Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1368

Alan Balmer

I do recall someone who impugned his teaching. Here is a quote from you earlier: ``I really hope that you are teaching mathematics or statistics.'' -- Alan Balmer (right after quoting Bernstein's signature, which identifies him as "buttociate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science") The implication is clear. And that is an ad-hominem attack. It appeals to emotion rather than to reason. It criticizes the target's personal qualities rather than examining his argument on its merits. It distracts attention from the points Bernstein was making by ridiculing him personally. Tactically, the trick may have worked, but it is still a clbuttic logical fallacy.

Here are some more quotes for you where another reader is drawing conclusions about his teaching: ``Neat. So the guy ain't teaching the current biz either.'' ``He may be a good teacher but what he must be teaching doesn't map to the Real World at all times.'' Neither of you have any idea what he is teaching in his clbuttroom, but this lack of knowledge doesn't seem to stop you from leaping to conclusions about the subject. Not something I'd be proud of.

It is often tempting for people to think (and I'll state this in exaggerated form for effect): "this person has a different opinion than I do, so he must be incompetent". That's a convenient rationalization, because if they are incompetent, you don't have to pay any attention to them, you don't have to examine your own opinions critically, and you don't have to listen to see whether there might be some wisdom underneath what they are saying -- instead, you can just ignore them. It saves you from having your cherished opinions being challenged. That is psychologically comforting. But, it is also fallacious.

I urge you to bend over backwards to avoid this fallacy.