I saw a discussion about validity

Context
Slate magazine often runs a feature whereby they will have one or more participants weigh in on a piece of pop culture. Currently Katie Allison Granju is debating Hanna Rosin on the Elisabeth Badinter book The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women. Over her past couple of entries, Granju has focused on how Badinter's financial interest in Nestle's PR company disqualifies her from taking a position on breastfeeding, snce Nestle is a multinational manufacturer of infant formula. Here is a paragraph from today's entry:

"So how can anyone take anything Elisabeth Badinter has to say on the topic of infant-maternal nutrition seriously? Her ethical conflict is so enormous, and her motives so glaringly questionable, that her position on the topic ultimately doesn’t even matter. There’s just no way to get past who it is making the argument. It’s as if the Board Chairman for American Beef Association’s publicist released a book criticizing Americans’ “naturalist” eating habits, and vegetarianism in particular. It wouldn’t matter if she had a Ph.D. in nutrition from Harvard or a history of bashing vegetarianism. It also wouldn’t matter if her book were well argued and persuasive. The very idea of someone in that position writing such a book would be laughable."

Commentary
There is a saying in American politics, and maybe elsewhere as well: "If you can't attack the message, attack the messenger." With that in mind, I'm forced to disagree with Ms. Granju. It always matters if a book, or any statement of opinion for that matter, is well argued and persuasive. I have no problem with accounting for someone's character, personal history and economic ties when evaluating an argument, but if those are the only criteria you use, I think you'll miss out on some good stuff. I personally thought the late Christopher Hitchens was an execrable human being, but man could he write stuff!

I also think this critique fails to allow for the possibility that Badinter might be taking a principled position in both the economic and philosophical spheres. If one truly believes in the legitimate uses of baby formula to free up women's time, why wouldn't you invest in Nestle's publicist and even Nestle itself? Are we supposed to expect hypocrisy and cynical self-interest instead, where no one actually puts their money where their mouth is? Wouldn't that be a bigger "ethical conflict?"

So, to sum up, I don't think a well-researched book written by a PhD in nutrition on the evils of vegetarianism would be laughable, even if it was written by someone employed by the American Beef Association. I like to gather as many reasoned opinions as I can. I'm about done with the Slate series, though. I think the conversation has gone about one entry past "reasoned."

What did you see today?