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Abstract
In the past five decades, scholars have suggested that there are fallacious and proper uses of ad hominem arguments. Douglas Walton's pragmatic theory of argumentation incorporates a significant treatment of the ad hominem argument. This essay adapts Walton's theory to a case study of arguments about scientific research, paid for by the Pioneer Fund, into racial differences. The essay concludes that Pioneer-funded scientists engage in an illicit dialectical shift when they claim to be interested only in scientific, rather than political, questions. The essay calls for attention to the social context of arguers and arguing rather than abstract analytical categories.
