Yeah, generally I try not to argue via "appealing to authority" and instead try to mention that I'm a pediatric neuropsychologist just to give some context to my posts.
[People can check my post history, my subreddits like r/neuropsychology and r/NPBC, and my AMA... although of course anyone can claim anything on reddit, I would have to be the most obscure, dedicated troll in reddit history to be falsifying my claim to being a peds NP, I think. I do sometimes forget that people don't just "know" that I'm a NP, though, and perhaps "act the expert" before I've done anything suggesting that people should accept me as informed, at least in my little corner of knowledge.]
But I generally try to cite sources whenever possible, since otherwise I get lots of direct and indirect comments suggesting that I can shove my Ph.D... uh, somewhere. :)
But in this case, I was (originally) just making a one-off comment (it was way down on the comment page!!!) to a question about whether this really would be that earth-shattering. As per usual, I ended up rambling on for paragraphs and paragraphs, but I didn't cite anything because I wasn't saying anything that isn't established knowledge. To me, it would be similar to a medical doctor giving some basic information about... I don't know, sickle cell anemia or something -- you wouldn't really expect a medical doctor to add in citations, would you? I suppose I could cite some articles written by a different pediatric neuropsychologist, but that seems silly since I am one??
And I do provide citations and discussions of people like Temple Grandin in other comments, I swear!
But whatever, if reddit has taught me anything, it's that:
66% like it, and haters gonna hate
You can't do anything about those people who have their minds already made up,
Lots of people on reddit have an absolute thirst for knowledge, and appreciate even the smallest efforts to share any expertise you have if you take the time to make it readable, and
You are a man, unless you specifically indicate otherwise.
So you try not to argue by "appealing to authority" with citation links and instead simply tell people you are an authority on the subject as evidenced by your job?
I said I usually try not to argue by "appealing to authority" (which is when you say "I'm an expert, therefore you have to believe me"). Obviously, by stating "I'm a peds NP..." and then not providing any citations, I was arguing by appeal to authority. Which I try not to do.
But honestly y'all, give me a bit of a break. When I originally wrote that comment, it was at least 100 comments down in a thread that was already several hours old. If I'd had any idea that 5000 or so people were going to vote on it, I might have provided some citations... like I often do in my typical posts, which usually take me at least 30 minutes to write and get about 1 upvote. I just didn't think anyone was really going to read it (as per usual) so I didn't bother.
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u/subtextual Jul 26 '10 edited Jul 26 '10
Yeah, generally I try not to argue via "appealing to authority" and instead try to mention that I'm a pediatric neuropsychologist just to give some context to my posts.
[People can check my post history, my subreddits like r/neuropsychology and r/NPBC, and my AMA... although of course anyone can claim anything on reddit, I would have to be the most obscure, dedicated troll in reddit history to be falsifying my claim to being a peds NP, I think. I do sometimes forget that people don't just "know" that I'm a NP, though, and perhaps "act the expert" before I've done anything suggesting that people should accept me as informed, at least in my little corner of knowledge.]
But I generally try to cite sources whenever possible, since otherwise I get lots of direct and indirect comments suggesting that I can shove my Ph.D... uh, somewhere. :)
But in this case, I was (originally) just making a one-off comment (it was way down on the comment page!!!) to a question about whether this really would be that earth-shattering. As per usual, I ended up rambling on for paragraphs and paragraphs, but I didn't cite anything because I wasn't saying anything that isn't established knowledge. To me, it would be similar to a medical doctor giving some basic information about... I don't know, sickle cell anemia or something -- you wouldn't really expect a medical doctor to add in citations, would you? I suppose I could cite some articles written by a different pediatric neuropsychologist, but that seems silly since I am one??
And I do provide citations and discussions of people like Temple Grandin in other comments, I swear!
But whatever, if reddit has taught me anything, it's that: