B
Ben Bonds
plover.net/~bonds · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Ben Bonds writes critical essays on logical fallacies, skepticism, Bayesian reasoning, and how people respond to criticism.
What HN saysHN commenters cite his essays on ad hominem, the cult of Bayes, and "Your baloney detection kit sucks" as rebuttals in arguments about fallacies and Bayesianism.
50HN people shared it
41linked it in comments
11stories submitted
445story points
13 years agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1What constitutes a true ad hominem argument?16 people · 48 points · first shared 2008 · 22 comments on HN
- 2Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly8 people · 176 points · first shared 2013 · 126 comments on HN
- 3Why I am no longer a skeptic7 people · 127 points · first shared 2011 · 121 comments on HN
- 4The Cult of Bayes' Theorem5 people · 9 points · first shared 2013 · 2 comments on HN
- 5ASDF - a badly-drawn webcomic of trite, feelgood, preachy... (anti-xkcd)3 people · 30 points · first shared 2008 · 11 comments on HN
- 6Positivist Programming3 people · 5 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 7Fifteen Stupid Responses to Criticism2 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 8Genderedlanguage2 people · first shared 2008
- 9Ender's Game Review1 people · 46 points · first shared 2008 · 99 comments on HN
- 10The Banality of Genius1 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 11Homepage1 people · first shared 2012
- 12Objectification1 people · first shared 2013
- 13Purity1 people · first shared 2012
- 14Software1 people · first shared 2008
- 15Newsincerity1 people · first shared 2013
What HN people wrote when they linked it
steveklabnik · 2014-02-25
Every time I see "Bayesian Probability," I mentally re-load http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
Love the statistics, hate the cult.
judofyr · 2014-02-12
> A big problem with Bayesian statistics (as I see it) it that it not always possible to have any sense of what the prior probability is.
Reminds me of this quote: (These values are known as priors, which is ironic because Bayesians inevitably pull them out of their posteriors.)
http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
kyberias · 2014-02-10
I suggest you read this very carefully: http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
jamesmiller5 · 2014-02-07
I found this rebuttal to be quite a good read as well. http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html
Flenser · 2014-01-31
You may find this article titled "Your baloney detection kit sucks" interesting:
http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html
Which was discussed on HN under the title "Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5832320
jdlshore · 2013-11-06
There was no ad hominem here, just insults. You've fallen into the "ad hominem fallacy fallacy." :-) http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
silentbicycle · 2013-10-11
Before writing the post off with a logical fallacy, perhaps you should consider the biases inherent in doing so, and whether they are distorting your reasoning: http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html
yread · 2013-10-08
If this is satire, it is a bad satire.
You don't really understand what objectifying is about, check out this article
http://plover.net/~bonds/objectification.html
Oh and before you get defensive, both me and the author of the article are men
RodericDay · 2013-09-14
this is just too much
http://plover.net/~bonds/positivism.html
take this not as gospel, but as a starting point
badman_ting · 2013-08-16
> Every argument is ad hominem nowadays.
Careful... http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
arsen1k1 · 2013-06-17
The author of this essay also has controversial things to say about Bayesians [1] and bronies and masculinity [2].
1. http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
2. http://plover.net/~bonds/newsincerity.html
benaiah · 2013-06-11
It's actually not an ad hominem. A firm grasp of language, grammar, and communication is actually recognized, albeit informally, to be a good signal of technical skill and design effectiveness. If he can't refine his linguistic communication well enough to convey such a simple sentence, how can he be expected to refine his visual communication (i.e., UX design) well enough to surpass one of the leading UX teams in the industry?
There are further reasons it's not an ad hominem - I recommend you read The Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy [1]. I don't mean to criticize - I made the same mistake until recently, so I offer the article in a spirit of goodwill, not superiority.
[1]: http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
shardling · 2013-06-10
Ad hominem attacks are when you imply that someone's argument is invalid because of their background. That's what makes it a fallacy -- the validity of someone's argument is completely unrelated to their personal qualities.
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
In contrast, when someone offers an anecdote about their experiences, or in general offers their subjective judgement, then knowing something about them is damn important! For instance, if I knew MOC was a compulsive liar, that would certainly be relevant. Likewise, if MOC was in general an optimist who was loath to ever say anything negative, that would lend extra weight to their comments on grad school.
arsen1k · 2013-06-07
the author of TFA also has bad things to say about less wrong: http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
realtalker · 2013-06-06
This seems to have been prompted by the criticism he recieved for this appalling piece of work: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia
telcodud · 2013-02-08
This was a really good read for me: The Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy (link: http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html)
tommorris · 2012-11-11
An ad hominem isn't just any time you say something mean about someone. An ad hominem is when you say that some thing someone believes is wrong on the basis of some irrelevant personal characteristic. ("John may tell you that the Higgs-Boson exists but he is a convicted felon!")
This may be sarcastic, it may not portray RMS in a good light (I disagree: I think everyone knows RMS is principled to the point of pig-headed; it doesn't change my opinion of RMS at all, just simply confirms what I already know). But it isn't an ad hominem.
People claim things are ad hominem falsely so often that some people have even started referring to it as The 'Ad Hominem Fallacy' Fallacy. http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html ;-)
lazugod · 2012-11-04
As discussed in the comments of http://plover.net/~bonds/purity.html, a loop of importance/purity rather than a straight hierarchy makes more sense (or assuages more people).
rincewind · 2012-09-01
Are you thinking about Mark Jason Dominius? His Web site is http://perl.plover.com/. He made a presentation about making presentations at OSCON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Tsom5hI98
Stephen Bond, who wrote the linked page, is at http://plover.net/~bonds/. I could not find any OSCON talks by him. Can you please provide a link? I think you are confusing them based on the similar domain names.
Jach · 2012-05-02
There's a link that I like to give in response to erroneously declared "ad hominem"s. http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
Since it's so full of examples, even the thickest of nerds can learn!
tomstuart · 2012-03-10
I lament the loss of http://xkcdexplained.com/ (and http://xkcdexplainedexplained.tumblr.com/). Perhaps http://plover.net/~bonds/asdf.html is enough.
damncabbage · 2012-01-29
"Ad Hominem" doesn't apply here.[1]
(DHH didn't say that using 37Signals assets directly was bad because they were fucking scumbags, just that what they did was bad and they were fucking scumbags as a result.)
[1] http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
starwed · 2011-08-05
Nope. He argued that the judge was wrong, and then suggested that it was the judge's age that caused him to make an error.
What he didn't do is to use the judge's age in support of the first argument -- that would have been ad hominem.
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
synth · 2011-06-23
I can recommend the following to accompany Turing's paper.
http://plover.net/~bonds/mind.html
edw · 2011-04-22
You're falling prey to the Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy:
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
That this is a link-baiting article is not part of my argument. It's a simple observation. The very title of his article is an insult to Apple users.
Did you read past the first sentence of my comment, to—oh, let me see—the second sentence of my comment, where I explain what my problem with his "argument"—i.e. series of insults—is?
Locke1689 · 2011-03-07
Not at all. http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
As I said, insults are not ad hominem in and of themselves.
tome · 2009-12-27
I really like this article Daniel. It's a very interesting talking point regarding the kinds of discussion that happen on the internet.
Here is a related article about the "Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy"
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
benmathes · 2009-04-05
The ad-hominem fallacy fallacy:
http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html
A critique is not ad-hominem if the target is a character trait relevant to the speaker's point.
old-gregg · 2008-12-16
After some googling I found something:
http://plover.net/~bonds/genderedlanguage.html
"... The problem is that in the English language, the "traditional" gender-neutral form -- "his" -- happens to be the same as the masculine form. And to say or imply that an arbitrary or unknown person must be male, as those who use "his" are claimed to do, is discriminatory... "
cousin_it · 2008-11-25
He also has a great article on the software developer condition: http://plover.net/~bonds/software.html