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Phil: I like your part about appeal to authority. Basically that is what all undergraduate textbooks are, appeals to authority. The authority is so rarified that no references are provided and a student may receive a lower grade on a test question if the appropriate form is not used even if the answer is legitimate because the grader did not recognize it as a legitimate alternative. Nevertheless, science teachers (me included) always say that science is based on verifiable experiment‹we just do not have time to show them all to you (which is true of course). So, science teaching as a process has much in common with bible study, especially if there are no laboratory experiments. Larry Romsted On 2/16/07 3:36 PM, "Michael Balter" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Well, this is very interesting. What I take away from it is that if I provide > evidence that Cohen and Campbell are factually wrong about the HIV-AIDS > connection, and then go on to suggest that their ideas are dangerous and an > example of know-nothing leftism, I am on pretty firm ground rhetorically > speaking and I have avoided making ad hominem attacks. So that just leaves the > issue of how much I am annoying other list members by responding to them. Food > for thought! > > M > > On 2/16/07, Phil Gasper <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> >> On 2/16/07, Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote: >>> Ad hominem: >>> >>> Q claims P >>> Q is a jerk. >>> Therefore P is false. >>> >>> Note: this _includes_ personal attack (Q is a jerk), but what makes it >>> an ad hominem argument is that the attack on thed person is used to >>> discredit the proposition. This is ALWAYS wrong, because true >>> propositions can be maintained by shitheads without ubtruing the >>> proposition. >> >> The problem with the above argument is not that it is ad hominem, but that >> the conclusion is too strong. Consider: >> >> Q claims P >> Q is a jerk (at least with respect to matters having to do with P) >> Therefore, (in the absence of independent evidence) there is no reason to >> take P seriously. >> >> There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that kind of argument to me. >> >> When ad hominem arguments fail, it is because the dimension along which the >> person is being attacked is irrelevant to their ability to judge the evidence >> in the area that is under discussion. So bad ad hominem arguments are really >> fallacies of irrelevance. But there are perfectly OK ad hominem arguments >> that don't commit the fallacy of irrelevance. >> >> Q claims to have been an eye witness to X. >> Q is a notorious drunk. >> Therefore, Q's testimony about X should not be taken seriously. >> >> Conversely, there is nothing wrong with an appropriate appeal to authority >> (another form of argument that texts on informal logic typically classify as >> fallacious). If the individual in question really is an authority on certain >> questions, there is nothing wrong with accepting their judgment about such >> matters. In fact, since scientific inquiry is a social, not an indiviual, >> enterprise, it would grind to a halt if we did not behave in this way. >> >> --PG >> > >