Funny, I didn’t even realize that was what “courtier’s reply” referred to. The fallacy in the courtier’s reply was that the literature referred to could not possibly demonstrate the proposition claimed, because it dealt only with the consequences of said proposition, and hence it can be ignored without actually reading it; so I took that as the defining characteristic, rather than just the referral to a large and intimidating body of literature.
Funny, I didn’t even realize that was what “courtier’s reply” referred to. The fallacy in the courtier’s reply was that the literature referred to could not possibly demonstrate the proposition claimed, because it dealt only with the consequences of said proposition, and hence it can be ignored without actually reading it; so I took that as the defining characteristic, rather than just the referral to a large and intimidating body of literature.
Seems I had it right: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/who_says_we_dont_need_bible_sc.php