Statist Excuse: I refuse to look at your sources.

genetic_fallacy

Fallacy:

"David if you quoted from a source more credible than your own personal blog, you might be taken a little more seriously." (Michael Lambert)

(This particular statist is referring to this wiki, but doesn't understand the difference between a blog and a wiki, although the fallacy applies to either.)


Response:

If you don't have a rational response, attack, what? the source? the format of the information? That's downright incoherent.

It is no better, or more credible, were I to paste the content of a link, than to provide the link itself. Credibility comes from the rational arguments made in these pages, not their format, editability, or location.

The related whine is about "using myself as a source", as if it were a valid complaint. Of course, researchers refer back to their earlier work all the time, to build on it; and I'm merely reusing arguments against tired and repeated fallacies. Think of it as code reuse (if you know what that means). Perhaps when statists make a reference they are merely making a fallacious appeal to authority; but I make references to provide the content to educate, not just the name.

I love to find people with really well-worded responses or comments or articles relevant to a topic and squirrel them away on the wiki so I have the absolute best and clearest explanations and phrasing… some people can just spin a phrase so nice and get to the point so well. (DBR)

This is a classic - argumentum ad hominem - genetic. If they cannot attack the argument, they attack its source. Lame! [HB]