Slashdot Mirror
No, Life Has Not Been Found In a Meteorite
The Bad Astronomer writes "News is going around the web that a scientist in the UK has found life (in the form of microscopic diatoms) in a meteorite, and has even published a paper about it. However, there are a lot of reasons to strongly doubt the claim. While the diatoms appear to be real, they are certainly from Earth. The meteorite itself, on the other hand, does not appear to be real. Many of the basic scientific steps and claims made in the paper are very shaky. Also, the scientist making the claim, N. C. Wickramasinghe, has made many fringe claims like this in the past with little or no evidence (such as the flu and SARS being viruses from space). To top it off, the website that published the paper, the Journal of Cosmology, has an interesting history of publishing fringe claims unsupported by strong evidence. All in all, this claim of life in a space rock is at best highly doubtful, and in reality almost certainly not true."
Attacking the credibility of the guy making the argument and not the argument itself is an Ad Hominem attack in every case. It is a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter how you spin it or want to disagree. A valid argument is a valid argument no matter who makes it.
From wikipedia:
"An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument.[1] Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as an informal fallacy,[2][3][4] more precisely an irrelevance.[5]"
I didn't invent or discover the fallacy. It is fundamental logic. The validity of his argument is completely unrelated to his personal validity and entire based on the validity of his premises and whether or not they support his conclusion.
His past history might justify not investing your time in reading his argument and premise but it doesn't support the assertion his argument is invalid without having examined the premises.