Greetings, fellow travelers! Time for another edition of Logical Fallacies Bootcamp! Today’s installment: Appeal to Authority!
Appeal to Authority (aka argumentum ad verecundiam) is a common shortcut in argumentation, wherein the argument looks something like this:
X says Y is true.
X is an expert on Y.
Therefore, Y is true.
This is one to be careful with.
True experts in a field have, to be fair, spent a great deal of time and personal energy and perhaps a great deal of money to achieve their level of expertise. To disregard them out of hand is unfair, and it is equally fallacious to simply handwave away their expertise and take the attitude that seems so common online today that “my ignorance is as valid as your expertise.” Don’t be that guy. That way lies simple denialism and contrarianism.
And many of us DO trust the experts. No one has the time or wherewithal to confirm every statement made by their doctor, or an astronomer, or a particle physicist, or accountant, or whatever.
But still — we need to understand that when we do choose to put our trust in experts without verifying, we are exercising a level of trust. We are putting trust in a statement made without demanding that the person making the statement provide evidence or logical argument to prove their assertion.
Usually, that’s not a bad thing. We trusted doctors and researchers during the pandemic about masking and distancing. But we still need to understand we’re putting ourselves in the hands of those experts, trusting that they do in fact know what they’re doing/talking about.
Where this really begins to be an issue is when others quote “the experts.” Ok, provide sources. Give me a quote or a paper or the context to prove what you say Expert X said. SHOW me where Expert X said this. From there I can assess the accuracy of your assertion, and whether Expert X is really an expert.
To quote Carl Sagan:
One of the great commandments of science is, "Mistrust arguments from authority." ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
Gotta get me some Carl Sagan into this diary. Here’s some more Sagan-esque wisdom.
This has a companion fallacy, Appeal to False Authority. And this is also a common online problem. Appeal to False Authority often manifests as quoting an authority of another subject as being authoritative in another field. For example, quoting Neil Degrasse Tyson on the subject of astronomy might be quite legit, but quoting him as an authority on, say, paleontology, is committing the Appeal to False Authority. Or quoting the Pope on quantum physics.
A common subset of Appeal to False Authority is what is sometimes called Appeal to Celebrity (how many fallacies can I fit in one diary?). The most common example of this is when celebrities are held forth as experts regardless of their actual expertise. That’s not to say a given celebrity might not BE an authority on a subject. Maybe they’ve put in the time and effort to learn a lot about a subject they’re passionate about. But don’t assume that just because someone won a Grammy or an Oscar that they’re actually also an expert on World Hunger.
So, how do we deal with this fallacy? Here are some suggestions:
1) It’s not unreasonable to accept information from known experts as provisionally true. We do this All. The. Time. But, be prepared to adjust your views in light of evidence that may call that original information as not being true. Science changes all the time. It’s how it works — replacing old information with newer, hopefully more accurate, information
2) Look at the reasonableness of what is being claimed — again, to quote Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sometimes, this isn’t possible for a layman, because we simply don’t have the background to know any better. But, as far as possible, gauge to what extent the statement being made meets the basic tests of critical thinking. But also keep in mind that sometimes facts do defy common sense!
3) Watch for that Appeal to False Authority. Is the person really an expert in what they are commenting on, or what they are being put forth as an expert on?
4) Trust, but verify. If a statement by an expert doesn’t pass the smell test, don’t be afraid to do some research to see if they really made the statement, that other experts agree with it, how controversial is said statement, etc.