When I wrote: "OK. And because of this Rand isn't?"

I meant to write: "OK. And because of this Rand isn't a good writer?".

It's not a non sequitur, just a typo.

Yes, it is a non sequitur, in that it doesn't follow from the given premises. All that does follow is that one can't determine whether she's a good writer just because she's popular.

The statement (or at least the fixed one) does follow from the given premise. Just because you disagree with the premise (that popularity might be evidence of quality) doesn't make it non sequitur.

To save myself from repeating the same argument as the few threads above this, I'll just link to it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=54920

Right. You know, finally I did what one of us should have done some 8 or 9 messages back - I went and checked what you actually wrote:

> the popularity of her books suggests otherwise [my emphasis]

In other words, you weren't actually making the claim I thought you were - that popularity implies quality. So I'm sorry for missing your point originally.

I do disagree that popularity is evidence of quality; popularity is only evidence of broad appeal, and you'd still need to demonstrate a correlation between broad appeal and quality - I contend that no correlation exists. But that's a reasonable debate, not a logical fallacy.

But I have to ask - why didn't you tell me that I was refuting an argument you hadn't made...?