(May 23, 2013 at 4:01 pm)One Above All Wrote: Argument from authority (or argumentum ad verecundiam for those who prefer the Latin naming of fallacies) is only a fallacy when the authority is not an authority on the subject at hand, like, say, a preacher and physics.
Okay... Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate any authority is in what they say on any subject: their saying X is so does not make X so. The argument IS EQUALLY VALID (by logic) to an identical argument made by ANYONE else. That is to say: the position of any person has no bearing upon an argument they make being sound or not, valid or not...
Every argument from authority (X because Y is qualified/an authority on Z) is a logical fallacy, because it's logically invalid (the argument is irrelevant to logic).
You would be better served to simply make the argument, absent any authority. Then it can't be flatly denied for being an argument from authority, and will be judged on the content of the argument alone
* Violet serves worthless forum denizens yet again. She bets that they don't understand it anyway.
Just... don't make arguments to the person, to the authority, to the ANYTHING except the argument itself You'll live longer, love longer, and fart longer. All good things.
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day