Whether or not its fair or accurate or meant to push the skeptics buttons it iss definitely not, at least on the surface, ad hominem. An ad hominem argument is one that is "against the person" but this makes a comparison between the styles of argument of Skeptics and some religious people. That argument addresses the argument not the person and therefore is not ad hominem.
If the comparison is inaccurate then the statement is fallacious because it is, well, false. If it is accurate and you just don't like the implications, well ... score one for the other side.
By the way, contrary to popular belief, an ad hominem argument is not always fallacious. If someone claims something on personal authority or expertise then an argument meant to establish that that authority or expertise does not exist is definitely ad hominem and yet quite legitimate. For example, I recently claimed in another thread in this forum that I believed a particular event occurred in a particular way because I had learned this from conversations with people directly involved. If someone came back and showed that I had never actually met any of the people involved, or that I have a -- what was I going to say? -- oh yeah -- a notoriously bad memory for events a decade in the past then this would be a legitimate, ad hominem argument.  |