[Buddha-l] Prominent Neobuddhist proposes religion based blacklisting for government jobs

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 30, 2009, at 1:58 PM, Curt Steinmetz wrote:

> Secondly, I was attacking Harris' credentials.

Exactly. That's what made your attack ad hominem. Irving M. Copi says  
this about the argumentum ad hominem: "It is committed when, instead  
of trying to disprove the truth of what is asserted, one attacks the  
man who made the assertion."

Saying that Harris does not have the proper credentials to impugn a  
well-known prize-winning scientist commits two fallacies of  
irrelevance. First the attack on Harris's credentials is irrelevant to  
the case at hand and constitutes an argumentum ad hominem. Secondly,  
the appeal to the scientist's reputation is also irrelevant and  
constitutes an argumentum ad verecundiam (an appeal to authority).

Given that 99.98% of all discourse in the United States is made up of  
informal fallacies, with strong preference being given to the two just  
cited, it is not surprising that even on buddha-l one will  
occasionally encounter a fallacious argument. There is no harm in  
pointing them out from time to time.

Richard