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It's time to go on the offensive. Call your opponent a ninny! |
One of the best examples of this comes from--you guessed it--our friend Jack Abramoff. One of Jack Abramoff's teammembers, Dennis Stephens, once proposed to attack Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert because Ruskin's group was criticizing "Channel One:"
From: Dennis Stephens
To: Chad Cowan
Cc: Abramoff, Jack"Have you guys ever looked into Gary Ruskin, a Nader protege who runs Commercial Alert (which is attacking Channel One, our client)...The guy is a weasel...Someone should consider doing an in depth piece on Ruskin and his Nader front groups. We should have lunch and review the options."
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Do not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.
- John Ruskin
In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong, honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.
- John Ruskin
I've been at this blogging thing for more than a decade now. Looking back on those years, I find it incredible that I've lasted this long.
Why do people go into science? Why do people go to work at scholarly societies? Why do people choose scholarly publishing as a career? Why do people choose a career at the intersection of those three vocations?
I think you need to distinguish ad hominem as straightforward attack from ad hominen as sensible cognitive filter, something that your citation doesn't necessarily do. In any reasonably complicated debate (whether technical or otherwise) it's a good idea to know the biases and reputations of the participants. I can know, for example, that if someone from the Discovery Institute is making an argument that seems reasonable at first glance, I should probably look at it more carefully.
Calling your opponant a fool and calling him a bad person are, I think, different strategies. Though often calling him one implies the other, so the two can run in tandem.
Calling Dr X a bad person
"Dr X is intellectually dishonest. He is deliberately hiding evidence that contradicts Darwinism because he knows that if he admits the truth, he'll be out of a job."
"Dr X is a communist." (good old-fashioned name-calling)
"Dr X refuses to support our brave soldiers in Iraq. He obviously doesn't believe in the freedoms they protect."
Calling Dr X a fool:
"Dr X once paid tribute to the liberal moonbat Noam Chomsky, calling his childish pretensions 'brave and necessary'".
"Dr X was among those who wavered on classifying Piltdown Man as the evolutionist fraud we all know it to be."
"Dr X says he can't discount the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation."