Re: [UUPoly-L] Epistemology and Polyamory

[Desmond Ravenstone <desmondravenstone@yahoo.com>]

--- On Sun, 9/28/08, WABaldwin@aol.com <WABaldwin@aol.com> wrote:

>> You need evidence to back up your theory -- personal knowledge and   experience *is* evidence.

What kind of evidence?  And of what?  What does it establish?  These are the kinds of questions which you have to anticipate and address whenever debating "the opposition".

The real distinction is between statistical and anecdotal evidence.  A carefully done survey of people's personal experiences can yield good statistical evidence; the occasional claim based on personal experience is anecdotal.  Statistical is useful for establishing a proposition, but anecdotal is only good for countering/weakening an absolutist proposition.

Lastly, as any psychologist or lawyer knows, an individual's experience can be colored by their perceptions and/or interpretations.  I'm not dismissing the value of experiential evidence, just cautioning about its inherent weaknesses.

>> And a rational theory is nothing by itself, if it has no connection to  observed reality.

Likewise, observed evidence requires a rational framework to understand.  Scientific and pragmatic approaches incorporate the two, and measure the strength of propositions and evidence along a continuum.

Back to arguing for poly ... we need to anticipate *all* possible arguments made by the other side, and think of the strongest way to respond to it.  The "opposition" is unlikely going to use a relativist approach; instead they have tended to insist that morality must be based on objective standards, including evidence of whether poly can work and/or lead to unacceptable harm.  The best response to that is two-fold:
(a) demand to see the evidence supporting their claim
(b) show evidence to the contrary
I've read one blog poster who has claimed that she's never known any poly relationship to end in anything but disaster.  Assuming that's true, how do we respond -- especially when you assert that "personal knowledge and experience *is* evidence"?  My answer is to specify *what*kind*of* evidence -- in this case, vague anecdotal evidence.  How many poly people could this blogger know, compared to the number of poly folks out there?  And how does she determine that a relationship "ends in disaster"?  Likewise, if we're going to present positive evidence that poly, then we need to be equally careful how arguments are phrased and how we evaluate and present evidence.

Desmond Ravenstone

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http://www.myspace.com/desmond_ravenstone