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I'm ambivalent on how reasonable this is.
On the one hand, a Catholic would seem to have a natural bias towards the truth of Catholicism. If we are evaluating some novel piece of information that may or may not bear on the truth of Catholicism, we should expect the Catholic to be predisposed to interpreting that evidence in ways that support the truth of Catholicism. In that sense knowing that the person is Catholic should make us more skeptical of any Catholicism-supporting conclusions they draw.
On the other hand... I would expect people who encounter evidence that Catholicism is true to be disproportionately Catholic, because factual beliefs can be motivating. Suppose there's an argument that, if correct, shows that Catholicism is true. Obviously people who think that the argument is correct are going to convert to Catholicism - I'd question anybody who didn't. To say that we can't trust Catholics on the subject of Catholicism is to stack the deck. People who find Catholicism convincing become Catholics. If by doing so they remove themselves from the community of people with whom we can have reasonable discussion about Catholicism, well, then we would seem to have an arbitrary prejudice against Catholicism. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, for any belief or ideology.
For instance - you can't trust evolutionary biologists on the subject of whether evolution is true. They're evolutionary biologists! We should immediately distrust the testimony of people who believe evolution is true on the subject of evolution. That seems absurd. So too with everything else.
The problem is that both these points seem compelling to me, to an extent, especially because for an overarching ideology like Catholicism, people are likely to adopt Catholicism for reasons unrelated to the merits of any given argument. This is less the case for a specific theory like evolution, though ideologies like rationalism, conservatism, socialism, etc., are more like Catholicism than they are like evolution. I think where I end up is that we should not rule partisans of a particular ideology out of discussions of that ideology, though we should be aware of their biases and take them into account. Thus, say, Catholics can and should be consulted on the subject of whether or not Catholicism is true (we can hardly expect anybody else to make the case for Catholicism!), but we should be more critical than usual of their assessments of new information.
On Hanania specifically:
I guess I don't see a valid criticism of Hanania here relative to other pundits. Yes, I'm sure it's true that his positions are a combination of sincere assessment of new data and his best interpretation thereof and a retrofitting of that new data into his existing conceptual framework. He has an existing view or narrative of the world, he will think that narrative is correct or at least the best, most plausible one available, and when he obtains new information, he starts by trying to fit that information into that narrative.
But the last I checked that was how everybody thinks. Everybody has narratives or interpretative frameworks that they apply to experience, and first interpret new evidence in ways that fit with their existing categories. It's only when new evidence becomes overwhelming, or else so dramatically contradicts the existing framework as to be undeniable, that they are forced to reconsider.
Can you think of any particular examples of this? The thing is, what this sounds like to me in practice is the idea that everybody should be presumed to be dishonest except for people who have radically changed their belief systems.
That seems like a heuristic that will easily lead one astray - it would imply, for a start, that inconsistent opportunists are more (intellectually) trustworthy than people who stick to their principles. Doesn't that seem bizarre?
Of course we shouldn't rule partisans out of discussions of that ideology, and we should be aware of their biases and take them into account. It seems that you are agreeing entirely with hydroacetylene's original point, that "You should, accordingly, downgrade the weight of evidence of him coming up with that take."
Why would you think that this is a criticism unique to Hanania versus just most pundits in general? Most pundits in general should have their arguments for their preferred narratives discounted.
I don't see how you can jump from what I wrote to "dishonest," which is loaded with meaning that is lacking in "falling prey to confirmation bias." Likewise, "belief systems" implies a sort of system of belief in a way that someone's "preferred narrative" doesn't. I'd say Scott Alexander is an example of a pundit who does a decent (maybe even good! Definitely not perfect) job of demonstrating an ability to at least entertain undermining his preferred narratives in his essays, where he often tends to spend quite a lot of time at least appearing to present, in good faith, arguments that contradict things he believes to be true.
Again, you seem to jump from "preferred narratives" to "principles," which is very bizarre. Someone can stick to their principles completely and jump from narrative to wildly different narrative, due to how their principles dictate their interpretation of facts. Likewise, there's no reason to believe that an inconsistent opportunist isn't sticking to his own principles, since his principles could be driving him to become an opportunist. So no, what I wrote doesn't imply that at all, by my lights.
Because I don't think most citations of pundits here are met with this kind of backlash. I perceive Hanania to be singled out as particularly lacking in credibility. My response is not that Hanania is necessarily correct on any issue, but rather that he should not be dismissed for reasons unrelated to his actual positions.
For what it's worth I find the argument about assessing counter-arguments and changing one's views to be an odd one to apply to Hanania, because Hanania is somebody who changed his preferred narrative in response to experience, surely? Hanania used to be an edgy racist, and wrote about how he changed his mind. If changing one's mind is a sign of intellectual honesty, he seems to meet that bar.
To your objections towards the end, I'm happy to revise any of the specific language, but I read you as suggesting that a person who has consistently advocated for a single position or narrative without changing it is less trustworthy than a person who has changed their position. This seems unintuitive, to me.
No one's dismissing Hanania, though, and I don't perceive him as being particularly singled out here.
Your read of me is wrong. It's that someone who has consistently advocated for a single position or narrative without changing it in a way that is indifferent to actual evidence that interacts with such a position or narrative is less trustworthy than a person who has changed their position in a way that responds to actual evidence that interacts with such a position or narrative.
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