.....

An appeal to authority is a form of evidence based reasoning. Stephen hawking and a random redneck are not in the same boat when it comes to debating the topic of climate change. Claiming appeal to authority doesn't allow you to dismiss 99% of the world's scientists who acknowledge climate change as a problem.

insert al gore gif now...the maker of the interwebs

Using authority as an argument in of itself is a fallacy, being an authority doesn't mean you are right. Just like it would be fallacious to assume that you being an idiot means that you're wrong. Authority based reasoning is not evidence based reasoning, because Authority. Is. Not. Evidence. Dont know how this can be explained any more simply.

@bold: I also never said or implied this, dismissing their arguments outright would actually be an example of the fallacy fallacy that was talked about in the very post you quoted

Global warming could be far worse than predicted, new study suggests

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/06/global-warming-double-what-models-predict-study/760748002/

Expert interpretation of relevant data qualifies as evidence. This never means that they are right but simply that there is a very high probability they are correct in their interpretation of the given data. You are wrong.

expert interpretation of data is an argument based on evidence, it is not evidence

appeal to authority is a well known and established fallacy dude, I don't know what to tell you except that if you want to just defer to authority then don't bother debating the topic in the first place

You're mixing two fallacies.

The first is false appeal to authority, which basically goes

Person has a degree in X, so his opinion on Y (unrelated field) is most likely correct.


The second is appealing to authority

Person has authority, therefore he is right.



An argument of the form

Person is a well informed expert on the subject says this, therefore this is probably correct

is not either of these fallacies. There's nothing fallacious about presenting opinions of experts in their fields as evidence.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jul 9 2018 05:49pm

i dont think false authority was ever mentioned

if an authority takes a stance and you disagree with his reasoning and say why, and then someone just says "yeah well hes stephen hawkings so im right" that is fallacious, end of

you can recognise a party is more likely to be correct and give more weight to their position but the reasoning behind that position should still be appraised, and if contended you can't just fall back onto their authority

authority just isnt an argument, "x is probably correct therefore x is correct" is a very common basis for fallacy

Theres two kind of people:

-Those spreading -doubt- on studies then saying -without a doubt- than nothing serious will happend.
-Those considering potential risks and asking for taking measures immediately.