“Appeal to authority” doesn’t even seem like much of a fallacy to me… If I’m an argument with a non-physicist on whether faster than light travel is possible, and I’m a non-physicist myself, am I better off explaining some elementary understanding of physics I happen to have or quoting a famous physicist?
I would think that a summary of the understanding of a famous physicist would be much stronger Bayesian evidence than some elementary secondhand physics explanation from me.
Of course, an entire physics textbook, complete with citations of key physics papers and findings, is probably stronger Bayesian evidence still.
Edit: Looks as though the poster addresses my point:
It is important to note with this fallacy that authorities in given fields may very well have valid arguments, and that one should not dismiss another’s experience and expertise. To form an argument, however, one must defend it on its merits i.e. know why the person in authority holds the particular position that they do. It is, of course, entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.
It sounds as though they’re saying it’s okay to borrow arguments from people in authority, but they’re unclear on whether just taking their opinion at face value is okay.
To make your own personal estimate as accurate as possible, it seems like you’d want to average together independent estimates from many people that were familiar with the relevant arguments and evidence, weighting folks according to their expertise/prediction track record. It seems silly to privilege your own estimate. So I’m definitely in favor of relying on this sort of authority for making your own personal estimate, but you might not want to share them to prevent information cascades. See also.
My understanding is that the “appeal to authority fallacy” is specifically about appealing to irrelevant authorities. Quoting a physicist on their opinion about a physics question within their area of expertise would make an excellent non-fallacious argument. On the other hand, appealing to the opinion of say, a politician or CEO about a physics question would be a classic example of the appeal to authority fallacy. Such people’s opinions would represent expert evidence in their fields of expertise, but not outside them.
I don’t think the poster’s description makes this clear and it really does suggest that any appeal to authority at all is a logical fallacy.
I agree the poster is wrong. Appeals to authority can also be non-fallacious but of very weak inductive strength: for example, when the authority holds the minority opinion for her field. They are also fallacious as deductive arguments.
“Appeal to authority” doesn’t even seem like much of a fallacy to me… If I’m an argument with a non-physicist on whether faster than light travel is possible, and I’m a non-physicist myself, am I better off explaining some elementary understanding of physics I happen to have or quoting a famous physicist?
I would think that a summary of the understanding of a famous physicist would be much stronger Bayesian evidence than some elementary secondhand physics explanation from me.
Of course, an entire physics textbook, complete with citations of key physics papers and findings, is probably stronger Bayesian evidence still.
Edit: Looks as though the poster addresses my point:
It sounds as though they’re saying it’s okay to borrow arguments from people in authority, but they’re unclear on whether just taking their opinion at face value is okay.
To make your own personal estimate as accurate as possible, it seems like you’d want to average together independent estimates from many people that were familiar with the relevant arguments and evidence, weighting folks according to their expertise/prediction track record. It seems silly to privilege your own estimate. So I’m definitely in favor of relying on this sort of authority for making your own personal estimate, but you might not want to share them to prevent information cascades. See also.
My understanding is that the “appeal to authority fallacy” is specifically about appealing to irrelevant authorities. Quoting a physicist on their opinion about a physics question within their area of expertise would make an excellent non-fallacious argument. On the other hand, appealing to the opinion of say, a politician or CEO about a physics question would be a classic example of the appeal to authority fallacy. Such people’s opinions would represent expert evidence in their fields of expertise, but not outside them.
I don’t think the poster’s description makes this clear and it really does suggest that any appeal to authority at all is a logical fallacy.
I agree the poster is wrong. Appeals to authority can also be non-fallacious but of very weak inductive strength: for example, when the authority holds the minority opinion for her field. They are also fallacious as deductive arguments.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”