Argument is a learning

The title of this article borrowed Anthony. the title of Anthony Weston's argument is a learning book. I would like to pay tribute to Anthony and hope that more people can truly understand what arguments are ".

 

Debate and argument are never new things. As a science and technology worker in the software industry, it is the best way to handle various arguments. However, this is not the case from various occasions where I am involved in the debate. Many arguments end up with a verbal conclusion, or they cannot be carried out by self-speaking. One of the contributions of science to mankind lies in the scientific method, and the rational way of argument is the means by which scientific truth can be revealed.

 

In the book "argument is a knowledge" (http://book.douban.com/subject/5399343/) mentioned in the basic rules of argument, as well as various ways of argument: Analogy argument, causal argument, deductive argument. These methods are not very difficult, but in the actual debate process, especially in the demonstration on Weibo (word limit is also one of the reasons for misunderstanding ), but not often observed by both parties.

 

A Viewpoint includes "Premise" and "conclusion ". The premise is to provide a justification for your conclusion. The premise is generally based on specific facts or conclusions that have been confirmed by facts. Through the premise, the conclusions can be derived using various methods of argumentation. This process seems simple, but in many cases it is not obvious. The 3rd page of the book "argument is a learning" provides an inference process of Sherlock Holmes in "silver white horse" in "Sherlock Holmes's complete works:

 

There is a dog in the horse store. However, although someone enters the horse store and takes a horse, this dog is not called ...... Apparently ,...... This guy is quite familiar with the dog.

 

In this inference, Sherlock Holmes has two prerequisites. One obvious premise is that the dog is not directed at people; in addition, Sherlock Holmes uses a premise that he thinks we will recognize: The dog will yell at strangers. These two conditions combine to draw his conclusion: people are familiar with dogs.

 

Next we will use a few examples that are closer to your actual work to demonstrate the unreasonable inference process.

 

Example 1:

After software testing engineers know how to develop, they will think about problems from the perspective of development. In this way, the test engineers cannot complement the development engineers in terms of their ideas.

 

This inference process is a typical hypothetical three-Field Theory (hypothetical syllogism, see "arguments are a learning" P80). The key points here are, the final conclusion is valid only when there are no consecutive inferences. The two inferences here are: 1. If the software test engineer understands development, the problem will be considered from the development perspective; 2. If the Test Engineer considers the problem from the development perspective, it will not be able to complement the development engineers in terms of ideas.

 

Obviously, the key to the first inference is whether a person understands a certain way of thinking and will certainly apply this way of thinking? Whether the answer is clear. It is easy to use the counterexample method to overturn this inference: adults can also understand children's ways of thinking, but this does not mean that they will definitely think about problems in children's ways of thinking. In real life, most parents are able to consider the problem while learning how to think about it.

 

Therefore, because the first inference is not true, the final conclusion is obviously unreliable.

 

Example 2:

Many organizations even think that independent test teams are not needed. This is a wrong idea! They think that testing is not important because they do not pay attention to quality !.

 

There are two prerequisites: 1. Many organizations think that the independent test team is unimportant; 2. the organizations that think that the independent test team is unimportant do not pay attention to quality. Obviously, it is easy to find that there is no data source on the premise of "many", and it may be just a subjective feeling of the inference. In addition, since "many organizations" are a virtual concept, let alone there are no examples to illustrate that "many organizations" are quality-insensitive companies. On the contrary, it is easy to cite some counterexamples to prove that this is unreliable (most Internet Startups will not set up independent test teams for a long time ).

 

I do not want to discuss the topics mentioned in examples 1 and 2. Taking them as an example illustrates what an effective argument should look like.

 

In the argument, on the one hand, we need to provide a reliable premise for our own ideas and a reasonable logical inference process. At the same time, we also need to question and refute the ideas we do not agree. A different opinion is not terrible. What is terrible is that you cannot defend your opinion in a logical way.

 

When you doubt your own points of view, counterexamples are the easiest way. However, to give an inverse example, you must clearly understand the definition of the viewpoint of the other party. Because all opinions are based on premise (fact) and Reasoning Processes, it proves that the premise of the other party is not correct, or that the other party's reasoning process is not correct. For example, you have the following points:

Example 3:

Google's ratio of test engineers to development engineers is, so only a few test engineers are required to do a good job of testing.

 

There are three prerequisites: the first is the obvious premise, "the ratio of Google testing engineers to development engineers is "; the second is the implicit "Google's testing work is doing well"; the third premise is hidden deeper, "Google's testing work is entirely done by test engineers ". None of the three prerequisites will result in the conclusion being invalid. In my opinion, the third premise that is most likely to be knocked down is ("Google's testing work is entirely done by test engineers"). In fact, this is totally not true in Google. However, it is interesting that a lot of arguments about this point of view are concentrated on the first and second premises.

 

Example 4:

Google's X Project has a total of 15 engineers, including 4 test engineers. Therefore, Google's so-called ratio of developers to testers is, which is not true.

 

Obviously, this argument simply steals the conclusion to be refuted. "The ratio of Google development to testing engineers is" is not equal to "the ratio of development to testing in all Google projects is ". Therefore, to overturn this premise, the simplest way is to get the ratio of the total number of Google development engineers to the testing engineers.

 

Example 5:

Google products often have bugs, so Google's testing is not good. These errors are caused by a small number of Google test engineers.

A reliable conclusion can be established only on the premise of reliability. If Google products often encounter bugs, it is best to extract the corresponding data. In this regard, James A. Whittaker is obviously much more sophisticated. Why does this guy leave Google'sArticleThis is proved by some of his own perception data. However, even so, Whittaker did not say that "Google's tests are not doing well" because "good" and "bad" have no numerical standards at all. How many bugs are called "good? Is the impact scope (number of people) of a bug counted from the failure cost? The second part of this inference is a typical "impulsive argument. It also implies two preconditions: 1. in Google, discovering defects is the responsibility of test engineers; 2. The number of test engineers is negatively related to the number of defects left in the product. Unfortunately, neither of these two prerequisites can be established.

 

After a bunch of texts, I also gave some unreasonable arguments that I could see and hear. However, the purpose of this article is not to provoke a dispute on the issues involved in these examples, I just hope that everyone can use a better way to defend their opinions and view others' opinions.

 

I have experienced and learned that most Chinese schools (such as universities, middle schools, and primary schools) do not care much about the cultivation of students' demonstrated abilities, as a member trained in this system, I have not mastered the correct method of argument for a long time. However, with the increasing experience at work, more and more excellent colleagues have been reached, only to find that the lack of such demonstration methods will indeed affect your development and work. In view of this, I hope that through this article, more engineers, especially test engineers, will be able to learn about the arguments and hope that more people can find the fun of playing games in the arguments.