The Great Debate...Disappointment

I think very highly of debate and argument. They are powerful tools for elimenating false knowledge and strengthening yet-to-be-proven-false knowledge. Debate serves everyone. When done right.

All too often, I get interested in a debate only to watch it devolve into one of the two most insidious irrelevancies. Those being ad hominen attacks and the misrepresentation of opposition's arguments.

Ad hominen attacks take several different tacks and they are all common and all wrong. Let me highlight a few examples.

Ad hominen abuse. This is where an attempt to invalidate a position takes the form of a personal insult against another person where the insult has nothing to do with the subject matter at all. For example, telling someone they are stupid. By casting unrelated aspersions on the character or virtue of your opponent, you hope that their position has been invalidated.

PZ Myers has been held as a supreme example of a person who uses these kinds of attacks. I am not willing to sift through all of his prodigous blog posts to come up with good examples, but a random poke gave me immediate results with his response to a question as follows (shortened for my post's sake)

...you know zip about biology, isn't it rather arrogant of you to be questioning ... science? Aren't you presuming a bit much to be pestering a biology professor ...

Another common fallacious ad hominem attack is the Ad Hominem Circumstantial attack. This one is so common you may be wondering how it could be wrong if it is used all the time. This one is most recently seen in debates about Global Warming. It is used by all sides of the argument. Al Gore is making money off of his position so his vested interests somehow make his arguments false. Deniers are paid by oil companies so that somehow makes their scientific arguments false. The person's circumstances do not in any way validate or invalidate their premises or conclusions.

Another that I would like to point out is the Ad Hominem tu quoque. This is where a person's argument is invalidated because the person acts in a way inconsistent with their point. Attacks against Al Gore serve as another fine example. Citing his huge personal home's energy use and frequent flying as hypocritical proof that he must be wrong.

But the various Ad Hominem attacks can we waded through, like wading through smelly murky swamp water. It's unpleasant and distracting, but it can be done. The worst, and probably most common problem that threatens debate is the Straw Man argument. That is where the opponent's position is misrepresented, making it easier to prove false. For example, the misrepresented premise of Natural Selection's supposed "creative power" as stated by Dr. Hovimd in his Creation Seminar Series. That publication is so full of logical fallacies that I had to use it to educate my son on logic and debate.

Another logical fallacy that I just take for granted is called Contextomy. This is where an opponent is quoted out of context. I am so used to this that I automatically verify all quotes to the best of my ability. Even when someone is quoting themselves. You will be surprised at how poorly people remember what they said as an argument carries on.