When a person is stating that the facts or analysis they are relying on ought to carry greater weight, because of who they are. See discussion on the use of “experts” above.
Appeal to authority (particularly one’s own) can of course also, in some circumstances, be a fallacy. But obviously not always.
Ad hominem-related fallacies:
Assuming that arguments debunking a point of view are invalid because they contain an ad hominem component (or simply are couched in a “mean” way).
Ignoring the overturning of one’s claims from a series of polite, rational posters to focus on a rude minority, thus dismissing the entire opposition as invalid for resorting to ad hominems. (A counterpart to this is pretending that the vast majority of posters who disagree with you simply don’t exist, and effusively thanking the one or two who support you).
Other food for thought: If one finds oneself continually the target of personal attacks, one should consider whether there are good reasons for this.
People who complain the most bitterly about being the target of ad hominems frequently have been heavily engaged in such tactics themselves.
Resolved: My research demonstrates that Tylenol(R) reduces heart attacks.
Contra: Your research was really funded entirely by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, owner of the Tylenol(R) trade-mark, but you lied about this on your conflict -of-interest statement, claiming no association with industry. Therefore, unless it is independantly confirmed, your research cannot be trusted.
Is “contra” an ad-hom? If so, is it an example of fallacious argumentation?
Well, yes.
An ad hominem is a fallacious refutation of an argument by attacking the person making the argument. If the quality of the argument isn’t changed by the quality of the messenger, then it’s a fallacy and therefore ad hom. If the quality of the argument is changed by the quality of the messenger, then it’s not a fallacy and therefore not ad hom, but it is still attacking the person making the argument. It’s simply then a valid tactic.
Well summed. Though I’d put it slightly differently (though this may be splitting hairs): I regard any attack on the person making the statement to be an “ad hom”, but divide ad-homs into fallacious and non-fallacious varieties - a fallacious ad-hom being, as you say, an attack on the messanger where the quality of the message is not affected by the quality of the messanger.
The distinction I’m trying to make is subtle, so I think I’m just not doing a very good job of explaining it, but I do think it’s important. I’m speaking purely about a logical distinction here, in that many logical fallacies can, in certain contexts, be legitimate points in an argument, but they’re still logical fallacies. The distinction is that in a logical argument the conclusion necessarily follows the premises in every case; as such, if the premises are valid then the conclusion is necessarily valid. In a fallacy, the conclusion may even be true for a vast majority of given sets of premises but it still does not logically follow that, because it is true in a majority of cases that it must be true in all cases. In short, if we all agree X is a valid argument and X->Y is a logically sound argument, then we can necessarily conclude that Y is also valid. If X->Y is not logically sound, even if it is true 99/100 times, we can not necessarily conclude that Y is valid; we do, however, have good evidence that Y is valid.
This is the distinction that I’m trying to make, that using any logical fallacy will inherently come to some degree of the second case. It may still, in fact, be a very compelling argument, but it is possible that the premises are true and the conclusion is not. If the argument is logically sound, then it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false.
The reason I draw this distinction is because sometimes people correctly identify a logical fallacy and assume that, because it’s a logical fallacy, the argument of their opponent is necessarily bad. But, in my observation, large amounts of debate inherently include this sort of evidence rather than pure logical reasoning. Imagine a court case, no single piece of evidence is absolutely indisputable, even DNA evidence has an error rate, but when you add up a series of those types of arguments, you get to a point where you’re reasonably convinced of guilt. Science, too, is often that way, where we can repeat an experiment a million times and get identical results each time, but we can never say with absolute certainty, just from experimental evidence, that such a trend is 100% guaranteed.
So, it is an important practice to be able to recognize logical fallacies, in so much to realize that, when they’re applied, the truth value of the conclusion is possibly less than the premises. However, it is equally important to realize that just because a logical fallacy was employed it doesn’t mean that the conclusion is necessarily false or that the argument isn’t still reasonably convincing, just not absolute. Instead, observing that a logical fallacy has been imployed allows for subtlety in the discussion in order to determine the weight of the argument which is essentially what an ad hominem in response to an appeal to authority is doing. If, however, an argument is logically sound, unless one wants to dispute the validity of the premises or that the argument isn’t in fact logically sound, then the truth value of the conclusion is indisputable. And it is in these latter cases, where one party believes he has made a logically sound argument when he has not, that identifying it as a logical fallacy is most useful, because that allows such discussion about the weight of the evidence to enter into the discussion.
Yes, and yes. It’s irrelevant who funded the research. If it’s a properly conducted study, it’s a properly conducted study. I mean, it’s my understanding that no research can be trusted unless it’s been independently confirmed, but that’s true regardless of the person who funds the original study.
It is always a fallacy. The facts or analysis someone is relying on should never logically carry greater weight because of who they are. If a person is making a factual statement, it’s a factual statement, and if an argument is logically valid, it’s logically valid, no matter who the person is who’s arguing it.
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal
is a valid syllogism, whether it’s you saying it, me saying it, or Socrates saying it.
I’d say yes and no. It is obviously relevant who funds the research. Why, if your position is correct, would anyone bother with conflict of interest statements?
True, a person in a deliberately-undisclosed conflict may perform research perfectly adequately, but having a deliberately-undisclosed conflict undermines the weight to be accorded to their conclusions - and to state that it does isn’t logically fallacious, it is simply reality.
Naturally, independent confirmation is the fuel for scientific progress. But nonetheless, a lone study can be hailed as a breakthrough worth investigating, or a dubious example of industry shill-ing – all depending on the weight it ought to be accorded, which at least in part depends on the identity of the person undertaking the research.
Ad hominem attacks of course shouldn’t be persuasive. I have a meta example. The OP of this very thread engaged in an ad hominem attack herself.
From here.
Part of the reason ad hominem attacks aren’t supposed to be persuasive is that they are designed to deflect attention and allow the user to ignore arguments that they aren’t capable of rebutting.
The real meta question here is, is this post, the one I’m writing now considered an ad hominem attack? 
That only works with logical syllogisms. Few arguments in real life ever boil down to pure logical syllogisms.
If Socrates is pushing the merits of a brand of toothpaste, who Socrates is may, without fallacy, be an important item of information in evaluating those merits. If he’s an independant research scientist his statement has a different weight to it than if he’s an industry spokesperson.
[If he’s a dead Greek phylosopher, he’s no doubt re-evaluating the merits of the afterlife …]
Actually, that’s not ad hominem. I didn’t attack you, and I think it’s a stretch to say I attacked your behavior.
Having said the same things 12 different ways over days, I simply got sick of repeating myself to someone who has continued to blatantly misrepresent what I’ve said, (since you can’t rebut me…you just pretend you didn’t hear me) and let you know in a fashion that I found more entertaining.
I learned Stoid’s definition of ad hominem right on this board, years ago. I was so excited to learn some new fancy debatin’ termz. I have been confused lately to see people using it to mean just personal insults.
Doesn’t Diosa teach debating? I wonder what her take on it is.
That’s actually a misrepresentation of what happened. Anyone who cares for accurate information can check out the thread in question.
While we’re on the subject of Stoid’s deficiencies as a debater, from the OP of this very thread:
And odd enough, Stoid herself actually commits that fallacy in defense of her position:
The only thing possible to take away from this is that Stoid either doesn’t understand what she’s talking about or ignores the rules when they stand in the way of defending her unexamined beliefs.
I took Debate in high school. This was a competition, with judges, rules, and a winner and a loser. It resembles **Great Debates **in much the way that boxing resembles a bar fight.
One thing that I wanted to bring to this thread is that there are different types of logics, and up till now they seem to have been confused here. Two significantly different logics are *deductive *logic and *inductive *logic.
A deductive logic contains a set of axioms and a set of rules of inference. Given this, it is possible to prove statements to be *true *or false. When you are offered a proof of the truth of a statement, you can evaluate the proof, and you look for various logical errors that would render the proof invalid. Claiming the proof is invalid because of the character or history of the one who offered the proof is itself a logical error, called argumentum ad hominem. If you accept the proof is valid, then you acknowledge the proved statement is true. Saying that a statement is true is equivalent to saying that it follows via a valid proof from a set of axioms.
Deductive logic is beloved of philosophers and mathematicians, but it does not have a lot of applicability in the real world.
Inductive logic is the process of finding evidence and drawing a conclusion from that evidence. An inductive argument consists of laying out the evidence and the conclusion, along with possibly a statistical analysis indicating how certainly the conclusion can be drawn. Arguing that the evidence cannot be trusted is a valid critique of an inductive argument; arguing that the person presenting the evidence has a vested interest in selecting that evidence is also a valid critique. No conclusion based on inductive logic can ever formally be called true; the best that we can say is that it is supported by the evidence. The phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt” is relevant.
Inductive logic is used a lot; pretty much by everyone on a daily basis. It can be done well or poorly, but when it is ill-applied it is not usually because of a logical error that has a Latin name.
Argument, of course, is something else. It is designed to persuade someone of something. Appeals to emotion or self-interest are usually more effective than carefully constructed logical proofs.
Not if he’s telling the truth about the merits of the toothpaste. The thing is, you’re making the assumption that an independent research scientist will tell the truth and an industry spokesperson will lie. What you need to do is evaluate statements by both the independent scientist and the spokesperson to find out if they’re telling the truth.
Incorrect.
A. I don’t have any beliefs. (See the thread, that’s the point, stated repeatedly from top to bottom and don’t persist here that’s not this thread, just responding specifically in reference to your assertion re argumentum ad populum) It is your continued insistence that I do that leads me to believe that someone else is doing your reading for you.
B. Since I do not have any beliefs, I am therefore not arguing for beliefs I do not have. Hence it is incorrect to state that the reference to vast numbers of people was an example of argumentum ad populum, which is the logical fallacy of "If lots of people agree, it must be true! " - and in fact, I am the last person on planet earth, much less the Dope, to sign up for THAT load of horseshit.
C. The reference to the vast numbers of believers was not, of course “Gee, lots of people believe, therefore it’s true!” It was in response to your query of why the subject should be treated any differently than examining the possibility that vampires are real.
My point was that the two beliefs, while many may consider them to be equally unlikely, are not equally unusual.
Since the questions at the heart of the issue of an afterlife are questions that have been asked by very nearly every human who ever lived, it’s not bizarre, unusual, or ridiculous to consider the way the question has been asked and what answers exist, and whether those answers can be considered conclusive,no matter what they are, which was and is the point of the thread, something you have persisted in failing to grasp.
It is a matter of enormous interest to just about everyone on some level, whether it is because they are devoted to a religious or spiritual belief, a scientist working on brains, a philospher considering the nature of being human, or just because they are really bummed out that they are going to die some day and they would like to know one way or another if that’s really going to mean eternal nothing or if there’s a possibility of something else.
Whether vampires, fairies, or dragons are real is not a pressing question for very many people at all, if any, because whether they are or not, it’s unlikely to make much difference to anyone.
Now, I have addressed the mistake you made regarding argumentum ad populum, but I respectfully ask that you stop trying to drag the other thread into this thread. They are two different threads and I believe that’s not board-kosher.
Thanks.
No one is reading for me. And casting random ad hominem attacks of your own hardly shows you understand what you’re debating about.
You say you don’t have any beliefs. Yet you have decided that an afterlife has a special evidentiary burden. That you have to disprove an afterlife but must prove the existence of dragons. That’s not an honest position to hold.
So the reason the afterlife has special consideration is because a lot of people consider it? What kind of logical fallacy is that? 
Of course humans want to transcend death. So what? That has exactly zero bearing on the reality of the situation.
You don’t think the existence of Smurfs would shake the very foundations of science? Again, there are an infinite number of possible bullshit fantasies out there. You have chosen one particular bullshit fantasy, the afterlife, as worthy of requiring evidence to disprove. But at the same time not requiring evidence to disprove Smurfs. You are doing this because of an argument to popularity.
I didn’t make a mistake. You specifically made that argument in the very post I’m responding to. If you’re knee deep in shit and shouting that you haven’t stepped in any, it doesn’t change reality.
I wasn’t intending to threadshit. I was trying to show that you don’t really understand the stance you’re taking.
If you want to talk about the other thread…go to the other thread.