I agree with your point about there being at least two distinct ways to interpret the non-central fallacy, and also the OPs point that while ad hominem arguments are technically invalid, they can be of high inductive strength in some circumstances. I’m mostly critiquing Scott’s choice of examples for introducing the non-central fallacy, since mixing it with other fallacious forms of reasoning makes it harder to see what the non-central part is contributing to the mistake being made. For this reason, the theft example is preferred by me.
I agree with your point about there being at least two distinct ways to interpret the non-central fallacy, and also the OPs point that while ad hominem arguments are technically invalid, they can be of high inductive strength in some circumstances. I’m mostly critiquing Scott’s choice of examples for introducing the non-central fallacy, since mixing it with other fallacious forms of reasoning makes it harder to see what the non-central part is contributing to the mistake being made. For this reason, the theft example is preferred by me.