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thefaux 3 hours ago

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

threethirtytwo an hour ago | parent [-]

That quote is a category error. It’s about moral judgment of people, not epistemic evaluation of claims. I’m not condemning Le Guin, her character, or anyone who enjoys fiction. I’m saying a specific explanatory claim about how stories relate to truth and human cognition is false.

If “judge not” applied here, then no scientific criticism is permissible at all. You couldn’t say a theory is wrong, a model is flawed, or a claim is unsupported, because the critic is also imperfect. That standard would immediately end every serious discussion on HN.

Quoting scripture in response to an evolutionary and cognitive argument isn’t a rebuttal. It’s a frame shift from “is this claim true” to “are you allowed to say it.” That avoids engaging the substance entirely.

If you think the argument is wrong, point to the error. If not, appealing to moral humility doesn’t rescue a claim from being false.