The ad hominem fallacy & the Tankard Reist affair

I think what he’s saying is he sees a comment, but no evidence to convince??.

You should review MTRs work at the Drum, Tammois.
She has perfected that artform.

Maybe you can find the evidence on which she bases her views on porn,commodification of children and the art of pop song hypnosis.
It sure would be a hoot to see this Holy grail.

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Jennifer, have you seen Helen Pringle’s dig at you on :

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/03/01/3443673.htm

I’ve made a post (as yet unpublished?) which examines the non sequitur of the pot calling the kettle black in her final three paragraphs.

Most peculiar from one who claims “her main fields of expertise are human rights, ethics in public life and political theory.” Certainly not law, jurisprudence or legal theory!

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It seems Pringle and Reist share the same Porn gravy train.
They have a lot in common.
Including a weight watchers serving of the truth.

She’s just another apologist with $$$ around the corner if she scratches the ‘right’ back.
Job done Helen,you can crawl back under your covers now.

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Hi Jennifer,
What happened with the legal threats? Are you out of the woods and in the clear? Or are hairy bears still hunting you?

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“What I am wary of is that MTR & Co may be waiting for the debate to blow over ”

And ‘why’ they want it to blow over is the most delectable question of all.

And to Paul ,if Jennifer actually knows of Simon green, goodo, I’m sure the ‘concern’ is appreciated.
If not,please review Ross’s earlier contribution and his picture duplication as per my earlier alert.The internet is indeed filled with phoney phishing feckers.
And it seems to ones who profess the strongest christian faith are the last to admit it in public.

God must be amused.I am.

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A possible/probable career in Politics/Media?

If you review the comments made here since JW was ‘seved’ you will find all sorts of interesting ‘suppositions’.
You will also see a few of her cheer squad roll up but when challenged to justify MTRs position, and her non-comment publicly, since the ‘serving’, skulk away in silent ineptitude.

At the risk of repeating for ‘effect’,
It seems that during this comedic drama,the ones who profess to ‘own’ the strongest christian faith, are the last to admit it,demonstrate it,uphold it, in public.

Australians version of the Tea Party, obviously uses second hand tea-bags.

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Here’s another person with Uhlmanns world view(apparently).

No wonder the anti Gillard campaign has legs,the media (as we know) are Trolling this shite 24/7

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/put-a-stop-now-to-mother-of-all-insults-20120305-1ue69.html

“”childless, atheist, ex-communist”.

Methinks the PM should be given a Peace Prize for them there qualities,and another for getting to PM with them.

A bit rich when MTR apologists, like the severely compromised, Helen Pringle et al, are picking at a pimple and our Nations leaders(especially Abbott) are slandering Gillard and inciting hatred on a daily basis.

Weak as p*ss.

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On the original subject, finally pegged my nose for a visit to Tammois’ site.
Have to suggest Tammois take is a bit more rational than some.
Much of what she writes about is not dissimilar at heart to ideas I hold to, particularly concverning the paradox of oppositional views as both honestly motivated, or not..
She’s held to the conservative view but I’m not convinced by her arguments against Dr Wilson and hold to this site’s original contentions, which to me have been emphasised by the legal threat.
What’s to hide, MTR? It’s not a game and if you want us to make changes in our lives to accomodate your weltanschuang, you should be prepared to explain to us why. You want certain changes, not us.
But as Tammois says, some hold to religious or mystical takes, against the Dawkinsite position here and religious as well as secular takes demand certain responses from adherents from a conscious point, so these sorts of issues are not resolvable immediately and the next best thing is to hope that a healthy discourse continues, that the key of consensus lost in the haystack is finally located.
Point counterpoint synthesis.

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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3874138.html

Scroll down to Martin Sniggs comment at Pro-life campaigners should give up intimidation for Lent.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3874138.html

Now you see what trolls look like.

They all lead to back to whoever it is who holds this grudge.
Lady Penelope etc.

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…cont.

Scroll down for more
http://www.catholicculture.org/about/rogues_gallery.cfm

and this here
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaide-lesbians-to-marry-in-melbourne/story-e6frea83-1225772279875

Martin Snigg of Adelaide Posted at 1:19 PM September 16, 2009

Sadly Lynda you are typical of the standard of debate about marriage. You simply want your will imposed on the majority without having to justify yourself. You caricature arguments as mere ¿personal offence¿ taking and then proceed to take great offence at anyone who disagrees with you. You label dissent from your position as bigotry to smear and hypocritically hide what is in fact your irrational hatred of a moral position you have probably long ago abandoned with great guilt. Repentance is your only way forward. Joining with other wrong doers for comfort in numbers mocks genuine return to the moral community. Your hatred betrays you. If I¿m wrong paraphrase my argument, the strong case, not a straw man.

Look here:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/intelligence-squared-debate-atheists-are-wrong/3657874

See the straw man thing?
Another failed seminary.
See the pattern yet?

I wonder how Snigg will convince anyone he is NOT the hundreds of Trolls using identical comments under hundreds of pseudonyms?

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The tolerant words of a man of God (Catholic Style)

http://collapsetheblog.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/i-respect-your-opinion.html?cid=6a014e5f8c82d2970c0168e7c4c0c0970c

“Your critics are homosexualised pantywaists. Does it take Muslim women to tell them to grow some cajones? http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2012/02/13/muslim-europe-needs-more-christianity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=muslim-europe-needs-more-christianity

If they want to fornicate and demographically disappear up their arse – they should shuffle off quietly.”

Posted by: martin snigg | February 15, 2012 at 04:54 PM

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On “Tony”, it could be the Tony who made such a nuisance of himself at LP, and particularly Andrew Bartlett’s blog. This character was a small time QLD DLP operator with inflated notions of his own significance as a big wheel in politics his self imposed role has been as defender of “family values”, on everything from global warming to contraception.
The thing against this that Tony G, or Tony Zegenhaven is prolixious beyond extreme, whereas our “Tony” seems more to do with a little cruel sly threat/taunt modus operandi.

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Here’s a gift for a new friend.

It is portent of its future.

http://letfreedomrain.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/tracking-down-internet-troll-sobering.html

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Dr Wilson, it’s unfortunate that many of the comments made by some of your “supporters” and “opponents” are so much less thoughtful and productive than your own. I believe that, behind all the fiery language that currently clutters up the comment threads here and at Raw/Roar, there is an important and subtle point of disagreement between you and the likes of Tammois that would benefit from further (sober) discussion.

As a preliminary matter, I want to suggest that the debate about the definition and implications of ad hominem arguments is circular. It has a structure that is very common in political discourse. Whenever “X” is popularly considered to be a bad thing, and someone accuses someone else of X, the accused will usually argue that: “what I did is not X or, if it is X, X is not necessarily bad”. By oscillating between these two issues, both sides remain locked in a debate about the meaning of X, and avoid dealing directly with the real issue: whether what the accused did was good or bad.

In the subject post, you discuss the circumstances in which you believe ad hominem arguments are not fallacious. But what you are really discussing is whether certain types of arguments are valid, productive, legitimate, etc. I will try to analyse/respond to the actual points that you make in favour of those types of arguments, without being drawn into the debate over what constitutes ad hominem and the circumstances in which ad hominem arguments are fallacious.

> “Arguments that question the opponent’s possible dogmatic bias, for example, or vested and conflicted interests, are legitimate critical responses.”

Are they? Why? I do not believe that such arguments are “legitimate critical responses”, because I believe that it is dangerous, arrogant, and unnecessary to claim that you *know* what someone else’s unstated motivations are, even if you believe that you have an enormous amount of evidence supporting your claim.

To demonstrate my point, I’ll use an example that doesn’t involve religion or MTR:

The Institute of Public Affairs argues that it would be unconstitutional for the government to require tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging without compensating the tobacco companies because the government would be “acquiring” the tobacco companies’ intellectual property.

You assert that it is “legitimate” to question “dogmatic bias”. Surely you would agree that the IPA has a certain dogmatic bias (in favour of free-markets, anti-regulation, etc.). However, does the existence of this bias tell you anything about the strength of the argument that “it would be unconstitutional for the government to require tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging without compensating the tobacco companies”? No. The fact that the argument is consistent with the IPA’s dogmatic bias does not make the argument less persuasive.

You also assert that it is “legitimate” to question “vested and conflicted interests”. While we do not know for sure, let’s assume that the IPA is probably heavily funded by tobacco companies. Would this suspicion about the IPA’s funding sources tell you anything about the strength of the argument that “it would be unconstitutional for the government to require tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging without compensating the tobacco companies”? No. The fact that the argument may serve the financial interests of the IPA does not make the argument less persuasive.

You actually acknowledge in the subject post that allegations of bias “aren’t proof that an argument is incorrect or flawed”, so I think that you probably agree with what I have said so far regarding the IPA. We definitely disagree, however, with respect to the following statement:

> “[A]llegation[s] of bias … serve as a warning that the arguments need to be scrutinized.”

For me, this is the issue at the heart of this whole debate: should we (a) try to scrutinize all arguments to exactly the same extent; or should we (b) try to distinguish between arguments that deserve less scrutiny and arguments that deserve more?

I’m pretty sure I understand the arguments in favour of (b). The main argument is that structural limitations on our lives (resulting from capitalism, modernity, etc.) mean that there is a mismatch between the number of decisions we must make, and the amount of time we would need to scrutinize all arguments to exactly the same extent before making each decision. This argument boils down to: we must do (b) because our current social structure renders (a) impossible. (Such an argument obviously relies on a conservative assumption about the undesirability of radically reforming the prevailing social structure.)

Another common argument in favour of (b) is: humans don’t, as an empirical matter, tend to do (a), and this is not (necessarily) because of our current social structure, but because the biological nature of human beings renders (a) impossible.

I’m not sure which of the above arguments in favour of (b) you agree with, or whether you have some other reason for endorsing (b), and I don’t want to spend time rebutting an argument you haven’t made. However, I do want to explain why I think (b) is bad (and, therefore, why I think we should radically reform the prevailing social structure—assuming it is true that the prevailing social structure renders (a) impossible).

First, I believe that (b) is discriminatory, because it subjects some people’s arguments to more scrutiny as a result of a statistical correlation between a personal attribute and a particular viewpoint. Working out what level of scrutiny an argument deserves means obtaining information about the person making the argument and using that information to generalise about what that person’s view is likely to be.

In some cases, the generalisation might be extremely strong, statistically. For example, a survey of everyone who regularly attends a Catholic church might reveal that “regularly attending a Catholic church” correlates extremely strongly with “adherence to the belief that ‘God exists'”. However, it is unlikely that such a correlation would ever be perfect, and even if an empirical analysis suggested that the correlation was perfect, I would argue that uncertainties about the methodology of the analysis should make us hesitant to embrace the correlation as an absolute truth. In any event, I don’t think there is much practical difference between “(a)” and the position that “(b) is only ok when we have clear evidence of a perfect correlation”.

Therefore, (b) means relying on imperfect generalisations, and is consequently discriminatory. As an example: imagine that you are in the very small minority of people who doesn’t believe that ‘God exists’ but regularly attends Catholic church. Now imagine that you want to publicly argue that all state schools should teach Catholic doctrine (for reasons that do not presume God exists). When assessing your argument, people who believe in (b) (and who do not believe God exists) would look at the fact that you regularly attend Catholic church, conclude that you most likely believe God exists, and subject your argument to more scrutiny than arguments made by people who do not regularly attend church, irrespective of the fact that your argument itself does not rely on the existence of God.

You might want to respond to the discriminatory nature of (b) by asking whether “having your arguments more heavily scrutinized” is really such a serious burden to place on those who are discriminated against? Surely if an argument is sound, it will stand up to heavy scrutiny, and thus the discriminated-against person will not, ultimately, be disadvantaged? In some cases, this might be true. However, what happens when so many people are making arguments about a subject that being placed on the bottom of the pile (in terms of requiring the heaviest scrutiny) means that your argument does not get considered at all? Surely being denied a voice on the basis of some personal characteristic would be a serious and worrisome case of discrimination? Another problem is that the discrimination necessitated by (b) may discursively legitimate other, more serious, forms of discrimination.

Another response would be to say that a more reasonable version of (b) would discriminate only in those cases where there is not only correlation but a plausible causal relationship between the personal characteristic and the view. For example, assume that it was shown statistically that 50% of men but only 20% of women supported going to war with Iran. A strict application of (b) might say that women’s arguments about the prospect of going to war with Iran should be subject to more scrutiny than men’s, because it is statistically more likely that the author is opposed to war. However, you might object to this type of discrimination on the basis that there is no plausible causal relationship between “being a woman” and “opposing war with Iran”. Leaving aside the notion that there may actually be such a relationship (e.g. because it may be true that men and women are socialised to hold different views about military aggression), I believe that limiting (b) to cases where there is a plausible causal relationship between the personal characteristic and the view is still problematic, because we have no way of verifying whether our theory of causation is correct with respect to particular individuals against whom (b) requires us to discriminate.

In summary: we don’t know, and cannot determine, what unstated “biases” actually influence other people’s conclusions . We may be able to make very educated guesses, but acting on those guesses (e.g. by using them to determine which arguments should be more heavily scrutinized) is always discriminatory, because there are always people whose “biases” do not correspond to our educated guess.

Second, I believe that (b) makes us susceptible to manipulation, because it requires that we trust some people more than others. A corollary of the negative discrimination discussed above is that (b) necessitates positive discrimination in favour of people whose personal characteristics cause us to suspect that they are “objective” or “unbiased”. Just as we can sometimes be wrong about the reason for which a person reached a particular conclusion by falsely assuming that a bias exists, we can also be wrong about the reason for which a person reached a particular conclusion by falsely assuming that a bias does not exist, and I would argue that this is an even more insidious consequence of (b).

These are the main two reasons for which I think (a) is preferable to (b) and, if it is true that our current social structure makes (a) impossible, then these are two reasons for which I think that social structure should be radically reformed.

Before I stop writing, I should note that I recognise that there are some people who agree that (a) is preferable to (b), but who believe that on some occasions it may acceptable to take advantage of the practice of (b) for strategic reasons. I get the impression that you might even fall into this category, since a point I have think I have heard you make about MTR (and I’m paraphrasing here) is: I have been rebutting the contents of MTR’s arguments for many years, but the arguments themselves are largely rhetorical and anecdotal, meaning that there is little of substance to debate; furthermore, if it was to be made public that MTR is actually very religious, her arguments would be discredited in the minds of many people, because—rightly or wrongly—people generally practice (b). If you were to adopt this line of reasoning, you might feel that you were not necessarily endorsing (a) or (b), but merely using other people’s belief in (b) in order to achieve an outcome that would make society a better place. I won’t comment further on that line of reasoning unless you indicate that you endorse it, however.

Apologies for the long comment. I hope you will have time to consider it.

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Time for a policy of personal email addresses only,or proof of ID? Perhaps?
Why would anyone object to that,anyway?
(Those regulars here have established themselves,so it would only affect newbies)
Other forums I have used actually establish the ‘authenticity’ of a person before allowing membership.If that is too much to ask,I think a discussion forum is better off without them.
In this day and age a person can set up an account through a legit ISP specifically for Forums if required,and with a good security system the argument about privacy and spam does not stack up.
It is certainly a question JW could raise with experts in this field.

Just reviewing the overt hate expressed and stalking narcissism of the usual suspects at other blogs,proves the ******** folk are not likely to relent their favourite bone.
It says a lot about their depth (lack of) of character.Conservative Christianity does have a spine made of hypocrisy.
I suspect they all excel (ITOHO) in philosophy/writing/politics/religion area.They have way too much time so they must be milking the public purse.Many of them probably ‘belong’ to ‘the’ big Church,more wasted time.

The trolling here is more a ‘shut down’ movement,not a mischief making individual IMHO.
(Troll may of course be one person with many heads)
It’s hard not to conclude whose view they/she/him/it is trying to protect.The thing is they are dousing the flames with petrol, and polluting their cause.

I’ve seen such Trolling previously at the ‘another place’ , who did nothing to counteract it and its damaging effect.
For quite some time the troll/s got their wish and the blogs went quieter, as people steered clear.
As I recall the topics they smothered were all topics which fundamental Christians go bananas about.
Abortion,the death penalty,gays etc.
Topics where they could proudly display their infamous ignorance and hypocrisy for all to see.

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After reading Lola’s comments here today and revisiting the Tankard Reist site, with its usual obsessions about sex’n sin and so forth, all to related in greater detail in the book prominently displayed for sale. I returned some what bemused to discover that Lola had also offered a short statement on the sadly neglected International Woman’s Day thread, so powerful in its way, that it nearly knocked me out of my chair.
I could ask why I saw no corresponding concern for the real and grievous suffering of the actually living, the pr#n of poverty and suffering that comes of a callous international system, at other sites and right throughout the blogosphere, lest some think I single out a certain site, as to a vast forgotten issue at least acknowledged here by Dr Wilson.
Where are people’s priorities and sense of proportion?

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Look up:
“Motivated Inference”

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Awesome things here. I am very glad to peer your article.

Thank you a lot and I am looking forward to touch you.
Will you kindly drop me a mail?

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Wow! They don’t do blogs like that anymore..

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