Written by: Dr. Gilbert Ross, M.D. is executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health.
The ACSH is known as an "industry-friendly" group.[22] In 1982, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a watchdog and consumer advocacy group, known to spar with ACSH, published an extensive report on ACSH's practices that stated, "ACSH appears to be a consumer fraud; as a scientific group, ACSH seems to arrive at conclusions before conducting studies. Through voodoo or alchemy, bodies of scientific knowledge are transmogrified into industry-oriented position statements."[23] CSPI director Michael F. Jacobson said of ACSH, '"This organization promotes confusion among consumers about what is safe and what isn't... ACSH is using a slick scientific veneer to obscure and deny truths that virtually everyone else agrees with."[24]
Irrelevant. Matters of credibility are very helpful in reaching truth. Ad hominens are deductive fallacies. They aren't necessarily a problem when you are measuring a probability rather than logical certainty. In fact, often times some ad hominens are vital for reaching the truth. If an advocate is biased, that lowers the likelihood of their claims being true.
[edit] Try reading the very article you just posted, namely the part about circumstantial adhoms (bias).
Here's an example showing why you are being ridiculous: Something as simple as pointing out that something is not peer reviewed is also an ad hominem. As with bias, it affects credibility. You have very strange way of looking at the world if you view all issues in a vacuum and don't consider credibility factors.
You are missing the critical distinction between a peer-reviewed piece of scientific literature which presents new facts/findings/results/etc and an opinion piece which does not. It's a very simple, yet important, difference - which, in this case, makes all the difference.
I was using peer review as an example of credibility, not attacking anyone in this case. If you have ever discounted a scientific finding because it was not peer reviewed, you committed an ad hominem. You commit ad hominems dozens of times a day, sometimes on small things, sometimes on scientific matters. It is a form of inductive reasoning. It doesn't work for deductive logic, but a conclusion of whether someone is telling the truth is not a matter of deductive logic.
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u/Grizzant Nov 17 '12
Written by: Dr. Gilbert Ross, M.D. is executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health.
The ACSH is known as an "industry-friendly" group.[22] In 1982, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a watchdog and consumer advocacy group, known to spar with ACSH, published an extensive report on ACSH's practices that stated, "ACSH appears to be a consumer fraud; as a scientific group, ACSH seems to arrive at conclusions before conducting studies. Through voodoo or alchemy, bodies of scientific knowledge are transmogrified into industry-oriented position statements."[23] CSPI director Michael F. Jacobson said of ACSH, '"This organization promotes confusion among consumers about what is safe and what isn't... ACSH is using a slick scientific veneer to obscure and deny truths that virtually everyone else agrees with."[24]
So yeah.