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It could be considered an ad hominem attack on a study if OP had said "the source was funded by coffee sellers and therefore it's all false and incorrect". But
by kenbellows 11y ago
It could be considered an ad hominem attack on a study if OP had said "the source was funded by coffee sellers and therefore it's all false and incorrect". But that's not what's happening here anyway.
- josefresco 11y agoThe OP is "implying" that based on who funded the research, this may be truthful. So while the claim was not made outright, it was insinuated.
- afarrell 11y agoIf the strength of an argument depends partly on trusting the integrity of a source, why is doubting that integrity a fallacy? In an ideal world you judge experimental results by their reproducibility, but who on HN has the time to reproduce results?
- kenbellows 11y agoIf all you are doing is casting reasonable doubt, that's fine. The logical fallacy arises when you point to the source of a proposition and declare that mouth that spoke it makes it false by nature. There's a big difference between "This pro-coffee study was funded by Big Coffee, so I'm skeptical and would like further studies and independent verification" and "This pro-coffee study was funded by Big Coffee, therefore the conclusion is false and coffee actually isn't good for you." Even if Big Coffee funded this report and benefited from its conclusions, the conclusions may very well still be valid; it would be a fallacy to reject this possibility outright.