(March 25, 2013 at 8:25 pm)jstrodel Wrote: If someone thinks that all arguments from authority are fallacious, it is because they have never done any serious research, not because they are advancing a controversial issue.
If you had a quote from a person that shows that they think all arguments from authority are fallacious, you might have... something. As it is, it seems you're reaching. If the person in question agreed in a follow-up post that not all arguments from authority are fallacious, perhaps you missed it or simply decided to misrepresent what that person thinks. Some people might think that misrepresenting a written exchange is a bit dishonest.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould