The entire premise of up- and down-voting is that some comments are more valuable _to read_ than others. “Let’s just have a debate” isn’t really a fair criticism; we can’t afford to debate everything, so ultimately there’s going to be a preceding value judgment.

That value judgment may look a lot like an ad hominem, but it’s perfectly rational—for example, in this case, the question is, should I take the time to seriously engage with a book written by a man who claims vaccines cause autism, led a group that opposed flouridation of drinking water, claimed that 5G “damages DNA” and is being installed to facilitate “mass surveillance”, and, oh, by the way, is a master falconer? (Nothing wrong with that, but I find it hilarious.)

Obviously the answer is no. There are a lot of interesting, well-founded books on science that I want to read, and I just don’t have time to read a book by a master falconer, let alone engage meaningfully with it online. Maybe the earth is flat, and I’m just living with my head in the sand. Oh well?