> you are appealing to authority, which is not a valid argument Outside of high school debate clubs, it's pretty reasonable to consider the demonstrated expert

> you are appealing to authority, which is not a valid argument Outside of high school debate clubs, it's pretty reasonable to consider the demonstrated expertise of people making claims. I tend to take the opinion of medical researchers about the relationship of HIV and AIDS over the opinions of members of the Foo Fighters and Thabo Mbeki, for example. The opinion of an expert, in his area of expertise, backed by a career's worth of research, seems a little more likely to be correct than a random on the internet backed by nothing more that "nuh-uh!"