...then do check out this demolition of one of VanDyke's defenders. (Those who think rough rhetoric--like noting that VanDyke, or now his defender Joe Carter, is intellectually incompetent--involves an ad hominem will benefit in particular from the explanation of what the ad hominem fallacy actually is. And perhaps we should remember that insulting names, just like other names, have referential content: complaining that they are "names" (as in "name-calling") does not show that they are not true descriptions.)
"The less they know, the less they know it."
UPDATE: Wow, this poor fellow really doesn't know when to quit: now he's getting creamed over here. No doubt, he'll start complaining soon that I called him "intellectually incompetent," not noticing the accumulating evidence for that descriptive proposition.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I spoke too soon: Mr. Carter, aka, "The Evangelical Outpost," indeed jumps again on the ad hominem wagon here, but what is really quite extraordinary is the dialogue in the comments section between "Ian" and "Trunk"--who try to correct Mr. Carter with extraordinary patience--and Mr. Carter's responses, which confirm that he understands naught (admittedly, that might have been clear from the "dialogue" at The Panda's Thumb site--but this one is even more dramatic). Although this is a slightly amusing spectacle, at bottom it is depressing: how can society function if, as one fears, there are more than a handful of folks as defiantly irrational as this guy?
AND ANOTHER: More on this odd display here (fairly amusing)...and now also Pharyngula, who is very funny on the subject, as always.
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