How to proceed when implicit and explicit claims diverge

Question

I have seen a number of instances of the following pattern.

• Someone says something that absolutely explicitly states X and also clearly implies Y.
  • Y, of course, is more outrageous than X. In typical cases, X is true but not terribly surprising or interesting, whereas Y is false but would be surprising and/or shocking if true.
  • Y is plainly the point the person is hoping their readers/hearers will take away.
• A reader of skeptics.se sees this and posts a question asking "Is this really true?".
  • In some cases, the ambiguity is noticed and dealt with by editing the question title to be about X, while the question body still contains material that implies, insinuates or presupposes Y.
• Someone posts an answer saying "Yes, X is true." which addresses Y not at all or only very briefly.
• This gets accepted (because X is in fact true and is the only perfectly explicit claim in the question).
• But it is still terribly easy for a reader to think that the good people of skeptics.se have endorsed not only X but Y.

Here are a couple of examples.

Was a class of Dutch school children required to learn Muslim prayer? -- X is "A class of Dutch pupils were taught about how Muslims pray" and Y is something like "A class of Dutch pupils were indoctrinated with Islamic ideas and induced to do actual reverence to Allah". There is exactly one answer, just saying that X is true.

Did the US national debt fall by $100 billion in the first two months of Trump's office? -- X is "The US national debt did such-and-such in the first two months of Obama's presidency and such-and-such in the first two months of Trump's" and Y (as, actually, stated explicitly in the material quoted in the question) is "Obama caused the national debt to do this, while Trump caused it to do that"); perhaps there's also a Z which is something like "... and this shows that Trump is better at handling the economy". The question title was originally about Y but it was edited to say X instead. There are two answers, the higher-voted of which gives a nice clear endorsement of X; it briefly mentions that Y is different, but briefly enough that (as you can see from the comments) at least one reader didn't see it.

Is President Trump right that there was violence on “both sides” in Charlottesville? -- X is "on both sides, at least some people committed at least some violent acts", Y is "both sides have comparable liability".

In both of these cases, the only answer (first case) or highest-voted answer (second case) addresses X nicely but neglects Y.

For the avoidance of doubt, this doesn't always happen: for instance, see this question about Obama "admitting training IS" both of whose answers make it very clear that (1) yes, he said what he's claimed to have said (X) and (2) no, he didn't mean what that sounds like (Y).

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When addressing a claim that implies much more than it undeniably states, is dealing clearly with the implications an important part of a good answer?

I think it is. More specifically, I suggest that

• a question about such a claim should make it clear and explicit in both question title and question body whether or not it's concerned with the implications;
• in either case it should make the difference between the implicit and explicit claims as clear as possible;
• usually the more-dramatic less-explicit claim is what's actually of interest;
• an answer that isn't absolutely clear about which it's addressing is not doing its job;
• a really good answer will deal with both implicit and explicit claims and contrast them as appropriate.

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This seems like something that would have come up before in meta, but I haven't found previous examples. What there are plenty of is earlier questions about whether it's OK to ask about implicit claims: one, two, three, four, but that's not the same thing.

Answer 1

"Is dealing clearly with the implications an important part of a good answer?"

I think it is. Another example is, some quotes question are of the form "Did so-and-so really say this?" It's on topic to clarify the context in which it was said, i.e. what the person meant when they said that.

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Also I think that the current answer to Was a class of Dutch school children required to learn Muslim prayer? could be improved at least slightly.

The title says, explicitly, "required" and "learn Muslim prayer": and I think that makes at least those aspects of "Y" specifically on-topic. Given that I might be inclined to clarify that:

• It wasn't required
• They were learning something slightly other than prayer: e.g. that this was an opportunity to learn Muslim "culture" and "language" and so on (including "how Muslims pray"); an opportunity to meet someone (an Imam) in person; to see inside a mosque, and so on.
• And (at risk of inviting political controversy), given that this visit happened in Holland, they were learning more about (present-day) Dutch culture and society.

Answer 2

Implicit claims are not allowed here so it's important to look at what is actually being claimed.

It's OK to add a commentary as to what one perceives to be implied as long as

1. It's a minor part of the answer
2. It's clearly stating that this is the interpretation of the answerer, not the claim itself
3. It's not answering an obvious straw man
4. It's not non-answering by nitpicking on a definition
5. It's not a discussion about intent, motivation or beliefs of the claimant

But please, don't simply answer to your perceived notion of what's being implied and stick to the actual claim being asked about.

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Longer explanation of the points

It's a minor part of the answer

Questions and answers should be about explicit claims and explicit evidence. We have allowed a little bit of leeway in both to allow some opinion through, and an implicit claim is always the poster's opinion of what is implied.

It's clearly stating that this is the interpretation of the answerer, not the claim itself

There's nothing wrong with being imprecise or having opinions—as long as we are intellectually honest about them. If you have a personal opinion, or no evidence, say so. Don't pass it as a fact.

It's not answering an obvious straw man

The basic reason why we don't allow implicit claims is that often they are straw men, not-quite-correctly-reported claims that are easy to disprove. Don't do that on this site.

It's not non-answering by nitpicking on a definition

Similar to the straw man point above, answers need to try to be convincing to someone in doubt about the question, not simply "preach to the converted". Arguing a claim is false because it's only literally false, but not substantially false can be a case of an implied claim we don't allow.

It's not a discussion about intent, motivation or beliefs of the claimant

These discussions are never truly evidence based, because direct evidence of beliefs is impossible, you can only rely on hearsay or similar subjective evidence. We don't allow it in questions, and we equally don't allow it in answers.

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Update: Here's an example of a question with an implicit claim that has been asked and answered according to good practices:

Have there been more than 27,000 Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11?

The question sticks to the explicit claims, the answers analyze the sources, find the numbers plausible but also give context by saying it's misleading and providing some evidence of that. There are no answers merely focusing on the perceived claim, nor any straw man attacks. Reading the answers would plausibly convince an undecided person of the facts.

Answer 3

Note: This was originally an answer to this question.

I would suggest that, if there isn't an absolutely definitive interpretation of a claim, then some leeway should be given for answers that address the claim in ways that provide further information, rather than having strict adherence to the literal claim.

This shouldn't be a carte blanche to post any possible interpretation, but if an answer provides information in response to a common or likely interpretation of the claim (or an interpretation specifically given by the questioner), and makes clear that it is a matter of interpretation that distinguishes it from another answer, then this should be permitted.

Establishing such a policy would have two key benefits:

• Where a questioner has demonstrated an interpretation that is at odds with the most obvious, intended meaning of the claim, it would allow the answers, in combination, to be of greater benefit to the questioner and others who have the same interpretation.

• It would ensure that claims that fall into the "true but misleading" category (such as the Hillary Clinton flag-burning example above) receive not only the "why it is true", but also the "why the claim isn't what it seems" - an equally valid part of skepticism. This ensures that answers on this site do not result in propagation of falsehoods hiding within technicalities.

Also note that it would provide consistency, as the examples (in the question) demonstrate that such information, contained within the same answer as the literal interpretation, are not considered to be an issue, and can even be the critical part of an answer... and it is often seen as rude on stackexchange sites to post practically the same answer as someone else along with extra information rather than crediting the original answer.

This policy would cause some slight overlap, of course, with other SE sites - this should not be considered a weakness, as it is not unusual for there to be some crossover between sites (for example, one wouldn't be surprised to find a mathematics question and answer regarding equations found in physics on the physics site, or on the mathematics site).

Context matters - if the notable claim was "the sky is blue", then most would say "true". As a result, if someone asks a question about whether the sky is blue, an answer may show up providing references confirming that the sky is, indeed, blue (and likely explaining why).

But an observant person may notice that the question was asking about whether the sky was blue and noting that every time they look out of their window, the sky is red. In this situation, the question has a clearly different meaning - "I've always heard that the sky is blue, but my experience is otherwise" - and the correct answer is "it's blue most of the time, but under some situations it is red, such as during certain weather conditions and during a sunrise or sunset".

Similarly, someone might be questioning "1+1=2". The obvious answer is "yes, 1+1=2, and here's a source confirming it". But there are mathematical situation in which that equation is false, and this may be revealed by the wording of the question as the relevant context. This, again, changes the meaning.

An actual example has arisen here, where the questioner is asking about "profit per customer", and the claim provides a value that is clearly "net profit per customer". However, the question itself is worded in a way that indicates that the questioner has interpreted it as "profit gained per ticket sale", which is a different thing, and has a different value. Both interpretations are valid, with the more common interpretation being the one used in the claim to get its value, but the second interpretation being the more useful value, and the more likely one for a reader to have when reading the claim, as demonstrated by the wording of the question itself.