> it allows the reader to avoid thinking about the claims in question.
There is nothing to think about when there is no evidence, except how to gather or find reliable evidence. No amount of solitary mental rumination will yield a revelation about how effective certain UI features are with users. My own anecdotes are just as useless as my opponents'. This isn't laziness. I'm not being lazy when I ask accusers to provide some evidence that someone is in fact a witch.
And sure, the scientific community may be out of date or downright wrong, even half of the time. That's not an argument against the need for evidence. It's an argument for thoughtful analysis of evidence after it is presented, and more and better techniques for gathering evidence.
There is nothing to think about when there is no evidence, except how to gather or find reliable evidence. No amount of solitary mental rumination will yield a revelation about how effective certain UI features are with users. My own anecdotes are just as useless as my opponents'. This isn't laziness. I'm not being lazy when I ask accusers to provide some evidence that someone is in fact a witch.
And sure, the scientific community may be out of date or downright wrong, even half of the time. That's not an argument against the need for evidence. It's an argument for thoughtful analysis of evidence after it is presented, and more and better techniques for gathering evidence.