A term originating in the philosopher Peter Suber's essay Logical Rudeness. What Suber calls logical rudeness is a response to criticism which insulates the responder from having to address the criticism directly. Suber comes up with a taxonomy of logical rudeness:

Suber goes on to say that rudeness does not imply falsehood, and in fact, to insulate yourself from criticism on the grounds that your opponent is rude is itself rude.

In the post Logical Rudeness, Yudkowsky broadened the term to describe other offenses against the cooperative flow of debate, which might be "logically rude" even if spoken politely; for example, saying "X because Y", and then, after one side went to a great deal of trouble to test and falsify Y, saying, "Well, Y doesn't really matter, really X because Z". Similarly, ignoring all the diligent work that evolutionary biologists did to dig up previous fossils, and insisting you can only be satisfied by an actual videotape, is "logically rude" because you're ignoring evidence that someone went to a great deal of trouble to provide to you.

Blog posts

Logical rudeness, in which Eliezer Yudkowsky broadens to the term to encompass other ways of breaking the flow of discussion, not just those which involve theories of justified dismissal.
You're Entitled to Arguments, But Not (That Particular) Proof and Demands for Particular Proof: Appendices

External links

Logical Rudeness by Peter Suber
Estimation is the best we have by Katja Grace

See also

Pw201

Pw201

Pw201

Pw201