Originally Posted by jseal

There are those who assert that their arguments are correct based on authority. There are those who assert that their arguments are correct based on corroborating evidence.

By and large, as a rule of thumb, for the most part, I am a member of the second group. That is why I attempt to provide any who are interested something more than “because I said so, that’s why” when I advance an idea in an open forum. It has been my experience that reasonable people will, if presented with a coherent body of evidence in support of a proposition, be persuaded that there is merit in the proposition.

Granted, that does not always happen, but it does so frequently enough that it is my default approach to argument. Of course, different people have different approaches to discourse.