How to handle answers based on «logic»?

Question

There are a few answers popping up regularly based on «logic».

The problem is obviously not the logic part, it is that the logic depends on uncited facts. Using logic to follow the consequences of cited facts is perfectly acceptable and necessary.

By this I mean answers that:

• Have little or no sensible references
• When prodded, the author typically replies with "I can't reference anything because it's just «logic»"

Whereas it is always, always the case that the author is just speculating (and not using «logic» in the context of facts).

In practice these answers are based on speculation, circular logic and no-true-Scotsman fallacies (and not pure «logic»):

Example:
Q: Will you get shocked by lightning in a car?
A: You are isolated, therefore no.

This kind of answer may be OK on other SE sites, but not here. Here's what's wrong with the answer.

• If you are isolated, then you are safe. This is completely obvious and we have no problem with it.
• But are you isolated? In theory yes, because of the wheels, but does this effectively work in practice? Has anyone actually tried it and published the results? The answer is not even addressing the question in this respect.

The site must get rid of these answers because they are:

• low quality and therefore bad for the site in general and bad for the OP
• mere opinion/speculation and therefore tend to spark useless discussions ("bad subjective")
• not real answers to the question
• broken windows, because they are examples of speculative claims being repeated
• very unlikely to be fixed by anyone because fixing them is equivalent to re-writing new answers (and therefore anyone would probably write a correct separate answer instead)

In many cases it's sufficient to leave a comment, and the author will fix or delete the answers. In some other cases the author refuses to help because they are used to other SE where this style of answers is tolerated.

In most cases, moderators and high rep users are being dragged in pointless discussions in the comments.

What should we do to avoid these problematic bad answers?

Please vote one or more of the answers below (or add your own solution).

** Update:** This has now been folded into the guidelines here. Keep voting if you want to change/confirm this policy.

Answer 1

Bad answers should be downvoted and commented upon. If the poster refuses to fix, or ignores the comments, a "citation-needed" banner should be added to the answer, to invite others to downvote or edit the question.

Answer 2

If possible, an answer should have citation for the facts, it relies on.

But not every answer without citation is a bad answer. Possible reasons:

• you can't find a study and nobody else does
• the question handles about a field, where no scientist works on - most esoteric claims talk about such stupid ideas, no scientist gets interested
• the answer can be given by facts which are common knowledge, and taught at school

If the person, which asks the question, isn't allowed to freely choose a question, but only, if he knows, there is a answer which can use citation, the person doesn't need to ask, but can get the answer directly.

As long as there isn't an answer with citation, we don't know whether there will be an answer tomorrow, next week, next month, at all.

Citing a study can become a fetisch. Answers which don't really fit the question but have citation are upvoted blindly. How valid is the source? We shall not perform original research, but judge publications - by what?

You need common knowledge and logic to decide, whether a citation is appropriate, and whether the research is up to date, and fits to the question. But there is no final answer. Citation isn'T the silver bullet.

If somebody has a sounding explanation, that is more worth than a citation from a paper, which nobody understands. Yes, he might be wrong, so show it, and if you have, use citation, it's fine. But don't make it a dogma.

Answer 3

Your premise that it is always, always the case that the author is just speculating (and not using «logic» in the context of facts) can easily be shown to be false by a single counter-example, due to your ill-advised use of the word always.

That's a simple application of DeMorgan's Theorem, which IS pure logic.

Because of this flawed premise, your whole argument is unsound, if even a single counter-example can be found.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness

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Here is such a counter-example: Is closed-source code more secure than open-source? I'll summarize here:

The original post may be succinctly summarized as:

Our teacher won't allow us to use the open source FreePascal compiler. He argues that Anyone can modify open source software, therefore open source software is insecure and FreePascal is open source, therefore it is insecure. Is this right?

My answer may be succinctly summarized as

The teacher's argument is unsound. He makes a statistical claim about open source software, and then derives a conclusion about a particular piece of software. This is a common fallacy ('Division').

In addition, I linked sources to show that the claim specifically does not apply to FreePascal, but this is not germane to the fact that the teacher's argument is unsound.

Answer 4

Bad answers should be deleted by moderators (after fair warning).

The answer can still be edited by original author and when fixed, they can flag it to have it reinstated.

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Note: while this may seem harsh, I think it's actually the way to go. We are a community of Skeptics, and we should only allow answers that are based on factual evidence. Any other answer is not a skeptical answer. It goes against what we stand for.