One reason is that the studies may consist of filtered evidence—that is, evidence selected to demonstrate a particular conclusion, rather than to find the truth. Another reason is that by treating arguments skeptically when they originate in a non-truth-seeking process, one disincentivizes that kind of intellectually dishonest and socially harmful behavior.
The “incentives” point is reasonable, and it’s part of the reason I’d want to deprioritize checking into claims with dishonest origins.
However, I’ll note that establishing a rule like “we won’t look at claims seriously if the person making them has a personal vendetta against us” could lead to people trying to argue against examining someone’s claims by arguing that they have a personal vendetta, which gets weird and messy. (“This person told me they were sad after org X rejected their job application, so I’m not going to take their argument against org X’s work very seriously.”)
Of course, there are many levels to what a “personal vendetta” might entail, and there are real trade-offs to whatever policy you establish. But I’m wary of taking the most extreme approach in any direction (“let’s just ignore Phil entirely”).
As for filtered evidence — definitely a concern if you’re trying to weigh the totality of evidence for or against something. But not necessarily relevant if there’s one specific piece of evidence that would be damning if true. For example, if Phil had produced a verifiable email exchange showing an EA leader threatening to fire a subordinate for writing something critical of longtermism, it wouldn’t matter much to me how much that leader had done to encourage criticism in public.
I think it is not only naive but epistemically unjustified to insist that this person’s findings be assessed on their merits alone.
I agree with this to the extent that those findings allow for degrees of freedom — so I’ll be very skeptical of conversations reported third-hand or cherry-picked quotes from papers, but still interested in leaked emails that seem like the genuine article.
In addition...
No major disagreements with anything past this point. I certainly wouldn’t put Phil’s white-supremacy work on a syllabus, though I could imagine excerpts of his criticism on other topics making it in — of the type “this point of view implies this objection” rather than “this point of view implies that the person holding it is a dangerous lunatic”.
The “incentives” point is reasonable, and it’s part of the reason I’d want to deprioritize checking into claims with dishonest origins.
However, I’ll note that establishing a rule like “we won’t look at claims seriously if the person making them has a personal vendetta against us” could lead to people trying to argue against examining someone’s claims by arguing that they have a personal vendetta, which gets weird and messy. (“This person told me they were sad after org X rejected their job application, so I’m not going to take their argument against org X’s work very seriously.”)
Of course, there are many levels to what a “personal vendetta” might entail, and there are real trade-offs to whatever policy you establish. But I’m wary of taking the most extreme approach in any direction (“let’s just ignore Phil entirely”).
As for filtered evidence — definitely a concern if you’re trying to weigh the totality of evidence for or against something. But not necessarily relevant if there’s one specific piece of evidence that would be damning if true. For example, if Phil had produced a verifiable email exchange showing an EA leader threatening to fire a subordinate for writing something critical of longtermism, it wouldn’t matter much to me how much that leader had done to encourage criticism in public.
I agree with this to the extent that those findings allow for degrees of freedom — so I’ll be very skeptical of conversations reported third-hand or cherry-picked quotes from papers, but still interested in leaked emails that seem like the genuine article.
No major disagreements with anything past this point. I certainly wouldn’t put Phil’s white-supremacy work on a syllabus, though I could imagine excerpts of his criticism on other topics making it in — of the type “this point of view implies this objection” rather than “this point of view implies that the person holding it is a dangerous lunatic”.