That’s a great example on why appeal to authority is a fallacy instead of a logical argument:
Experts are human beings. They’re also prone to the same sort of disgusting irrational behaviour as everyone else. Including bandwagoning, vomiting certainty based on weak evidence, biases like “I want this to be true, so it’s true”, et cetera. And sometimes they’re simply wrong, even if they didn’t engage in any of those shitty things above.
As such, we (people in general) can’t rely on something being “said by an expert” to know if it’s true. We need to analyse the claim itself, in contrast with the evidences that each of us have at hand and some logical reasoning.
And someone might say “I don’t have the technical expertise to know it”. Well, then that person doesn’t get to know the truth, nor they should be a liar and claim to know something.
Actually, you’re misunderstanding why the Appeal to Authority is a fallacy- Appeal to Authority is one of the few fallacies that has both fallacious and non-fallacious uses. You shouldn’t take AtA being known as a fallacy as a reason to distrust authorities, or do some kind of ‘well I have to do my own, uneducated research on this subject.’ You shouldn’t take it as an automatic fallacy simply because the authority might have biases either. AtA is not an argument for anti-authoritarianism or anti-education.
The key here is that an appeal to authority is fallacious when it’s stated to support a position that is not related, or the authority is not an authority in the subject.
For example, if someone said “I’m a game developer, and I think this was stolen,” that could be a fallacious appeal to authority- they might work on sound engines! However, if someone says they’re an 3d modeler/animator and they think the mesh looks stolen because the edgelines for the tris map the same ways within the quads, which is unlikely to happen by accident, that’s a legitimate appeal to authority that is not fallacious. If someone says they’re a lawyer and think it’s stolen, this could be a fallacious appeal to authority- they might not be an IP lawyer.
They key is ensuring that the appeal to authority is relevant and is not predicated on the idea of being true simply because of who they are.
And no, ‘There is a theoretical possibility the authority could have had a bias’ is not an acceptable reason to dismiss an expert opinion as a fallacy.
The non-fallacious usage of appeal to authority only applies to inductive reasoning; however inductive reasoning does not allow you to claim things with certainty.
And the core of this matter here is a bunch of muppets claiming things with certainty, about a topic that they cannot reliably know, and the claim turning out false, regardless of what the “ekspurrts” said.
(The same applies to any other genetic fallacy, including ad populum, ad hominem, etc.)
You shouldn’t take AtA being known as a fallacy as a reason to distrust authorities, or do some kind of ‘well I have to do my own, uneducated research on this subject.’
Emphasis mine. You’re distorting what I said; refer to the fourth paragraph of the very comment that you’re replying to. In simpler words, “you don’t get to know after someone else’s claim”.
You shouldn’t take it as an automatic fallacy simply because the authority might have biases either.
It is automatically a fallacy as long as used to back up any sort of certainty (i.e. deductive reasoning). The conclusion itself might be true or false but it is not reliable.
At most you can use the authority of the claimer as a criterion for inductive reasoning; stronger if someone in the field, weaker if from a barely related field. That would be valid. But guess what - even with the best criteria, inductive reasoning still fails.
The key here is that an appeal to authority is fallacious when it’s stated to support a position that is not related, or the authority is not an authority in the subject.
The meaning conveyed by my usage of “appeal of authority” is aligned with the definitions within those three sites. What you’re referring to would be a second fallacy.
And no, ‘There is a theoretical possibility the authority could have had a bias’ is not an acceptable reason to dismiss an expert opinion as a fallacy.
The possibility of authorities being wrong is so theoretical, but so theoretical, that you’re commenting in a thread that doesn’t exist! [/sarcasm]
Side notes / off-topic:
I’m not bothered by it myself but be aware that people in Lemmy are damn quick to catch this sort of “I assume that you’re an ignorant, so let me enlighten you” discourse.
I’m almost sure that you’re used to discuss fallacies based on the inane shit that Reddit says; be aware that that site works through insane troll logic, and fallacies there get all distorted (e.g. they call any sort of insult “ad hominem”). If that is correct, you might need to relearn this shit, seriously. Wikipedia is a good start.
I’m not sure on how much you know about inductive vs. deductive reasoning. I don’t mind explaining this if you don’t know it, but I’m not assuming that you’re an ignorant right off the bat.
I find it rather hilarious that you’re trying to warn me against discourse in the vein of "I assume you’re ignorant, so let me enlighten you’ while literally doing it yourself. You can try to pretend you’re not in #3, but you literally just spent like 8 paragraphs trying to do so. Incorrectly, at that, but since you clearly think you’re so much smarter than all the ignorant “muppets” (as you put it) out there who you’re dismissing as band-wagoners without doing any of your beloved deductive reasoning on the proof they’ve been providing I doubt you’ll actually consider it for a moment.
Even funnier is the fact that you’re trying to drag out all these debates about the exact definitions and semantics when in the end this only came up because of your own strawman in the first place- that being your own assumption that an appeal to authority was even happening in the first place, when I specifically noted that one should examine what the experts are saying instead of just dismissing them as band-wagoners.
That’s not the appeal to authority fallacy. What you described is why MAGA refuses to listen to experts re: the Covid vaccine and it’s specious logic at best. It also quickly backslides into “I don’t trust you because you’re an authority.”
Check the reply to the other user. Most things that I said there are relevant here.
What you described is why MAGA refuses to listen to experts re: the Covid vaccine and it’s specious logic at best.
By “maga” you mean the anti-vaxxers in Mexico, right?
What anti-vaxxers do, regardless of country, is to flip the fallacy around: from “authoriry said than its chrue lol” to “authoriry said than its false lmao”. It’s still a genetic* fallacy, i.e. they’re still being irrational; you need to analyse the claim itself, not who said it.
If you know how vaccines are made, you don’t need that appeal to authority on first place. You know that they’re mostly safe, and it’s overall better for society if you take the shot.
And, if you don’t know how vaccines are made, this situation with vaccines is better handled through inductive reasoning. But then you don’t get to say “I know it”, like anti-vaxxers do; you weight the risk based on your incomplete information. (And then you get people correctly mocking you for being misinformed.)
*“genetic” because it refers to the origin of the claim, instead of the claim itself.
It also quickly backslides into “I don’t trust you because you’re an authority.”
That’s a great example on why appeal to authority is a fallacy instead of a logical argument:
Experts are human beings. They’re also prone to the same sort of disgusting irrational behaviour as everyone else. Including bandwagoning, vomiting certainty based on weak evidence, biases like “I want this to be true, so it’s true”, et cetera. And sometimes they’re simply wrong, even if they didn’t engage in any of those shitty things above.
As such, we (people in general) can’t rely on something being “said by an expert” to know if it’s true. We need to analyse the claim itself, in contrast with the evidences that each of us have at hand and some logical reasoning.
And someone might say “I don’t have the technical expertise to know it”. Well, then that person doesn’t get to know the truth, nor they should be a liar and claim to know something.
Actually, you’re misunderstanding why the Appeal to Authority is a fallacy- Appeal to Authority is one of the few fallacies that has both fallacious and non-fallacious uses. You shouldn’t take AtA being known as a fallacy as a reason to distrust authorities, or do some kind of ‘well I have to do my own, uneducated research on this subject.’ You shouldn’t take it as an automatic fallacy simply because the authority might have biases either. AtA is not an argument for anti-authoritarianism or anti-education.
The key here is that an appeal to authority is fallacious when it’s stated to support a position that is not related, or the authority is not an authority in the subject.
For example, if someone said “I’m a game developer, and I think this was stolen,” that could be a fallacious appeal to authority- they might work on sound engines! However, if someone says they’re an 3d modeler/animator and they think the mesh looks stolen because the edgelines for the tris map the same ways within the quads, which is unlikely to happen by accident, that’s a legitimate appeal to authority that is not fallacious. If someone says they’re a lawyer and think it’s stolen, this could be a fallacious appeal to authority- they might not be an IP lawyer.
They key is ensuring that the appeal to authority is relevant and is not predicated on the idea of being true simply because of who they are.
And no, ‘There is a theoretical possibility the authority could have had a bias’ is not an acceptable reason to dismiss an expert opinion as a fallacy.
I am not misunderstanding it.
The non-fallacious usage of appeal to authority only applies to inductive reasoning; however inductive reasoning does not allow you to claim things with certainty.
And the core of this matter here is a bunch of muppets claiming things with certainty, about a topic that they cannot reliably know, and the claim turning out false, regardless of what the “ekspurrts” said.
(The same applies to any other genetic fallacy, including ad populum, ad hominem, etc.)
Emphasis mine. You’re distorting what I said; refer to the fourth paragraph of the very comment that you’re replying to. In simpler words, “you don’t get to know after someone else’s claim”.
It is automatically a fallacy as long as used to back up any sort of certainty (i.e. deductive reasoning). The conclusion itself might be true or false but it is not reliable.
At most you can use the authority of the claimer as a criterion for inductive reasoning; stronger if someone in the field, weaker if from a barely related field. That would be valid. But guess what - even with the best criteria, inductive reasoning still fails.
The meaning conveyed by my usage of “appeal of authority” is aligned with the definitions within those three sites. What you’re referring to would be a second fallacy.
The possibility of authorities being wrong is so theoretical, but so theoretical, that you’re commenting in a thread that doesn’t exist! [/sarcasm]
Side notes / off-topic:
I find it rather hilarious that you’re trying to warn me against discourse in the vein of "I assume you’re ignorant, so let me enlighten you’ while literally doing it yourself. You can try to pretend you’re not in #3, but you literally just spent like 8 paragraphs trying to do so. Incorrectly, at that, but since you clearly think you’re so much smarter than all the ignorant “muppets” (as you put it) out there who you’re dismissing as band-wagoners without doing any of your beloved deductive reasoning on the proof they’ve been providing I doubt you’ll actually consider it for a moment.
Even funnier is the fact that you’re trying to drag out all these debates about the exact definitions and semantics when in the end this only came up because of your own strawman in the first place- that being your own assumption that an appeal to authority was even happening in the first place, when I specifically noted that one should examine what the experts are saying instead of just dismissing them as band-wagoners.
That’s not the appeal to authority fallacy. What you described is why MAGA refuses to listen to experts re: the Covid vaccine and it’s specious logic at best. It also quickly backslides into “I don’t trust you because you’re an authority.”
Check the reply to the other user. Most things that I said there are relevant here.
By “maga” you mean the anti-vaxxers in Mexico, right?
What anti-vaxxers do, regardless of country, is to flip the fallacy around: from “authoriry said than its chrue lol” to “authoriry said than its false lmao”. It’s still a genetic* fallacy, i.e. they’re still being irrational; you need to analyse the claim itself, not who said it.
If you know how vaccines are made, you don’t need that appeal to authority on first place. You know that they’re mostly safe, and it’s overall better for society if you take the shot.
And, if you don’t know how vaccines are made, this situation with vaccines is better handled through inductive reasoning. But then you don’t get to say “I know it”, like anti-vaxxers do; you weight the risk based on your incomplete information. (And then you get people correctly mocking you for being misinformed.)
*“genetic” because it refers to the origin of the claim, instead of the claim itself.
Appeal to consequences is also a fallacy.