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The submitted article consists mostly of name-calling About 95 percent of your comment is ad hominem. The article is stating a fairly bland truism, ie, that c

The submitted article consists mostly of name-calling About 95 percent of your comment is ad hominem. The article is stating a fairly bland truism, ie, that children vary to some degree based upon native intelligence. It's hardly worth saying except in the context of the educational world, whose occupants seem to share a near-religious professional belief in the unlimited malleability of the human mind.

ram1024 17y ago
it's absurd to believe in either of the two polarizing spectrums of this argument. intelligence obviously lies somewhere in the middle, and i would myself more favor the side that argues for potential and advocates the nurturing of all children instead of one that could potentially "write-off" certain children of what they would call Inferior Genetics. it's just repugnant [edit] sounds like i'm attacking YOU in what i said, but i am not. i'm just venting.
ahoyhere 17y ago
Pointing out that a person lacks credentials is not an ad hominem attack. It is extremely pertinent. Think about it... "Dr. Bob says x about my corpus callosum separation..." "Dr. Bob is a neck surgeon!" "Stop relying on ad hominem attacks!" Please, please read a book on rhetoric and logical fallacies.
- anamax 17y ago
  While pointing out someone's credentials is not an ad hominem attack, it isn't a refutation of their position either. In fact, it's rather lame. (It is perfectly appropriate to point out "he's arguing from authority and has none", but the second part is, strictly speaking, unnecessary.) Either he's got a good argument or he doesn't, and that's true even if he's Hitler. (I like to skip to the end.)
- mynameishere 17y ago
  Well, here's a book http://books.google.com/books?id=-HTQY_b1_84C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s http://books.google.com/books?id=-HTQY_b1_84C&printsec=f... Search for ad verecundiam for a discussion on the matter. Really, what he's doing is an opposite of argument from authority, and I think the author suggests that is 1) Sometimes appropriate, and 2) Sometimes ad hominem. In my eyes, the PhD-holding article-writer is sufficiently credentialed to write mild articles on mild subjects. To say he's wrong because he didn't go to a sufficiently good school is a rather obvious personal attack. For what it's worth, I initially typed in "your comment is 95 percent name-calling" to parrot him, but then changed it. I mean, it was just so laughable that he went on and on about the guy's fricking school. and then made the insane charge that the author was mostly name-calling. Geez.
tokenadult 17y ago
Thank you for your reply. I actually fully agree with the principle that it shouldn't matter much at all who says something, as long as there are facts to back up what the person says. I have said so before here on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734 But on two recent occasions, I have seen submissions that were so flat wrong (this is the second occasion) that it would take serious work to reply to the wrong factual statements in detail, and meanwhile I felt it important to buy time by registering immediate factual disagreement with the author by the general statement that the author is not an acknowledged expert on the issue discussed in the submitted article. In both cases, I kind of half expected that someone who agreed with the author would refer to verifiable facts that might support the author's conclusion, but in neither case did that happen. The kind of reply that takes time and effort to make to a factually mistaken submission I have made in another place in this thread. Yes, in principle anyone or no one might have a correct statement about a matter of fact to add to one of our interesting discussions here. I hope that if people have statements of fact to make about controversial issues such as how much human genetic limitations constrain the improvement of education, then they will take care to cite verifiable sources for the crucial factual statements and join issue with those who disagree with the factual statements.

ram1024 17y ago

it's absurd to believe in either of the two polarizing spectrums of this argument. intelligence obviously lies somewhere in the middle, and i would myself more favor the side that argues for potential and advocates the nurturing of all children instead of one that could potentially "write-off" certain children of what they would call Inferior Genetics. it's just repugnant [edit] sounds like i'm attacking YOU in what i said, but i am not. i'm just venting.

ahoyhere 17y ago

Pointing out that a person lacks credentials is not an ad hominem attack. It is extremely pertinent. Think about it... "Dr. Bob says x about my corpus callosum separation..." "Dr. Bob is a neck surgeon!" "Stop relying on ad hominem attacks!" Please, please read a book on rhetoric and logical fallacies.

anamax 17y ago
While pointing out someone's credentials is not an ad hominem attack, it isn't a refutation of their position either. In fact, it's rather lame. (It is perfectly appropriate to point out "he's arguing from authority and has none", but the second part is, strictly speaking, unnecessary.) Either he's got a good argument or he doesn't, and that's true even if he's Hitler. (I like to skip to the end.)
mynameishere 17y ago
Well, here's a book http://books.google.com/books?id=-HTQY_b1_84C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s http://books.google.com/books?id=-HTQY_b1_84C&printsec=f... Search for ad verecundiam for a discussion on the matter. Really, what he's doing is an opposite of argument from authority, and I think the author suggests that is 1) Sometimes appropriate, and 2) Sometimes ad hominem. In my eyes, the PhD-holding article-writer is sufficiently credentialed to write mild articles on mild subjects. To say he's wrong because he didn't go to a sufficiently good school is a rather obvious personal attack. For what it's worth, I initially typed in "your comment is 95 percent name-calling" to parrot him, but then changed it. I mean, it was just so laughable that he went on and on about the guy's fricking school. and then made the insane charge that the author was mostly name-calling. Geez.

tokenadult 17y ago

Thank you for your reply. I actually fully agree with the principle that it shouldn't matter much at all who says something, as long as there are facts to back up what the person says. I have said so before here on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555734 But on two recent occasions, I have seen submissions that were so flat wrong (this is the second occasion) that it would take serious work to reply to the wrong factual statements in detail, and meanwhile I felt it important to buy time by registering immediate factual disagreement with the author by the general statement that the author is not an acknowledged expert on the issue discussed in the submitted article. In both cases, I kind of half expected that someone who agreed with the author would refer to verifiable facts that might support the author's conclusion, but in neither case did that happen. The kind of reply that takes time and effort to make to a factually mistaken submission I have made in another place in this thread. Yes, in principle anyone or no one might have a correct statement about a matter of fact to add to one of our interesting discussions here. I hope that if people have statements of fact to make about controversial issues such as how much human genetic limitations constrain the improvement of education, then they will take care to cite verifiable sources for the crucial factual statements and join issue with those who disagree with the factual statements.