Appeal to motive

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An appeal to motive is a form of ad-hominem attack in which it is asserted that the opponent's argument is false because they have some (base) motive for advancing it; it is a way of poisoning the well.

In may cases there is no actual evidence of the supposed motive. A common example is the Big Pharma Conspiracy: defenders of woo will dismiss those advancing rational argument as being "big pharma shills" or part of "$cience":

The determination to 'discredit' Burzynski must be money-driven, like the wealthy ACS - Burzynski shill on Twitter.

As an argument it is fallacious because it is a non sequitur. Having a conflict of interest does not make one wrong.

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