HalFinney comments on The Genetic Fallacy - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 July 2008 05:47AM

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Comment author: HalFinney 11 July 2008 05:41:12PM 9 points [-]

I have to largely agree with Poke here, although I'd be broader in my acceptance of what constitutes science. Too many times have I found ideas to be false which were rejected by mainstream science, but which seemed plausible and for which I was exposed to forceful advocacy (for example, that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus). This makes me tend to doubt any and all ideas which come from a spirit of skepticism towards mainstream science. A more current example would be global warming skepticism, in all its many variants.

Instead of calling it the "genetic fallacy", maybe we should re-christen it the "genetic heuristic".