Quick post about the thought terminating cliche, "Where is the academic evidence for the claim you just made?"

There are a few problems with this. First is that you are selling out your sense of logic and reasoning to an exterior source. If this is how you do your thinking, what is the point in having debates? What you are saying is that you don't respect the ability of yourself nor your opponent in evaluating concepts. If this is true, than neither of you are qualified to discuss the issue with any efficacy and should both just read articles together. If however you do respect yourself and your opponent's mental capabilities, than you must agree that you are able to engage in a debate without reference material, and rather rely on your own cognitive abilities as a good enough evaluative tool for the purpose of debate.

This is not to say reference material is purposeless, but to use it as the primary objection to your opponent's argument is not in itself a valid argument.

Secondly, the source of our ideas is not always available offhand. Do you remember when you first learned about the concept of a promise? Do you remember the day you learned about it, and who told you about the importance of keeping them? Can you list for me the types of promises and how they differ from culture to culture? Do you have an academic study supporting the beliefs that you have about promise keeping?

If you fail to answer any of these questions, does that make your argument false? No. We all know what a promise is, and what a person means when they say the word promise.

To effectively make an argument in a debate, you must attack the premises of the argument, rather than the person making it. The appeal to academia does not satisfy the need for a direct criticism to the premises of your opponents argument.

What if someone told you frogs should all sing the latest pop hits to make our environment more enjoyable. Your first urge would be to call this person an idiot, but that is no a counter argument to their claim as to why frogs ought to sing songs of our choosing. A proper response would attack the false assumptions behind their reasoning. ie: Frogs should obey human desires. You can make the counter claim that frogs are not obligated to take our desires into consideration as they are not part of our social sphere nor do they have the cognitive ability to understand the performance of our songs.

Odd tangents aside, I hope you can agree that the appeal to academia is a situational argument at best. If you disagree with me, by all means, attack my premises in the area below.