(July 15, 2012 at 11:39 am)spockrates Wrote: It would be committing an informal fallacy to adopt the opinion of an amateure when it contradicts that of the vast majority of professional scholars. Such would be illogical.
...no, that doesn't contradict logic. Trusting the professional opinion of a vast majority of scholars might be a useful heuristic--that is, it might lead you to true beliefs more often than it leads you to false beliefs--but that doesn't make it illogical to disagree with a vast majority of professional scholars.
A layperson (in the sense of not being a scientist) in, say, 1600 who believes that something like black holes exist...is not committing an error in logic merely because a vast majority of members in the set of "professional scholars" disagrees with his belief.
And when you really think about it, your argument would lead to some absurdity. Suppose that at time t, a vast majority of scholars believes that p. If your argument is true, then it entails contradiction for an amateur to assert ~p at time t.
Now suppose that at some time t' > t, a vast majority of scholars believes that ~p. If your argument is true, then it does not entail contradiction for an amateur to assert ~p at time t'.
Isn't this an absurd result? If ~p entails contradiction at time t, shouldn't it also entail contradiction at time t'? That is, either p entails contradiction, or it does not; why should this vary over time?
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
