I think if you're pushing back on the GP to ask for evidence, it is intellectually dishonest to go ahead and make your own un-founded statements. Can _you_ link to some of these stories to reinforce your point?

Yeah, fine.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Remini#Scientology

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed...

- https://www.self.com/story/from-anti-to-pro-vaccine

As far as challenges of the put your money where your mouth is kind, this one was pretty easy. So easy in fact, that you should take a moment to reflect on why you were so quick to get on a moral high-horse of burden of proof.

It was a reasonable request. You appear to be upset about being asked for supporting links, despite having made the same request yourself. I genuinely don't understand that. I'm concerned that we're drifting too far away from the orignal topic though, so there may be limited scope to explore this aspect of things here.

>It was a reasonable request.

Was it though?

Let's break down what happened.

A: Claim X. B: Can you support X? Claim not X. C: Can you support not X. You should provide support for not X before asking for support of X.

Is it really reasonable to call out B for not providing support and not call out A for the same? B was the first to ask for sources, but A made the claim without sources. It also seems like if B only made the claim not X and didn't ask for sources, they would have been less likely to be called out themself.

So is asking people who ask for sources to provide sources really reasonable when we don't make the same request of people who are making claims without any sources? It seems to give a first move advantage and thus wouldn't be reasonable.

Sorry, I've only just seen this. Your breakdown doesn't reflect what happened here. You would be correct if all B had said was "Support X".

What we saw above was:

A: Claim X

B: Support X, I've observed Y.

C: Support Y too, please.

In this particular case, Y was arguably the inverse of X but it was nevertheless described as having been observed many times, but without any sources.

You just provided anecdotes, so stop attacking the other person and consider that he is right.

You would have to prove effectiveness. i.e. out of 100 anti-vaxers, 90% stopped believing in bullshit. If it works on 1 person out of a million, that's pretty useless.

But it is well known fact that piling on more information does not change entrenched belief, it has been subject of peer-reviewed research for decades. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont...

I was the first to point out that all I have are anecdotes. I did so under the perspective that I am sceptical of their claim.

I do not have to prove anything. As I have already said, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, i.e., not me.

Even as a child in primary school, I learned in science class that theories are rarely proven, because it is so easy to disprove a supposedly proven theory by providing counter-evidence.

This is all somewhat tautological anyway. If you don't believe that people ever change their mind when presented with better information, then why are you even bothering to comment? Isn't it futile?

> why are you even bothering to comment? Isn't it futile?

Haha, quite possibly. I mean, even with the best will in the world, can you file commenting on HN under 'useful activity'?