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Member (Idle past 3076 days) Posts: 88 From: Portland, OR United States of America Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The folly of "authority" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warthog Member (Idle past 3969 days) Posts: 84 From: Earth Joined:
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quote: Exactly. I do think the biggest problem isn't that 'experts' are overconfident in other fields but that people believe them without thinking or checking. The late 'great' Henry Morris, who had so much to say on evolution and the origin of the world was a civil engineer. What's even worse is that when any celebrity speaks about anything, people listen. This is the reason that advertisers use them. This isn't limited to the authority of scientific qualifications. Why a movie stars opinion on a scientific or political argument has any authority, I don't know. I think the process is similar to Brand Awareness used in marketing. A recognised name, (like Dawkins) adds weight to the argument. In a similar manner, 'scientist' and 'PhD' are recognised stamps of authority - brands, if you will. I believe that the 'science brands'TM would have a more powerful effect on people who pride themselves on rational thought than other 'brands'. In a way, it's not about the argument but the presentation. Kent Hovind did everything in his power to 'suggest' that he had a real PhD for exactly this reason. One thing I have learned (and been taught) is that none of us is immune to this effect. If you are aware of it, you can protect yourself to a degree; If you delude yourself into thinking you're immune, you are doomed.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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One thing I have learned (and been taught) is that none of us is immune to this effect. If you are aware of it, you can protect yourself to a degree ... ... or from a degree ...
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Evlreala Member (Idle past 3076 days) Posts: 88 From: Portland, OR United States of America Joined: |
Thank you for your responce, my work schedule is rather hectic at the moment so I apologise it took so long to get back.
PaulK writes: We had a (rather confused) discussion of this not so long ago.Essentially, while an argument from authority is not logically valid, it can be a reasonable argument, so long as a genuine authority reflecting mainstream views in the appropriate field is cited. I'm sorry, this is slightly confusing for me, how can an argument be logically invalid and still be reasonable? Could you explain what a "genuine authority" is in context to what you mean? (More to the point, how does one determine what qualifies another to be a "genuine authority"?)
PaulK writes: Non-mainstream views with significant support among relevant experts may be cited as possibilities, but it would be going too far to expect others to accept them on that basis. Why? The way I understand it, advancements in science are accepted based on the merit of the ideas in conjunction with the validity of the methods used to test the idea. Why should it matter if the idea is popular or not?
PaulK writes: Crank views, even from those with relevant qualifications, can't be reasonably supported by authority at all. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "mainstream".
PaulK writes: The main reason is practical - we can't know as much as the experts and may not be able to investigate a claim in sufficient depth. In that case, the consensus opinion of the experts may be as good as we can get. Forgive me, but I find this reasoning highly questionable.1) "we can't know as much as the experts..." I disagree. If what seperates the leyfolk from the experts is a matter of formal education vs. informal education (or simplly an incomplete formal education), what you are in saying is that it is impossible to obtain higher knowlege in a given field outside of a formal setting. 2)"...and may not be able to investigate a claim in sufficient depth."Yet it could also be said that we may be able to investigate a claim in sufficient depth. Wouldn't that entirely depend on a case by case basis? If an experament was performed, wouldn't the basis of determining if the results hold merrit be decided based on the observations made, methodology used, repeatability of the experament, understanding of the observations made, and the "peer review" process? 3) "In that case, the consensus opinion of the experts may be as good as we can get."Thats presuming a lot... Once again, thank you for responding. I don't know when I'll find time to respond more, but I appreciate it none the less!
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Well, there are some cases in which an appeal to qualifications is legitimate.
Case (1): Creationist says "look, here's someone who you never heard of who back in 1959 said something against evolution, and he was a professor of biology. Hah!" In this case, it is reasonable to list all the academies of science and Nobel Prize winners who've said something in favor of evolution, and then ask to see the actual arguments of the isolated crank who no-one's ever heard of. That is, an argument from authority can be used to destroy an argument from authority, and to demand that the playing field should at least be level. Case (2): Creationist says: "It follows from this well-known scientific fact that ..." For example, a claim that the Big Bang contradicts the First Law of Thermodynamics. Now, if the creationist backed this up with actual math, then it would be possible to find an actual flaw in the math, but he won't 'cos of being a creationist, and wrong (but I repeat myself). Faced with this non-argument argument, I think it is fair enough to point out various physicists who are all for the Big Bang, and to ask: "Do you suppose that these guys with Ph.Ds in physics, these professors of physics, the people with Nobel Prizes, do you really suppose that they don't know about a fundamental law of physics which you learned when you were in high school? Really? Is this something they could all have overlooked?" One might then ask to see the actual math. An interesting historical non-creationist example of this form of fatuity is given by the infamous New York Times editorial lampooning Robert Goddard's early work on rockets:
That Professor Goddard with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action and reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to reactto say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. It might have occurred to the anonymous author of this editorial that maybe a man with a Ph.D. in physics and the support of the Smithsonian did know stuff that was taught in high schools. Case (3): A creationist says "The scientific facts are (something creationists have made up) rather than what scientists say they are." For example, I recently had the pleasure of talking to someone who exalted Ann Coulter's opinions on the fossil record over those of geologists and paleontologists, whom my interlocutor described as "stuffed shirts". Now, my reply had nothing to do with academic qualifications as such. However, there is still an argument that the professionals know better, and it is this. Everything we know originates with someone's direct experience. For example, everything we know about the mating rituals of grebes originates with people who have looked at the mating rituals of grebes. We might suspect that all the grebe-watchers are liars or fools, but we cannot know better than them without going and looking at some grebes. Now, in the same way, neither Ann Coulter nor her acolyte can know more about rocks than people who spend their lives looking at rocks without spending some of their own time looking at rocks. As I say, this does not rest on academic qualifications, a dedicated amateur could perfectly well meet this criterion. However, professional geologists do in fact spend their working lives studying rocks, and so uniformly do meet this criterion, and therefore do have an epistemological superiority over people who have never done so but are strongly opinionated on the subject. --- One common feature of all these cases are that they are responses to what I have called "non-argument arguments". That is, they would be irrelevant if, in the first case, the creationist produced the reasoning concerning evolution; if, in the second case, the creationist produced the math concerning the Big Bang; or if, in the third case, the creationist produced some evidence about geology. Then we could talk about that instead. But when a creationist produces an argument too vague and inchoate to assess on its nonexistent merits, then responses such as I have described are valid. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I'm sorry, this is slightly confusing for me, how can an argument be logically invalid and still be reasonable? Pretty much all reasonable arguments are logically invalid. "No-one has ever seen a fire-breathing wombat. Therefore, wombats can't breathe fire." Oh look, this is the logical fallacy known as "Affirming The Consequent". A reasonable argument can rest on a premise that is merely reasonable; for example in case (2) in my previous post it is reasonable to suppose that the world's most eminent physicists haven't all overlooked a law of physics that appears in high school textbooks. --- The Argument From Authority strictu sensu is not merely illogical, it is also unreasonable --- "An person with scientific qualifications has said this. Therefore it must be true"; this is of course illogical, that goes without saying, but it is also unreasonable because in fact there can hardly be anything so false that it has not at some time or another been said by someone with scientific qualifications. We know not merely that it is logically invalid, but that as a matter of common experience it doesn't work; unlike the claim about wombats not breathing fire, which is strictly speaking an illogical inference, but which does work.
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Evlreala Member (Idle past 3076 days) Posts: 88 From: Portland, OR United States of America Joined: |
Larni writes: So as long as the scientists derives their conclusions from the evidence and can justify their conclusion in a transparent way, the research should speak for itself. Not the authority of the researcher. Thank you, Larni.This is an apt description of my current view on the matter, I appreciate the response.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Given the truth of the premises a logically valid argument GUARANTEES the truth of the conclusion. An argument that merely provides strong support for the conclusion - no matter how near certain - is not logically valid.
quote:A genuine authority would be someone who has real expertise in the field under discussion. You would determine that by qualifications, publications, reputation within the field and so on. quote: It's not a popularity test. It's a recognition of the fact that many experts are better than one. And if ideas in science are "are accepted based on the merit of the ideas in conjunction with the validity of the methods used to test the idea" can't we assume that IF an idea is accepted in science it has merit and has undergone - and passed - valid tests ?
quote: The mainstream would be the accepted view. A crank view would be the exact opposite. Sometimes a crank idea can be proposed by a scientist and even make it into a peer-reviewed journal, like the recent paper discussed hereArguing that that paper is valid just because it was written by a scientist and got published would really be an example of a bad argument from authority. quote: As a practical matter it would be extremely hard to obtain expert level knowledge in even one field. Obtaining expert level status in more than one field would be far more difficult. Expert level knowledge in every field here would seem to be possible. Even those of us who are very well informed in a particular field (such as Cavediver in the field of physics) are probably well behind the leading experts.
quote: If you have sufficient knowledge to evaluate all those factors...In reality most of us aren't willing to pay to get the papers (and there often is a fee involved) and often poorly equipped to understand the more technical papers. And that's on the pro-science side. quote: If you really think that you understand every field better than the majority of people actually working in that field then I would say that you are the one presuming a lot. Edited by PaulK, : Added example of crank paper
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined:
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Sorry PaulK, can I just add a little bit.
quote:One thing a lot of people don't realize (and creationist organisations don't want to tell people; for them it is bread sent from heaven if one of them manages to publish something), is that getting published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is just the first baby step in the peer-review process. In that first step an article is peer-reviewed by a handful of people. Some mistakes slip through. Convincing a few people is a lot easier than convincing the bulk of the scientific community. The peer-review process actually happens after the publication. The scientific community is the one that ultimately decides whether your paper was nonsense or not. And, boy, do they analise every word written in that article! Everything. From the first word in the abstract right through to the last word in conclusions. There's always someone who will call the bluff the moment a scientist writes nonsense. When someone passes that peer-review process scientists know that they've arrived. It's not just by getting published. Being published means very little. It's getting your conclusions obtained from your research accepted by the scientific community that matters. Edited by Pressie, : Added sentences Edited by Pressie, : Added sentences Edited by Pressie, : No reason given. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
quote:It's called delusion. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
Coyote writes: Look at Fred Hoyle. A genius (at the time) when it came to his field of expertise (until his latter days when he made lots of incorrect statements, even is his own field). An absolute idiot when it came to other fields of expertise, like his "747 in a junkyard" statement. I mean, nobody could ever even try to present a dummer statement than that. Anyone who has a PhD in one area and uses it to justify their views on another is an idiot. Edited by Pressie, : Added sentence Edited by Pressie, : Added sentence
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