Thursday, June 22, 2006

Homina, homina, homina...

Homina.

That word reminds me of The Honeymooners because Ralph Kramden used to say it a lot.

It also reminds me of the next form of bad reasoning.

So, sit back and enjoy Lesson 2 of Fallacy Academy.

The "Ad Hominem" attack.

"Argumentum ad hominem" literally means "argument against the person". Thank you, Wikipedia.

An ad hominem argument is attacking a person's character or motives for believing something, rather than to disprove his argument. Instead of attacking the message, you attack the messenger.

Here's a made up example:

Person 1: You can't believe little Bobby when he says that Michael W. Smith is the greatest singer ever.

Person 2: Why's that?

Person 1: Because little Bobby was homeschooled.

Okay, maybe that was a bad example. But the reasoning is also bad...it's an ad hominem argument.

I challenge you to give me a better example.

2 comments:

Cox said...

How's this:

Jeff: Abortion is wrong because it kills babies.

Luke: Well you just hate minorities and the poor, you bigot!

Linda said...

Excellent, Mr. Cox.

You get an A+!!!

And, I get an A+ on verification activation, did you notice?