Home / Weak arguments / Exaggeration or attack
"Great geniuses like Einstein and Da Vinci were vegan."
They claim more than the evidence supports, or attack people instead of discussing what they do.
Why it is weak
It's the same appeal to authority as the opposing argument, just from the other side. If the diet of famous thinkers doesn't prove that eating meat is right, it doesn't prove that not eating it is either.
And lists of "vegan geniuses" tend to contain errors: Einstein, for example, only became vegetarian near the end of his life, and there is no record that he was vegan. One error is enough for the whole list to lose credibility.
How to say it better
What matters are the reasons, not who holds them. If you cite someone, cite the argument: Plutarch wrote against eating meat, and many contemporary philosophers defend vegetarianism or veganism as an ethical position.