re: #561 Obdicut

B) That’s not what ad hominem means. I really wish people would learn that. Ad hominem is saying “Your argument doesn’t count because you stink”, not just “you stink”, and definitely not “Because your argument sucks so bad, you stink.”

A form of ad hominem is exactly what DCMC is doing:

Ad hominem tu quoque (lit: “You too!”) refers to a claim that the source making the argument has spoken or acted in a way inconsistent with the argument. In particular, if Source A criticizes the actions of Source B, a tu quoque response is that Source A has acted in the same way. This argument is fallacious because it does not disprove the argument; if the premise is true then Source A may be a hypocrite, but this does not make the statement less credible from a logical perspective. Indeed, Source A may be in a position to provide personal testimony to support the argument.

For example, a father may tell his son not to start smoking as he will regret it when he is older, and the son may point out that his father is or was a smoker. This does not alter the fact that his son may regret smoking when he is older.

Returning to my analog weekend now.