{"id":5062,"date":"2011-02-03T18:46:58","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=5062"},"modified":"2011-02-04T06:07:51","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T06:07:51","slug":"a-classic-red-herring-fallacy-vilifying-the-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=5062","title":{"rendered":"A Classic Red Herring Fallacy &#8211; Vilifying The Source"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"A%20Classic%20Red%20Herring%20Fallacy%20-%20Vilifying%20The%20Source\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Today I came across this statement concerning \u00a0a notice that Republicans were <a href=\"http:\/\/pol.moveon.org\/smithbill\/?rc=fb.share.smithbill.1.2.taf.alt.fb.share.smithbill.2.2.taf.alt_c.fb.share.smithbill.1.2.taf.alt_b.fb.share.smithbill.0.2.taf.alt\">trying to change the definition of rape<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;can&#8217;t support anything that comes from moveon.org as that&#8217;s a left-wing propoganda machine just as bad, if not worse as the right-wing propoganda machines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a classic Appeal to Motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer. This type of argument is a\u00a0diversion. It&#8217;s dismissing the veracity of the assertion, not based on whether the facts behind it are true or not, but on a prejudice against the source. The left does this all the time, noting that a story &#8220;can&#8217;t&#8221; be true because it&#8217;s on &#8220;FAUX&#8221; news. It&#8217;s also wrong when the Right does it, which you here every day on Rush \/ Hannity \/ Beck etc. concerning the &#8220;main stream media&#8221; ( or as\u00a0Sarah\u00a0Palin calls it, the &#8220;Lame Stream Press&#8221;). \u00a0Facts are facts, and it doesn&#8217;t matter what the source is. That doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t take the info from a source with a HUGE Manhattan sized grain of salt. That&#8217;s fine. But, just because a story is from a source you don&#8217;t like, does not mean the story is automatically bogus or false. Just remember to filter out opinionated slants from actual statements of fact, and you&#8217;ll do OK. It&#8217;s wrong when global warming hard-liners dismisses an article simply because it has appeared on &#8220;Watts Up With That&#8221; and it&#8217;s equally wrong when global warming skeptics dismiss something that appears on Tamino&#8217;s blog, because, well, \u00a0it&#8217;s Tamino&#8217;s blog.<\/p>\n<p>I am not a big fan of World Net Daily, and I admit I don&#8217;t trust that source. BUT, I won&#8217;t dismiss a story from that site just because it&#8217;s presented on that site. I will, however, based on the ease of refuting the crap they pedal, not buy a story from them unless it&#8217;s <strong>independently<\/strong> verified by a more reliable source. But I don&#8217;t automatically assume they are full of shite, even though I&#8217;ve found that to mostly be the case.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and as far as changing the definition of rape&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fminnesotaindependent.com%2F77136%2Fabortion-bill-that-redefined-rape-to-be-changed-by-author&amp;h=26bdc\">They&#8217;ve backed off.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"A%20Classic%20Red%20Herring%20Fallacy%20-%20Vilifying%20The%20Source\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Today I came across this statement concerning \u00a0a notice that Republicans were trying to change the definition of rape: &#8230;can&#8217;t support anything that comes from moveon.org as that&#8217;s a left-wing propoganda machine just as bad, if not worse as the right-wing propoganda machines. This is a classic Appeal to Motive: where a premise is dismissed, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5062"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5076,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions\/5076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}