I don't think I ever fully understood the "appeal to authority" fallacy until a few hours ago.
Scientist A writes a paper on a possible way of solving a long-standing problem in cosmology. Scientist B, who is older and more experienced, says, "my trustworthy collaborator Scientist C says this paper is wrong, here are his arguments." I go away and read the paper and C's arguments and I find in favour of A. I report back to scientist B with a detailed report of why I think C is in error.
Scientist B responds with, "Scientist C and myself are experts in this field, we know it can't be right, therefore how can it be true ?" and nothing else.
By itself, "I know they're wrong because I'm an expert" is a complete non-argument. This should not be confused with, "here are my expert, detailed opinions as to why they're wrong."
I'm still holding out hope that in this particular case B and/or C will eventually follow-up with proper arguments, though I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.
Appeals to authority, consensus, and tradition should have no place in science. Alas that they do.
ReplyDeleteI think the difference between authority and expertise make this one quite subtle, because there are circumstances where trusting the experts is absolutely the right thing to do. You hire an engineer to build an aircraft, not a florist. If someone has a proven track record of building planes, it makes sense to consider them an authority on the matter.
ReplyDeleteThis is certainly not the case for ongoing research, in which no-one should claim a monopoly on truth. There are experts but not authorities. Their opinion does count for more than that of non-experts, but none of them are entitled to pronounce judgement over other experts in that field. "Because I say so" works if you're building an aircraft, but not a nuclear fusion reactor.
Rhys Taylor I'm not a scientist so you can correct me if I am wrong but....
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that the power of the scientific method was that it was self correcting. If something is wrong, further research will reveal the problem.
"Because I Said So" short-circuits that entire process.
Winchell Chung Indeed. I won't go into details but suffice to say that certain people do not believe in other people publishing things they disagree with whilst simultaneously claiming that science is broken.
ReplyDeleteThough I think that the "Because I said so" fallacy is a much better name than "argument by authority".
ReplyDeleteScientist C has responded with some very moderate, well-explained explanations. Much better. Still, at least I understand the fallacy better now.
ReplyDeleteI'm still slogging through the Fallacies a bit. In a similar vein you might read Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer J. Adler. "Errors in the development of modern thought..." takes on Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Hobbes Marx and others.
ReplyDeleteJust like the Fallacies I need to review it.
Rhys Taylor - Politics. They don't care whether it's right or wrong. The majority win and they get the funding.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lazarus Well in this case, it's scientist B who is finding it difficult to get funding, however there are very good reasons for this which I won't go into publically, not even using anonymous names.
ReplyDeleteAll the more reason to discredit scientist A.
ReplyDeleteThat's ridiculous. The only reason to discredit anyone is the strengths of their arguments.
ReplyDeleteIdeally, that's true. However, that's where politics come into play.
ReplyDelete