Originally posted by Mountain Man
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As for the complaints about ad hominem, the problem here is that while criticizing the person making the argument isn't directly addressing the argument, it can be a good gauge as to how seriously one should take the argument. Given that everyone has finite time in their life and can't be carefully evaluating and responding to every single argument or claim they see, seeing if there's a reason not to take the arguer seriously can be a good way to evaluate the probability that the argument is worth spending much time on to begin with.
Here's an example. Suppose there's a book that offers 5 arguments as to some topic (it could be anything). So I take a look at some of the footnotes in one of their arguments and discover they've horribly misrepresented their sources. But if I were to say that and say "so don't bother with this book" that's ad hominem! After all, I'm not actually providing any real response to their other arguments; instead, I'm just attacking the arguer as unreliable because of how bad one of their arguments was. That's absolutely ad hominem. But it's hardly unreasonable to do so, because if someone has a history of bad arguments and misrepresentation, it considerably increases the probability that their other arguments are equally lacking.
Similarly, if someone has a history of attacking vaccinations on questionable grounds, it is not unreasonable that when you see them make new attacks, that they are doing the same thing as they did before (and if nothing else, have a clear bias in the area). All of this applies doubly if this argument is only being offered by themselves or similarly questionable individuals rather than people who don't have such a past.
Furthermore, despite your complaint, I notice that you've then done the same things you complained about, namely rejecting an argument or claim because you have a low opinion of the source. I don't even need to look elsewhere, because in that very same post, you write:
Furthermore, I've seen you dismiss arguments or claims based on who made them! Heck, you do that in this very post:
And seriously, Sparko, Wikipedia? You should know better.
And then you do it again here in this topic:
Originally posted by Mountain Man
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Where is the sober and reasoned discussion about the potential dangers of products that were rushed to market with zero long-term testing for the simple reason that they haven't been around long enough for such testing to occur? Why did we go so quickly from "approved for emergency use only" to sticking needles in as many arms as possible regardless of a person's individual risk?
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