Talk:Argument from authority

Article not reflecting its sources

In all of the sources I have been able to check which are used to define this term (as well as a wide variety of other reliable sources not cited in the article), it is specified that no informal fallacy is committed when the authority in question is a legitimate authority on the subject in question. Yet the only place this information appears in this article is in the notes for the sources 2 and 3. Is there a good reason for this? If not, both the lead and several places throughout the article need to be edited to accurately reflect this, and I will do so shortly. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 04:12, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Look at all the examples of the appeal. They were all to what would be called legitimate authorities, but wound up being fallacious because the authorities were wrong. The appeal to authority is right when its right but wrong when its wrong, so its like circular reasoning or an ad hominem: it doesn't actually provide any evidence for the claim. Plenty of sources on the page state this, and discuss why each form of the argument listed is fallacious. Appeals to authority wind up being circular reasoning, like the page says. The issue is that while its not automatically wrong to appeal to authorities, it doesn't actually provide evidence that your claim is correct. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 20:12, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

My point is that it's not an informal fallacy unless the authority appealed to is not a legitimate authority. Just because an argument is wrong doesn't make it a fallacy. There's a difference between validity and soundness. Valid arguments can be unsound, and invalid arguments may have sound conclusions. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't most any use of it fall under one of the forms in the article? Each one has sources and a sourced example or argument for why its fallacious FL or Atlanta (talk) 18:43, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, most uses of "authority X says Y, so Y must be true" would fall under the examples given. But that's not an overwhelming majority. For instance "Over 99% of all biologists agree that evolution is a fact, therefore evolution is almost certainly a fact," is not an informal fallacy. All of science and education is based upon the assumption that experts are correct more often than not, and all of the technology we have, as well as the skill gap between experts and non-experts in every possible set of skills stands as evidence that this assumption is correct. It's even logically sound to argue that learning about a subject grants more knowledge about a subject. After all, no-one attends college only to find that they're expected to teach themselves all of mathematics, history, literature, composition and the sciences through trial-and-error, with no reference material. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:45, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

That falls under "General". Its no different from the old argument that most medical scientists believed the fevers were caused by an environmental factor, therefore it was concluded that was almost certainly a fact. The only evidence is the evidence. If the authorities believe what they do based off of evidence, then that evidence is where any authority would really be. If they don't believe what they do because of evidence, then their beliefs are not evidence based and thus carry no weight. To say otherwise has lead to circular reasoning in the past, with, as the article says, very severe consequences. FL or Atlanta (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

You're debating the definition, which isn't in question. The definition is clearly given by the sources, which do not match the article. My question was why the article does not reflect its sources. If there is no reason other than the philosophical musings of Wikipedians, then it needs to change. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:06, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: Allow me to quote the second source: "Appealing to authority is valid when the authority is actually a legitimate (debatable) authority on the facts of the argument." Where in the article is this even hinted at? Because I find find numerous passages in the article which directly contradict this. The examples chosen even seem to be hand-picked to refute this. That is not how WP is supposed to work. Also, check out the blatant irony of source #9. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The second source was recently added, and it looks like there was a lot of contention over it. We can remove it to make the page consistent - it doesn't look particularly reliable since its just a random website about logical fallacies. Aside from that the page looks consistent to me - it cites sources for the fallacy and gives evidence and examples. The quote the article ends with really hits home why its a fallacy and what leads to it. Also, do you disagree with what I said: "If the authorities believe what they do based off of evidence, then that evidence is where any authority would really be. If they don't believe what they do because of evidence, then their beliefs are not evidence based and thus carry no weight"? If you do disagree, why? And if you agree, then what basis is there for saying it isn't a fallacy? FL or Atlanta (talk) 23:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Also, contrary to the claim that "All of science and education is based upon the assumption that experts are correct more often than not", we have reliable sources like http://www.nomads.usp.br/pesquisas/design/objetos_interativos/arquivos/restrito/umpleby_science_cybernetics.pdf presented at the conference on Mutual Uses of Cybernetics and Science. Its a scholarly work on the history and philosophy of science and it notes that "Scientific statements can be falsified, non-scientific statements cannot be. This idea, and the previous idea of verification through resort to experiment, has had a beneficent effect on social systems. Through the idea of experimentation, science became a means of establishing knowledge other than by coercion or arguments based on appeals to authority, faith, or supernaturalism. This idea liberated the scientific community...". If appeals to authority were, as you're arguing, the cornerstone of science, then why do we have scholars of the philosophy of science describing going away from appeals to authority as "beneficial" and a "liberation"? FL or Atlanta (talk) 01:54, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to assume you missed the irony of appealing to an authority to refute my contention that appealing to authorities is a valid method of argument. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 03:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm removing number 9 because it has absolutely no business in this article. Also, try the following as reliable sources:

• Often we add strength to our arguments by referring to respected sources or authorities and explaining their positions on the issues we’re discussing. If, however, we try to get readers to agree with us simply by impressing them with a famous name or by appealing to a supposed authority who really isn’t much of an expert, we commit the fallacy of appeal to authority. - UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center
• Appeal to Authority:
     the authority is not an expert in the field
     experts in the field disagree
     the authority was joking, drunk, or in some other way not being serious - Stephen Downes, by way of a Stanford University handout
• Argumentum ad Verecundiam: (authority) the fallacy of appealing to the testimony of an authority outside his special field. Anyone can give opinions or advice; the fallacy only occurs when the reason for assenting to the conclusion is based on following the improper authority. - Lander University Philosophy Department
• Appeal to Authority: Not always fallacious, but always something a critical thinker must consider. It is where you are asked to accept something as true based upon the word of an expert (authority). The main question is, "Are they really an expert?" Perhaps they're not an expert in that field, perhaps they've got an ax to grind, or perhaps they are being paid by someone. Foothill College
• The fallacy of irrelevant authority is committed when you accept without proper support for his or her alleged authority, a person's claim or proposition as true. Alleged authorities should only be used when the authority is reporting on his or her field of expertise, the authority is reporting on facts about which there is some agreement in his or her field, and you have reason to believe he or she can be trusted. Alleged authorities can be individuals or groups. The attempt to appeal to the majority or the masses is a form of irrelevant authority. The attempt to appeal to an elite or select group is a form of irrelevant authority. Texas State Department of Philosophy

MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 04:28, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I'll talk about the other sources in a moment, but before any changes get made, citation 9 is good - he's a historian and Medieval scholar who's published on Medieval arms and armor. He makes the point in the video of how you can't simply appeal to scholars and assume its correct - you need the actual historical evidence. Videos are valid sources as long as its a reliable source. FL or Atlanta (talk) 04:31, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Please read WP:RS. He is not a reliable source for this article. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 04:34, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I have read it, I’m very familiar with the guidelines. Do you disagree with any of the reasons I gave for why it’s a reliable source? Nothing said in the video is even controversial.

As far as appealing to authority to discuss appeals to authority, the irony isn’t lost on me. But the real irony is that authorities say the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, so if the appeal isn’t a fallacy then it would be proven that it’s a fallacy! Its ultimately self-defeating. But do you have any response to the meat of what I’m saying? That “If the authorities believe what they do based off of evidence, then that evidence is where any authority would really be. If they don't believe what they do because of evidence, then their beliefs are not evidence based and thus carry no weight”.

Now as far as the other sources go, it is true that some argue it isn’t a fallacy, but they are a minority among relevant philosophers. According to the book "Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science" by Christopher Hitchcock, on page 161 in my copy, it says "Of prime concern for the issue…are the rules that apply to the researchers themselves. A vocal minority effectively argue their own research transcends empiricism, stating that the public should accept their word by virtue of the fact that it came from one of their standing, and reject it only when others at their level do so. Though the ad verecundiam has such advocates, their expertise resides largely outside of the field of the philosophy of science…Philosophers of science remain in broad unanimity that it is the facts themselves that bring the proof. Those who use their position to express otherwise are…going against their own teachings by…disregarding the consensus of the field on which they speak."

So it seems like people in other professions sometimes say the appeal to authority isn’t a fallacy. But the consensus in philosophy of science, which is the most relevant specialization, is that it is indeed a fallacy. That seems to be why we get some mixed signals from some sources.

If you’d like, I could cite this section under the appeal to non-authorities form, and make a note of how its argued by some that appeals to authority are only fallacious in that particular form. Would that be an acceptable consensus? FL or Atlanta (talk) 09:44, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I have read it, I’m very familiar with the guidelines. You must have missed the following parts, then:

• Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both." (emphasis added) Note that youtube videos are self-published, and thus not the result of a reliable publication process. Which leads to the section on self-published sources.
• Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications. (emphasis in original) A HEMA practitioner, even a well-respected one such as this one is not an established expert whose work in the field of logic or philosophy has been published by reliable third-party publications. Even by the overly broad interpretation of the subject of this article you are advocating, this is a completely improper source.

Note that both of those quotations are pulled from the Wikipedia policy page, not the guidelines page. Citing that source is a violation of WP policy. I am removing it again, and if you re-insert it we will take this to arbitration.

Now as far as the other sources go, it is true that some argue it isn’t a fallacy, but they are a minority among relevant philosophers. That is completely untrue. Virtually every single resource on the internet agrees that there is no fallacy in trusting the word of an established expert, with many of those resources coming from well established, reliable experts in the field. I limited the sources I provided above to educational institutes, but there are many more reliable sources available online. Even the very first source in this article mentions it. I can literally find dozens of reliable sources to state the caveat that appeals to legitimate expertise are not fallacious. You might be able to find a meager handful of sources which don't mention it, and maybe one or two that explicitly deny it. Even then, I doubt they would be very reliable.

According to the book "Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science" by Christopher Hitchcock, on page 161 in my copy, it says... That's strange. Because that passage appears nowhere in my copy, nor in the digital copy available online

So it seems like people in other professions sometimes say the appeal to authority isn’t a fallacy. I gave you multiple examples of philosophy, education and argumentation experts stating this. You gave me a false quote from a book and a martial artist's opinion.

If you’d like, I could cite this section under the appeal to non-authorities form, and make a note of how its argued by some that appeals to authority are only fallacious in that particular form. Would that be an acceptable consensus? No, because that would violate WP:UNDUE by diminishing an important caveat made by virtually every reliable source on the subject. An acceptable outcome is noting in the lead that it is not considered fallacious to rely upon legitimate expertise, and to alter the examples given so that they aren't exclusively drawn from cases where established experts were wrong. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Like with last time, I'll address the stuff about citation 9 first. He is a published scholar, he co-wrote the book Swordsmen of the British Empire and has participated in projects translating Medieval documents on combat, according to http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/training/. That source also notes that his "formal educational background is a BA(hons) in Medieval Archaeology and History from University College London (UCL) in 2000, writing his final dissertation on the development of 13th and 14th century armour". So he is a published and credentialed historian. And, once again, what’s being said in the video isn’t controversial in the least. Also if I might ask, why are you in such a hurry to have the source removed? Talking about edit wars and arbitration and such. Isn't it better to remain calm and discuss the issue until a consensus can be reached? FL or Atlanta (talk) 08:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

So you're arguing that a degree in history makes one an expert in philosophy? Read below. We will deal with this through arbitration. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:14, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course not - I'm arguing it means he's a reliable source for the issue he's speaking about there. I did however move the citation to be for how authorities can fall into error, since that's a bit more like what he was speaking about. I also added the skepdic source. I think its very very early for arbitration - arbitration is a last resort, and we're making lots of progress in our discussion! The page has already improved. FL or Atlanta (talk) 23:29, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Examples of cited sources (and one cited author) flatly stating that not all appeals to authority are fallacious

For example, appealing to expert opinion could be reasonable if the field of the expert is appropriate, and other conditions are met. But, of course, as the logic texts have so often pointed out, such arguments can sometimes be fallacious appeal to authority.

— F. Bex, H. Prakken, C. Reed, (2003) "Towards a formal account of reasoning about evidence: argumentation schemes and generalisations" [1](PDF). Artificial Intelligence and Law: 133.

---

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY. Basing a belief on what some authority says. A legitimate form of appeal to authority goes as follows:
      X holds that A is true.
      X is an authority on the subject.
      The consensus of authorities agrees with X.
      There is a presumption that A is true.
It is a fallacy if we appeal to someone who is not an authority on the subject, if the authorities widely disagree, or if we say something must be true (and is not just probably true) because authorities support it.

— Gensler, Harry J., (2010) The A to Z of Logic. Lanham, MD Scarecrow Press

Note that the preceding reference is not from the specific cited source (I don't have a copy of it), but from another book about the same subject, written by the same author at a later date.

---

Although appeals to authority can be erroneous, it must also be recognized that some appeals to authority can be reasonable and legitimate in argument. For example, suppose you have a toothache and you go to your dentist for advice. He replies as follows.

Example 7.0

This tooth is badly decayed, but not beyond repair. I propose to replace the decayed portion with a filling immediately.

Your dentist's advice in example 7.0 is the judgement of a suitably qualified expert in his field. In asking for his or her advice, therefore, you have appealed to an expert authority. However, it by no means follows that by acquiescing to his proposals you have committed a fallacy.

— Walton, Douglas, (2008) Informal Logic. London: Cambridge University Press

---

"For example, appealing to expert opinion could be reasonable if the field of the expert is appropriate, and other conditions are met. But, of course, as the logic texts have so often pointed out, such arguments can sometimes be fallacious appeal to authority."

And the question is: what other conditions must be met, and when it is sometimes fallacious?

The other conditions are that the opinion is backed up by evidence, and it is fallacious when the opinion itself is taken as the evidence.

"It is a fallacy if we appeal to someone who is not an authority on the subject, if the authorities widely disagree, or if we say something must be true (and is not just probably true) because authorities support it."

This source disagrees with all the others we’re seeing, makes no sense in light of the examples and arguments on the page, and it effectively contradicts itself. What is the real, practical difference between saying “if X then we must believe this is true” and saying “if X then we must assume this is true”?

He’s saying if these conditions arise, then you should automatically believe it. Yet he’s also saying its fallacious to say that if these conditions arise, then it is automatically true. What sense does that make? Its very bizarre and not what most philosophers would say.

"Although appeals to authority can be erroneous, it must also be recognized that some appeals to authority can be reasonable and legitimate in argument. For example, suppose you have a toothache and you go to your dentist for advice."

In what way is that “in argument”? If you challenge the dentist’s conclusion, then wouldn’t they show you the images of your rotten teeth that lead them to their belief they need to be fixed? Doctors almost always give the patients their test results, and I believe they’re required by law in many places to do so if you request it. Its that test that’s the evidence for your diagnosis. The doctor doesn’t magically form an opinion before he even sees you, it comes from evidence – whether that be something like the symptoms you describe or the results of the tests performed.

Also my apologies on my source, I extracted that from a discussion I had on this sort of topic with someone else and got my references jumbled. The proper reference is The Structure and Development of Science, edited by Gerard Radnitzsky. FL or Atlanta (talk) 10:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Essentially, all I am saying is what http://skepdic.com/authorty.html says: "The truth or falsity, reasonableness or unreasonableness, of a belief must stand independently of those who accept or reject the belief". FL or Atlanta (talk) 17:23, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I will file a request for arbitration after the weekend and we will let a volunteer from the arbitration committee help us reach a consensus. I have provided irrefutable evidence that the sources cited within this article all state a fact which is not reflected in this article. I have provided irrefutable evidence that numerous other reliable sources all state this same fact. You have demonstrated no willingness to concede even the most minor points, and I have no wish to turn this talk page into 6 megabytes of arguments about whether you, or literally every reliable expert we've referenced is correct. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I actually think we're having wonderful discussions and that this is going very well and the article is improving. I really think we're doing a good job working towards a consensus rather than having some sort of adversarial thing. But if you don't feel that way, wouldn't mediation be a better route? Arbitration is a last-resort when all else fails. Mediation is perfect for discussions like this that simply could use some extra input.

As far as the sources go, what I think might be going on is a misunderstanding. Based on your comments on my Talk page, you seem to be meaning "authority" in the general sense of "credence" (like with the mechanic or alarm clock) - that any appeal to a thing's credence is fallacious is false, I'd agree! All I'm saying is what the Skepdic source says: that "The truth or falsity, reasonableness or unreasonableness, of a belief must stand independently of those who accept or reject the belief" . Does that help clear things up at all? FL or Atlanta (talk) 23:39, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

The first sentence of the page is misleading. It says that the argument from authority leads to a logical fallacy. "Logical" fallacies are typically understood to refer to formal fallacies (eg the wiki page for "logical fallacy" is redirected to the page for "formal fallacy.)" However, the argument from authority is an informal, not formal fallacy (see the wiki list of fallacies or logic textbooks).Original Position (talk) 04:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

The first sentence of the page is downright and flatly wrong. It conflates the inductive processes of science with formal deductive logic and the three citations listed are B grade at best. It is a clear and overt attack on the validity of and respect for science, and it cannot stand as it is. Bjchip (talk) 09:05, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

References

section break for ease of editing

@Original Position: Thank you. I was truly beginning to think I was the only person here who understands the subject. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:33, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@FL or Atlanta: I'm quoting you out of order so as to provide a clear structure for my response.

All I'm saying is what the Skepdic source says: that "The truth or falsity, reasonableness or unreasonableness, of a belief must stand independently of those who accept or reject the belief" You've left out the very first sentence of that definition, which is indisputably the most important with regards to our discussion "The appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance when the authority being cited is not really an authority." (emphasis added). In fact, I am saying what the Skepdic source says, and you are arguing against it. Your argument is, quite literally, that the portions of all of the sources which disagree with your assertion should not be reflected in the article, because of the way you interpret other passages in those sources. That's not how WP is supposed to work, in fact that is a form of Original Research, which is explicitly banned by WP policy.

I actually think we're having wonderful discussions and that this is going very well and the article is improving. You've removed a reliable source because you disagreed with what it said, you've insisted upon keeping a source that does not meet WP's guidelines for reliable sources (which make it explicitly clear that the person need be an expert in the same subject as the article, not in a different subject), you've misquoted a source, you've added a source that constitutes original research in the context it's used in, you have consistently refused to debate the specific points I've raised, instead relying on debating the very meaning of the term (which would make the article itself guilty of being composed of original research if I step back and let you have your way), you've cherry picked sources, you've used the very tactic you are arguing to be invalid to make your case, and you have yet to concede even the most empirically demonstrable point: namely that the caveat I am arguing for does in fact appear in virtually every reliable source possible for this article.

Put yourself in my position for a moment. What would you do if you were clearly and demonstrably correct (it is a fact that virtually every source states this caveat, it is a fact that the article does not, and it is a fact that you have implicitly ceded that truth by engaging in that very form of logic yourself), yet another user insisted upon arguing with you every step of the way? What choice do I have, other than to get others involved to 'drown you out', so to speak? You clearly have not been swayed in the slightest by reasonable discussion, despite me making my case not just convincingly, but factually. You may think we're getting somewhere, but we aren't. The article is demonstrably worse by WP's objective standards now than it was when I first posted to this talk page. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:33, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

“The appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance when the authority being cited is not really an authority”

Well of course - no one disagrees with that. Clearly an appeal to authority isn’t valid if its not even an authority to begin with. This form gets a lot of attention since its arguably the most common - "Mr. X is smart when it comes to Y, so listen to what he has to say about Z!". You see it everyday in advertisements and hear it a lot in discussions.

That is one form of it the page discusses, an appeal to non-authorities. I can add some more about this on the page under the appropriate form! Would giving more weight to that make the page more agreeable to you? You are right that this is an important aspect the page doesn't discuss enough.

However, that’s just one aspect of the appeal. Ultimately, since “The truth or falsity, reasonableness or unreasonableness, of a belief must stand independently of those who accept or reject the belief”, any appeal to authority rather than evidence will be fallacious.

Like it says, the only time it would make sense is on an issue you know nothing about, when you can presume that whoever you’re quoting “believe it because there is strong evidence in support of it”.

But that would be a fallacy in scientific or argumentative reasoning (which is what the page specifies), because it also fails if “the subject is controversial”. If there is an argument about an issue, then it is by definition controversial.

The appeal to authority is something you might use as a crutch, but it can never be a pillar in of itself, if that makes sense.

“Your argument is, quite literally, that the portions of all of the sources which disagree with your assertion should not be reflected in the article”

My argument is that the sources say what I’m saying, which we’ve seen is the case so far in each instance.

“You've removed a reliable source because you disagreed with what it said”

When was that?

“which make it explicitly clear that the person need be an expert in the same subject as the article”

A thing needs to be a reliable source for the fact its being cited for. If the fact is relevant and helpful, and the source is reliable for it, then the source is relevant and helpful.

“you've misquoted a source”

Which was an accident, and which was corrected by another editor. That’s why no Wikipedia article can be a one man show: everything needs to be checked.

“you have consistently refused to debate the specific points I've raised”

If there’s something I haven’t addressed, it wasn’t intentional – I always try to address all the points that get made. If I do miss something please tell me, it’s a genuine oversight rather than a refusal.

”You clearly have not been swayed in the slightest by reasonable discussion, despite me making my case not just convincingly, but factually.”

How can I be convinced if you end discussions early out of impatience or frustration? Like on my Talk for example. --> FL or Atlanta (talk) 05:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

This is pointless. I'm opening a case for mediation. You don't seem to care one bit about being right or wrong, only about winning the argument. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't say its pointless at all! I just gave more weight to the issue you pointed out. That is an aspect that needed - and still needs, I'd say - more coverage on the page. I'd be happy to participate in mediation if you want, but personally I don't think there's even really a disagreement that needs mediating - the page is progressing! Slowly, but its good to take care with edits. Always better if they grow slow and strong like a tree, rather than being like a cheap shack that keeps getting pieces stuck on and torn off and modified with abandon.

Also I may be gone for a few days coming up - I should be here tomorrow but might be gone for about a week after Thursday. FL or Atlanta (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Use in logic section

I deleted the "Use in logic" section because it incorrectly claimed that the argument from authority was a formal fallacy. It said this: "It is fallacious to use any appeal to authority in the context of logical reasoning. Because the argument from authority is not a logical argument in that it does not argue something's negation or affirmation constitutes a contradiction, it is fallacious to assert that the conclusion must be true."

However, this is incorrect. It is true that in a formally valid argument, if the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. However, it is not a requirement of a formally valid argument that the premises be true. Thus it is trivially easy to create formally valid arguments from authority. For instance:

1) If Professor Moriarty claims the theory of evolution is false, then the theory of evolution is false. 2) Professor Moriarty claims the theory of evolution is false. 3) Therefore, the theory of evolution is false.

This is a formally valid argument (modus ponens) that argues on the basis of Professor Moriarty's authority that the theory of evolution is false. Now, doubtless we might think that (1) is false. But that doesn't matter. A formally valid argument can have false premises.Original Position (talk) 00:14, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm new to editing wiki, so I'll make some mistakes I guess. I'll go through this line by line.

It is fallacious to use any appeal to authority in the context of logical reasoning.

No citation here, and this is false. If by "logical reasoning" we mean deductive arguments only, then as I demonstrated above, it is indeed possible to construct deductively valid appeals to authority. If by "logical reasoning" we are also including abductive and inductive arguments, then as argued in talk above, appealing to appropriate authority is not considered fallacious by experts.

Because the argument from authority is not a logical argument in that it does not argue something's negation or affirmation constitutes a contradiction, it is fallacious to assert that the conclusion must be true.[11]

This is not particularly clear, and nowhere in the cited source does it say this (I looked at the Gensler textbook and the pages cited just don't make this claim. The section is on the practical construction of arguments, not on arguments from authority and so doesn't say that these arguments if negated wouldn't be contradictory.

Such a determinative assertion is a logical non sequitur as the conclusion does not follow unconditionally, in the sense of being logically necessary.[23][24]

Harder to tell what the citation is here. One is a reference to a collection of essays on logic from the 1880's, but with no page cited. I searched the book for any occurrence of either "authority" or "verecundiam" and found none. I can't find a copy of the other book online, but again, we don't have a page citation here, and due to the sloppy citation in the rest of this section, I'm not confident that this is a correct interpretation.

However, again, I'll point out that the claim being made here, that arguments from authority can't be deductively valid is false. I proved this in my first note on why I deleted this section. So, to sum up, this section nowhere cites any discussion of the argument from authority. Instead, it cites some general textbooks on the nature of logical arguments. The actual statements on the nature of logical arguments are unnecessarily jargon-laden and unclear. Then, these statements, purely on the editors own authority, are claimed to somehow be inconsistent with arguments from authority. This is not demonstrated or cited. So the section should be removed.Original Position (talk) 00:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

While I am otherwise in agreement with you, I must point out that appeals to authority are not sound in a deductive argument, because a sound deductive argument is one in which the premises are true (and -of course- the conclusions is certain).

However, (and this is the crux of my argument above), appeals to authority are inductively and abductively valid, when the authority being cited is an expert in the field in question. I don't think the section you removed (which has since been restored) needs to go, but I agree wholeheartedly that the lead needs to be changed to more accurately reflect the sources, and the section on formal logic needs to be re-written to better reflect the sources. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:58, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Soundness is not the correct standard to use in evaluating fallacies in deductive logic. There we are strictly concerned with formal fallacies, which are about validity rather than soundness. It is of course true that a valid deductive argument can be unsound, or can even exhibit an informal fallacy, but that doesn't change the fact that the argument is deductively valid. I think this section is misleading and should be deleted because it is clearly meant to refer to deductive logic (i.e. formal fallacies), but the appeal to inappropriate authority fallacy is an informal fallacy. It is factually false in claiming that it is always fallacious to appeal authority in a deductive argument. Original Position (talk) 17:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

You are correct. Not being a philosopher myself, I sometimes misuse terms and concepts. I agree with what you are saying completely, excepting that I believe if the lead of the article were better, then that section could remain, with an extensive re-write (which I attempted, but was reverted on). Might I ask that you weight in at the AN/I post and dredge up some sources from any reputable material you may have access to? It would go a long way towards correcting this article. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:19, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Mediation - Dispute Resolution

Hey guys! I'll be the mediator on this page. We've already met on the DRN, so I wanted to get a discussion going. I think an important issue to establish here is: what do you each see as being the scope of this article? TheLogician112 (talk) 17:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@TheLogician112: I've already responded on the DRN page. I could transcribe that here, if you would prefer to continue it on this page. (I think that might be a better idea, as it frees all parties from having to watch the DRN and check every edit to see if someone responded just before that). MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:01, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Sources explicitly saying it is a fallacy

The literature clearly and repeatedly states this sort of argument is a fallacy. One example I recently added to the page says: "Common Fallacies to Avoid in Argumentation" and then lists "Appeal to authority" and says it is done when "Using an authority figure as the primary means of supporting an argument". How much more clear and explicit could it get? There's no need for anyone to discuss it on and on. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

You have a source which uses the term in a generalized sense to decry one specific example under a specific set of highly formal circumstances. Let's take a look at sources which directly address the question of defining the appeal to authority, shall we?

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For example, appealing to expert opinion could be reasonable if the field of the expert is appropriate, and other conditions are met. But, of course, as the logic texts have so often pointed out, such arguments can sometimes be fallacious appeal to authority.

F. Bex, H. Prakken, C. Reed (2003) "Towards a formal account of reasoning about evidence: argumentation schemes and generalisations" [2](PDF). Artificial Intelligence and Law: 133.

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY. Basing a belief on what some authority says. A legitimate form of appeal to authority goes as follows:

X holds that A is true.

X is an authority on the subject.

The consensus of authorities agrees with X.

There is a presumption that A is true.

It is a fallacy if we appeal to someone who is not an authority on the subject, if the authorities widely disagree, or if we say something must be true (and is not just probably true) because authorities support it.

Gensler, Harry J. (2010) The A to Z of Logic. Lanham, MD Scarecrow Press

Appeal to Authority: Not always fallacious, but always something a critical thinker must consider. It is where you are asked to accept something as true based upon the word of an expert (authority). The main question is, "Are they really an expert?" Perhaps they're not an expert in that field, perhaps they've got an ax to grind, or perhaps they are being paid by someone.

Foothill College

Although appeals to authority can be erroneous, it must also be recognized that some appeals to authority can be reasonable and legitimate in argument. For example, suppose you have a toothache and you go to your dentist for advice. He replies as follows.

This tooth is badly decayed, but not beyond repair. I propose to replace the decayed portion with a filling immediately.

Your dentist's advice in [this example] is the judgement of a suitably qualified expert in his field. In asking for his or her advice, therefore, you have appealed to an expert authority. However, it by no means follows that by acquiescing to his proposals you have committed a fallacy.

Walton, Douglas (2008) Informal Logic. London: Cambridge University Press

The appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance when the authority being cited is not really an authority.

...

Finally, it should be noted that it is not irrelevant to cite an authority to support a claim one is not competent to judge. However, in such cases the authority must be speaking in his or her own field of expertise and the claim should be one that other experts in the field do not generally consider to be controversial. In a field such as physics, it is reasonable to believe a claim about something in physics made by a physicist that most other physicists consider to be true. Presumably, they believe it because there is strong evidence in support of it. Such beliefs could turn out to be false, of course, but it should be obvious that no belief becomes true on the basis of who believes it.

The Skeptic's Dictionary - appeal to authority

Appealing to authority is valid when the authority is actually a legitimate (debatable) authority on the facts of the argument.

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY — argumentum ad verecundiam

Often we add strength to our arguments by referring to respected sources or authorities and explaining their positions on the issues we’re discussing. If, however, we try to get readers to agree with us simply by impressing them with a famous name or by appealing to a supposed authority who really isn’t much of an expert, we commit the fallacy of appeal to authority.

UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center

Appeal to Authority:

the authority is not an expert in the field

experts in the field disagree

the authority was joking, drunk, or in some other way not being serious

Stephen Downes, by way of a Stanford University handout

The fallacy of irrelevant authority is committed when you accept without proper support for his or her alleged authority, a person's claim or proposition as true. Alleged authorities should only be used when the authority is reporting on his or her field of expertise, the authority is reporting on facts about which there is some agreement in his or her field, and you have reason to believe he or she can be trusted. Alleged authorities can be individuals or groups. The attempt to appeal to the majority or the masses is a form of irrelevant authority. The attempt to appeal to an elite or select group is a form of irrelevant authority.

Texas State Department of Philosophy

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Well, there's nine sources, all directly addressing the question of what an appeal to authority is (or in one case, what a fallacious appeal to authority is) which all state that it is sometimes valid. Some of them are in the article already. One is from FL or Atlanta. You are wrong. It is not always a fallacy. It's worth pointing out yet again that when you bring in any source to support your position you are appealing to an authority. This makes your own argument nothing but a fallacy, by your own admission. Why should anyone listen to someone who's arguing that they're wrong? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 05:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Aren't these already addressed elsewhere? Skepdic certainly isn't in favor of appeals as general arguments. Your last source says it should only be when "you have reason to believe he or she can be trusted", when it has "proper support", etc. As the sources (including one I just added) on the page talk about, unless that reason and support is independent evidence, you have no non-circular basis for appealing to the authority. Can someone who's wrong be an authority you should presume to be right? Also the sources are necessary because of WP:VNT. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 06:19, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

How about a few more, then?

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We all rely on the advice and counsel of others. Sometimes when we present arguments, we appeal to what experts have said on the matter instead of presenting direct evidence to support the claims that we make. Critical thinking allows for this, for it would be difficult and wasteful to always repeat arguments already made by experts. Thus, many arguments that appeal to some legitimate authority can be construed as strong inductive arguments.

...

...many arguments that appeal to a legitimate authority are strong inductive arguments...

Salmon, Merrilee Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking (2012) Cengage Learning

What is wrong with arguing from authority? The short answer is, nothing – if the authority is a good one (for the conclusion in question). The reason why arguing from authority as such is sometimes classified as a fallacy is that it is not distinguished from arguing merely from putative authority.

...

Paying too much attention to the latter kind of case, that of the deliberate, sophistical use of false authority to persuade an opponent, is one thing that leads to the traditional view that arguments from authority are always fallacious. Another is focussing on the case where an arguer (perhaps a solitary one) is indeed convinced of the genuineness and relevance of the authority to which she is appealing but is, in our view, mistaken in that conviction. Each of these pictures of argument from authority mistakes one species of such argument for the genus and, having done so, is unable to account for the obvious fact that we regard some arguments from authority as perfectly good arguments and are right in doing so. In this way they fail to save the phenomena and fail to provide an explanation of them.

Bire, John & Siegel, Harvey "Epistemic Normativity, Argumentation, and Fallacies" Argumentation August 1997, Volume 11, Issue 3 pp277-292

Fundamentally, the [ad verecundiam] fallacy involves accepting as evidence for a proposition the pronouncement of someone who is taken to be an authority but is not really an authority."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Fallacies

"...many of our trusted beliefs ... rest quite properly on the say so of others..."

Gensler, Harry Introduction to Logic (2012) Routledge

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Are you contending that these sources are all incorrect? Can you debate it using some evidence other than the sources you quoted? Can you explain why I or anyone else should believe you, when your argument is that your argument is a fallacy? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 07:07, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

All the first really says is "Hey! It's tough to argue for yourself – so just assume someone else got it right and trust them". The questionableness of that reasoning aside, it's not even an independent argument at that point, it's more of a token that stands for the arguments the authorities are actually making. So the basis of the authority goes back to those arguments – to the evidence. The second source admits that it is "the traditional view that arguments from authority are always fallacious". Wouldn’t that mean, by definition, that the force of most authorities is that it's always fallacious? The third source describes a type of the fallacy the page already discusses. The fourth isn't even talking about an argument. You're simply not listening to me with the "your argument is that you’re wrong" stuff. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 07:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Going along with what your second source said, a new editor brought up http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/authority.html. That also says "Although many logicians today use the Latin phrase “argumentum ad verecundiam” (or often, more simply, the phrase “ad verecundiam”) as the name of a fallacy....historically those phrases were used for appealing to any authority, relevant or otherwise, as evidence in an argument and were not used specifically to denote the fallacy of appealing to evidence provided by an irrelevant or ill-suited authority." So the sources we're seeing agree that the consensus view, historically, has been that this is fallacious reasoning. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 07:35, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

All the first really says is... So you are contending that your own interpretation overrides what is explicitly stated in every reliable source which defines the term?

Going along with what your second source said, a new editor brought up http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/authority.html. Ahh yes, the one which says "an appeal to the testimony of an authority outside the authority's special field of expertise." after making it explicitly clear that they are defining only the fallacious use of the argument in the opening.

That also says "Although many logicians today use the Latin phrase “argumentum ad verecundiam” (or often, more simply, the phrase “ad verecundiam”) as the name of a fallacy....historically those phrases were used for appealing to any authority, relevant or otherwise, as evidence in an argument and were not used specifically to denote the fallacy of appealing to evidence provided by an irrelevant or ill-suited authority." So the sources we're seeing agree that the consensus view, historically, has been that this is fallacious reasoning. Wait a second... You just quoted the source saying that the phrase historically means any appeal to authority, yet you take that to mean that, historically, the phrase refers only to the fallacy? Did you even bother to read the quote before you copied and pasted it? The quote explains exactly what you don't seem to get: namely that in modern discourse, the term is sometimes used to refer to the argument (which may or may not be a fallacy), and sometimes used to refer to only the fallacies.

Also, I'm still waiting for you to give me even one reason why I should believe you when you continue to argue that your argument is untrustworthy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:30, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

We've already seen a source saying that it has traditionally been considered a fallacy, that reference just supports it. Its not a matter of my interpretations but of the ambiguity of how we'd use that source for the page. Why do you keep talking about how "every source" says its not a fallacy when we have multiple on the page that do just that, including with a direct quote? And I already have addressed what you're saying about me supposedly being contradictory. Per WP:VNT it doesn't matter so much what's true, it matters what the sources say. So I could give evidence and arguments for why this is a fallacy, but it would be irrelevant. All that matters is what the sources say. Like how http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10972-006-9025-4/fulltext.html outright and directly says, as "Common Fallacies to Avoid in Argumentation", one of them is "Appeal to authority", which is done when "Using an authority figure as the primary means of supporting an argument". Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 23:54, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Further, http://www.geol.utas.edu.au/geography/EIANZ/Ignorance_is_contagious_%28July_2008%29.pdf says the argument from authority fallacy is "Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true", and says it is fallacious because "the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it". Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 00:34, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Everyone agrees that appeals to authority can sometimes be fallacious. The question is whether it is always fallacious. Neither of the sources you cite really address this. They both talk generally about how and why an appeal to authority can be fallacious, but neither of them definitively state that they are always fallacious.

However, even if they did, this is not how you cite sources. If you want to know the answer to a question, you look at the most authoritative sources for the answer. In this case, textbooks, articles written by experts on the subject, and good encyclopedia articles can suffice. Here you instead seem to be looking only for sources that agree with your own view, which is why you are citing articles in obscure journal or online sources, written by non-experts, and on subjects other than the one under discussion.

The irony here is getting a little thick. You actually are engaged in an appeal to inappropriate authority here, by citing education professors and environmental scientists on a logic question. The correct, non-fallacious appeal to authority in this case would be to appeal to the appropriate authorities on the nature of argumentation, such as logicians or philosophers who have studied this specific topic. Original Position (talk) 02:47, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

@Perfect Orange Sphere: Please read this. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 03:29, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a very busy admin who obviously hadn't read all the relevant discussions, as can be seen with the clear misunderstanding about the video, what it was being used for, and what you said about it above. I rectified those concerns by making it clearer what it is being used as a citation for.

Also, the argument from authority as you're trying to say it should be used would be deductive reasoning. Your reasoning is "All things an authority says should be assumed to be true. Authorities A say B. Therefore B should be assumed to be true". Is that not deductive reasoning? You wouldn't let any evidence sway you, since you'd appeal to the authority. For all practical intents and purposes, you would be holding B as something logically certain. Even sources that are somewhat in favor of appeals to authority don't treat them like the iron-clad, end-all-be-alls that everyone must presume to be true that you see them as. We have enough reliable sources showing failed appeals to authority or authorities that turned out to be unreliable or outright saying appeals to authorities are fallacious to leave no room for anyone to reasonably argue we should presume an argument from authority means something is correct. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 05:29, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I think you are confused about the nature of deductive arguments and their relation to certainty (hint: the conclusion of a valid deductive argument is only as certain as its premises), but that is a side-issue. The main question I would like you to answer: Is it possible to make an argument from authority in a non-fallacious manner? If not, then why do so many logic textbooks and other sources say it is possible? Shouldn't we then at minimum revise the article so that it tells the reader that many experts think it is possible? If so, then shouldn't we revise, or allow revisions, to the article to make this clear? Original Position (talk) 07:28, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd agree a good consensus version would be to note that there are a minority of philosophers and the like who argue its only fallacious in certain circumstances. As we've seen so far, sources directly state the traditional and prevailing view is that the appeal is a fallacy - but would a version of the page that discusses the views of that minority be an acceptable version to end the disputes? Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 02:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

That is not an acceptable consensus version. The view that there are non-fallacious arguments from authority is not a minority view among philosophers. It is the established consensus of the field, as demonstrated by the fact that the major contemporary logic textbooks make this point explicit (please let me know if you find one that is different). It is also not correct to say that it was traditional to claim that it was always a fallacy. I would suggest you look at the historical background chapter of Walton's Appeal to Expert Opinion (it's at Amazon). There he notes that it has only been regarded as a fallacy within the last few hundred years, while previously it was an accepted part of argumentation. Even since then, major philosophers such as Locke and Bentham in their discussions of this argument have not treated it as always fallacious. Anyway, the main point is that it is now widely acknowledged to not always be fallacious.

Look, it is obviously your view that the argument from authority is always fallacious. That's fine, believe what you want. But if you want the encyclopedia to reflect this view then you need to produce expert sources writing on the argument from authority that explicitly say this. Not just people who refer to the argument from authority as a fallacy, but who in discussions of this argument claim that it is always fallacious. I've looked through this Talk page and you have not yet done this. Original Position (talk) 05:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a very busy admin who...Fine. I'm trying to help you avoid sanctions by making sure you understand what you're getting into. If you want to ignore me, you have every right.

Your reasoning is "All things an authority says should be assumed to be true. Authorities A say B. Therefore B should be assumed to be true".First, that's not my reasoning. Second, that's not my reasoning. The argument -as it has been explained multiple times- is; "Experts are more likely to be correct about their field of expertise than non-experts. Expert A says B about subject X. Expert A's field of study is X. B is not a contentious claim. Therefore B is likely true." Notice the use of explicit qualifiers and premises. This is the general form as it is given by every authoritative source on the subject, so it is nothing I came up with.

You wouldn't let any evidence sway you, since you'd appeal to the authority.There is NO part of that structure which says anything about ignoring evidence. At no point has anyone even implied that authority trumps evidence. It is extremely dishonest of you to suggest it.

For all practical intents and purposes, you would be holding B as something logically certain Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Non sequitur. To say "X is likely true" is a world apart from saying "X is logically certain."

We have enough reliable sources showing failed appeals to authority or authorities that turned out to be unreliable or outright saying appeals to authorities are fallacious to leave no room for anyone to reasonably argue we should presume an argument from authority means something is correct. I'm going to ask you a question, and it's going to sound insulting, but it's not an insult, it's a rhetorical device.

Do you know how to count? You know, 1... 2... 3...

The reason I ask is because your argument literally presumes that you don't. I've shown you 14 definitive sources which define the term as a form of argument that is sometimes fallacious. You've presented 2 non-definitive (also, non-expert so by every standard espoused here, your citing of them is a fallacy) sources that use the phrase to refer to the fallacious form of the argument. You are (in more ways than one, as pointed out by both I and Original) arguing that you're wrong. Besides which, this statement explicitly constitutes synthesis, which runs against WP policy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

If I may, allow me to do something similar: "I'm going to ask you a question, and it's going to sound insulting, but it's not an insult". Would you be willing to let Original Position be the one who does the advocacy for your side and maybe take a back seat for awhile? He makes truly constructive edits like identifying incorrect sources in one of the sections and building consensuses like with him and the IP. I really think this would all go much better with him as the main one involved.

Anyway, the problem is, saying "if an argument from authority supports X, there is a presumption X is true" is, for every practical intent and purpose, saying it must be believed. What is the difference between saying that and "if an argument from authority supports X, then X is true"? In practical terms, absolutely nothing.

As for how it trumps evidence, let me ask: is there any belief you hold that you hold in spite of the prevailing view of authorities on the subject because you were convinced by evidence? If so, what is it?

I've already addressed multiple of your sources, many of them just focus on the most common form the fallacy is encountered in. How are the sources cited non-expert? They're journal and university publications. What you're really saying is that someone who disagrees with your position isn't an expert. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 02:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Would you be willing to let Original Position be the one who does the advocacy for your side and maybe take a back seat for awhile?No. I have invested time and energy in this article, in an attempt to improve it. I do not intend (and should not be asked) to excuse myself from a discussion simply because you disagree with me. As it stands, even with all the improvements OP has made to it, it is not at all accurate. I do not intend to accede to any demand that I allow one new, not particularly active user shoulder the entire burden of correcting this article. It is not fair to him, nor is it fair to me. You may prefer it, but to be perfectly honest, I would prefer if you would do the same. I'm not asking you to because I have enough respect not to ask you something like that.

Anyway, the problem is, saying "if an argument from authority supports X, there is a presumption X is true" is, for every practical intent and purpose, saying it must be believed. What is the difference between saying that and "if an argument from authority supports X, then X is true"? In practical terms, absolutely nothing. The difference is that the conclusion of the first is an inductive one, and the conclusion of the second is deductive. Whether you are aware of it or not, it is humanly possible to take something as true while purposefully maintaining an open mind to the possibility of being wrong.

As for how it trumps evidence, let me ask: is there any belief you hold that you hold in spite of the prevailing view of authorities on the subject because you were convinced by evidence? If so, what is it? No. But that is due to the fact that experts are better than me at interpreting evidence. Every time I have been presented compelling evidence of something which flies in the face of the expert consensus on the subject, I have made an effort to educate myself in at least the very basic principles of the field, then familiarized myself with the evidence as best I can. Each time, without fail, I have changed my mind. That is not to say I don't believe anything that experts themselves don't believe. However, those beliefs are all things the experts should be expected to have no belief on. They involve people and factors that experts have no knowledge of. For instance, I believe one of my coworkers will greet me on Monday morning with a hearty "Good morrow!" yet there is no sociological or psychological consensus on the specific greeting that specific person will make me on Monday, January 11th, 2016. This is also a perfect example of an inductive conclusion: I presume my coworker will greet me that way. I have good reason to believe this. However, I also accept the possibility that he may not. I freely admit that it is possible he will simply mutter "'Morning," to me as he shuffles towards the coffee pot.

I've already addressed multiple of your sources. You haven't shown how they are not reliable sources. You haven't even implied they aren't, you've simply argued with them. You're sitting here explicitly telling me that legitimate authorities on the subject are wrong, while you (some rando off the internet) are right. I will admit, at least, that this much is consistent with your position, even if your own quoting of sources is completely at odds with your position.

many of them just focus on the most common form the fallacy is encountered in. Yes, and they do so by explicitly stating that certain conditions must be met to consider it a fallacy. The rest of them explicitly state that certain conditions must be met for it not to be a fallacy. Quite a few of those explicitly state that it is not always a fallacy.

How are the sources cited non-expert? They're journal and university publications. They are journal and university publications, yes in completely different fields from philosophy.

What you're really saying is that someone who disagrees with your position isn't an expert.Stop putting words in my mouth. There is a huge difference between saying "None of the experts I've found disagree with me," and "Anyone who disagrees with me is not an expert." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 04:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't saying it'd be better to step aside because of any disagreement, it's just that I don't think you're trying to build a consensus or have an NPOV here. There's already been a mediation attempt on this issue that blew through two mediators in the space of a few hours because you didn't trust the mediator - that speaks to the lack of cooperation we're getting here. How can progress get made on the page if someone insists that their version has to be the only version and that's the end of the story? What should have taken hours ("I could live with a page that said X as long as it said Y too" "OK, let's get that made!") is taking days. There's gonna have to be compromise here: what would a version of this article you could at least bear the existence of look like?

You didn't answer my question: what is the difference between the two when it comes down to practical terms? Like you yourself say, its not only the evidence, but even the interpretation of evidence that's subject to appeals to authority. You're forcing a radical interpretation of authority and its reliability onto sources that talk about the appeal. It goes way beyond "this can be useful when weighing sides in an issue" or "this is not always a fallacy", you're wanting to turn authorities into something like a Magisterium that is beyond doubt, and whose word we must assume is true no matter what - since we must presume they are correct even about interpretations of evidence. Only one single source you've given mentions anything about an automatic presumption authorities are always correct. We have a source given by FL or Atlanta that explicitly says this is a minority, and other sources saying the traditional view is that the argument is a fallacy. If only one source says we have to assume any statement support by the appeals is true, and so many others contradict them, then trusting that source and that source alone violates WP:UNDUE. Perfect Orange Sphere (talk) 05:42, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Two points about the source you are citing here. First, it is forty years old, so it is no longer an accurate guide to the dominant view in the field today. Second, the position described as the "minority view" in that article is not the one we are discussing. The author is there describing a dispute about how laymen should weigh the relative merits of empirical data and scientific authority. He describes a "vocal minority" who claim that the authority of the scientist should take precedence even over the empirical data. That is an interesting view, but it is not the one being put forward here. Mjolnirpants and I are making no assumptions about the relative weight of these two kinds of arguments (although I would guess that both of us think that empirical data should have more weight than authority). Rather, we are arguing over whether arguments from authority should be taken to have any weight at all. If they are always fallacious, then they shouldn't as they would then add no evidence for the conclusion. But if they are not always fallacious, then they can function as evidence that the conclusion is true.

You seem to think that Mjolnirpants is arguing for the claim that non-fallacious arguments from authority are definitive arguments proving their conclusions. He is not. Rather, he is arguing that you are not making an error in reasoning if you take as evidence for the claim that you have a cavity that your dentist tells you that you have a cavity. This isn't proof. Obviously you could go to another dentist who tells you the first dentist is wrong, and then shows you pictures proving this. But nonetheless, it is generally taken as a sufficient reason to believe that you have a cavity if your dentist tells you so. It is this kind of argument that all these logic books want to bracket off as non-fallacious arguments from authority. Original Position (talk) 06:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with Original Position) You didn't answer my question: what is the difference between the two when it comes down to practical terms? Let's set aside the fact that I have a laundry list of questions posed to you which you haven't answered and deal with this. The rest, I leave to OP and the admins.

Yes, in fact, I did. You do not posses the necessary grasp of philosophy or logic to understand what I said. Original Position, however, said it in much plainer language: The former is evidence, the latter is proof. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 07:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Semmelweiss Example

I started looking through the citations for this case and so far am not finding much support for the story as told in this article. I already edited it a little, but before doing more I wanted to post what I found so if anyone has more expertise they can do it right.

Here are the basic issues: this article states that the rejection of Semmelweis's view was based on an inappropriate appeal to authority. To support this it claims that only a very few supported Semmelwies, that there was no academic literature supporting his view, and that it was this academic consensus against Semmelweis that led to his views being ignored for many years.

However, this view doesn't seem to be upheld by the cited sources. For instance, Carter quotes at length from an Oliver Wendell Holmes article that predates Semmelweis that also puts forward the contagion view, and in fact claims that this is the dominant view at the time. Second, I can't find support in these articles for the claim that the reason Semmelweis's view was rejected was because of an overreliance on authority.

I don't know much about this topic--am I missing something here? Original Position (talk) 15:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I started looking into the sources, and I have to agree with you. The Carter source, which is used to support the statement "Multiple critics stated that they did not accept the claims in part because of the fact that in all the academic literature on puerperal fever there was nothing that supported the view Semmelweis was advancing." does not say that at all. Instead, he writes about opposition to Semmelweiss' claim to have been the first to make this discover, and the importance of the methods Semmelweiss used. In fact, the source admits in the very first paragraph that Oliver Wendell Holmes had published extremely similar findings, and points out that it has been recently said that "...a Finnish physician preceded Semmelweiss in his discovery". Meanwhile this source is about the importance of the laboratory work Semmelweiss did, as opposed to all of the credit going to his clinical work. It is behind a paywall, but the abstract clearly outlines the scope of the work. Even if it did mention appeals to authority, it would necessarily do so as an aside to the focus of the article, and as such, may well have been mistaken.

A review of the Semmelweiss article's sources paints a different (though similar) picture, as well.

• Semmelweiss' work was announced by Ferdinand Von Hebra in December 1847 and April 1848, and the subsequent publication of some of his findings by his students. However, the issue of the communication of diseases by means of an infectious agent -which explicitly included the transmission from corpse to patient by way of the doctor- was addressed in an 1843 paper by Oliver Wendell Holmes, On The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, a paper which was not dismissed at all. In fact, it seems to have been published and quietly accepted by the medical community at the time, though it did spark some controversy in the mid 1850's, either prompting or as a result of his re-publication of the work as a pamphlet.
• Those sources note the specific lines of evidence used to achieve the then-current understanding of disease, and point out that Semmelweiss offered no underlying theory for his discovery, and little evidence which could be used to construct an underlying theory. (this contradicts the narrative in this article, because it shows that his findings were not dismissed entirely based on appeals to authority, but based on a lack of evidence to support them, with plenty of evidence to support the established view.) They point out that no-one really doubted his results (he had implemented changes in his hospital prior to any publication of his work, and thus had concrete results to show), only his explanation of them, by way of those who published on his behalf.
• They also plainly state that much of the initial reaction was to say that his findings were not new, with people pointing to the prior work of Oliver Wendell Holmes and others as already establishing a link between the handling of corpses by doctors and the infection rates of those doctors' patients.
• They point out that Semmelweiss himself never published until 1860, only his students and colleagues published at the time, leading to some misunderstanding about his findings. (This is tied to the protests that his findings were not new, as the misunderstandings were over the specific method of infection.)

All in all the picture painted by the sources is more one about science's self-correcting apparatus than a cautionary tale about appeals to authority. I'm sure that appeals to authority were used to dismiss his claims by some, but it only appears to be a major part of the narrative in pop culture (to be fair, the portrayal in this article is one I've heard before from pop culture sources). The truth is apparently that there was good reason to not treat his work as the revolutionary change it would eventually become. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to sign my comment, thanks for fixing that. The Scholl article has a non-paywall version at the PhilSci Archives here. Your summary seems largely accurate, it doesn't directly say anything about the rejection of Semmelweis being the result of an overreliance on authority. Original Position (talk) 15:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

No problem (sorry for taking so long to respond, by the way). I think we're in agreement that the sources do not support the claims in the article. I'm going to remove all references to this example from the article. This was one which bugged me from the beginning. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:47, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Opening Sentence Changes

Currently, the opening sentence says this:

Argument from authority (Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam) also appeal to authority, is a common form of argument which leads to a logical fallacy when used in science or argument.

I changed this opening sentence to this:

The Argument from authority (Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam) also appeal to authority, is a common argument form which can be fallacious, such as when an authority is cited on a topic outside their area of expertise, or when the authority cited is not a true expert.

This change has been reverted a couple times so I will explain the reasons for my changes here. I have four primary problems with the original sentence.

1) As established in discussion above, numerous authoritative sources distinguish between fallacious and non-fallacious versions of the argument from authority. Thus, it would not be representative of expert views on this subject to say that this kind of argument is always fallacious. However, saying that the argument from authority is "a common argument form which leads to a logical fallacy when used in science or argument" will be taken by many readers to mean that it is always a fallacy when used in science or argument. Putting in the "can" clarifies that while arguments from authority can be fallacious, they are not always fallacious.

2) It is unnecessary and misleading to specify "science or argument." "Argument" is too broad--it includes everything and so can be dropped. "Science" is too specific. There is nothing in the cited sources to show that this is a problem specific to scientific reasoning any more than to philosophical or historical reasoning, or any other form of reasoning.

3) The original sentence says the argument from authority leads to a logical fallacy, which links to the page for formal fallacies. However, fallacious uses of the argument from authority are informal, not formal fallacies. Thus, using "fallacy" (or fallacious) is better than "logical fallacy," since it includes both formal and informal fallacies.

4) Finally, the citations here are not appropriate. The point of citing expert sources is that you want to get closer to the original research that established the claim you are making. Thus, ideally you want a citation from an expert on the direct issue being discussed writing about that very issue. None of your citations are of this sort.

The Gass citation is from an okay source, a professor of communication with a specialty in critical thinking (although nothing directly on the argument from authority that I can see from his CV), but you cite what appears to be a class handout, not anything from his published work. Furthermore, this handout is not about the argument from authority, but is just a single sentence summary of a number of fallacies.

The Appleby citation is from an lecture on cybernetics and philosophy of science that has nothing to do with the argument from authority. It mentions it in a brief aside, pointing out that modern science relies on more than just authority (which everyone here accepts), but is on an entirely different subject. It is a bit difficult for me to tell what Appleby's expertise is in as I was not previously familiar with cybernetics, but it isn't a traditional expertise in philosophy or logic as far as I can tell.

Finally, the Sadler citation is from an study on the results of teaching prospective science teachers methods of argumentation. It is, again, not about the argument from authority, although it again mentions it in passing as part of the curriculum of the course taught. Sadler is also not clearly an expert on this manner, as he is a professor of education, and almost all of his published research is on science education.

We don't need three citations here--one good one is enough. That is why I replaced it with a citation from Douglas Walton's Informal Logic. This is a textbook from a major university press, published in 2008, written by an expert on the subject (he has published an entire book and several articles on the nature of the argument from authority). Furthermore, I cite from an actual discussion (almost 40 pages worth) directly on the nature of this argument. This is the author that all those other people you cited would look to as the expert on this topic.

Walton says that arguments from authority (or as he calls it "expert opinion") is a "reasonable, if inherently defeasible type of argument." He spends most of his time attempting to show the logic of this type of argument. However, he does also discuss how it can go wrong, and lists three common ways it does so, of which I mentioned two in my edited version of the listed sentence. Is that not exactly what we are supposed to do here? Find the best sources and then accurately report what they say? Original Position (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

References

controversy

what about a controversy section to funnel all this into like other pages have? if cites disagree we can make it to our advantage by making that improve a controversy section!

I moved this up above the references hearing. Controversy sections are sometimes necessary on articles but I doubt that is the case here. ----Snowded ^TALK 09:50, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no controversy among experts on the subject. The other, very good, online philosophy encyclopedias note that not all arguments from authority are fallacious. The major logic textbooks note this. The scholarly literature on the subject notes this. So far, neither Perfect Orange Sphere nor FL or Atlanta have posted a single reference to a contemporary expert on this subject that unequivocally states that all arguments from authority are fallacious.

I'm willing to change my mind on this. If they can show that there is a real controversy among experts about whether the argument from authority is always or only sometimes fallacious, then let's add a controversy section. But until then, we don't have a good reason to do so. Original Position (talk) 17:22, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

There isn't any such controversy that I'm aware of. There is an unfortunately common misconception among the lay populace, but philosophers all seem to be in agreement. If someone can dig up some sources showing that there are a reasonable number of philosophers (15-20% might be enough, IMHO), then I would support a section about the controversy. I tried to find some sources upon which to build a section on the misconception, but so far, it seems to have been ignored by professional philosophers. Likely because they don't often discuss philosophy with lay people, but with other experts. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

One thing that occurs to me which might be a step towards the other side would be to note in the lead that the fallacy is often referred to by the same name as the argument. We have pretty much irrefutable evidence of this with the links the other side provided, however using those to support such a statement would be synthesis. We'd need to find a source which says that the fallacy is often referred to by the same name as the argument. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

For instance, here is the entry from Reese's Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion:

"The Argument from Authority...is the fallacy committed in appealing to the feeling of respect people have for the famous in order to win their assent to a conclusion. Not every appeal to authority commits this fallacy, but every appeal to an authority with respect to matters outside his special province commits the fallacy." (1980, 168)

I think we might have a use/mention error here. This source says that the Argument from Authority is the name of a fallacy which afflicts some, but not all arguments/appeals from authority. This is obviously confusing and so it is understandable that some might think that when an expert says that the Argument from Authority is a fallacy that they are saying all arguments from authority are fallacious, even if the expert only means to refer to the specifically fallacious versions of those kinds of arguments.

The correct way to fix this would be to include a sentence noting that some modern logic textbooks refer to this fallacy as "The Argument from Inappropriate Authority" or something to disambiguate it from the category: argument from authority.Original Position (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

That might work. I think maybe having a section on fallacious uses that opens with that might be the way to go. Do you agree? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:34, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Another thing I notice is that Perfect Orange Sphere is correct about the "dismissal of evidence" section being unsourced and possibly warranting removal as he did with this edit. Indeed, though I've seen that exact structure being used, I don't think I've ever seen it referenced as a fallacious example. I'm not even sure it is. After all, that is the form of "If aliens built the pyramids and put hieroglyphics on them depicting this, every egyptologist would know about it. Since no serious egyptologist asserts that aliens built the pyramids, those hieroglyphics that you are showing me must either be either forgeries or misinterpreted." I contend without reservation that this argument is both valid (the conclusions necessarily follow from the premises) and sound (the conclusion is valid and the premises are true), albeit in an inductive, not deductive sense. I may be wrong, however, which is why I'm raising it here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

John Locke claim in history section

I can't access the source given, and I can't find (with an admittedly brief search) any other source to support this, and I find it a bit fishy. I seem to recall some classical Greek Philosophers mentioning the appeal to authority, which would certainly predate anything by John Locke. Can anyone confirm or refute this for me with? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:50, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I don't the Hamblin book in front of me anymore, I read it in the library. However, here is from Walton's Appeal to Expert Opinion': (p.33-4)

"What then happened to make [the argument from authority] a fallacy? There are two things to be taken into account. The first factor is that Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), claimed to have invented the expression argumentum ad verecundiam, using the term to refer to a distinctive species of argumentation where one party in dispute tries to exploit the respect of the other party in order for an established authority to make him submit to the first party's argument. There is no evidence that anyone prior to Locke used the expression argumentum ad veredundiam in this way, to refer to a distinctive type of argumentation of this kind, so we presume Locke did in fact invent this phrase."

and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"It is John Locke who is credited with intentionally creating a class of ad-arguments, and inadvertently giving birth to the class of ad-fallacies. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), he identified three kinds of arguments, the ad verecundiam, ad ignorantiam, and ad hominem arguments, each of which he contrasted with ad judicium arguments which are arguments based on “the foundations of knowledge and probability” and are reliable routes to truth and knowledge."

If you look through the rest of that chapter in Walton you'll see that while there were discussions of the argument from authority in Ancient and Medieval philosophy, it wasn't then classified as a fallacy. Original Position (talk) 00:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, fwiw, there is some debate over whether the argumentum ad verecundiam identified by Locke should be identified with the typical Argument from Authority fallacy referred to in this article. So the historical story is definitely more complicated than what I put into the article. Original Position (talk) 00:10, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Ahh, thank you. I was misreading the section as saying that John Locke was the first to discuss the veracity of appealing to experts. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Argument from authority as a statistical syllogism.

The argument from authority is referred to in the opening paragraph and in the section on it's general form as being a statistical syllogism. This is problematic in a couple ways. First, and most obviously, it says this in the section on General Form:

As a statistical syllogism, the argument has the following basic structure:

X holds that A is true.

X is an authority on the subject.

The consensus of authorities agrees with X.

There is a presumption that A is true.

The problem here is that this is not a statistical syllogism. Statistical syllogisms are like deductive syllogisms except they use percentage based quantifiers (or terms like "most," "few," etc) in the general premise. There is no such premise in the argument above. This is probably the result of a mashup of two earlier edits, one using the form of the argument as given in Gensler's The A to Z of Logic (the cited source), but the idea that its general form is that of a statistical syllogism from Salmon's Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking. However, note that Salmon, in calling it a statistical syllogism claimed its general form was this:

Most of what authority a has to say on subject matter S is correct.

a says p about S

---

p is correct

That is a statistical syllogism. So if we are going to continue calling it a statistical syllogism, we should substitute Salmon's version of its general form for Gensler's.

The second problem is that the page is not consistent in its description of the argument's form. It says in the section on General Form that it has many forms, of which the statistical syllogism is one. But in the opening paragraph it is less measured, stating without reservation that it is a statistical syllogism.

I looked at a few sources and this seems to be the lay of the land. There have been a number of different attempts to capture the logic of arguments from authority of which the statistical syllogism proposal by Salmon is just one. It is prominent enough to end up in a major logic textbook, but doesn't seem to be the consensus view based on the variety of different ways it is presented in other logic textbooks (such as Gensler's or Walton's). Furthermore, in Walton's book he listed three different general attempts to categorize these arguments: deductive, inductive, and presumptive. Salmon's is a specific inductive interpretation, but I can't find support for the idea that it is the dominant one.

Thus, I would suggest removing the claim that it is a statistical syllogism from the opening paragraph. I would suggest going with Gensler's version (or Walton's) in the General Form section while also clarifying that it is only one of several proposals for the general form of the argument (I prefer using Gensler's and Walton's vs. Salmon's because I think it is easier to understand for most people who probably don't know what a statistical syllogism is). Original Position (talk) 04:42, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

This is probably the result of a mashup of two earlier edits
It was. I wasn't sure if the implication (that the authority is usually right, instead of always right) needed to be spelled out to make it a statistical syllogism, so I left the phrase in. Perhaps adding in another form in the general section might be appropriate. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:36, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Here is the definition of statistical syllogism from Salmon's book:

"The statistical syllogism is an inductive form that closely resembles the deductive form of syllogism, but its general premiss is a statistical generalization rather than a universal generalization." (111)

So I think we do need to keep it in if we are going to refer to this argument as a statistical syllogism, otherwise it would be some other type of inductive argument. I've also thought about adding another form to the General Form section. Here is the issue. Probably the most accurate thing to do would be to say that there is disagreement among contemporary scholars as to the exact logical structure of arguments from authority. This disagreement might in part be because there are numerous different forms it can take, or because these are actually normative attempts at constructing this argument. Then list a few of the more prominent attempts at capturing the logic of the argument with a brief explainer for each of them.

My concern would be that this would be too much information for an encyclopedia article. You have more experience here than I, so your judgement is probably better about that. On the other hand, three examples is probably more than we need to illustrate the argument, it might be good to tilt the article back a bit more towards theory. Original Position (talk) 18:15, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

That sounds overall like a good idea. There's no real principle against putting too much information in, especially when that information may be used by a layman. For instance, I could clearly see two neckbeards arguing in youtube comments over what the precise formal structure of the appeal to authority is. One side says it must include the clause that the authority is espousing the consensus, while the other insists that it's not, because he might be speaking about his particular speciality, about which there is no formal consensus.

There is one problem I see, which is the problem of synthesis of information. While we do have two reliable sources which give different forms of the argument, we don't (to my knowledge) have a source which explicitly says that there is some controversy over the specific form. Now, that's apparently true, but it's still against WP policy. The reason for this is because one of those sources might represent a a minority view (after all, for there to be any dissent from the consensus, there must be experts who hold the minority view), or because one of those sources may have made a mistake, and would actually agree with the other, were it brought to the author's attention, or for any of a hundred other reasons. I've seen the former example happen here, where an editor was making edits to the String theory article, using a reliable source about Loop quantum gravity. They were making the article state certain conclusions which arise naturally from LQG, but which were mutually exclusive with the conclusions of ST and introducing a conundrum to any reader who put serious thought into it. I've seen the latter situation happen as well, though not here. So I think we should at least try to find a source which states there are different forms of the argument, then put a few of those in the article to illustrate the difference. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I saw you deleted that sentence about it being a statistical syllogism, which is good. The cited sources didn't really support it and it was too unambiguous. However, I did find this source in which Walton says clearly that Salmon considers it a statistical syllogism. It's never explicitly stated, but strongly implied that Salmon considers it to always be a statistical syllogism. (in case you don't want to go over it, the source is arguing against Salmon, putting forth that it's not a statistical syllogism because the conditions under which the statistical clauses are formed are not themselves statistical in nature, making the statistical clause a binary one. I don't buy this argument, but I -of course- defer to the judgement of philosophers and let them argue the case for me). This might be something we want to put in there, maybe as a quick one-off sentence, such as "The argument is sometimes said to be a form of statistical syllogism, because it can be formulated such that the authority is likely correct, though this is not universally accepted." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:35, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Added Salmon's version to the Logical Form section.Original Position (talk) 18:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Examples

I think we need to focus a little effort on the examples. I can do some work to dig up better examples than those we have (in each case, the authority appealed to was a legitimate authority which happened to be wrong due to a lack of evidence, or evidence which was poorly understood at the time), as I don't believe they do a good job of illustrating the nature of the argument. Also, as discussed above, one of those examples isn't -in fact- an example at all. I'll see what I can do tomorrow to find a good, accurate example, and perhaps a fallacious example to replace the ones we have. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 03:47, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree that the examples need work. I found a better source for the Chromosome story already (this article from Nature: http://www.nature.com/scitable/content/The-chromosome-number-in-humans-a-brief-15575), that is more sympathetic towards Painter than the Matthews article in Telegraph which seems to be the source for most of the material here (although it does note some similar concerns). I'm just working my way down the page and haven't gotten that far yet. Original Position (talk) 04:23, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I finished reading that source, and I have to say that it doesn't seem to support the assertion that Painter's count was accepted on his authority. In fact, the paper spends much of its length describing the many and varied difficulties faced by those attempting to count chromosomes, and noting that a number of other counts revealed 48. Again, while I'm certain that there were some people arguing that Painter's expertise lent weight to his count, it doesn't seem to hold water that this was a widespread phenomenon. Worth noting is that Painter's count was his first paper published on human cytology. This is a double-edged sword, as it would make any appeal to authority in this case an example of the fallacy (and thus worth noting as a fallacious example), as well as severely reducing the likelihood that scientists would actually appeal to his authority. There were several scientists with more authority on this subject than Painter.

Looking at the example section, to support the claim that "From the 1920s to the 1950s, this continued to be held based on Painter's authority," the article links to this source, which doesn't support it. The closest it comes is to say "Painter's estimate was very close to the real human diploid number of 46, and the quality of his data was good. In light of Painter's many other contributions to cytology, the scientific community accepted his estimate of the human chromosome number for 33 years." If one quote mined the second sentence, it might appear to support the claim, but it ceases to do so when you put it back into context. What makes it worse is that those sentences were the end of one paragraph, and the next goes on to describe subsequent improvements to the method of counting chromosomes, then directly ascribes the Tijo and Levan count to those improvements. In short, the source seems to contend that difficulties in counting chromosomes were the main driving force behind the incorrect count. It mentions Painter's count being accepted based on his other contributions, but I'm not sure that this is a reference to his count being considered definitive, given that other scientists also counted 48. It may have simply meant that his specialty in insect cytology was overlooked and his contributions to human cytology accepted because the two fields were not so different.

Checking some of the other sources, I found a book which I don't own (and for which no ebook is immediately available, and a former geocities web page, attributed to Robert Matthews, but which cannot be confirmed. I'm sorry, but I have a number of problems with that. I'm not contending that the source wasn't written by the physicist and mathematician, but I find it notable that it is an often cited source for creationist articles, and not much else (try googling the title; "The bizarre case of the chromosome that never was" to see for yourself).

Setting aside possible issues of authorship, the statement by Matthews states that scientists appealed to the authority of Painter (who was far more of an authority on insect cytology, which makes this one of the better possible examples, as -if true- it would appear to be an appeal to illegitimate authority) is only ever justified by pointing out that subsequent review of images published in textbooks claiming 48 chromosomes showed only 46 chromosomes. But that completely ignores the difficulties in counting chromosomes pointed out by the other sources. It could well be that one could find anywhere from 40 to 52 chromosomes in a given image, depending on what number one expected to be there. I've taken a look at some of these images, and they are, in fact, quite difficult to count.

So at this point, the chromosome example seems to be the best, yet it is still shot through with issues. I'm going to nix the entire section for now. I'm not opposed to having an example section (in fact, I'm enthused about it), or about using this particular example (heavily re-worded), provided we can verify the Matthews source. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:26, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The Painter example was originally sourced to a May 14, 2000 article in the Telegraph. Unfortunately, the linked article is of a Internet Archive copy of a different website. I tend to assume that the article is real, but can't track an trustworthy source for it (frustratingly, the Telegraph's online archives only go back to June 2000). That being said, the article from Nature is almost certainly more authoritative. I think the main difference in it from the article here is that it emphasized the difficulty of identifying the number of chromosomes for Painter, given the technology available at the time. Thus, even though Painter was wrong, it doesn't support the idea that he was doing something wrong in making his conclusion, or that his contemporaries were making a mistake in accepting it. However, it does support the idea that once it was accepted that there were 48 chromosomes that this "preconception" did lead later scientists astray, making it more difficult for them to the truth. In general though, I don't think it is a very good of a fallacious use of the argument of authority, but it does work as an example of the danger of relying too much on past conclusions in science.Original Position (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

(frustratingly, the Telegraph's online archives only go back to June 2000) I just searched them, and I was able to search back further, but with no result for that article. There was only one article with the word "Chromosome" in the body or title from April 1, 2000 to June 1, 2000. I'm not sure this is such a bad example, though, provided we can find a reliable source. Painter was (arguably) an expert in insect cytology, not human cytology. That in itself might be cause to call this an example of appealing to an illegitimate authority. Of course, I could be wrong. It might be that insect cytology and human cytology are so similar that an expert in one might well be considered an expert in the other. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:37, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I've seen no one claim that he wasn't qualified to write on human cytology. Original Position (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I have to (reluctantly) agree. I put that forth because it would fit neatly into the hypothesis that this is a good example. It may be that my desire to have an examples section outweighs our ability to build one. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:09, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@FL or Atlanta For the reasons discussed above, I don't think the Chromosome case is a good example. To be brief, the best sources (articles cited on this Talk page and in the article from Nature (a better source than a science reporter from The Telegraph) do not agree that Painter was obviously wrong. For instance, the other citation from Nature says, "By looking at Painter's drawings of his slides, one can appreciate how difficult this process made it to arrive at a correct chromosome count." It is also clear that the correct number was found because of technological advances that made it easier to count chromosomes, not just because people started looking at the same pictures that Painter had, "This combination of treatments enhanced chromosome spreading without deterioration or fragmentation, thereby facilitating better chromosome counts. In fact, in 1956, these techniques enabled researchers Joe Hin Tjio and Albert Levan to make a more accurate estimate of the human chromosome number."

Second, we do not have a good citation for this as an example of this fallacy. We have a newspaper article by a science reporter claiming that scientists accepted this result because of an overreliance on Painter's authority, but we don't have a source from either a discussion of this fallacy or from an expert on chromosomes or science historian backing up Matthew's claim. In fact, the various articles in Nature seem to contradict Matthews account.

Since this is meant to be an example, it should not be controversial. It should be a clear example of the fallacious use of authority. In my view, this is not.Original Position (talk) 03:36, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

@FL or Atlanta Adding new sources that do not specifically address the issues raised about this example are not sufficient to allay my concerns. To reiterate, the article currently claims that Painter's photos in later textbooks "clearly" show 23 pairs of chromosomes rather than 24. You have cited an article from Robert Matthews, a non-subject matter expert scientist/science journalist claiming this. However, the other cited sources (including the two new ones you introduced), are more reliable (articles from academic journals on the history of the study of the human chromosome) and all stress how difficult it was to count the number of chromosomes on the basis of Painter's data. In fact, Painter's claim was eventually only corrected because of the development of new technologies that made separating out the chromosomes much easier. Thus, I do not think it is well-sourced that the photographs showed Painter to be "obviously" wrong. Nor do I see adequate support for Matthews' claim that "Scientists had preferred to bow to authority rather than believe the evidence of their own eyes."

Second, the article currently suggests that people then counted the correct number of chromosomes as 46, but continued to claim it was 48 based on Painter's authority. This is nowhere in the literature, except again, maybe from Matthews' article. Instead, the other sources say that with the publication of the Tjio and Levan paper in 1956 clearly showing 46 chromosomes that scientists quickly accepted the new count. So again, we don't see a case here of people accepting an authority in the face of of evidence.

Since those are the crucial claims to support this as an example of a fallacious argument from authority, I do not think this functions as a good example. And again, an example shouldn't be contentious, but rather a clear example of the fallacy involved. Let's work on finding a good, clear, non-contentious example of this fallacy instead of pushing this one on the basis of a single newspaper column. Original Position (talk) 19:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The Matthews source is unverifiable, as illustrated above and here. In short, there are no reliable sources which support this view of the case. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:22, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

It is not unverifiable, there are multiple sources that support what it states. More popular summaries of issues are cited everywhere on Wikipedia, not every single thing needs to be published in a journal. Further, that discussion ended with a positive view of the source. You yourself say "I do think the article is faithfully reproduced on that website. I do think the article was written by that author", someone else presented the same article being cited elsewhere "David Orrell cites an article of the same title for the same date and publication in the bibliography of The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction (2008)", and someone else showed that the archive in general is reliable "The site archived scientific publications. It has lots of others that are authentic". No one in the discussion says the source is bad or can't be used. FL or Atlanta (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

First off, your insistence that there are such sources is very different from you actually providing them, which is what is necessary here. Second, we cannot cite other wikipedia pages, nor is there a valid argument from precedent in wikipedia. Finally, one single source which contradicts numerous other sources written by individuals with more expertise in the subject isn't enough to build that example. Nor is it generally reliable. If I posted it to RSN under those terms (instead of intentionally failing to mention that more reliable sources contradicted it, as I actually did), I can promise you it would not pass muster.

Now, regarding that specific source, there are a bunch of problems with what you're saying.

• No-one showed that archive to be "generally reliable". Perfect Orange Sphere pointed out one case that wasn't obviously a forgery.
• My opinion on the accuracy of the archive is immaterial. The source doesn't appear to be reliable, nor does one source represent enough coverage, given the characterization all the other sources give the situation.
• You left out the very next sentence of Mangoe's post, which was that the David Orrell citation occurred after the archived version, and could have referenced it.
• You claimed that no-one said the source was unreliable, but the very first reply in that thread, from Meatsgain did exactly that. DrChrissy then questioned the reliability of the archive, as well as the authenticity of the article. In fact, the only person who endorsed it was Perfect Orange Sphere. The editor who added it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:18, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

“your insistence that there are such sources is very different from you actually providing them”

They and what they say are provided in the edit itself. Everything from a biography of Painter to Nature articles discussing the events.

“we cannot cite other wikipedia pages”

I’m not citing Wikipedia pages for any fact. I’m citing them for established practice as far as sources go.

“contradicts numerous other sources”

What sources does it contradict?

“Nor is it generally reliable.”

There’s no whatsoever argument for it being unreliable.

“If I posted it to RSN under those terms (instead of intentionally failing to mention that more reliable sources contradicted it, as I actually did), I can promise you it would not pass muster”

There are no sources that contradict it. And hypotheticals aren’t support. Saying “well I’m sure it wouldn’t pass” carries no weight, especially when it already passed scrutiny.

“No-one showed that archive to be "generally reliable". Perfect Orange Sphere pointed out one case that wasn't obviously a forgery”

If you think there’s fraud going on then its your job to provide evidence for it. You yourself already said you have no doubt the article is legitimate, which is reasonable because there is absolutely no reason to doubt it.

“The source doesn't appear to be reliable”

The author is a BBC science correspondent.

“nor does one source represent enough coverage”

That’s why there are many sources cited.

“You left out the very next sentence of Mangoe's post, which was that the David Orrell citation occurred after the archived version, and could have referenced it”

It doesn’t. He cites it here and the citation can be seen here. There’s no reference to the archive.

If it’d make you feel more comfortable, we could use that book itself as the source. I’ll re-add it that way so this archive business can be a non-issue.

“You claimed that no-one said the source was unreliable, but the very first reply in that thread, from Meatsgain did exactly that”

He never said that the source was unreliable, he said he was “Not sure how one could argue the link in question is reliable”.

“DrChrissy then questioned the reliability of the archive, as well as the authenticity of the article”

DrChrissy was asking about the Internet Archive itself. He said “The second question (again genuine) is whether web.archive.org. is generally considered RS”. That’s the archive he was asking about.

He said “A BBC reporter would normally be considered reliable”, and you yourself say you agree this was written by Robert Matthews, so his words support the article. FL or Atlanta (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

First, please start using accepted formatting for indentation and quoting. The way you do it is difficult to read. Second, I'm not responding to most of what you said because there's no point, you seem to live in your own little world and I don't see the upside to explaining how you've misinterpreted everything I and everyone else has said. So I only have three points to make:

What sources does it contradict? Every other source used in the section. Read the other two sources. They're linked in (and discussed in) the thread above. Neither of them ever claim that Painter's authority was the reason the wrong numbers stood for so long. The conclude that insufficient technology was the reason. It's quite clear once you read them.

There’s no whatsoever argument for it being unreliable. Bullshit. This is pure, unmitigated bullshit. 3/4 of my last post was me explaining to you why that source isn't reliable, you quoted from a thread (and even from specific comments) where people gave reasons why it should be considered unreliable. You might disagree with one or all of my arguments, but to sit here and say there are no arguments at all? That's bullshit and you ought to damn well know by now that it won't work on me.

If you still disagree? Well, go find some reliable sources that explain why the two academic sources don't attribute this to Painter's authority and claim that it should be attributed to his authority. They'll need to be academic, and written by people who know the field. I would take that as good evidence that this was a case of appealing to authority and support the inclusion of the section. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

“Neither of them ever claim that Painter's authority was the reason the wrong numbers stood for so long”

This says “In light of Painter's many other contributions to cytology, the scientific community accepted his estimate of the human chromosome number for 33 years”. This says “If anyone must bear the burden for broadcasting the incorrect human chromosome number, it is Painter”, saying that this was an “error…for which he was…universally cited”.

We have a firsthand report that a textbook writer used Painter’s estimate and was lead into error because of it. This source says “Painter himself took the evidence of his 'best cell' and reported the number as forty-eight, confirming an error that would be perpetuated in dozens of textbooks (including one of my own)”.

And here says “Human chromosomal counts sometimes suggested a figure different from 48, but most cytologists, expecting to detect Painter's number, virtually always did so”.

All the relevant sources say it was because of Painter.

“3/4 of my last post was me explaining to you why that source isn't reliable”

There weren’t any arguments for the source itself being unreliable. It says nothing anyone’s accused of being an error, everyone agrees the author is reliable, there’s never been evidence presented that it’s a forgery.

“where people gave reasons why it should be considered unreliable”

Some people said we might not be able to tell if it is reliable, but no one gave evidence for reliability. There’s a difference between not having evidence something is true and having evidence something is false.

“That's bullshit and you ought to damn well know”

Its just a discussion, no need to get heated... FL or Atlanta (talk) 16:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

All the relevant sources say it was because of Painter. Only if you cherry pick statements from the source.

• This says “In light of Painter's many other contributions to cytology, the scientific community accepted his estimate of the human chromosome number for 33 years”. Yes, the last sentence of a paragraph that begins with "By looking at Painter's drawings of his slides, one can appreciate how difficult this process made it to arrive at a correct chromosome count." and sets the stage for the next section, which was titled "Tjio and Levan Use Improved Methods to Establish the Chromosome Number as 46" (emphesis added). The entire section then talks about how advances in technique and technology made better counts possible. And that is from a source which never once states nor insinuates that anyone ever rejected the Tjio and Leven count on the basis of Painter's authority.
• This says “If anyone must bear the burden for broadcasting the incorrect human chromosome number, it is Painter”, saying that this was an “error…for which he was…universally cited” First off, that doesn't evince your point, at all. All it says is that Painter was responsible for it. It doesn't say anything about scientists deferring to Painter's authority about the count. Do you know what that souces does say about why people believed Painter? "Tjio remarks that the early observations of sectioned testis material were difficult to interpret and that the observations from smear preparations in the early 1950s were of poor quality and wishful interpretations of the configurations41. I believe, however, that the overriding factor in challenging ‘48’ was the quality of his preparations. They were simply the best human metaphase spreads that had been made. There was no question about the count!" (emphasis added) That directly states that the quality of his work, not his perceived authority was responsible for promulgating his count.

And with respect to the reception the Tjio and Levan paper got? What does it say? "As mentioned in the introduction, human genetics in 1956 was in a different state, and the Tjio and Levan report would have an important effect on the field." (emphasis added) And again, this source never states nor insinuates that the Tjio and Levan paper was ever rejected on the basis of Painter's authority.

There weren’t any arguments for the source itself being unreliable. Bullshit. There's nothing more to say to that. You're lying, or you're utterly incapable of comprehending the post, which would put your intelligence at a level that would preclude you from figuring out how to use WP. So you're lying. Whether you're being willfully ignorant of what I said or intentionally refusing to acknowledge it makes no difference.

Its just a discussion, no need to get heated... First off, lay off the condescending attitude. You have a serious problem dealing with people who disagree with you. Second, "bullshit" is a common term with a common and unambiguous meaning. Using it doesn't imply anger, it implies a desire to be understood perfectly clearly. Given your history of misunderstanding almost every single comment directed at you, playing word games with semantics, and downright lying about what has been said to and about you on multiple occasions, it should come as no surprise that I would say "bullshit" instead of "you are clearly misrepresenting what has been said and are making factually incorrect assertions about it." The former is clear and unambiguous, the latter is something you could play word games with. This desire to be so clear has arisen in response to months of your continued refusal to acknowledge even being capable of making an error, and working on pushing your own skewed view on an article in defiance of every rational argument as to why we shouldn't. You have been condescending, arrogant and the next best thing to completely clueless throughout, requiring me and OP to explain even the most basic concepts in philosophy to you. Explanations which, I have seen firsthand, tend to either fly completely over your head, or to simply go in one ear and right out the other. You are an extremely difficult person to deal with, and as such, you should expect people to be blunt with you after several months of trying to be politic have resulted in nothing more than continued refusal on your part to budge in the slightest. I'm not trying to be rude, or to make this about you. I'm not angry, and frankly, am very unlikely to ever get angry about anything that happens on WP, because it doesn't really affect my life. But if you insist upon commenting on my behavior as you did above, and presuming to scold me for what you think is my emotional state, you need to expect me to respond. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I'll start my response by replying to the old edit of your's you linked to.

“the paper spends much of its length describing the many and varied difficulties faced by those attempting to count chromosomes”

And the page says that his count was based off bad data, like the sources report.

“and noting that a number of other counts revealed 48”

A small number – there was a lot of variance, and it was ultimately Painter’s authority the inaccurate number was based on.

“it doesn't seem to hold water that this was a widespread phenomenon”

The source directly says he was “universally cited” for it, and we even have a firsthand account from a textbook author saying he based the inaccurate number on this. Another says virtually everyone got his result because it was what they were expecting to find by this point.

“Worth noting is that Painter's count was his first paper published on human cytology”

That’s not worth noting at all. He was a well-respected cytologist, and cytology wasn’t so specialized that there were specific human cytologists.

“as well as severely reducing the likelihood that scientists ‘would’ actually appeal to his authority”

The sources say they did, so the page must say they did.

“If one quote mined the second sentence, it might appear to support the claim, but it ceases to do so when you put it back into context.”

How? It says “In light of Painter's many other contributions to cytology” – that is, based on his authority on the subject – “the scientific community accepted his estimate of the human chromosome number for 33 years” – his result was taken as the answer.

“and the next goes on to describe subsequent improvements to the method of counting chromosomes”

What’s that got to do with anything?

“the source seems to contend that difficulties in counting chromosomes were the main driving force behind the incorrect count”

Indeed, that’s why Painter got it wrong. And that’s why it shouldn’t have been taken as fact based on his authority.

“It may have simply meant that his specialty in insect cytology was overlooked and his contributions to human cytology accepted because the two fields were not so different”

They weren’t two fields. It was just cytology.

“The entire section then talks about how advances in technique and technology made better counts possible”

Obviously, otherwise we’d be stuck with the wrong count today.

“All it says is that Painter was responsible for it”

Because he was “universally cited” for it.

“That directly states that the quality of his work, not his perceived authority was responsible for promulgating his count”

That’s talking about Tijo’s work, not Painter’s. It directly says Tijo had to “question authority regarding ‘48’”, and found the answer because he was “more likely than others” to do so.

“And again, this source never states nor insinuates that the Tjio and Levan paper was ever rejected on the basis of Painter's authority.”

Neither did I o_o

You’re arguing against something no one said

“Bullshit. There's nothing more to say to that.”

That’s…not exactly a persuasive argument.

“First off, lay off the condescending attitude”

I wasn’t trying to be condescending, I'm being genuine. I was just saying you seem to be getting overworked about what’s really a minor issue. We've talked together a long time, I can tell when you're not quite your usual self. Are things going alright? FL or Atlanta (talk) 18:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Factually Incorrect Version?

What's incorrect? Everything is reliably cited from reputable sources. I read the discussions from when I was gone and it looks like the inaccurate stuff like that one section and example has been taken care of. FL or Atlanta (talk) 19:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, to start with, there's the fact that virtually every source listed in that version is either unreliable, or falsely represented in the article. Then, there's the fact that you and Perfect were explicitly warned to stop pushing your interpretation by an admin, and finally there's the fact that Perfect ended up blocked for the very same thing you're doing right now. There's even a couple of essays on what you're doing, titled Competence is Required and Civil POV Pushing, both of which essentially explain why you should either stop editing this page, or listen those other editors who know more about the subject than you. The last thing I want to do here is call in the admin to block you or tell you off, but what you're doing is extremely damaging to this article, and I will do that if you keep this up. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:47, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the admin actually read any of the sources or what's being discussed. I wasn't around when all of that happened, and I wasn't aware an admin had gotten involved. But if you go through the sources then they all say exactly what they're being cited for. It seems to me an overeager admin jumped the gun without hearing all the sides. If we were to have a more thorough review the results would be quite different. Why don't we try for mediation? The last attempt hardly even got off the ground. I'll submit a request. FL or Atlanta (talk) 01:58, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that the admin that ruled against your view didn't read any of the discussion or sources? If you are going to accuse someone of shirking their job you really should back it up as that is a serious charge.

I have personally gone through almost all of the citations on this page and I do not agree with your claim that the sources all said exactly what they were being cited for (which is why so many of these citations have been deleted). Many of the citations misrepresented the source material or cited the wrong source. Many of the citations were from unreliable or obscure sources. I could easily give you a half-dozen examples.Original Position (talk) 07:23, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The evidence is the usual: The admin didn't agree with him, so either the admin was personally biased against him or didn't understand the situation*. It's the same exact argument Perfect Orange Sphere made when I reminded him of what the admin said. It's an extremely common response to losing some sort of moderated engagement (be it content moderation, ArbCom cases or admin involvement in a dispute).

*Most intelligent editors won't go for the former tactic, as our edit histories are plain to see, and it's easy to disprove a personal bias. However, arguing that they aren't aware of the issue is much harder to disprove. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:05, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey folks, I already chimed in briefly at ANI, and I hope you'll consider giving DRN a solid go; Robert is good at cutting through the cruft and getting the core issues, at hammering out middle-ground solutions and generally seeing what has to be done when a consensus decision can't be reached between parties. But having seen this thread, I did want to stop in here make a couple of things clear. First, Nyttend may be an admin, but their opinion carries no more weight in a content discussion than any other editor's. They seem to have expressed some clear opinions on this topic and to the extent that they have, it was arguably inappropriate for them to have blocked someone with a different opinion, per WP:INVOLVED, though I can't say for sure without looking into the matter deeper, which I'm not inclined to do on the the behalf of a party who hasn't objected themselves.

Still, it's deeply problematic to declare a position void because of "incompetence"; WP:CIR is usually used in reference to behavioural issues, not content positions. If a consensus is formed and then a party continual violates that consensus, our community standards view that as a competency issue, but it's generally not considered a competency issue to have a different view of the sources and the content than is popular with other editors in a discussion space, no matter how incorrect it seems to the other parties. Again, I don't know which of those scenarios is closer to what transpired here, but I want to make the distinction clear. You may not agree with FLoA's position, but you still have to respond to the substance of his argument and actually dig into the sources if you want your position to prevail; you don't just get to say "you're wrong, the sources don't apply and also there's an admin who was previously skeptical of some of your positions" because the first of those arguments is too vague to be of use and the second isn't directly relevant at all.

Likewise, it is not useful for compelling on this project to say anything along the lines of "you need to listen to us, because we know more than you do about this topic"--and for obvious reasons, this is really the very last place where one ought to have to explain why. But even putting aside the fact everyone here ought to be familiar with why such an argument is problematic, as a matter of consensus of the Wikipedia community, it doesn't matter who you are or what you think of your command of the subject matter--the weight of your arguments with regard to the content will assessed only on the basis of their conformity with the sources and the content guidelines of this project. Point in fact, we often advise newer editors to stay away from topics in which they consider themselves experts or upon which they have strong feelings, specifically because such contributors often have difficulty divorcing their personal perspectives on the matter from the the burden of proof which governs this project, which can often lead to content decisions divergent from their own perspectives on the "truth" of a matter.

Anyway, thought it might be useful to make some of those points explicit, but I hope it all turns out to be quasi-irrelevant, in that I hope you call can come to a compromise solution everyone can agree with, as is often a more realistic option than parties at first think in these kinds of disputes. If DRN does not succeed, do bear in mind that WP:RfC is a good tool for soliciting additional opinions, and one which does not seem to have been utilized on this issue thus far. Happy editing! Snow ^{let's rap} 05:19, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll reiterate that I'm willing to go through whatever process to resolve this dispute you think best. Mediation is fine, so is RfC, topic ban, whatever. I'll also note that your description of this dispute is not accurate. Original Position (talk) 07:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, I can't imagine it will help the consensus issues on the page any to dispute the point at length with you, but I will say I was just commenting narrowly on my observations of the arguments being forwarded in the ANI discussion, this thread, and a few above. Maybe there's more context that makes the dismissal of certain editors' positions more reasonable--but for a certainty, the language being used to justify that exclusions immediately above fails to comport with what is expected in a Wikipedia discussion. But I've every confidence you folks will work it all out, given the expressed desire to resolve the issue amicably, seeking community input as necessary. Good luck with mediation. Snow ^{let's rap} 08:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe there's more context that makes the dismissal of certain editors' positions more reasonable How about the fact that every single reliable source presented agrees that it is not always a fallacy, and no reliable sources have ever been presented say that it is?

Also, your reference to WP:INVOLVED is inaccurate. Nyttend only became involved as a result of an AN/I notice, and it was made quite clear multiple times that it was not the editor's beliefs or opinions on content that prompted the ban, but the tendentious editing practices and blatant misuse of sources that arose from those opinions. Every argument addressing the content at AN/I or from the admin was done for the purpose of being able to avoid acting on the poor conduct. I'm not opposed to a formal request for mediation (I am thoroughly opposed to allowing Robert McClenon to mediate any dispute I am involved in, however), but as I explained at AN/I: I have virtually no hope that will work. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Presumption

Since some people seem to be some confused about this, Walton is not ambiguous about what he means by "presumption." I discuss this at length with quotations from Walton [here.] A presumption that p means that we have a defeasible conclusion that p and the burden of proof is on those who claim ~p. Since Walton and Gensler are the main sources for that formulation of the argument from authority, if that is what they mean by "presumption," then that is what our article should mean as well. That is also (roughly) the sense of presumption in the linked wiki page. Original Position (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Are legitimate arguments from authority evidence?

MjolnirPants and PerfectOrangeSphere added this to the General Form section:

Arguments from authority are generally not considered a form of evidence, but rather a reason to believe a statement.

I deleted PerfectOrangeSphere's initial edit because it went beyond the cited article in claiming that arguments from authority don't provide proof of a claim. "Proof" is a notoriously misused concept among non-academics, as what constitutes proof is generally taken to be domain-specific (that is, a scientific proof that p wouldn't count as a mathematical proof that p). So POS might be right about arguments from authority, but that claim isn't supported in Hardwig's article.

There are a couple of problems with the amended edit. First, Hardwig doesn't claim that arguments from authority are not a form of evidence (indeed he says they are evidence), but rather that they are evidence for a different claim. For example, suppose you wanted to know whether free trade increases GDP growth. Hardwig would say that an appeal to the opinion of economists that it does isn't evidence that free trade increases GDP growth. Instead, it is evidence for the claim that economists have conducted the inquiry necessary to have evidence for believing that free trade increases GDP growth.

So at minimum we should clarify that if we are going to include this here. The contrast drawn here between reasons and evidence isn't accurate as it stands.

Second, I think MjolnirPants's concern that this is not a consensus view is warranted. While I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject to know what current views are, the literature does indicate disagreement, including from at least one very prominent philosopher. The main controversy seems to be over whether we should really regard someone who relies on authority as the reason to accept p doesn't have evidence that p (e.g. see Ben Almassi in "Experts, Evidence, and Epistemic Independence" and Frederick Schmitt in "On the Road to Social Epistemic Interdepedence.").

Anyway, some interesting stuff here on testimony and the different kind of reason for p that expert opinion can give versus direct evidence, but we need to work this out a bit more first imo. Original Position (talk) 18:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there's any working out to do. I think what you've said is a better way of stating it than my re-write, and if at least one other person thinks that Hardwig is speaking his own views and not a consensus view, then I say we attribute the statement to him. I'll change it right now, let me know what you think (or go in and fix it further if you like, I'm not very protective of my writing, just the accuracy of the article). MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:16, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Epistemological Problems of Testimony

This might be a good guide to writing about the subject, and it's a very reliable source, to boot. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:40, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Problems with this article

I am responding to MjolnirPants's comment.

I just made reference to this article on Jimbo's talk page here, and I must admit it does not match what I learned in my philosophy courses. If I remember correctly in my text the "appeal to authority" fallacy was explained similarly to this source:

An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

Another source has a similar definition (for the "strong sense"):

The basic structure is:

Strong sense:

1. An authority has stated that X is true; therefore

2. X is true.

...

When used in a strong sense, an Appeal to Authority is always fallacious. This is because there's no guarantee that an authority will be correct. In short, even experts can be wrong.

Other sources I looked at: [3],[4]. I believe the example used in my text book was:

(1) God is all knowing

(2) God said A is true

----------------------

Therefore, A is true

I think at a minimum, the strong version should be in this article. That said, many sources use the "weaker" form of "appeal to authority", regarding citing someone who is not an authority in the subject area, when there are divided opinions in the subject area, etc. This handout has an interesting collection of variations (also mentioned in some of the other links I provided), which perhaps would be worth adding to the article if we have good WP:RS for them.

I would like to help you, but I do not know if I have the patience to read through all the RS on this and try to figure out what on the Internet qualifies as RS and what does not. I will put it on my watch list and maybe jump in. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:59, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you think is wrong about the article as it stands. Many people think that arguments from authority are inherently fallacious, but the expert consensus is that they are not. Even both of the sources you quote from here acknowledge as much:

"However, the informal fallacy occurs only when the authority cited either (a) is not an authority, or (b) is not an authority on the subject on which he is being cited. If someone either isn’t an authority at all, or isn’t an authority on the subject about which they’re speaking, then that undermines the value of their testimony."

"The Appeal to Authority is normally used in a weaker sense in support of a claim; and when used this way, its quality can vary from being perfectly reasonable to completely untenable."

As for whether to include the "strong version" you quote here, if we do so we should also include the weak version. Personally, I don't see much that is added by doing so. There is no expert consensus as to the correct form of the argument from authority, with logic textbooks and academic essays all using different versions. What we've done in the absence of this consensus is pick three of the more prominent ones (the statistical syllogism from a major logic textbook, the presumptive version from a logic textbook and from Walton in the academic literature, and the pragma-dialectic version, which is prominent in the academic literature) to give a flavor of the different ways the argument is understood. We can add more versions, but if we do so we should try to first add the more important ones (and I'm not sure that the online source you suggest is such as it is a weaker source). Also, from an aesthetic standpoint, I would think it would start to clutter the article. Original Position (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@Original Position: Thanks for the reply. If indeed there is "no expert consensus as to the correct form of the argument from authority", and what we have done is "pick three of the more prominent" arguments to "to give a flavor of the different ways the argument is understood" that for me as a reader is not enough. I expect the article to give all of the major versions (and if there are numerous minor others, then make that clear and at least help the reader know where to find them). If there is no agreement from experts on what the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy is (an interesting meta problem), then we should say that right up front rather than just picking a subset of versions, as if that is all there is. Based on what you have said, it seems to me that our article is way too short--what I felt when I first encountered it. But I understand your concern with clutter. As to avoid overwhelming the lay person, either the lede or a section that explains the various sections that come later with increasing layers of detail would be helpful. For example:

The Appeal to Authority is a fallacy that can result from a number of logical problems: (1) authorities speaking outside of their field of expertise (2) disagreement among experts (3) experts are fallible--they can make mistakes in even their field of expertise (4) experts speaking to novel ideas in their field (5) appeal to popularity (6) [something about the Asch study].

This would cover a number of the major versions I have seen and is readable for a lay person.

Please keep in mind I am not proposing this exact language that I wrote on the fly. Key here is that each of the numbered items can have its own section for those who want to read more and understand the subtleties of each version. And we would provide those sections in the article. If there a number of additional variations, those would be covered in the end. I think our articles best serve the readers not by being short and concise, but by containing simple generalized summary information that is concise that is increasingly fleshed out and further information on particular sub-areas of interest are easy to find for those who want to know more. (Consider a history article.) Compared so some of the articles I have been working with GMOs, |GMO food, GM food controversies, this article is surprisingly short.

I also thought that the Argument_from_authority#General section started out by being too technical (and again inconsistent with the strong version I had learned), and that more prose should start before getting into symbolic logic. We could have a formal logic portion for each version, or a section at the end with all of them. Although I agree it is concise for philosophers, our audience is lay people who may not understand such abstraction of formal logic, which is why I think it should be last not first (unlike what you see in critical thinking books that are an entire course on the subject). I have seen this same problem in the physics entries, such as Maxwell's Equations and Schrödinger equation. Doing all of this would be a big overhaul, but easy for an expert, right?  :-) --David Tornheim (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Frankly, the only thing I can say is that you must remember your philosophy classes wrong. I took one less than a year ago, and the page as currently written absolutely matches with what I remember from it. But more importantly, it matches what the textbook I used and quite literally every single other source I've ever found in more than a month of working on this article says about it. Check the archives, there's a list of 19 sources who all say that it's not always a fallacy, and there are at least half again that many scattered around throughout this talk page and it's archives. You provided a few more in your comments above, as Original Position pointed out.

Also, I read your comments on Jimbo's talk page, and all I can say to you is that if the article doesn't say what you wished it said when you linked to it, then perhaps you should have read it before linking to it. Or perhaps you should have made some effort to show how Guy's argument was fallacious (and an appeal to authority, for that matter, as he was clearly stating his views in a discussion in which people were expected to state their views), instead of just name-dropping what you mistakenly thought was a fallacy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 05:38, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Regarding comments on Jimbo's page: I did look at it before linking to it, which was why I added a little extra about what authority I meant--oneself. (I believe appeal to oneself as authority is listed among the appeal to authority fallacies, but may be a different kind of fallacy such as circular reasoning. I remember when Gray Davis used this fallacy to say that because the voter's chose him, therefore the voters want what he wants. As someone who voted for him I was appalled!) As for problems with Jzg/Guy's argument, there were quite a few that I covered. The main one was that he was saying that ordinary editors cannot be trusted to make judgments (i.e. in a jury decision), which is entirely contrary to the idea of an Encyclopedia "anyone can edit" by anonymous editors. And if he is ruling out the ordinary editors, and leaving decisions to experts, that's bogus because we have no provision on Wikipedia for identification of experts. So, it is a false appeal to authority, and I pointed out whose authority was really being appealed: his own as an administrator, not as an expert (similar to Gray Davis). Or in other cases a group of editors who share a POV. They are also forms of might makes right, which I believe is a form of appeal to authority as well. Now back to our scheduled program in talking about this article:...

The quotes I gave above made it clear that one version (strong version) of the "Appeal to Authority Fallacy" is that any appeal to authority runs into problems because even experts in their field of expertise make mistakes (even when there is a consensus among experts)--a good example would be how classical physics was overturned by modern physics. Thomas Kuhn talks about that phenomenon.

But we also know that such a strong version of never using experts for anything ever because they might be wrong is impractical in real life, perhaps even illogical. So indeed I'm not surprised that all the sources say that it is not always wrong to rely on experts, even if the experts might be mistaken, just as long as we are not relying on them for absolute truth. And we do this here on Wikipedia with WP:RS and in the courts, and rely on expert testimony with some confidence, but never for absolute certainty. (Remember that the standard for criminal cases is "beyond a reasonable doubt", not 100% certainty. And a lesser standard apply for civil cases.) Trusting experts for absolute certainty is always fallacious--that is the strong version.

Now in using experts in the ordinary practical way, if one uses an expert who is outside their field of expertise, that is a different kind of appeal to authority violation--a weak version. It's just as valid of a fallacy as the strong version. They are not mutually exclusive fallacies. And I gave a few others too, some of which are in our article. Original Position acknowledged that there is no consensus on any single version of the appeal to authority fallacy, which now makes sense to me. And I contend our article needs to reflect the versions that different experts articulate.

I think you were trying to say is that because these various sources all talk about the weak version as well, that means the strong version can be thrown out as useless or wrong, but I strongly disagree. If you want 100% truth, experts do not help. To assume they can be relied on for 100% truth is the strong version of the appeal to authority fallacy. Do we agree now? --David Tornheim (talk) 06:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

First, let me agree with you (as do most of the sources we've been working from on this page) that one way in which arguments from authority can be fallacious is when it claims too strong a conclusion.

However, I do think think the article reflects this already. For example, the second paragraph begins like such:

"Fallacious examples of using the appeal include any appeal to authority used in the context of deductive reasoning."

This is essentially referring to what you are calling the "strong version" of the argument. This point is also made in the first argument form listed, that has as a conclusion "There is a presumption that A is true" (presumptions are defeasible). This is then made explicit in the following sentence where it says:

"The argument is fallacious...if it is claimed that the conclusion must be true on the basis of authority, rather than only probably true."

So I think this ground has already been fairly well covered. However, if you think this point is still insufficiently clear, feel free to try something out to clarify it.

Second, about the "strong version." Over the last couple of months there has been a lot of debate, sometimes unfortunately acrimonious, over how to understand the argument from authority. Here are a couple of results that came out of this debate. (1) Although some people think that the argument from authority is always or inherently fallacious, this is not the view of the experts on the issue. In nearly every RS we've looked at, the authors say that some versions of the argument from authority are not fallacious. Since there is a mistaken view otherwise, I think it is important to include this point in the lede (and one of the reasons I would disagree with your proposed lede).

(2) There is relatively widespread agreement among experts on some of the specific ways in which these kinds of arguments can go wrong: for instance, if an expert is speaking outside their area of expertise, or isn't a real expert, or is making to too strong a claim, etc. However, although there have been proposals to systematize this into more than just a list of examples (the pragma-dialectical version is probably the most sophisticated here), there is no consensus among experts on any of these proposals.

How these proposals typically work is by first proposing an argument schema for legitimate arguments from authority and then showing how illegitimate arguments from authority deviate from this schema. This is essentially what the website you cite is doing as well. The author is positing that there are really 2 different versions of the argument from authority, differentiated not by logical form, but by the strength claimed to follow from expertise in the premises. Again, I'll reiterate that I'm not opposed in principle to adding this to the Form section of the article. But I'll point out that this author's proposal is really pretty similar to what we already have in the article (that is, it agrees with (1) that some arguments from authority are not fallacious and (2) on some of the common ways in which arguments from authority can be fallacious). The main difference is that it pulls out one way in which arguments from authority can be fallacious and calls it the Strong Version of the argument. But everyone else already acknowledges that what he (Jackson?) calls the Strong Version is fallacious, they just think of it as a deviation from the more general form of the argument rather than being a different kind of argument. Original Position (talk) 20:26, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I did want to respond to two other points. First, I agree that the article could be improved if it gave a more serious and complete overview of the different ways in which this argument is formulated in the academic literature. But that is a lot of work, much of it probably outside the bounds of Wikipedia proper and edging into synthesis and original research. I'm also not sure that it would help most people who probably aren't interested in the academic debate about the nature of fallacies and want the highlights of what an argument from authority and its related fallacies are. But again, feel free to add more here if you are so inclined.

Second, I take your criticism of the General Form section being too technical to heart. My own background is in academic philosophy, so I am used to a higher level of abstraction than is probably appropriate for a wikipedia article. I'll try to think of ways to explain the argument in more detail rather than just relying on the logical form being self-explanatory over the next few days, and also, you should feel free to edit this as well to make it clearer. Original Position (talk) 20:44, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Your explanation is very helpful. I will have to reread all of the article taking what you said into consideration. I am very impressed if the article is able to cover everything you mentioned so concisely. (I am almost sure my Critical Thinking book did not give the general form and violations stemming from it.) So perhaps then my only concern is that it is too concise for the lay person to really appreciate how much it covers. And as you can tell, even with some background in Philosophy and quite a bit of Boolean Logic from my studies of Electrical Engineering, I missed it too. If you were teaching it in a course it would probably be fine to leave the text as is if it does do all of what you say it does and then help the students (as you just helped me) to appreciate it. So, let me think if there is a good way to keep the aspect that is so concise while also making it more accessible to the lay reader.

As an illustration of what a way to address this: when we learned Gauss's_law in Physics--which took quite some time to understand--we did not start with the simple form you see in Maxwell's Equations, which would have been incomprehensible. Like with Calculus, we more or less proved it in the way you prove that the derivative of x^2 is 2x. Then once we understood that, condensing it to the amazingly precise equation that has only two variables made sense. Despite the fact that Maxwell's equations are able to define almost every important feature of E-M classical physics, engineers still use V=IR instead which is easier to work with. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:08, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

What you are saying about the appeal is not wrong, though you are getting ridiculously wordy in saying it. However, the example you provided flatly contradicts what you are saying, so I responded to that. The only issue I really have with what you're saying is that identifying the fallacious version as the "strong" version is confusing and would be misleading. If you can find a number of sources which refer to uses of the argument in the context of deductive reasoning as the "strong" version, then I wouldn't be opposed to identifying that as an alternate term with an explanation.

However, if you want to re-write the article to emphasize the fallacious version, then I'm going to have to oppose you. The argument from authority is -at it's most fundamental level- an argument, not a fallacy. Like all arguments, it can be fallacious, and indeed, it is most often mentioned in wider society in the context of being fallacious. But Wikipedia's purpose is to inform, not to reinforce. Just as we don't declare popular psuedoscience to be real based on widespread belief, we will not identify this argument exclusively or primarily as a fallacy based on widespread belief. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:16, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Now I understand your concern. I actually believed this article was about a fallacy or collection of fallacies called "appeal to authority", rather than about a proper form of argument and the many ways one can go astray. When I was first introduced to fallacies--decades ago--it was from the mainstream media, as a collection of maybe 20 fallacies, where the idea was to learn all of them. And when I took the critical thinking class, I classified "appeal to authority" as a fallacy type rather than proper form. So you might be right that I misread my book because of bad training by mainstream media. However, the history of "appeal to authority" in our article show there was indeed a focus on the fallacies, and it appears that focus has changed somewhat recently to the focus on proper form. Maybe I had an author from the "old school" focusing more on the fallacy angle than the proper form aspect. So, it all makes more sense now. Thank you. Sorry if I wasted your time with my confusion--at least I had the good judgment to talk to you both first before trying to change the article! That said, maybe it is worth trying to help the readers who do come to the article with the kind of confusion I had, so they might leave with the insight I now have. Which might further prevent drama like you might have had in the past... --David Tornheim (talk)

Looking at the first part of the sentence "Fallacious examples of using the appeal include any appeal to authority used in the context of deductive reasoning": I definitely missed that as being identical to the strong form. Anyone not well versed in logic would be likely to miss it too. I thought the sentence was referring to any deductive reasoning, that also had at least one of the others flaws such as expert in the wrong field--rather than meaning all deductive reasoning period. I actually thought that the general form was considered deductive reasoning too. I take it because of the use of probabilities it is not considered deductive reasoning? I really regret I did not take a more advanced logic class. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Contrary evidence not rendering an appeal to authority invalid

How does presenting evidence that contradicts a position not render an appeal to authority fallacious? If Bob says X, and then I show evidence that disproves X, could someone refute that by saying "well Bob disagrees"? There is no presumption that an authority figure is correct the moment someone produces contrary evidence. The page even says that appeals to authority are not themselves evidence for a position's truth, so how can something that isn't evidence for something's truth trump evidence itself? 172.58.200.232 (talk) 03:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

How does presenting evidence that contradicts a position not render an appeal to authority fallacious?There are two answers to that. One is philosophical, the other is practical. Bleive it or not, the philosophical answer is the shorter one, so let's start with that.

The philosophical answer is that in the case where one person says "Authority X says Y so Y is probably true," and the other person says "Well, I have this evidence for Not Y right here, see?" the legitimacy/accuracy of the first person's appeal is unchanged. Y is probably still true. (Notice how that's not the same thing as "Y is true.") Even if the evidence demonstrates conclusively that Not Y was true, the argument took the case of an 'underdog win', so to speak. In other words, the less likely conclusion ended up being the true one. That doesn't undermine the likelihood of the more likely conclusion within the context of the argument. Furthermore, there will be many cases when the evidence is fabricated, in error, or misinterpreted. In these cases, more practical reasons prevail.

If you and I were arguing about whether evolution was true (and I took the "not true" position), and you said "Yeah, well my biologist friend said it's true, and he's more likely to be right about this than you," and I were to respond with "Yeah, well did you know that the mt genome of B. abyssicola, like those of other oegopsids studied so far, has two long duplicated regions that include seven genes (COX1–3, ATP6 and ATP8, tRNAAsn, and either ND2 or ND3) and that one of the duplicated COX3 genes has lost its function?" How would you parse that? The answer is (most likely) that you wouldn't. You would respond with a blank look, to which I could proudly proclaim "My evidence trumps your expert!"

Except my 'evidence' didn't do any such thing. The truth or falsehood of evolution doesn't depend on whether or not one particular squid gene has lost its function. Of course, my evidence sounds impressive, but it doesn't actually speak to the issue.

So what if, instead of that, I were to say "Yeah, well, a bird can't fly with half-formed feathers!" That's a lot more comprehensible, and (once fully considered) it speaks to the question of evolution. A sparrow bred to have wings with short, hairlike feathers would not be able to fly, yet the gradual changes predicted by evolution would have required such feathers at some point.

Again, the evidence doesn't contradict the expert, because it's only by interpreting the evidence in a narrow view (that the only purpose that feathers serve is flight) that it appears to do so.

So since you're clearly winning at this point, I pull out my trump card. I bring up a photograph of a a rock made of hardened river clay. Embedded in that rock are the footprints of what is obviously a dinosaur, right next to the footprints of what is obviously a human in moccasins. I proudly tell you to stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, and await your capitulation with smug superiority.

Except you don't capitulate, but instead pull out your mobile phone and show me that the whole internet has heard of this rock, and everyone knows it's fake. The guy who faked it even came forward to admit it. Once again, my 'evidence' did nothing to contradict your expert appeal.

In addition, part of what makes someone an expert is their ability to comprehend and accurately judge the evidence. Had I had that same hypothetical argument with your biologist friend, she could have explained to me how exactly I was misinterpreting the first two pieces of evidence, and what features of the last could have clued me in to the fact that it was faked. And if an expert source were to say something that flew in the face of evidence, and the evidence were accurate, and easily identified and interpreted? Well, that person couldn't very well be an actual expert, now could they? And if the expert were to be presented with actual evidence, correctly interpreted that spoke to the issue at hand... They'd change their mind. The appeal to their authority would not longer be in conflict with the evidence.

One final note to point out is that none of our sources state this caveat. Adding it in changes what they're saying, changing a well-sourced claim into a claim from original research. That flies in the face of WP policy. I hope this helps. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)