Good example of why meta discussion is bad for discussion:
Lots of…
- Asking “What is the evidence?”
- Saying “There is lots of evidence.”
- Ad hominem.
- Arguing about whether it’s ad hominem.
- Argument from authority.
- Talking about the close-mindedness of each other.
- Asking to accept the “scientific facts”.
- Talking about how one side or other doesn’t have fair coverage, or is censored (which is a fair topic in itself, but I was hoping to hear arguments about the topic).
- Disagreeing about whether something is ‘controversial’ or not. That’s so dumb — if your interlocutor disagrees, it’s controversial!
- Talking about definitions (e.g. of ‘evidence’) — actually, it was just suggesting that the definition might be different (for no reason, and then not explaining why or what the difference is).
- Accusing the interlocutor of argument from emotion.
- Suggesting the interlocutor read a book to learn about the evidence, instead of just explaining what the evidence is.
- Accusing interlocutor of living in an echo chamber and not knowing the other side’s arguments (after the interlocutor specifically asked for evidence/arguments. So instead of giving them, he said some ad hominem meta).
… Instead of arguing how DNA is evidence for evolution, or other content-related stuff.
Despite having the right conclusions, Richard Dawkins engages in far more meta than Wendy Wright. Most of the things listed in the bullet-points above were Dawkins. She mostly only did meta when he started it.