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Comment by rauljara | Hacker News Reader

While I have seen plenty of news reports that mangle scientific findings, in all the internet debates I've witnessed on vaccines and global warming, I've never seen someone attack the scientific conclusions on the basis that they're being misreported by media. The attacks I've run across have generally been ad hominem (accusing the scientists of being motivated by something other pursuit of truth), with some direct questioning of evidence / methodology.

You present an interesting idea, but I believe the reason this issue is missing from the debate is that there just aren't very many people who feel that way. Or if there are, they are remarkably unvocal about it.

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> I've never seen someone attack the scientific conclusions on the basis that they're being misreported by media

Well I've seen examples of bad, exaggerated, sometimes completely misleading media reporting of scientific findings nearly everywhere. Now I have a scientific background and I can tell that those reports should be taken with a grain of salt, but how can people without such background filter out the signal from the noise?

I bet that many people assume that a reporter publishing something in "The Daily Galaxy" is actually the scientist. How would they ever trust him or her?

Ah. This makes more sense. In this comment you seem to be arguing that some mistrust of science is caused by poor reporting. Which I wouldn't disagree with.

From your first comment, I thought you were saying that there was no mistrust of science, just of reporters, from this line "The perceived distrust of scientists by the public could well be a distrust of media reporting of most issues in general, not necessarily a lack of belief in the scientific method."

Apologies if I had misunderstood.

"ad hominem (accusing the scientists of being motivated by something other pursuit of truth...)"

Is it your assertion that scientists are not motivated by something other than the pursuit of truth? Seems you are saying those who might think that are engaging in name-calling rather than simple observation of known facts. If this is your assertion (it is, but I'm giving you a chance to back down), please justify with evidence your claim that scientists are not motivated by something other than the pursuit of truth.

You clearly do not understand ad hominem. An example of an ad hominem attack: "You are on the internet, therefore you are wrong." The premise "you are on the internet" is clearly true. That the conclusion has anything to do with the premise is the fallacy.

A similar fallacy would be to say that because prominent global warming skeptic Frederick Seitz's institute received $630,000 from Exxon Mobil, his ideas should be dismissed. That would be a fallacy. His research should be dismissed because it is either un-replicable or based on poor methodology.

Wow, um, not sure now if you're trolling. The example you give is a non-sequitor not an ad-hominem. An ad-hominem is a name-calling attack. A non-sequitor is where the conclusion does not follow from the premise.

But none of this addresses the issue of my previous response, it's a distraction. If you wish to proceed further, kindly address the previous points: "Is it your assertion that scientists are not motivated by something other than the pursuit of truth?"

All fallacies are non-sequiturs.

From Wikipedia

An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.

Ad Hominem is not always a fallacy. For instance, it would not be possible to assess a person for a position without considering that person's characterstics. Sometimes we neither have the resources to assess a claim based on anything other than the characteristics of the one who made it.

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