makes between egals and body odor.  The main reason I am concerned is because the book of James says ____, and so does Malachi in chapter____.  Later, when John writes about body odor in Revelation ___, he says the same thing.  Yet egal author ___ says ________ on page four of his book _____, which seems to me to deny what the Bible says in those three places.” 

These are some examples of how I can support a claim with evidence.   Note that I don’t have to back up an opinion with evidence. 

If I say, “I personally think that egals often tend to smell funny,” that is not a claim but an opinion.  I don’t have to back it up with evidence, though I may want to watch how I share that opinion, if it’s going to cause offense, and I also may want to be prepared to explain why I have that opinion—especially when twelve nice-smelling egals married to twelve foul smelling comps read it and then ask me to please clarify.  Whoops. 

Opinions are okay—we all have them—but there are a few opinions, especially the kind that are highly offensive or extremely unsupported, are probably best shared elsewhere.  

Saying authoritatively, “Egals smell funny and that’s just the truth,” is making a claim, and a claim really needs to be backed up with some sort of evidence, preferably including a link or a reference of some sort.    

Speaking of referring to evidences, I’ve been taken to task once in the past for using a study as evidence which, as it turned out, later studies had proven false.  Oops.  I didn’t know that.  I didn’t realize the study I’d quoted from was later discredited and I was glad others did and corrected it.  In fact, I would have never known that the study was misleading if others hadn’t shared. 

So it’s good to work as a team in the matter of evidence finding, because here is one thing comps and egals can agree on: we want the truth and we do not want to make claims that are based on false evidences.   This is a way of saying that we’re in a learning growing process here, and all “evidences” may not be as valid as we think they are, or may need to be balanced with other evidences that appear to point to a different conclusion…and that is okay!  We do the best we can. 

Thankfully, we’re all on the same team and between all of us, we can help cull evidences that have been later proved incorrect and balance evidences that need balanced.  No one study proves anything, just as no one quote proves anything, but together, we can be careful not to make claims unless we can back them up with something solid—or close to solid, as it were–and have some good discussion as we do so.

So now that I’ve shared some things that Number Two means to me, it’s your turn.  What do you understand Number Two to mean?