Debate fail

[pseudomonas]

The Guardian runs a "You ask, they answer" thing. This time, it's Neal's Yard. For some reason, they've chickened out without giving a single answer. I wonder why this could be? They also seem to be deleting any mention of the incident from their Facebook wall. Goodness knows why.

Comments

[nanaya]

To be fair, a lot of the questions have been asked in somewhat antagonistic fashions (let's not start on the business of policing tone arguments and say we did?). Which, unfortunately, gives them a good excuse not to respond. I still think they ought to respond, having chosen for some inexplicable reason to put themselves in the firing line, but I can't entirely fault them for thinking that a lot of the questioners don't actually care about their answers - especially as they're already accusing them of bad faith and unethical behaviour before they're even off the starting block.

As I've already said once today; everybody loses.

[pseudomonas]

I agree that some of the commenters have been insufficiently polite. I think on a forum like this that they might be justified in not replying to the ones that are actually name-calling. But there are a few general themes that are clear (and which have been stated inoffensively), and they could (if they had any answers) address the questions of determining efficacy and/or the ethics of selling placebos in a couple of tidy posts without interacting with individual questioners.

Given that the stimulus article included an invitation to "grill them" over the malaria debacle, I think a vigorous discussion of the ethics of this sort of thing was rather expected and encouraged.

[1ngi]

"discussion of the ethics of this sort of thing"

Yes - I love the beauty/herbal products but feel concerned about the homeopathic stuff - it would have been interesting to have heard their point of view. I'm a little disappointed actually.

[nanaya]

Oh yes, and I think they should at least try to address some of those general questions about evidence of efficacy. But I fear that the rudeness has given them the excuse not to - "I don't expect to be spoken to like that! Accusations of bad faith, huff huff" - and makes it harder to put them on the spot about just why they weren't responding. I just can't help feeling that over-eager questioning has played into the hands of people who want to portray homeopaths as 'oppressed'.

I think I missed the malaria debacle, what was it?

[pseudomonas]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/07/1

[nanaya]

Ah thanks. Very interesting. And worrying.

[pseudomonas]

Yeah; it kind of affects the context of the debate a bit.

[robert_jones]

I don't think I agree. I've looked at the comments, and a lot of them are in the form, "You make claim X. What evidence do you have for this?" There's nothing particularly antagonistic about that, although perhaps fewer examples would have sufficed.

I've also looked at some of the other posts in the series, and they also contain some fairly blunt questions (e.g. someone who was very concerned that Divine chocolate isn't organic, which apparently undermines everything they stand for), but the answerers still managed to answer those questions.

Any way, refusing to participate in an online debate because some people are antagonistic seems like a bit of a non-starter. Not that they've given that (or anything) as an excuse.

[nanaya]

I think the example you give is fine. It was the "Don't you think what you're doing is unethical?" sorts of questions, and those where the questioner gave the impression of already having determined guilt, which I thought were excessive.

I haven't actually checked out previous examples, so indeed, this might well be par for the course. I wonder if NY knew that? Not that it matters; as I said, I still don't think they have any good excuse for non-participation, I just think it might *also* have been a bit of an own goal if it further fuels the feelings of persecution a few self-righteous homeopaths seem to want to indulge in.

Shame really. Oh well.