[consp]

Arguing ad hominim is an easy way of getting out of the actual argument. If you watched any republican primary debate lately you can see it works really well in distracting you (weaker debating) opponent and creating confusion among the viewers about the candidates actual standpoint.

It serves not to disinterest the public, but the debater as it avoids the actual argument, with a side dish of confusion to the public.

It is however notable for often being used by those without actual arguments and thus should always be countered by an argument for your cause combined with one against theirs. But if left un-countered it might however get a life on its own and while this might be less true in science, it it killing in politics (see the electability 'arguments').

It can be a viable argument if bias is overly dominant in the research but is always supporting and never a single argument.

note: This is an opinion, like most 'arguments' are.