I am deeply worried that we are retreating from the spirit of fact-based scientific method that has categorized most of human inquiry since the Enlightenment, and returning to an earlier, less positive and more destructive approach to observing the world, reaching conclusions based on faith instead of facts and reason. The “faith” of today is not the religious faith of the Middle Ages or Renaissance, but rather an ideologically driven secular set of values that shows contempt for freedom, individual dignity, and for reaching conclusions on the basis of reasoned evidence. This problem can be found among persons on both the left and right of the political spectrum, although I think it is more intense among those on the left.
? Prof. Richard Vedder


Daren, regarding your back-of-the-hand dismissal of certain reactionary, hilariously ill-researched criticism of your paper, and in conjunction with my other posts in what is becoming a series, I wonder if you are familiar with the following two popguns in the illogician’s arsenal:

  • Reductio ad abstinentis ? essentially, the hope that by completely ignoring an opponent’s point and saying nothing to answer it, that point will magically vanish.
  • Ipse dixit ? the unproven assertion, especially repeating the assertion after it has been refuted, as if the refutation never happened (memorably shown in the “strenuously object” scene in A Few Good Men).

I think you will soon find that they are both relevant now.


***Update: Monday, March 17, 2008, 10:05 a.m.*** Another popgun in the arsenal:

  • Argument ad hominem circumstantial ? “the fallacy of believing you have refuted someone’s argument merely by pointing out certain features of the arguer, not by showing that anything is wrong with the argument itself.”

Of course, that is the (pardon the pun) logical next step, once it has been established that avoiding the refutation is the only manner of addressing the point. Monty Python, of course, had fun with this particular declension: