Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/reso...ical-fallacies
Argument from authority
The basic structure of such arguments is as follows: Professor X believes A, Professor X speaks from authority, therefore A is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. The converse of this argument is sometimes used, that someone does not possess authority, and therefore their claims must be false. (This may also be considered an ad-hominen logical fallacy – see above.)
In practice this can be a complex logical fallacy to deal with. It is legitimate to consider the training and experience of an individual when examining their assessment of a particular claim. Also, a consensus of scientific opinion does carry some legitimate authority. But it is still possible for highly educated individuals, and a broad consensus to be wrong – speaking from authority does not make a claim true.
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Yes it is possible for scientists to be wrong and broad consensus is wrong (scientific broad consensus is an even higher standard) but you have to provide actual reason and data to suspect that the consensus is wrong to throw up the appeal to authority defense in an argument. One does not get to say "appeal to authority" and be done with it. Why? because that pretty much means you get to discount almost all information being brought forth and that is not how it works.