Fallacy

One type of logical fallacy is the Ad Hominem, or personal attack fallacy. I witnessed this type of fallacy while listening to two of my neighbors argue about whether or not life was created by intelligent design. Chris was arguing that modern biology supports the idea that life was created by a superior being. Dan said that Chris was only saying that because he is religious. Now, I would say that Chris certainly is religious. But the fallacy is that Dan was “attacking” Chris as a person, and not the argument. Dan made no point about modern biology. He ignored the argument, and focused on Chris instead. This is an example of Ad Hominem.