Side Comments on Progress after the Royal Society Conference

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@lee_merrill

@John_Harshman

@lee_merrill

And indeed I know what an ad hominem fallacy is, people use this all the time on me, for example, saying I don’t understand words, or that I just obfuscate, contradict myself, and wander around at random! Oops, I think you just did all that.

If you don’t know what “ad hominem fallacy” means, just say so and then go look it up. I’ll wait here. But it’s clear from that reply that you don’t know.

Well, let’s go to Wikipedia: “Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself.”

“Obfuscation” would be attacking my character, people usually have an intent to obscure an issue when they do that, “contradicting myself” would be saying I am an oblivious person, who can’t see what he is doing, attacking a supposed attribute I have, and “wandering around at random” would be saying I am aimless, bereft of any good purpose, attacking my motives. And none of these statements address any actual arguments I have made.

Having looked it up, he still doesn’t know.