Joyce Brite wrote, "It's okay to criticize someone's opinion, but it is
_not_ right to criticize the person."

The technical term for that is "ad-hominum".  Instead of refuting the
proposition, you attack the person.  It is a frustrating reply
precisely because it is off the subject.

Another frustrating reply is the response from ideology.  A good
example (in another realm) would be:

 Proposition:
  There is a significant correlation between IQ and success in college.
 Reply:
  There IS no such correlation because IQ is such an abused concept.

The proposition is scientific, but the reply is ideological.  When the
two streams conflate [*], only confusion results.

The response from ideology is often confused with the response from
misunderstanding, which occurs when a proposition is incompletely
understood, but the (rapid) reply is non-the-less "you are wrong",
followed by reasoning that cannot be refuted because the reply is
so fundamentally flawed.  It is related because it flows from an
ideological position.

All of us should strive at the utmost not to fall into any of these
traps.  [**]

Cheers,

George Bogatko
http://www.intac.com/~gbogatko

 [ Editor's explanations:
 [
 [ * conflate --  (from my 7 kg dictionary of 1928):
 [   1. to blow together; to fuse or weld ((Rare));
 [   2. to combine two readings of a text into a composite whole
 [
 [ ** Engage brain before opening mouth!   ;)
 [
 [ Robbie