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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
 Posted - 08/11/2009 : 09:21:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
Ignored: I'm not going to listen to you.
Dismissed: I listened to you, but you don't have evidence to show that your claim is true.
Refutation: There is positive evidence against your claim.
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Agreed, except that I would say:
Dismissed: I listened to you, but now I will ignore it/you.
You can dismiss someone without having a good reason. Hamm does it all the time.
Refutation: My counter argument to your statement.
You can refute someone without having any positive evidence for your refutation. Hamm does it all the time.  |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 10:06:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Dude
You are doing graduate level work now, yes? Every time a professor or one of your mentor's gives you a bit of knowledge, do you go and independently verify it before you trust it?
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Taking your professor's word for a fact in his field of expertise is an admissible and a logically correct appeal to authority.
Taking Ham's word for a fact in a field of (NOT) his expertise is (NOT) a correct appeal to authority.
Taking (NOT) Ham's word for a fact in a field of (NOT) his expertise is not even an appeal to authority to begin with.
Only when Ham is claiming some kind of expertise as support for his assertions may we invoke false appeal to authority. But then, Ham does that when he claims biblical authority.
If we say that "Ham is wrong (about evolution) because he is a creationist" it is an ad hominem as long as we cannot prove that "creationist" is the opposite and mutually exclusive to evolution.
Since people like Miller proves that being creationist and holding evidence-based views on evolution is not mutually exclusive (only extremely rare), we cannot excuse ad hominems as valid appeals to an inverse function of argument of authority.
Only if Ham claims Authority-from-the-literal-Bible-interpretation, which is the inverse or opposite of fact-based-evolution, can we dismiss what he says without committing the ad hominem.
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Yes and no. If Ken Ham had no established reputation it would be a logical fallacy to dismiss him out of hand. As he has a well established reputation for being totally wrong about evolution every time he speaks, a motive for lying about the topic(money), and a history of making shit up that goes back years... it is in no way an ad hom fallacy to dismiss, ignore, roll your eyes, or laugh at anything he says about evolution.
But yes, if you said, "Ham is wrong about evolution because he is a creationist." you are probably making an ad hom argument.
But when people roll their eyes at the mention of his name (or Phelps, or a bunch of other names, as Rat suggests in the OP) you are instantly dismissing him as a non-credible autority with a well established history of being wrong, lying, and saying crazy shit. This is a far cry from ad hom arguments.
Ricky said:
Dude, I'm in a pure math program. Of course I do.
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So you don't trust the explanations and data given to you by your professors and mentors? Seriously?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 14:00:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've always thought it as:
Ignored: I'm not going to listen to you.
Dismissed: I listened to you, but you don't have evidence to show that your claim is true.
Refutation: There is positive evidence against your claim. |
Ah. My problem was that I was thinking of it from a practical point-of-view, in which case ignoring someone and dismissing someone have the same end: so-and-so makes a claim, but I don't care.
Or, rather, in ignoring someone, I don't care before I've heard the claim, and in dismissing someone the not-caring part happens after I've heard the claim.
Of course, we're talking about a pseudo-ad-hom (good term, Dude?) based just on someone's name, so:
Ignored: I'm not going to listen to you because you're Ken Ham and so you're always wrong on this subject.
Dismissed: I listened to you, but you're Ken Ham and so you're always wrong on this subject, so I'm unsure why I didn't ignore you.
Any real difference there? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 14:26:16 [Permalink]
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On a practical point of view; your position is a perfectly acceptable one.
I still believe it is not warranted on pure logical grounds... so there :p |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 14:52:41 [Permalink]
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Dude:
| So you don't trust the explanations and data given to you by your professors and mentors? Seriously? |
In pure mathematics, there is absolutely no trust involved. If you understand the explanation then there is no need for trust. If you don't understand the explanation, then something is wrong (either with you or the explanation). The only time I've ever used real world data was when I was doing research on computing electrostatic potential in organic molecules. But even there, the system I was building should still be able to calculate it on entirely fictitious molecules, the fact that we were using real ones was rather insignificant.
Dave:
Ignored: I'm not going to listen to you because you're Ken Ham and so you're always wrong on this subject.
Dismissed: I listened to you, but you're Ken Ham and so you're always wrong on this subject, so I'm unsure why I didn't ignore you.
Any real difference there? |
If you're going for the ad-hom, then I'd say no. There is no difference. However, they can easily be rephrased to have the same conclusion but a solid logical foundation.
Ignored: I'm not going to listen to you because you're Ken Ham and so you're usually wrong on this subject, and I find it would be a waste of time to gamble even though you might be right.
Dismissed: I listened to you, but you've offered no supporting evidence (or not enough) for you claim. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 14:57:46 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
| Of course, we're talking about a pseudo-ad-hom (good term, Dude?) based just on someone's name, so |
Well, no. Not unless you think positive or negative source credibility and all inductive arguments are logical fallacies. I don't dismiss Ken Ham because he is a creationist, I dismiss Ken Ham because he is Ken Ham, a guy with well established negative credibility.
On a practical point of view; your position is a perfectly acceptable one.
I still believe it is not warranted on pure logical grounds... so there :p |
On pure logical grounds, does it make sense to use the christian bible as a science book? I mean, if you make the argument "You can't use that text as a science book because it is a copy of the christian bible" you are technically making an ad hominem argument.
Or how about "you can't use 'Of Pandas And People' as a highschool science book because it was written by batshit insane people with the intention to advance a hidden political agenda and teach christian religion as science in public school science classrooms"! That is technically an ad hominem argument, even though it's true.
The reason you'd roll your eyes at the suggestion of using either of those as science textbooks is simple, they have both been thoroughly examined and found wanting as sources of credible scientific data.
I personally have not examined every single claim in either of those books. But I have examined several and found none of them have scientific merit. Is it really an ad hom to say that you can't trust claim X about evolution because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'?
No. It is an inductive conclusion.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/11/2009 : 23:32:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
| Is it really an ad hom to say that you can't trust claim X about evolution because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'? |
I went to Amazon and clicked "Surprise me!". The first text I read was:
Louis Pasteur, who proved that the ideas of spontaneous generation of his time were not valid.
Are you going to tell me you can't trust this claim because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'?
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Grasping at straws there Ricky!
No, what I'm saying is that if a friend of yours ever comes up to you and says, "I read, in 'Of Pandas And People', that...", you would not be making an ad hom argument if you shut them down and told them to go get a credible book on the subject.
| In pure mathematics, there is absolutely no trust involved. |
huh? Either you are not understanding me or you are being deliberately obtuse? You are confusing me.
When you are presented with some new bit of math that you have never seen before you trust that your professor is a credible source for the new information. Don't you? Of course you do.
I'm not talking about your ability to understand and apply what you are taught, I'm talking about the initial phase when you are learning something genuinely new. You trust that your professor is a credible source. Just because pure mathematics is a thought excercise as opposed to an observational one (like, say, physics or biology) does not mean that any old source can be trusted. You telling me there aren't any math-crack-pots around?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 07:11:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
| Is it really an ad hom to say that you can't trust claim X about evolution because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'? |
I went to Amazon and clicked "Surprise me!". The first text I read was:
Louis Pasteur, who proved that the ideas of spontaneous generation of his time were not valid.
Are you going to tell me you can't trust this claim because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'?
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Actually, I think it's fair enough if you don't. Just because you don't trust a claim from a certain source because this source is often wrong, it does not entail that everything that source says is wrong. It just means that you can be justified in taking the claims of the source with a pinch of salt. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 09:48:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
Actually, I think it's fair enough if you don't. Just because you don't trust a claim from a certain source because this source is often wrong, it does not entail that everything that source says is wrong. It just means that you can be justified in taking the claims of the source with a pinch of salt. |
Yeah. The authors' name are probably correct. Oh, unless it's AIG's Answers Research Journal, which encourages pseudonyms.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 10:26:20 [Permalink]
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I suppose under the assumption that I don't know anything about the history of biology, you're right: I shouldn't trust the claim about Louis Pasteur.
| No, what I'm saying is that if a friend of yours ever comes up to you and says, "I read, in 'Of Pandas And People', that...", you would not be making an ad hom argument if you shut them down and told them to go get a credible book on the subject. |
Yes, of course it's not an ad hom. But what I disagree with is assigning a trust value to a certain statement because of its source. It's fine to ignore something because of the source. But once someone comes up to you with a claim, it will be far more accurate to just evaluate the claim itself, rather than analyze its source.
| When you are presented with some new bit of math that you have never seen before you trust that your professor is a credible source for the new information. Don't you? Of course you do. |
I suppose I have trusted the definitions, but definitions aren't "math", they are just the things that allow you to talk about math. When it comes to the actual math, each step is either an invocation of a definition, an axiom, or a proposition proved before. Again, there is no trust in this. If there is something wrong, you will see it.
Perhaps I have trust that the things we are learning are prevalent in mathematics today. But again, there is no trust here either because I read papers and I know that they are.
I think there is a disconnect because virtually everyone who isn't a mathematician learns mathematics in a loose way, one that is based on trust. You've never seen the proof that the integers exist, or the proof that a < b, a > b or a = b, or the proof that 0 is not equal to 1.
| Just because pure mathematics is a thought excercise as opposed to an observational one (like, say, physics or biology) does not mean that any old source can be trusted. You telling me there aren't any math-crack-pots around? |
Sure there are, but you can recognize the flaws in their logic. In other words, you give me a proof from a crackpot and a proof from a professor, and I guarantee you that as long as I know the definitions I can recognize which is which. Again, there is no trust at all involved. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 08/12/2009 10:27:33 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 10:36:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
I went to Amazon and clicked "Surprise me!". The first text I read was:
Louis Pasteur, who proved that the ideas of spontaneous generation of his time were not valid.
Are you going to tell me you can't trust this claim because it is made in 'Of Pandas And People'? |
You find it silly because you already knew, beforehand, that that particular claim is correct. Someone who knew nothing of Pasteur would have no idea, and if the history of the book were explained, would have a good reason to distrust every claim the book might make. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 11:25:37 [Permalink]
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Ricky said:
| But what I disagree with is assigning a trust value to a certain statement because of its source. |
So you are saying that there is no such thing as source credibility? That is an interesting position to take.
| Sure there are, but you can recognize the flaws in their logic. In other words, you give me a proof from a crackpot and a proof from a professor, and I guarantee you that as long as I know the definitions I can recognize which is which. Again, there is no trust at all involved. |
Your current level of education and training gives you an insight into new things you learn, you are a smart guy and can recognize crackpot math when you see it. I think this is clouding your thinking on this idea.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 12:25:05 [Permalink]
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| So you are saying that there is no such thing as source credibility? That is an interesting position to take. |
No, not at all. All I'm saying is that if you want an accurate trust value of a particular claim, you need to look at the claim itself. You seem to be stating that you'd say claim X isn't trust worthy because the people who made it aren't, and stop there. In reality, you know precisely why that claim is bogus (or not). And in the rare case that you don't, then if you don't want to find out why, I'd say you have a lack of curiosity that is rather odd for those who have an appreciation of science.
Telling someone to read credible books is fine. But learning isn't just about reading the right stuff, it's also about correcting the wrong. Showing someone how creationists tend to conflate abiogenesis with spontaneous generation can give them a much better insight into understanding what each one is.
When you hear a particular claim, you may like to think that you stop at, "well it came from person X, so I don't have to think about it." but I contest that this never actually happens, and I believe it would be a sad day for science if it ever did. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Ad hominems, again
