Allen Roy wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: george murphy
> Why pursue this at length? Simply to discourage
> anonymous and/or ad hominem material. Your post contained
> both.To report that Dembski is purposefully using "smoke and
> mirrors" when he is not, is ad hominem. I note also that
> you have decided that Howard's statements were not only
> "misrepresentation" but "willful misrepresentation."
> Attributing malice to a person without definite evidence of
> it is also wrong. To report that Dembski is purposefully
> using "smoke and mirrors" when he is not, is "willful
> misrepresentation".
>
> If you are big enough to dish it out, you are big enough to
> take it.
>
a. An ad hominem argument attacks the person rather than the
argument. Labelling a person's argument, whether correctly or not, is
not hominem. It is not ad hominem to reply to an argument by saying
"That is a foolish statement" (though that may not be a very profound
response). It would be ad hominem to reply by saying "You are a fool."
b. In order to say that Van Till was using willful
misrepresentation you would need to show that he was not only wrong
about Dembski using smoke and mirrors but that he knew that Dembski
wasn't doing so but said that he was anyway. (You have also added the
word "purposefully" to Van Till's remarks.)
Give it up.
George Murphy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 10 2002 - 16:09:51 EDT