Quote:
Originally Posted by driveway
This is a spot-on perfect example of the “poisoning the well” logical fallacy. Instead of engaging with the ideas presented in an argument, the party committing the fallacy attacks the source of the ideas instead.
This is particularly egregious when the complaints about the source have nothing whatsoever to do with the ideas in the argument.
“Dave said that this restaurant isn’t good because they don’t use quality ingredients.”
“Yeah, well, Dave is an Oilers fan, so what the hell does he know?”
“David Frum argues that Biden has accomplished a significant amount in his presidency. He’s passed 3 trillion dollars worth of legislation with only 50 senators.”
“Yeah, well, David Frum supported the Iraq War, so what the hell does he know?“
|
This is actually just an ad hominem… poisoning the well is where you try to preemptively discredit someone BEFORE they say something you don’t want people to take seriously.
__________________
"The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
|