Without getting into a philosophical discussion of whether ad hominem is ever appropriate.
This is, in fact, the opposite of ad hominem.
Ad hominem would suggest we are attacking the claim based solely on the author's credibility. In fact, multiple independent replication experiments failed and theoretical models suggest it doesn't work.
So instead of attacking the authors the question is should we be trusting them at their word, and the answer which is reasonably based on credibility seems to be no.
The science behind the claims is being scientifically discussed and the preponderance of available evidence provide no experimental or theoretical support.
We're separately discussing the author's credibility as the claims cannot be verified by anyone but the authors. One example of a time we do this is the "disclosures" section of any academic publication.
Are you arguing someone with a conflict of interest and history of making fraudulent arguments should not be placed under heightened scrutiny?
Combining both available evidence and author credibility is completely valid and leads one to the conclusion that this is incorrect until proven otherwise. It's not like we're solely dismissing the claim because the authors have poor credibility.
Preponderance of available evidence is irrelevant to assessing scientific claims of fact.
The original claims only need to be rigorously verified once. As it currently stands the original claims are claimed to have been partially replicated. What's needed now is the rigor.
> Preponderance of available evidence is irrelevant to assessing scientific claims of fact.
The issue is that trying to prove a negative is very hard in this case.
It is similar to me saying that there is a type of cat that floats, although most don't. It is very hard to prove me wrong because even if you find 1M cats that do not float, it doesn't mean that there is a type of cat you missed to find.
All we can say is that we tried to find cats in a thorough way and none of them float.
When that happens, it is often standard to turn the argument over to the one that is claiming that cats float -- prove that you have a cat that floats, rather than relying on me to prove that no cats float.
This is why people are saying we need to do an analysis of the SC sample from LK. If it is super hard to produce, but we can confirm that they made one, then it is true. Otherwise, it is probably best to assume that the claim isn't true.
This is, in fact, the opposite of ad hominem.
Ad hominem would suggest we are attacking the claim based solely on the author's credibility. In fact, multiple independent replication experiments failed and theoretical models suggest it doesn't work.
So instead of attacking the authors the question is should we be trusting them at their word, and the answer which is reasonably based on credibility seems to be no.