The point is to get the person to actually supply real evidence instead of unfounded associations. If someone can't come up with a feasible way they actually are, or even could be causal in nature to discuss, then they probably should be shut down. If someone can't muster up the barest excuse for how their argument makes sense, then I won't be sad to see them stop talking about it.

If someone tried to shut down my argument with one of those excuses and I didn't know enough about each of them to either explain away their influence or revise my theory, my first step would be to figure out what they are. To dismiss them is to just admit ignorance of statistics, and thus the world.

If: “The point is to get the person to actually supply real evidence instead of unfounded associations.” then say “That’s an assertion that you provided no evidence for. Do you have any evidence?” - writing “correlation is not causation” is to make yourself sound smart, not to ask for evidence, which can be done in a much clearer and less passive aggressive way by just straight up asking for it.

If your point is to say that those shouldn't be used in isolation, I agree with you (but I think your point was poorly expressed). If it's to say they shouldn't be used at all, which is what I read your original comment as, then I don't.

Of course my point was that they shouldn't be used in isolation - re-read my original comment, which states: "Furnish evidence or a solid argument for why he is wrong." It wasn't poorly expressed, and you are nitpicking. Though had I known you'd nitpick, I would have said: "Furnish evidence or a solid argument for why he is wrong in addition to it."

Why in the world would you furnish evidence or a solid argument for why somebody is wrong when that somebody didn't bother furnishing evidence or a solid argument for why they are right? It was just a bald-assed claim, and commenting "correlation is not causation" rather than just drive-by downvoting is charitable.

I think the reason that Firefox failed is because of their logo. No, I will not explain, and if you dismiss me without a well-reasoned argument, you're a pretentious mid-wit(?).

edit: ah, "midwit" is a neologism from the intellectual dark web. You're just defending the comment because you agree with it, and pretending it's a question of reason or civility. Who could have guessed?

> Of course my point was that they shouldn't be used in isolation - re-read my original comment, which states: "Furnish evidence or a solid argument for why he is wrong."

Those responses are evidence for why it may be wrong. But in isolation they are needlessly terse. Lack of evidence is not the problem, lack of accompanying explanation of why they are evidence, and how they apply, is.

> Though had I known you'd nitpick, I would have said: "Furnish evidence or a solid argument for why he is wrong in addition to it."

And then it would be much clearer, not because I'm nitpicking, but because it's ambiguous otherwise, and open to the interpretation I came to. Since that's not what you intended, it's better to eliminate that misinterpretation.

The bottom line is that clarity is not a matter of intent, but of interpretation by others. At least one person (me) thought you were unclear, and I suspect others did as well. You can complain that they are nitpicking, or accept that you were misinterpreted, and expressing yourself differently might have avoided the problem. Only you can control that, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to blame other people if they aren't being purposefully obtuse (and I promise I'm not).

Fair point, and I’ll bear it in mind in the future.