This is highly irrelevant and biased, Andy, a special case of irrelevant
conclusion, a so-called fallacy of relevance: Argumentum ad populum and
argumentum ad hominem (speaking "against the man" rather than to the issue).
Attacking the premises of an argument by casting aspersions on the character of
the proponent of the argument, would usually be characterized as committing an
ad hominem fallacy. The (supposed) character of the proponent of an argument
has no relevance to the validity of the argument.
------------------------------------------
On 2007-10-21, at 10:42, Andy Blunden wrote:
> Eric, I was not following this debate closely. This post clearly explains
> where you are coming from, so my "What's the problem?" response was
> uncalled for. I guess I was not reacting to Watson as a "grand old man" and
> "non-conformist" who "made a mistake" but rather as one of many people who
> follow unthinkingly in the trend of which Watson was a contributor, to the
> effect that it is "all in the genes." So of course in his "correction" he
> only repeats what caused offence: "Africans aren't inferior, just different
> ... because of their genes."
> I should apologise for using derogatory words about anyone on this list, I
> suppose, but any specialist who thinks that their own particular specialism
> explains everything is not in my humble opinion worthy of very much praise.
> Andy
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Received on Sun Oct 21 02:35 PDT 2007
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