Loftus and Education

I assume that many of my readers also read the Triablogue (seeing as how I comment frequently over there and also have them linked in my side-bar).  Those who do not really ought to :-)

In any case, those who have read the comments over at Triablogue know that John Loftus has a new technique in his “refutation” of my arguments.  It goes like this:

Take a higher level OT course, but first finish High School and graduate from college, Calvindude.

That’s found in the comments over at: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/hebrew-polytheism.html

Now those of us who have studied logic can immediately recognize the fallacy that Loftus employs.  He has an implicit ad hominem in the above.  It goes like this:

1) CalvinDude has presented an argument against Loftus’s postion.

2) CalvinDude has not finished high school*

* Premise 2 is false, but Loftus never lets truth get in the way of his argument.

3) Therefore, CalvinDude’s argument is false.

The conclusion above is a textbook ad hominem.  My argument is “refuted” by an appeal to some kind of personal failing, not due to anything inherently wrong with my argument at all!

Loftus wants to forget that one of us has actually expressed an interest in looking at the issues involved in a scholarly manner while the other one has cowered in fear.

Loftus talks big, but he is nothing more than sound and fury.

Readers here on my blog note that I don’t ever talk about someone’s “educational credentials.”  Why?  It’s fairly obvious.  Simply because someone graduates from an institution of “higher learning” does not make that person ipso facto more intelligent than anyone else.  In point of fact, there is nothing that is learned in college that could not be learned by spending a few weeks in a good library.  The only difference is the paper document, not the intelligence of the person putting forth arguments.

The paper document serves one purpose: to enable employers to easily determine who they want to employ.  Employers assume (although given the poor state of “higher education” this is changing) that someone with the credentials has been able to prove to the college that s/he is intelligent.  The one who does not have this paper would need to be able to prove his or her intelligence to the employer–but the employment process is so lengthy already that the employers just short-cut it to looking at who has the diploma.

A scholarly discussion about intellectual issues is not an employment opportunity.  Therefore, whether someone has a piece of paper that says he’s smart enough to convince some college that he’s smart is irrelevant to the argument put forth.  This is why arguments are not won by a counting of PhD’s.  Instead, arguments are “won” on the basis of their premises and conclusions.

Loftus does not want his arguments examined critically because it exposes them for the hollow shells that they are.  Instead, he wants to take comfort in hiding behind stolen credentials (he steals Dr. Craig’s credentials by claiming to be a former student) while stifling all contrary opinions to his.  This is his “right” as a person, just as it is my “right” to point out that he lacks serious intellectual skills.

My debate challenge of course still remains.  In fact, I will alter it to any subject that Loftus would care to debate on.

But none of that matters because Loftus is not interested in scholarship.  He is only interested in puffing himself up and pretending that those who disagree are merely ignorant.  He can’t possibly conceive that intelligent people actually disagree with him because that might harm his self-esteem.

This is why he will continue to claim that I’m a high school student, all the while ignoring the devastating critique I’ve leveled on his “arguments.”  He can keep pretending the emperor has clothes, but the rest of us are laughing behind his back.