Name of fallacy?

[StJoseph8]

A Catholic author was talking about reader bias in a book review. I am quoting the author from the video verbatim:

“Somebody writes a book and the objection might be raised, ‘Well but you know, he’s a Catholic, or he’s a Fundamentalist, so obviously he can’t be objective where as I who am an agnostic am not biased’, and of course it’s such an obvious fallacy, but its a common one.”

I may sound dumb in asking, but what’s the name of this type of fallacy?

 

[Irishmom2]

Fallacy of relevance is what comes to mind for me.

Using a personal attack on their religion to discredit anything they say.

You might take a look at this link. logicalfallacies.info/relevance/

 

[on_the_hill]

It might very well be a formally defined type of fallacy, I don’t know.

I do know that such biases are often identified and labeled as one of the types of biases. There are dozens and dozens of defined biases:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Have fun!

 

[Tomdstone]

ad hominem?

 

[dshix]

A Catholic author was talking about reader bias in a book review. I am quoting the author from the video verbatim:

“Somebody writes a book and the objection might be raised, ‘Well but you know, he’s a Catholic, or he’s a Fundamentalist, so obviously he can’t be objective where as I who am an agnostic am not biased’, and of course it’s such an obvious fallacy, but its a common one.”

I may sound dumb in asking, but what’s the name of this type of fallacy?

This fallacy is called “poisoning the well”. Essentially, you are saying that “since so-and-so believes X, he can’t be trusted on Y”.

This is a fallacy because it claims that that person is incapable of forming a logical, true argument, simply because he believes something which the speaker disagrees with. In the form of a syllogism:

Premise 1: Person A says X and Y.
Premise 2: I believe X is wrong but I have no researched opinion on Y.
Conclusion: Therefore, Y is wrong, because Person A says it.

The conclusion does not follow from the premises, so it is a fallacy.

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The fallacy of poisoning the well is different from “ad hominem” because it is not directly aimed at the person himself. The two are closely linked, however, so the distinction isn’t always necessary to make.

 

[KnowtheSilence]

ad hominem circumstantial