Today's Econozinger comes from Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek: who was hit with the "How would you like to earn the minimum wage?" defense in regards to his recent Wall Street Journal letter.
Suppose a witch doctor insists that he can cure cancer merely by doing a dance. If someone who is skeptical of this claim expresses his or her skepticism, does the skeptic lose credibility if he or she isn't a cancer victim? Would a believer in the witch-doctor's supernatural powers score intellectual points by rhetorically asking the skeptic "How would YOU like to have cancer?!" Does the obvious benefit, the great goodness, of curing cancer patients of their disease increase the likelihood that the witch-doctor's dance will actually cure these patients of their cancers?