Ad Hominem Attacks - Can anyone Justify them?

[Uncayimmy]

'Smart' and stupid are not antonyms.

Exactly. They're adjectives.

 

[Arouet]

Evidence?

True, I haven't done a scientific study. But several years of posting on various forums have shown this to consistently happen. I'm willing to be shown this is just confirmation bias, but I certainly see it a LOT so I'm skeptical of that!

Ad hominems are not insults.

Sure, I agree, I thought the thread was veering towards talking about insults, but I read it quickly so if this was offtopic I apologise.

 

[Uncayimmy]

True, I haven't done a scientific study. But several years of posting on various forums have shown this to consistently happen. I'm willing to be shown this is just confirmation bias, but I certainly see it a LOT so I'm skeptical of that!

You wrote, "The thing is, when you throw in the gratuitous insult, the reader is more than likely to just ignore your argument and focus on your insult. Their false beliefs may end up reinforced." (emphasis added)

There are far more people reading threads than posting, so your experience is limited to just those who respond. You don't know how the rest are affected. And while some may object to the insult, how do you know what there beliefs are after things calm down?

The O'Reillys and Limbaughs of the world do quite well. Penn and Teller do quite well with their ********! show. Randi did quite well, and much of his work was filled with invective. It's interesting for some (probably a lot of) people to see it. You can't really look at in isolation, meaning just the recipient of the "insult." After all, most of those people wouldn't change their minds anyway.

I'm not saying it's the only way to go, but I see no evidence that it's ineffective, and I see circumstantial evidence that it is effective.

 

[Fnord]

Arthur: "Sir, I can say with all sincerity that I have met the Living God, face-to-face, and have received from Him enlightened truths that will benefit mankind and bring us all into a new age of awareness and understanding."

Richard: "Sir, while I have no doubt of your sincerity, I must declare that I believe that you were hallucinating at the time."

Maricel: "How could anyone be so rude unless they were too blind and stupid to see the truth right in front of their own eyes like a typically cold-hearted Atheist? This man has had a holy vision, and all you can do is be all snotty about it and call him a liar!"

Maricel was employing "Ad Hominem" in attacking Richard's opinion regarding Arthur's alleged experience. Her attack was completely without value to the discussion taking place between Arthur and Richard.

 

[Dunstan]

Most people do not come to this forum, or anywhere else, in order to constantly strive to be the perfect skeptic. They come here to chat with friends, joke about things they find amusing, argue about politics, laugh at silly things people have said, and so on. Sure, there will often be some skepticism involved, but it would be foolish to imagine that everything everyone says here will always be as skeptical as possible. When someone calls someone else stupid, it's very rarely meant as an unassailable logical counter to an argument. It's simply that they think the other person is stupid and want them to know that. Trying to find the logical reason for something that was never meant as a logical argument is an exercise in futility.

It never ceases to amaze me that this actually needs to be said, but it seems like it does, because so many people seems to think that only Spock-like discussions should take place here. (I was going to make a reference to debating societies, but that's wrong, because debaters use whatever argument works, even if it involves appeal to emotion or is otherwise not Skeptic-Approved.)

 

[Arouet]

You wrote, "The thing is, when you throw in the gratuitous insult, the reader is more than likely to just ignore your argument and focus on your insult. Their false beliefs may end up reinforced." (emphasis added)

There are far more people reading threads than posting, so your experience is limited to just those who respond. You don't know how the rest are affected. And while some may object to the insult, how do you know what there beliefs are after things calm down?

The O'Reillys and Limbaughs of the world do quite well. Penn and Teller do quite well with their ********! show. Randi did quite well, and much of his work was filled with invective. It's interesting for some (probably a lot of) people to see it. You can't really look at in isolation, meaning just the recipient of the "insult." After all, most of those people wouldn't change their minds anyway.

I'm not saying it's the only way to go, but I see no evidence that it's ineffective, and I see circumstantial evidence that it is effective.

It would be interesting to do some actual studies on this. But can we at least agree that its annoying to read the inevitable slew of fallout posts complaining about the insult? And that they are often thread hijackers that prevent more detailed discussion. Or at least cause distraction that ends up derailing some otherwise interesting threads?

 

[Uncayimmy]

It would be interesting to do some actual studies on this. But can we at least agree that its annoying to read the inevitable slew of fallout posts complaining about the insult? And that they are often thread hijackers that prevent more detailed discussion. Or at least cause distraction that ends up derailing some otherwise interesting threads?

Oh, I agree the fallout stuff is a headache. Personally, I like to see somebody get torn a new ******* when (in my opinion) it's deserving. I'm not a big fan of people piling on when they haven't been a part of the discussion. What drives me crazy are those who feel the need to step in and tell everyone to play nice, especially when they have offered nothing else.

 

[Arouet]

What drives me crazy are those who feel the need to step in and tell everyone to play nice, especially when they have offered nothing else.

lol, I've been that guy! So I guess it bothers me less! But I usually try to contribute as well.

 

[Seanette]

I know I've been irreversibly put off the "correct" lines of "skeptical" thinking on a lot of topics by all the venom, arrogant put-downs of disagreement, and inconsistent standards of reasoning on this board.

 

[Stout]

It never ceases to amaze me that this actually needs to be said, but it seems like it does, because so many people seems to think that only Spock-like discussions should take place here. (I was going to make a reference to debating societies, but that's wrong, because debaters use whatever argument works, even if it involves appeal to emotion or is otherwise not Skeptic-Approved.)

Fascinating..



Julian, you should come over to the politics section, we got rhetoric, big time

 

[Dunstan]

I know I've been irreversibly put off the "correct" lines of "skeptical" thinking on a lot of topics by all the venom, arrogant put-downs of disagreement, and inconsistent standards of reasoning on this board.

"Some people who believe X are meanies. Therefore, X is false."

With compelling logic like that, I'm sure you were "put off" skeptical thinking long before you got here.

 

[Uncayimmy]

lol, I've been that guy! So I guess it bothers me less! But I usually try to contribute as well.

The peacemakers annoy me mainly because it rarely works. It's just that much more noise. At least if somebody is participating in the thread, there's a sense of shared ownership, so it's not so irritating. However, oftentimes it's somebody who hasn't uttered a peep that's trying to do it. Typically, that person does it in other threads as well, which, for me personally, sparks a little resentment at the self-appointed hall monitor. On this board, just report it and let the mods handle it.

Speaking in general terms and not necessarily about this board, I like the idea of not attacking the arguer, but it's a matter of where you draw the line. If it's related to the argument at hand, I tend to be much more tolerant. Once it gets away from that and into personal areas, that's when it becomes a problem.

In other words, I would tend to be fine with, "What kind of selfish, sick bastard are you that you would rather see somebody die than pay a few extra dollars in taxes to pay for their health care?" By contrast I'm much less tolerant of something like, "Spoken like a true conservative. Were you butt-raped as a child?" And I would be very much against, "Does your mother know you're such an *******?"

 

[Seanette]

"Some people who believe X are meanies. Therefore, X is false."

With compelling logic like that, I'm sure you were "put off" skeptical thinking long before you got here.

And there we have another prime example. Don't use reason to present your case, just sneer and snipe and be as smug as possible.

I've met extreme fundamentalists with more basic respect for other human beings than a lot of the "humanists" around here.

 

[Dunstan]

And there we have another prime example. Don't use reason to present your case, just sneer and snipe and be as smug as possible.

I wasn't trying to present a case. I was making an observation. And I can be a lot more smug than this.

I've met extreme fundamentalists with more basic respect for other human beings than a lot of the "humanists" around here.

Oh, get over yourself already.

 

[Rramjet]

In other words, I would tend to be fine with, "What kind of selfish, sick bastard are you that you would rather see somebody die than pay a few extra dollars in taxes to pay for their health care?" By contrast I'm much less tolerant of something like, "Spoken like a true conservative. Were you butt-raped as a child?" And I would be very much against, "Does your mother know you're such an *******?"

Personally I find ad homonem attacks in any form distasteful and unecessary. They also tend to undermine the legitimacy of any argument that is put forward. I think ad hominem attacks are the last resort for people who have run out of legitimate arguments. They are also an implied insult to the intelligence of the general readership.

In your "acceptable" example ("What kind of selfish, sick bastard are you that you would rather see somebody die than pay a few extra dollars in taxes to pay for their health care?") I would say it was legitimate and acceptable to question "Would you rather see somebody die than pay a few extra dollars in taxes to pay for their health care?", but not acceptable to include the "What kind of selfish, sick bastard are you". To include such a phrase is a cheap shot (there may well be legitimate reasons why someone might argue that tax dollars should not be spent in such a way) that distracts from and lowers the whole tone of the debate while underestimating the intelligence of the readership to be able to draw their own conclusions.

I think ad hominem attacks in any form actually reflect badly on the person uttering them rather than the person toward whom they are directed.