Your weekly logical fallacy: appeal to authority

This weed you just have to take my word for things because I created this group. I am the absolute authority in how this post is going to go so it has to be true! Yes this week we are going to look at appeal to authority

You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.
It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is 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.

Example: You come out to your religious family as a nudist. You have given all the physical and mental health benefits of your decision. Yet, your family is still worried. They cannot refute any of your reasons so they just say, "See Pastor Bob says it is immoral so you just need to cover up all the time!"

• Flag
• Edit
• Delete
• Quote
• Reply