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I'm not sure why you are drawing a parallel to a good doctor that smokes.

I never said "Doctor Mike" is a bad doctor. I have no idea if he is a good or bad doctor.

Further, an ad hominem is when a person attacks someone's character without any base.

I wrote specifically about him not being at the forefront and questioning his values, as displayed by his actions during the pandemic. His actions were literally not in line with Covid guidelines. Those are guidelines that were formulated by hundreds (thousands?) of doctors, all of whom sought to be at the forefront of medical science during a pandemic.

As another user said, MRI scans not corresponding to brain activity is not really news, and in at least the part of the US I live in, MRI scans are not so easily recommended, especially since they're not covered by health insurance.

Dr. Amen should be called out, of course, but it doesn't mean a doctor is at the forefront for doing so.

> Further, an ad hominem is when a person attacks someone's character without any base.

An Ad-Hominem is specifically an attack on someone's arguments using some un-related attack on their character.

EG: "Dr. John's Opinions about vaccines are invalid because he smokes cigarettes." or "James assertion that the earth is round is invalid because he thinks that dogs are better than cats."

Ad-Hom is short for argumentum ad hominem. If you aren't making an argument with your attack, you are just insulting someone.

> I'm not sure why you are drawing a parallel to a good doctor that smokes.

Presumably because it is very analogous. You are essentially saying Dr. Mike shouldn’t be trusted because he made a bad decision. That is extremely similar to saying you shouldn’t trust a doctor’s advice because they happen to smoke.

> Further, an ad hominem is when a person attacks someone's character without any base.

No. An ad hominem is when the person is attacked rather than the argument. A terrible person can still make a perfectly sound argument. Calling them terrible doesn’t change the argument, even if it is emotionally satisfying.

> I wrote specifically about him not being at the forefront and questioning his values, as displayed by his actions during the pandemic.

You’re attacking his actions and not his recommendations. Ad hominem.

smoking is not an appropriate analogy at least insofar it is primarily damaging to the individual (claims of second hand smoke aside), whereas exposing oneself during covid is more broadly damaging as the purpose of social distancing was specifically to avoid spreading the disease, not to oneself, but to more vulnerable individuals. moreover it can be indicative that he is self-interested, that is, by acting hypocritically, while not in and of itself evidence, is consistent with 'charlatan behavior' as is, i would add, interviewing a known charlatan dr aman. aman detractors will think he is 'being shown' but the reality is that aman or similar wins legitimacy, which the interviewer knows, since his aim is entertainment, not medicine, in his capacity as an interviewer.

it is not ad-hominem to try to understand a person's motivations for expressing a particular opinion, which is why the above poster referred to 'character' which is not specific to the definition of ad-hominem, but is in the spirit thereof, that is, distracting from the argument. but if the person has shown themselves to be working contradictorily to public health policy, especially in consideration of the hippocratic oath, you may ask reasonably what they are about.

> smoking is not an appropriate analogy at least insofar

Missing the forest for the trees.

The point isn’t that neglecting to mask is exactly the same as smoking. Obviously these are different. The point is that in both cases the person in question is advising one thing and doing another. The fact that a doctor smokes or doesn’t mask up in a pandemic does not mean that their advice to not smoke or to wear a mask is not good advice.

If a person regularly snacks on lead paint but tells you not to eat paint, the advice is still good even if it’s coming from an idiot.

> it is not ad-hominem to try to understand a person's motivations

Sure, but claims of hypocrisy are still not a rebuttal.

No doubt it was hypocritical for Dr Mike to tell others to social distance and then hop on a boat with a dozen people unmasked, just as it was hypocritical for Gavin Newsom to attend a dinner at The French Laundry while telling others to stay home.

This isn’t actually relevant to whether the advice to socially distance was sound, though.

The idiom is, "Do as I say, not as I do."

Yet here you are trying to convince folks why this doesn't lead to poor morals, low self-awareness, and a lack of trust in doctors. We are talking about a doctor, of course, not just an average nobody. And we are talking about a doctor with 6 million subscribers. His influence is wide.

Last I checked, a doctor is not the same as a politician.

Do you have a point except to cast this guy as untrustworthy because he did one stupid thing that got photographed half a decade ago? I feel like the pedantry about what ad hominem means and arguments about analogies and now references to morality and politicians is distracting from whatever your core point is.

> lack of trust in doctors

I don’t think demanding perfection from doctors helps with trust either.

> Further, an ad hominem is when a person attacks someone's character without any base.

That is not what an ad hominem is.