(Don't take me the wrong way, I absolutely agree with you with respect to not filtering our input, I go out of my way to find people biased against my topics to see how they look at things and for me at least the labeling _assists_ with gathering a more diverse viewpoint, and understanding the true motives at play)
Not at all; this is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)
The claims being made are objectively true or false entirely independently of any personal attributes of the person making them. In other words, who is saying something is entirely irrelevant to the merit of what they are saying.
To bring this very hand wavy generalization back to the topic, look at many arguments posed in the anti-marijuana camp (as discussed in this very writeup) being based on extremely pessimistic to the point of unrealistic assumptions in order to derive the conclusions they prescribed; conclusions in isolation that could be seen as terrifying but if you consider author bias can be accounted for more reasonably.
(Sister post Linkregister says it better than I did, frankly)
People lie and distort facts for their own personal gain all the time.
See for example, the scientists paid by the cigarette companies that produced data showing that smoking was safe.
Knowing who said something (and knowing who is paying someone to say something) allows you to better calibrate your skepticism to see if what they are saying might be biased by their financial or other interests.
If ad hominems become acceptable then you quickly open the door to worthless discussions around things like climate change because everyone can point out that the scientists behind the research are motivated to advance anthropogenic climate change or risk being ostracized.
Evaluate the content, not the messenger. Anything else is lazy.
If you are concerned the content is a lie, ask for the backing data, don't dismiss it.
Entirely true. The value in pointing out potential biases by bringing up the background of the speaker, however, is in inviting others to consider aspects of the argument (or the argument as a whole) in a critical manner.
It's not a magic spell you can use to discount a premise. Indeed, blind use of "fallacies" is just an appeal to ancient Greek authority!
For non-expert HN commenters, we have to use authority, preexisting bias, and past actions of the speaker to give us more information without fully delving into the article. Unless you're willing to spend hours or days evaluating the accuracy of every data point mentioned in the article, it's expedient to use available information. In fact, even if you completely evaluated the accuracy of the study, it would absolutely be of interest who is making the article.
Also known as the fallacy fallacy:
Precisely. So an argument is not logically consistent if it's just attacking the messenger instead of the content. Here's a hint: if your argument in any way relies on discounting the messenger, it's pretty weak and you should not make it.
How many times have you been swayed by someone that says, "Well I would disregard this study because it's been done by a liberal."
If you find that you don't have the time to evaluate an argument based on its merits, don't evaluate it at all. Otherwise your 'gut reaction', which is all an ad hominem is, is just dead weight on the discussion.
Eg Ken Ham/AiG, Donald Trump, all conspiracy theorists.
Incorrect. Ad hominem can be non-fallicious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
When a statement is challenged by making an ad hominem attack on its author, it is important to draw a distinction between whether the statement in question was an argument or a statement of fact (testimony). In the latter case the issues of the credibility of the person making the statement may be crucial.
The statement that Cato Institute is a libertarian organization is a statement of fact, and may indeed be relevant when judging their credibility.
It's intellectually lazy and it's why blind peer review is a thing.
For example:
- Only criminals smoke weed in the US. (true by definition, federal law doesn't allow it)
- Looking at prison population, black people commit more crimes than any other race in the US. (true, missing context of who gets to go to prison, and race ratios in population)
- Obama introduced the best patient protection and affordable care act in the history of the US. (true, but also the only one)
- In the US there are more people who brush their teeth who have cavities than those who have never brushed. (true, because only tiny fraction never brushed their teeth)
I think you've got it the other way around. Claims like that would not exist in the first place if someone wasn't either ignorant or purposefully trying to mislead you.
> identifying the author doesn't automagically lift the responsibility of coming up with a refutation.
I never said it does. But what it changes, is that once you figure out what their biases are, you know what kind of facts are they may be omitting, or know where to look for opposing opinions.
No, that's being lazy. If you follow that guideline you would only scrutinize things which fit into your preconceived notion of what the biases of the author would be. You should scrutinize everything rigorously. Just because someone is voting for Hillary doesn't give them free reign to say any negative thing they want about renewable energy since they "aren't biased that way".
But unless I'm going to write a report and spend a few hours/days doing a complete research, finding opposing views (and opposing views to those views) is a good approximation.
Easier said than done. It's easy to dismiss, but hard to verify.
Science found hard! News at 11! ;) http://www.theonion.com/article/national-science-foundation-...
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> Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit?
But how do we know how much merit it has? I don't believe anyone has the capability to answer that question on their own (unless they already possess the expert knowledge in the field), or the time to verify it.
Therefore, to a great degree we must trust the authors, so it helps to know who is speaking. No author is without bias; it helps to know their biases. Some authors are more honest than others and some more accurate than others. If an author has tried to deceive me before, I won't trust them again. If I've seen an author be diligent about accuracy, I'll trust them more next time.
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... and so I do want to filter dishonest and inaccurate arguments, for obvious reasons. And for a less obvious reason: I don't have time to read all the exceptionally well-informed, highly accurate, honest, brilliant arguments out there; I resent someone wasting my time with their bullsh*t.
In order to fully understand politicized writing—its assumptions, its impacts, its expectations and its motivations—it can often be necessary to have that context. Writing that isn't even consciously propaganda can often be heavily influenced by jargon and premises that are not apparent to the reader, but being familiar with the ideological background can help clear up that cloud.
see how most tailored "news" aggregators such as facebook or yahoo or reddit will mostly show you only what you want to read.
its perfect for the fear mongering ways of the two party system.