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'I have no reason to doubt her; she's a professional violinist.' You know that claiming to be a professional violinist is an appeal to authority rather than a

by fleitz 13y ago

'I have no reason to doubt her; she's a professional violinist.' You know that claiming to be a professional violinist is an appeal to authority rather than a logical argument, right? That said the study does seem to be massively misreported.

devindotcom 13y ago
It may not logically follow, but in the real world it is not a strange thing to trust an actual expert on these topics over, say, a writer at the Daily Mail. Why object?
- fleitz 13y ago
  It's even better to examine their argument sans credentials.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    It's even better to do both, and embrace a complete and holistic argument.
na85 13y ago
>You know that claiming to be a professional violinist is an appeal to authority rather than a logical argument, right? Am I on reddit or something? You know that starting a statement with "you know that..." sounds pretentious as fuck, right?
- fleitz 13y ago
  Yes, I did know that.
  - na85 13y ago
    So you don't think that I, a lousy trumpet player who hasn't picked up an instrument in almost a decade, have reason to give a professional violinist the benefit of the doubt when she said she could pick out the Stradivarius?
thaumasiotes 13y ago
"Appeal to authority" is a shorthand form. The thing people object to is more formally known as "appeal to false authority" (think "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV").
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Improper appeals to authority are not limited to appeals to false authority; appeal to authority to dismiss evidence are also fallacious.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    This is not so; we rely on authorities because we can't judge everything ourselves. If you show me some new evidence on the role of free protons in the aging process or whatever, it's not a mistake for me to say "I'll ignore that until such time as <someone I trust> addresses it". I might be wrong as to reality, but I can't avoid using that exact strategy in almost all of my life.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      But that's not an appeal to authority, really, is it? That's your relying on an authority to inform yourself, rather than pointing to authority as why others should believe what you do. These strike me as subtly different, though there's clearly some overlap in considerations...
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      There's a difference between using authority status as a filter to find likely-to-be-valid arguments and using "so-and-so says X is not true" alone as a rebuttal to evidence that X is true. The former is a pragmatic research tool, the latter is the fallacy of appeal to authority.

by fleitz 13y ago

devindotcom 13y ago

It may not logically follow, but in the real world it is not a strange thing to trust an actual expert on these topics over, say, a writer at the Daily Mail. Why object?

fleitz 13y ago
It's even better to examine their argument sans credentials.
- calinet6 13y ago
  It's even better to do both, and embrace a complete and holistic argument.

na85 13y ago

>You know that claiming to be a professional violinist is an appeal to authority rather than a logical argument, right? Am I on reddit or something? You know that starting a statement with "you know that..." sounds pretentious as fuck, right?

fleitz 13y ago
Yes, I did know that.
- na85 13y ago
  So you don't think that I, a lousy trumpet player who hasn't picked up an instrument in almost a decade, have reason to give a professional violinist the benefit of the doubt when she said she could pick out the Stradivarius?

thaumasiotes 13y ago

"Appeal to authority" is a shorthand form. The thing people object to is more formally known as "appeal to false authority" (think "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV").

dragonwriter 13y ago
Improper appeals to authority are not limited to appeals to false authority; appeal to authority to dismiss evidence are also fallacious.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  This is not so; we rely on authorities because we can't judge everything ourselves. If you show me some new evidence on the role of free protons in the aging process or whatever, it's not a mistake for me to say "I'll ignore that until such time as <someone I trust> addresses it". I might be wrong as to reality, but I can't avoid using that exact strategy in almost all of my life.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    But that's not an appeal to authority, really, is it? That's your relying on an authority to inform yourself, rather than pointing to authority as why others should believe what you do. These strike me as subtly different, though there's clearly some overlap in considerations...
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    There's a difference between using authority status as a filter to find likely-to-be-valid arguments and using "so-and-so says X is not true" alone as a rebuttal to evidence that X is true. The former is a pragmatic research tool, the latter is the fallacy of appeal to authority.