Citation needed…?

• parroting of accepted talking points (e.g. “Vaccines don’t cause autism!” or “Correlation doesn’t equal causation!”)
• adopting of an approved vocabulary (think “peer-reviewed” this and “logical fallacy” that)
• making the aforementioned demands for “evidence” at every turn.

And the list goes on. These people have adopted the trappings of science literacy without taking the time to learn that discussions should be tempered with an appreciation for what is practical and conducive to a productive conversation. This seems to require a certain amount of experience and reflection.

If you have an opportunity to discuss scientific questions with top-level scholars in their respective fields, you may notice something interesting. While they certainly appreciate the value of evidence and agree that many claims must have some empirical corroboration before one should take them as true, they typically do not froth at the mouth and grind any discussion to a halt if the speaker dares to suggest that something is true in the absence of a pile of published journal articles. Indeed, some of the most intriguing discussions in science can be ones that rely more on logic and one’s understanding of established principles (e.g. basic physics, physiology) than on simple recitation of the results from a recent study.

Now to be clear, I am not suggesting that evidence isn’t important; rather, I am suggesting that certain discussions call more for it than others. A big part of this comes down to understanding the nature of an idea/claim being presented. If the claim is structured such that a conclusion must follow logically from the supporting premises (that is, it’s based on a deductive argument), then evidence really doesn’t enter into the picture. The claim stands or falls on its logical structure and the veracity of the supporting premises. An all-too-common example that can be taken from practically any introductory logic textbook is thus:

Premise 1: All men are mortal.
Premise 2: Socrates is a man.

Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

While it might technically be proper for us to verify the two stated premises empirically — that is, to take measurements or make observations that would confirm that those statements really are true — I shouldn’t need to explain why from a practical standpoint, that’s kind of silly. So the conclusion of this argument (which is technically a syllogism for anyone who cares) would logically HAVE to be true if the premises are taken to be true, as the argument is validly constructed. Barring one’s insistence on performing some kind of “mortality confirmation” experiment, it stands to reason that we need not go any further to be satisfied that the conclusion (that Socrates is mortal) is well and thoroughly justified.

So where am I going with this? Well, let’s apply it to something more exercise-related.

Let’s say that a couple of trainers are having a discussion about shoulder exercises. Perhaps someone is looking for a way to challenge the concentric shoulder abductors. If a given force is being applied to the arm in the direction of adduction (thus creating a resistance torque that the deltoids and supraspinatus would have to “fight”), I could make the argument that distributing mass farther away from the glenohumeral (G-H) joint will result in more “adduction torque” as a result of that force. As an example, simply raising the arm up to the side increases this torque (as demonstrated in the image above).

Practically speaking, when I make the aforementioned claim, I I don’t need to provide “evidence” of this. It is based on an ironclad, repeatedly confirmed fundamental principle of physics: an increase in a force’s moment arm (perpendicular distance between the line of force and the axis of interest) will cause a proportional increase in the torque created by that force:

T = F x d, or torque = force x moment arm.

This is a fundamental principle in mechanics, needing no empirical confirmation. I don’t need to collect new data to “prove” that this torque will increase, nor do I need to dig up a published journal article in which data were specifically collected on this. It’s firmly established scientific fact (inasmuch as anything is a scientific fact), and to demand evidence of something so rudimentary is unreasonable.

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This is what I mean when I say that some claims don’t require evidence. When we are engaging in real-life conversations about science (or anything), we need to keep in mind that 1) time is a precious commodity and 2) some statements are more of a “given” than others. Claims that directly hinge on empirical observation (e.g. “Men generally have greater upper body strength than women.”) could be seen as more inductive and would be more appropriately supported by some kind of evidence. On the other hand, more logical claims — or those based on rock-solid facts as described earlier — do not for practical purposes require the same kind of support; for now, I’ll call these “practically deductive” arguments. After all, it is far less likely that we’re wrong about centuries-since-established fundamental physics than we are about how much “glute activation” a specific choreographed movement creates in a small sample of college-aged males.

If we are to get anywhere, we need to know that there is a time and a place for leaning on empirical observations, and many discussions simply don’t call for it. At least, we don’t need that evidence to begin those discussions.

Now I say all of this with the full realization that there’s a lot of subjectivity in play. One has to weigh things and decide whether empirical evidence is really necessary. When is an argument more clearly inductive versus more “practically deductive?” Not everyone will arrive at the same conclusion on that point, and that’s okay. My objective here is simply to get you to consider how evidence may inform our arguments but not always be 100 percent necessary to make a point.

I also left out a lot of detail on different types of arguments and how there are numerous schools of thought regarding how one can or should go about supporting a claim; indeed, there are even different types of syllogisms! So realize that this is not an end-all sort of rant; rather, it is a jumping-off point for further reading/learning on how we argue, discuss, and learn.

If you’d like to do a little more reading on logic and related subjects, be sure to check out the links I included in this post; RationalWiki is a great place to start learning about all sorts of topics related to rational thought, science, etc. In addition, there are a number of great books out there that can be found for reasonably cheap (some that are completely free). Below is one that I’ve enjoyed reading in case you want a specific suggestion:

<< Logic: A Complete Introduction by Siu-Fan Lee

Hopefully this has proved informative (or at least somewhat thought-provoking). As you sally forth into online debates or in-person disagreements, remember to temper that desire to demand a citation and instead see whether or not the claim stands — at least partly — on its own logical merits. Empirical support is certainly *part* of the picture, but it’s not the whole thing.

Cheers!

- G

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