Argumentum ad hominem was Re: Michael Crichton dies

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

David Marjanovic writes:
 > > 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.
 > 
 > This works the other way around, too: if I say "*Xenoposeidon* just
 > _has_ to be valid because that Taylor is an expert on sauropod
 > vertebrae", that, too, is an ad hominem argument, because there,
 > too, I'm evaluating the person who came up with an idea rather than
 > the idea itself.

Yes; but in that case your argument would obviously be sound.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I respect the brainwork behind Z39.50 tremendously [...] but
         Explain is very clearly the result of some terrible mass
         psychosis.  It is broken" -- Sebastian Hammer.