Re: Michael Crichton dies

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

Michiel Pillet writes:
 > > Crichton's attitude has recently got a name. Google for
 > > "egnorance" (that's the correct spelling).
 > 
 > Egnorance=egomania+ignorance. Now what do you base the egomania
 > part on? Isn't _this_ ad hominem?

No.  ad hominem doesn't jsut mean saying anything unpleasant about
somebody.  It means dismissing an argument, without engaging it, on
the basis of who made it.  For example, if someone denied the validity
of the taxon Xenoposeidon by saying "Oh, that Taylor is obsessed by
sauropod vertebrae", then _that_ would be an ad-hominen argument.  The
issue should be whether or not the name is valid, not what the author
is like.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  ... but Doctor, surely the odds against that happening are
         astronomical!