These days ad hominem - or in some senses its opposite - seems to be the only acceptable form of argument:
Speaking as a Black person …
Speaking as an unmarried mother …
Speaking as an Arsenal supporter …
Speaking as a recovering alcoholic …
Speaking as a Muslim …
The rest of us can just shut up because we do not know what it is like
I think it is more alarming how interest is coming increasingly to be used to discredit scientific or medical findings. Do not give any credence to these findings about the effect of sugar on the human body – the professor once received a research grant from a manufacturer of soft drinks
Even worse: do not believe any of the so-called facts or arguments about GM food because all the research is financed by multi-national companies with an axe to grind. If Greenpeace says GM is bad they must be right because Greenpeace are good & have no axe to grind
It is the Mandy Rice-Davies theory of logic – He would say that, wouldn’t he
Have we really lost our ability to assess evidence, understand the research methods used, consider the logic of the arguments & inferences & then come to a conclusion about the value of the research?
