First, I’d caution against reflexively questioning appeals to authority. Arguments from authority are not fallacies despite their traditional classification as such. There is no way for an individual to experimentally verify even a small fraction of the things she counts as knowledge- it would be an absurd and unnecessary barrier. Indeed, I think cautioning against arguments from authority is a kind of keeping kosher- an outdated purity norm that is no longer necessary given modern science and method. Once upon a time it made great sense to distrust experts because the experts were often bullshitting and there were few checks to prevent them from doing so. Similarly, now we know how to cook our shellfish and so you’re not likely to get sick from eating scallops.
The problem, on the contrary, are claims being passed off as if the maker of the claim has in fact read the experts when they have not. Particularly false claims that do not contradict common sense go by undetected- and do not die. I’m thinking here of something like “Eskimos have an extraordinary number of words for snow because they’re around it all the time” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow) Snopes is obviously a fantastic resource in this regard but if we want to stop the spread of empirically false beliefs I might suggest dramatically expanding the use of wikipedia’s “citation needed” demand. What if instead of citing claims on occasion or as requested every comment was just assumed to need a citation. If a claim lacked a citation a dozen Less Wrong commenters immediately responded with just the words “citation needed?”. If original poster wants to avoid this she simply includes a citation of gives a reason why she didn’t “I’m just guessing” or “There are no empirical claims here” etc. Eventually we’d just come to expect a citation or some sort of explanation and if we didn’t see one we’d know to immediately question the claim.
(I don’t believe I’ve made any non-obvious empirical claims, but if someone wants to see evidence regarding the superiority of modern science as compared to medieval scholarship I can find that)
While I think you might be on the right track with respect to Wikipedia, this wouldn’t really work in casual (or even scholarly) discourse. There are a lot of things of which I’m confident and don’t have an immediately available justification, and tracking them down would be so time-consuming that I just wouldn’t bother to comment on anything.
Also, there is a disanalogy between Wikipedia and other kinds of scholarship; Wikipedia does not allow original research, in which the appropriate citation for a claim might be the preceding argument, and so should not be explicitly stated.
There are two cases where argument from authority is still clearly fallacious:
respecting the authority of someone who is not an expert in the appropriate field—for instance, taking the Pope’s word on evolutionary biology
regarding the authority as itself what gives truth to the claim—This happens, for instance, when one makes appeals to one’s own authority. If someone asks me for a citation and I say “I’m an expert, and I say so” then that’s insufficient.
P.S. You should change that URL to a link so MarkDown doesn’t eat it.
First, I’d caution against reflexively questioning appeals to authority. Arguments from authority are not fallacies despite their traditional classification as such. There is no way for an individual to experimentally verify even a small fraction of the things she counts as knowledge- it would be an absurd and unnecessary barrier. Indeed, I think cautioning against arguments from authority is a kind of keeping kosher- an outdated purity norm that is no longer necessary given modern science and method. Once upon a time it made great sense to distrust experts because the experts were often bullshitting and there were few checks to prevent them from doing so. Similarly, now we know how to cook our shellfish and so you’re not likely to get sick from eating scallops.
The problem, on the contrary, are claims being passed off as if the maker of the claim has in fact read the experts when they have not. Particularly false claims that do not contradict common sense go by undetected- and do not die. I’m thinking here of something like “Eskimos have an extraordinary number of words for snow because they’re around it all the time” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow) Snopes is obviously a fantastic resource in this regard but if we want to stop the spread of empirically false beliefs I might suggest dramatically expanding the use of wikipedia’s “citation needed” demand. What if instead of citing claims on occasion or as requested every comment was just assumed to need a citation. If a claim lacked a citation a dozen Less Wrong commenters immediately responded with just the words “citation needed?”. If original poster wants to avoid this she simply includes a citation of gives a reason why she didn’t “I’m just guessing” or “There are no empirical claims here” etc. Eventually we’d just come to expect a citation or some sort of explanation and if we didn’t see one we’d know to immediately question the claim.
(I don’t believe I’ve made any non-obvious empirical claims, but if someone wants to see evidence regarding the superiority of modern science as compared to medieval scholarship I can find that)
While I think you might be on the right track with respect to Wikipedia, this wouldn’t really work in casual (or even scholarly) discourse. There are a lot of things of which I’m confident and don’t have an immediately available justification, and tracking them down would be so time-consuming that I just wouldn’t bother to comment on anything.
Also, there is a disanalogy between Wikipedia and other kinds of scholarship; Wikipedia does not allow original research, in which the appropriate citation for a claim might be the preceding argument, and so should not be explicitly stated.
There are two cases where argument from authority is still clearly fallacious:
respecting the authority of someone who is not an expert in the appropriate field—for instance, taking the Pope’s word on evolutionary biology
regarding the authority as itself what gives truth to the claim—This happens, for instance, when one makes appeals to one’s own authority. If someone asks me for a citation and I say “I’m an expert, and I say so” then that’s insufficient.
P.S. You should change that URL to a link so MarkDown doesn’t eat it.