Like it or not, people bring emotion into their views. If an ad hominem leads to greater attention or credibility for a valid argument, and reduces the credibility of an invalid argument - then what's so bad about throwing in an ad hominem?
Yeah, it's just rhetoric and name calling at that point.
It's the invalid argument that gives rise to the ad hominem, not the other way around.
No way. I completely disagree with the absoluteness of this statement. Ad hominem is a tool for a weak mind or a lazy argument. Just read the myriad of posts... it's much easier to call the guy a nutjob, a Christian whacko, or anything else derogatory then to dismantle his argument in a logical way.
is there anything wrong with calling someone who believes the earth to be flat an idiot?
Is it necessary? If I called every a "fucking dumbass faggot" every time I disagreed with them is that supposed to elevate the conversation to a higher level? I'm not perfect on this... there are a lot of idiots out there and occasionally they need to be called out.
Alas... this article was a revenue generator for/. It's a flamebait article written and posted in the perfect way to get/.ers to post and tear this guy apart and call him names all the while looking at wonderful adds for "Dice".
Same as if yu really believe someone is going to pull the trigger on that loaded gun pointed at your head if you eat that twinkie, you'll ignore your craving for junk food.
Yeah, like all of those smokers who know it's bad for them but don't want to stop... or overeaters... or every other person who has an addiction of one type or another.
BTW, as for those "millions of christians doing good" - if someone is doing something good because they're trying to please their god, their actions are worthless, according to the bible.
You've misunderstood or have been misled on this one. Jesus talks a lot about doing good deeds for show in Mark 12, but he also makes it very clear that his followers should demonstrate their love for him by following his teachings.
Of course your last paragraph betrays your true feelings. Look, I believe the earth is getting warmer... the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I, and MANY individuals who are not Christians, aren't convinced that it's a man made problem that is fixable by cutting down on fossil fuel consumption in the US (although I'm also very interested in looking for cleaner safer fuel sources).
You're interesting because you have a particular belief, that man is causing global warming and man must change in order to stop it, and can change enough to actually stop it at this point and you're now going to belittle anyone who disagrees with you and work to push your ideology down their throats.
You don't need to be so biggoted. You could very easily have said... "You know, I don't believe in the Bible as a source for scientific evidence or policy making... so this guys argument means nothing to me and I think it probably doesn't mean much to a lot of other people too... he's going to have to do better."
My final point... trotting this guy out as the example of an expert on alternative theories to global warming or a Christian theologian is equivalent to me citing some space-looney who believes in cosmic rays and alien abductions and that life started on Earth when the aliens created the pyramids as a leading naturalist. It's a strawman argument.
It would seem though that as a theory was tested over and over again it would be considered to be more reliable... a scoring system indicating the reliability of a theory, based on the amount of research and testing and contradictory evidence that existed for that theory would be extremely helpful in communicating scientific information to lay people.
Poor use of words is a real problem in this discussion. 1) You're right that global warming, meaning the general increasing of the temperature on a global scale, is not that controversial. 2) The causes of global warming is open to a significant amount of debate though and it is quite controversial. 3) Even more controversial is the appropriate course of action to take to address the problem.
Now I see why some have marked me a foe because of my.sig.
I don't know... broad trollish statements tend to piss people off.
Science enables genocide.
That clip was a little odd... although... you've got to admit that every major philosophical viewpoint has it's corner cases whackos... if I trotted out space-loonies every time as the definitive example of a naturalist world view some may object to that.
I can't think of any objective observations made by any scientists that would support creationism as a possible theory or hypothesis explaining the world as we know it.
I can't think of any scientific theories that explain why there is something and not nothing... science is limited in the scope of what it can test and prove. Philosophy takes over the rest.
That said... the discussion is about global warming, and the ridiculed man from the article makes a valid point that opposing evidence should be presented, particularly for controversial issues that have weak/young theories where there is contradicting scientific evidence and/or theories. His recommendation to present evidence from the Bible in this case isn't a good one, the theological issues alone would question whether prophecies about the end of the world should be applied to this subject... and there is plenty of scientific evidence worth discussing anyway, no need to try and integrate to different disciplines on this one.
I know an engineer who has 8 kids and he is not Catholic... did I miss the scientific study that shows that having fewer kids makes you more intelligent? He loves his kids and loves having a family...
Of course this isn't really about the # of kids is it... it's more about ridiculing someone else to make you feel better.
You really enjoy this huh? Shit... wouldn't it be kick-ass if he was like here in real life and you could like burn him at the stake and mock him... yeah... that's a hoot.
Funny how their actions put the lie to the very concept that there's an all-seeing, all-knowing God...
Wow... can you explain that one... it doesn't seem to follow that a persons mistakes or hypocrisy has anything to really do with the character of God. And then while you're happy to cite a few people who are either hypocrites or made mistakes you fail to mention the millions of Christians who treat their fellow men with love and respect, work for the poor and helpless, and give of their money and time.
If you don't like Christians just come out and say it... but don't go and sully logic with a weak ass argument like that.
All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct.
This seems too simplistic to me, it seems like this type of theory and the tests would still be open to a significant amount of error that could be revealed as new information became available.
For example.
Theory: The earth is flat like a table. Items always fall down, therefore anywhere on the earth I go a ball should fall down. Test #1: I dropped a ball here and it fell and hit the ground. Test #2: I took a boat all the way to South Africa and tried it again and the ball fell down again.
If the earth were round the ball would have fallen off the earth... because balls always fall down.
Now I know this is a silly argument, but people believed this kind of thing at one time. As more evidence was presented the idea because ridiculous. It seems that man as the ultimate cause of global warming is still in the early stages... is it true or is it going to end up being false?
Yes, unfortunately this man is afflicted with poor logic and is too certain about his theological interpretations (if it wasn't for his religious beliefs he'd be right at home here on/., a veritable colony for those who suffer from said condition).
A look at the theology of this guys statement The Bible does say the world will end with all sorts of horrible things happening near the end. That said, most of those prophecies are in the book of Revelation, which is written in an apocalyptic style. Meaning metaphor and symbolism plays a more important role in the text then it would in a historical book. So, anyways... the guys assumption that global warming = some event in Revelation MAY not be wrong... but then again it very well could be. Of course to be consistent the guy should also be arguing for discussions about the end times when plagues, wars, rumors of wars, famine, death, etc. is discussed in history or current events courses.
Another tidbit about the end-times for all of you Christian hating/.ers out there... Jesus states that he will return like a thief in the night and also states that no one knows when he will return. His point is that he could come back at any moment and although there is prophecy fortelling his return, you aren't going to know until it happens... so don't sit around looking for signs, live what he taught now because he may come back today or he may not come back for another million years.
I'm not bashing the man's faith mind you... he could just use a bit of education on proper theology.
The outcome is good An Inconvenient Truth is not a balanced view of the global warming issue. There are better materials out there, more balanced, less political materials. Choosing those materials, choosing to present a balanced view that present scientific evidence against the claims made in An Inconvenient Truth is a good thing regardless of the poor logic or theology.
Yeah, but it seems like even with the realm of theories there is a more granular scale needed. A model may exist for climate change for example... in fact here could be several different tested theories for why the climate is changing. But they may not all be equal. One theory may have as its basis a limited # of tests and other evidence supporting it and may have several other observations that raise doubts about its validity. While another theory may have a massive amount of supporting data and has been tested by multiple scientists in multiple scenarios and has proven to be reliable (yet maybe not quite enough to be called a natural law).
I respect your religion -- and all religions -- but I am one of those people who loathes fundamentalism
You mean to say that you "respect" other people's beliefs as long as they keep them to themselves and only act on beliefs that are in agreement with your own.
America was formed by some people who were very devout Christians.
But I hope you can understand that in a pluralistic world, many of us have very different faiths about how spirituality and creation and all the rest work, and the most sensible course of action seems to be to respect all faiths.
I mean... I respect your personal thoughts on the subject and all... but it's a pluralistic world, would you please just keep those opinions to yourself. You respect me and and ask me to shut up. I'm respectfully asking you to do the same. Please do not act in any way that may be offensive to me. Thanks.
See that's silly... you should respect people, not ideas. Ideas aren't worth respecting if they aren't true... in fact... if they are not true they should be logically dismantled. People though, do believe different things, and do act on their beliefs. The challenge is to try and work things out the best we can when our beliefs are in direct opposition. It's not easy... but there is no other option for free people.
Reason is not at all incompatible with faith, but a supplantation of reason by faith is ludicrous and ultimately, evil and tyrannical, leading to concepts like,
I agree that reason and faith most definitely should coexist and people should have some reason for their beliefs. That said... can you give me a certain explanation for how the universe came to be... one that doesn't have any sort of assumptions that you take on faith? At some point, those who have really thought about what they believe have a series of assumptions they've reasoned, but can't prove. Those assumptions guide them in other areas they are uncertain about... Christians will assume God in many situations, naturalists will assume natural processes.
If anything... the guy cited in the story suffered from very poor argumentation. Now the question to ask is... was he REALLY the best example of those in opposition to the showing of this movie or was he the example the author of the story wanted to cite because his argument is extremely weak?
While we may not be entirely responsible and there may very well be natural forces causing the Earth's weather to act in a drunken manner, that does not mean we can not change it!
Um... sure it could mean that we can't change it. I mean if it's the sun that's doing all of this... I'm not sure there's much we can do about the sun. I hear getting a replacement sun takes like several million years or something crazy like that.
Is An Inconvenient Truth the best most objective piece of educational material we have on Global Warming? I don't disagree that evidence is that the Earth is warming up either... but I've seen several scientific cases made here and elsewhere that at least raise serious questions about whether there could be other non-man made causes. Shouldn't that scientific evidence be presented alongside this scientific evidence?
while your hypothetical gay scientist's sexual preference has no bearing on his ability to objectively evaluate the evidence concerning evolution.
Of course it does. A theory of evolution, particularly one that removes and sort of creator, also weakens or removes and argument for any moral system that might not agree with his particular life style choice.
Ad hominem attacks are always ALWAYS logical fallacies. It doesn't matter if Stephen Hawking or a lying drunk who hates you tells you about gravity... gravity still exists. Obviously you might be more inclined to believe Hawking, but it has no bearing on the truth of gravity.
Good point. So is there a term or scale or something to quickly convey the soundness of a particular theory?
For example... how would one communicate to the maturity and support for two theories say giant impact theory which suggests that the moon was formed by a large body colliding with earth while it was still relatively young and the theory of gravity (which I hope we're all familiar with). Even theories about the causes of global warming are less proven and tested then the theory of gravity... and of course there are many theories that have been proven wrong or are still very immature and generally untested.
My biggest problem with DRM is the DMCA. By giving shitty encryption legal protection fair-use is effecitively eliminated. If the DMCA, atlest the protections for encription, then I would have no problem with DRM. DRM lowers the value of a piece of media becuase you cannot apply fair-use, so I'd buy less heavily restricted DRMed media, but I a company should have the right to distribute a piece of their media in any way that they want. It's up to the consumers to determine if they like the way they distribute it.
For example, if Kraft cheese sold cheese slices in locked iron boxes, because they didn't want people to break down the formula they use to create delicious cheese... of course the cost of using their cheese in the way I wanted to may be so high I might just say... fuck you Kraft cheese I'm going to use some other cheese. You follow?
With that much money you could probably find a small country and buy some of their land.
For example, Palau's GDP was $174 million in 2001 (source).
Pay them 2 years of GDP for a decent island with a bit of infrastructure, provide a few jobs for the local people... now you've got a wonderful tropical island perfect for pirating... arrrgghhh.
I agree... I'd take it farther though. These government agencies use minor clauses and loopholes to radically expand their power. Government agencies need to have a specific and clear charter and have their ability to extend their authority into new and emerging technologies or problems limited.
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Like it or not, people bring emotion into their views. If an ad hominem leads to greater attention or credibility for a valid argument, and reduces the credibility of an invalid argument - then what's so bad about throwing in an ad hominem?
/. It's a flamebait article written and posted in the perfect way to get /.ers to post and tear this guy apart and call him names all the while looking at wonderful adds for "Dice".
Yeah, it's just rhetoric and name calling at that point.
It's the invalid argument that gives rise to the ad hominem, not the other way around.
No way. I completely disagree with the absoluteness of this statement. Ad hominem is a tool for a weak mind or a lazy argument. Just read the myriad of posts... it's much easier to call the guy a nutjob, a Christian whacko, or anything else derogatory then to dismantle his argument in a logical way.
is there anything wrong with calling someone who believes the earth to be flat an idiot?
Is it necessary? If I called every a "fucking dumbass faggot" every time I disagreed with them is that supposed to elevate the conversation to a higher level? I'm not perfect on this... there are a lot of idiots out there and occasionally they need to be called out.
Alas... this article was a revenue generator for
Same as if yu really believe someone is going to pull the trigger on that loaded gun pointed at your head if you eat that twinkie, you'll ignore your craving for junk food.
Yeah, like all of those smokers who know it's bad for them but don't want to stop... or overeaters... or every other person who has an addiction of one type or another.
BTW, as for those "millions of christians doing good" - if someone is doing something good because they're trying to please their god, their actions are worthless, according to the bible.
You've misunderstood or have been misled on this one. Jesus talks a lot about doing good deeds for show in Mark 12, but he also makes it very clear that his followers should demonstrate their love for him by following his teachings.
Of course your last paragraph betrays your true feelings. Look, I believe the earth is getting warmer... the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I, and MANY individuals who are not Christians, aren't convinced that it's a man made problem that is fixable by cutting down on fossil fuel consumption in the US (although I'm also very interested in looking for cleaner safer fuel sources).
You're interesting because you have a particular belief, that man is causing global warming and man must change in order to stop it, and can change enough to actually stop it at this point and you're now going to belittle anyone who disagrees with you and work to push your ideology down their throats.
You don't need to be so biggoted. You could very easily have said... "You know, I don't believe in the Bible as a source for scientific evidence or policy making... so this guys argument means nothing to me and I think it probably doesn't mean much to a lot of other people too... he's going to have to do better."
My final point... trotting this guy out as the example of an expert on alternative theories to global warming or a Christian theologian is equivalent to me citing some space-looney who believes in cosmic rays and alien abductions and that life started on Earth when the aliens created the pyramids as a leading naturalist. It's a strawman argument.
It would seem though that as a theory was tested over and over again it would be considered to be more reliable... a scoring system indicating the reliability of a theory, based on the amount of research and testing and contradictory evidence that existed for that theory would be extremely helpful in communicating scientific information to lay people.
Global warming is not a controversial issue.
Poor use of words is a real problem in this discussion. 1) You're right that global warming, meaning the general increasing of the temperature on a global scale, is not that controversial. 2) The causes of global warming is open to a significant amount of debate though and it is quite controversial. 3) Even more controversial is the appropriate course of action to take to address the problem.
I do. Zonk is an ass.
Now I see why some have marked me a foe because of my .sig.
I don't know... broad trollish statements tend to piss people off.
Science enables genocide.
That clip was a little odd... although... you've got to admit that every major philosophical viewpoint has it's corner cases whackos... if I trotted out space-loonies every time as the definitive example of a naturalist world view some may object to that.
I can't think of any objective observations made by any scientists that would support creationism as a possible theory or hypothesis explaining the world as we know it.
I can't think of any scientific theories that explain why there is something and not nothing... science is limited in the scope of what it can test and prove. Philosophy takes over the rest.
That said... the discussion is about global warming, and the ridiculed man from the article makes a valid point that opposing evidence should be presented, particularly for controversial issues that have weak/young theories where there is contradicting scientific evidence and/or theories. His recommendation to present evidence from the Bible in this case isn't a good one, the theological issues alone would question whether prophecies about the end of the world should be applied to this subject... and there is plenty of scientific evidence worth discussing anyway, no need to try and integrate to different disciplines on this one.
I know an engineer who has 8 kids and he is not Catholic... did I miss the scientific study that shows that having fewer kids makes you more intelligent? He loves his kids and loves having a family...
Of course this isn't really about the # of kids is it... it's more about ridiculing someone else to make you feel better.
Are you referring to Matthew 24:34 or John 21:23 or something else?
You really enjoy this huh? Shit... wouldn't it be kick-ass if he was like here in real life and you could like burn him at the stake and mock him... yeah... that's a hoot.
Funny how their actions put the lie to the very concept that there's an all-seeing, all-knowing God ...
Wow... can you explain that one... it doesn't seem to follow that a persons mistakes or hypocrisy has anything to really do with the character of God. And then while you're happy to cite a few people who are either hypocrites or made mistakes you fail to mention the millions of Christians who treat their fellow men with love and respect, work for the poor and helpless, and give of their money and time.
If you don't like Christians just come out and say it... but don't go and sully logic with a weak ass argument like that.
All you need is to make a prediction of what will happen given a certain set of conditions. If the theory is valid, the prediction will be correct.
This seems too simplistic to me, it seems like this type of theory and the tests would still be open to a significant amount of error that could be revealed as new information became available.
For example.
Theory: The earth is flat like a table. Items always fall down, therefore anywhere on the earth I go a ball should fall down.
Test #1: I dropped a ball here and it fell and hit the ground.
Test #2: I took a boat all the way to South Africa and tried it again and the ball fell down again.
If the earth were round the ball would have fallen off the earth... because balls always fall down.
Now I know this is a silly argument, but people believed this kind of thing at one time. As more evidence was presented the idea because ridiculous. It seems that man as the ultimate cause of global warming is still in the early stages... is it true or is it going to end up being false?
Yes, unfortunately this man is afflicted with poor logic and is too certain about his theological interpretations (if it wasn't for his religious beliefs he'd be right at home here on /., a veritable colony for those who suffer from said condition).
/.ers out there... Jesus states that he will return like a thief in the night and also states that no one knows when he will return. His point is that he could come back at any moment and although there is prophecy fortelling his return, you aren't going to know until it happens... so don't sit around looking for signs, live what he taught now because he may come back today or he may not come back for another million years.
A look at the theology of this guys statement
The Bible does say the world will end with all sorts of horrible things happening near the end. That said, most of those prophecies are in the book of Revelation, which is written in an apocalyptic style. Meaning metaphor and symbolism plays a more important role in the text then it would in a historical book. So, anyways... the guys assumption that global warming = some event in Revelation MAY not be wrong... but then again it very well could be. Of course to be consistent the guy should also be arguing for discussions about the end times when plagues, wars, rumors of wars, famine, death, etc. is discussed in history or current events courses.
Another tidbit about the end-times for all of you Christian hating
I'm not bashing the man's faith mind you... he could just use a bit of education on proper theology.
The outcome is good
An Inconvenient Truth is not a balanced view of the global warming issue. There are better materials out there, more balanced, less political materials. Choosing those materials, choosing to present a balanced view that present scientific evidence against the claims made in An Inconvenient Truth is a good thing regardless of the poor logic or theology.
Yeah, but it seems like even with the realm of theories there is a more granular scale needed. A model may exist for climate change for example... in fact here could be several different tested theories for why the climate is changing. But they may not all be equal. One theory may have as its basis a limited # of tests and other evidence supporting it and may have several other observations that raise doubts about its validity. While another theory may have a massive amount of supporting data and has been tested by multiple scientists in multiple scenarios and has proven to be reliable (yet maybe not quite enough to be called a natural law).
I respect your religion -- and all religions -- but I am one of those people who loathes fundamentalism
You mean to say that you "respect" other people's beliefs as long as they keep them to themselves and only act on beliefs that are in agreement with your own.
America was formed by some people who were very devout Christians.
But I hope you can understand that in a pluralistic world, many of us have very different faiths about how spirituality and creation and all the rest work, and the most sensible course of action seems to be to respect all faiths.
I mean... I respect your personal thoughts on the subject and all... but it's a pluralistic world, would you please just keep those opinions to yourself. You respect me and and ask me to shut up. I'm respectfully asking you to do the same. Please do not act in any way that may be offensive to me. Thanks.
See that's silly... you should respect people, not ideas. Ideas aren't worth respecting if they aren't true... in fact... if they are not true they should be logically dismantled. People though, do believe different things, and do act on their beliefs. The challenge is to try and work things out the best we can when our beliefs are in direct opposition. It's not easy... but there is no other option for free people.
Reason is not at all incompatible with faith, but a supplantation of reason by faith is ludicrous and ultimately, evil and tyrannical, leading to concepts like,
I agree that reason and faith most definitely should coexist and people should have some reason for their beliefs. That said... can you give me a certain explanation for how the universe came to be... one that doesn't have any sort of assumptions that you take on faith? At some point, those who have really thought about what they believe have a series of assumptions they've reasoned, but can't prove. Those assumptions guide them in other areas they are uncertain about... Christians will assume God in many situations, naturalists will assume natural processes.
If anything... the guy cited in the story suffered from very poor argumentation. Now the question to ask is... was he REALLY the best example of those in opposition to the showing of this movie or was he the example the author of the story wanted to cite because his argument is extremely weak?
While we may not be entirely responsible and there may very well be natural forces causing the Earth's weather to act in a drunken manner, that does not mean we can not change it!
Um... sure it could mean that we can't change it. I mean if it's the sun that's doing all of this... I'm not sure there's much we can do about the sun. I hear getting a replacement sun takes like several million years or something crazy like that.
This is just a good old /. lynching. Find an article that makes a religious person look stupid and mock them. Great fun... ??
Is An Inconvenient Truth the best most objective piece of educational material we have on Global Warming? I don't disagree that evidence is that the Earth is warming up either... but I've seen several scientific cases made here and elsewhere that at least raise serious questions about whether there could be other non-man made causes. Shouldn't that scientific evidence be presented alongside this scientific evidence?
while your hypothetical gay scientist's sexual preference has no bearing on his ability to objectively evaluate the evidence concerning evolution.
Of course it does. A theory of evolution, particularly one that removes and sort of creator, also weakens or removes and argument for any moral system that might not agree with his particular life style choice.
Ad hominem attacks are always ALWAYS logical fallacies. It doesn't matter if Stephen Hawking or a lying drunk who hates you tells you about gravity... gravity still exists. Obviously you might be more inclined to believe Hawking, but it has no bearing on the truth of gravity.
Good point. So is there a term or scale or something to quickly convey the soundness of a particular theory?
For example... how would one communicate to the maturity and support for two theories say giant impact theory which suggests that the moon was formed by a large body colliding with earth while it was still relatively young and the theory of gravity (which I hope we're all familiar with). Even theories about the causes of global warming are less proven and tested then the theory of gravity... and of course there are many theories that have been proven wrong or are still very immature and generally untested.
My biggest problem with DRM is the DMCA. By giving shitty encryption legal protection fair-use is effecitively eliminated. If the DMCA, atlest the protections for encription, then I would have no problem with DRM. DRM lowers the value of a piece of media becuase you cannot apply fair-use, so I'd buy less heavily restricted DRMed media, but I a company should have the right to distribute a piece of their media in any way that they want. It's up to the consumers to determine if they like the way they distribute it.
For example, if Kraft cheese sold cheese slices in locked iron boxes, because they didn't want people to break down the formula they use to create delicious cheese... of course the cost of using their cheese in the way I wanted to may be so high I might just say... fuck you Kraft cheese I'm going to use some other cheese. You follow?
With that much money you could probably find a small country and buy some of their land.
For example, Palau's GDP was $174 million in 2001 (source).
Pay them 2 years of GDP for a decent island with a bit of infrastructure, provide a few jobs for the local people... now you've got a wonderful tropical island perfect for pirating... arrrgghhh.
It's much easier than that... the RIAA/MPAA can just talk President Bush into using his magic to create another hurricane that will destroy Sealand.
I have to say... however overused and lame this retort is... it makes me smile every single time. Thanks :)
I agree... I'd take it farther though. These government agencies use minor clauses and loopholes to radically expand their power. Government agencies need to have a specific and clear charter and have their ability to extend their authority into new and emerging technologies or problems limited.