I can sympathize with this. I've found that an effective remedy is to approach an argument objectively, and not in a way that is hostile or certain. If you believe you see a flaw in someone's argument, all you have to do is calmly walk through the points of that argument and attempt to follow it through to conclusion. You will almost certainly find a point in the argument you cannot move past, either because you do not understand that point, or that point in the argument is invalid/unsound. Alternatively, you follow it through to conclusion and find it makes sense after all.psycopathicteen wrote:That's another thing that bothers me. I hate coming across as a know-it-all if experts in a field want me to believe something that doesn't add up, or sounds politically biased. If I find just one flaw in somebody's logic, people might think I'm a jerk who thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and I just want things to make sense.
Sometimes you need to walk someone else through their own argument and highlight the point in question, prefacing it all with "Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but..." or "I could be wrong, but...". If you're prefacing your arguments with things like that, people won't think you're a jerk; you're just trying to understand. It's all about diffusing the sense of confrontation, shifting the purpose away from "winning the argument", and more towards "coming to an understanding".