Originally shared by Mommy, PhD
There is a fine line between an appeal to authority and deferring to experts. It’s the difference between basing a claim on who a person is or what degree they have and basing a claim based on the evidence a person with a set of skills and knowledge presents. It’s a subtle but critical distinction. I have “PhD” in my page name and a diploma on my wall, but if you cite me as a source just because I have a doctorate, that’s an appeal to authority. However, if you cite me as a source because I back up my information with appropriate evidence and have knowledge to help me interpret that evidence, that’s deferring to an expert.
From The Logic of Science:
The appeal to authority fallacy (a.k.a. argument from authority) is easily one of the most common logical fallacies. This is the fallacy that occurs when you base your claim on the people who agree with you rather than on the actual facts of the argument. This may seem fairly straightforward, but it can actually be quite confusing, and I often see people incorrectly accuse others of committing this fallacy. The problem is that there are clearly times when it is fine to defer to an expert. For example, we constantly defer to doctors, and there is nothing wrong or fallacious about trusting their diagnoses and taking the recommended treatments. My intention is, therefore, to try to clear up some of the confusion about this fallacy and explain when it is and is not appropriate to defer to experts.
There are basically four ways that this fallacy occurs and I am going to deal with each one separately:
Citing an opinion as authoritative
Citing people who aren’t actually experts
Using authority as a logical proof
Citing a small minority of experts when an opposing majority consensus exists