subbie responds to me:
quote:
Science relies on the Appeal to Authority because it must.
Except it doesn't. Again, you are free to distrust everybody's statement about everything and try it for yourself. In fact, science specifically encourages that. It's why you do lab work.
quote:
As I said in the OP, and as you argue yourself, nothing would ever get done if everyone had to start from scratch.
But that isn't the argument from authority. We accept the work of others not because they are authorities that should not be questioned. We accept the work of others because we are too busy doing our own work.
And here's the proof: If our findings tell us that our reliance upon the statements of others was misplaced, then we toss those statements aside. It's why we were able to displace Aristotelian mechanics with Newtonian...and then Newtonian with Einsteinian. We found things that didn't seem right which made is look again at what we thought we knew and throw it all away.
And that's the cloud that science continually functions under: Everything we think we know about everything just might be absolutely wrong. It's an observational process and nobody can observe everything. Thus, nothing anybody says is ever trusted completely.
quote:
However, the fact that it's necessary as a practical matter has nothing to do with whether it's a logical fallacy or not.
Yes, it does, because nothing in science declares something to be absolutely true. Nobody ever says, "Because Darwin said it, it must be true." Instead, everything in science is tentative and provisional, based solely upon the observations that we happen to have right here and now. There is never an appeal to authority. There is simply an act of practicality.
I hope you can understand the difference between practicality and logic, yes?
quote:
Repeatability doesn't get around the Appeal to Authority.
Yes, it does because you have the arrow of implication reversed. You are saying that people repeat experiments so that they can become authoritative. Instead, I say that people repeat experiments do deny authoritativeness. I don't calculate G on my own in order to strengthen Newton. I calculate G on my own in an attempt to prove him false.
quote:
But the fact of the matter is, no matter how many authorities you appeal it, it's the same fallacy.
But that's just it. No authority is ever appealed to. You are free to try it for yourself and see if you get something different. In fact, science specifically encourages that. It's why you do lab work.
Suppose you're doing an experiment that requires you to take a temperature. What's one of the first things you do? That's right: You calibrate the thermometers. Even if you've been using them all the time. You recalibrate your equipment because who knows what happened between yesterday and today. You do a quick reverification of the zeroth law of thermodynamics and go from there.
quote:
quote:
Be sure to publish your results when you're done. We'd love to hear what you found.
Don't hold your breath.
Look, just because you are unwilling to do the work required doesn't mean nobody else is. Science is hard. People spend their lives trying to find the most miniscule piece of new data. And they do it by questioning everything. You have to because that's part of how you find new things.
quote:
Please note carefully, I never said that the results of science are suspect because of reliance on this fallacy.
I never said you did. What I said was that there was no fallacy because there is no appeal. Everything is questioned. Nothing is accepted simply because somebody said so. Everything is tentative and provisional. You are free to distrust everybody's statement about everything and try it for yourself. In fact, science specifically encourages that. It's why you do lab work.
There can be no logical error of appeal to authority when there is no authority to appeal to and no attempt to appeal to anything.
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to
Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
™ Version 4.2
