No.<p>If for example you wanted to discuss <i>The Selfish Gene</i> by Richard Dawkins, the first step would <i>not</i> be to &quot;not use the ideas described within (e.g. genetics and biology research)&quot;. Ignoring the topics within and attacking the author for what he later wrote about Atheism or how he behaved in interviews would a <i>mindblowingly terrible</i> way to critique his book about biology.<p>When discussing or critiquing an essay, the first step is to actually address the ideas inside of it. Attacking the character of its author or other things they may have said about unrelated topics is <i>not</i> a rational substitute.<p>In this case, geofft&#x27;s comment is flawed on multiple levels. Aside from making a purely ad hominem argument against the 2008 essay <i>How to Disagree</i>, its specific attack was the author&#x27;s twitter usage that occurred more than five years later.