atheism, philosophy and emotional immaturity

[DeistPaladin]

You guys are dumb. I'm not going to argue about this anymore. An argument from authority is not categorically fallacious, anyone who thinks it is is just ignorant of basic academic knowledge and is ignorant of the probabilistic nature of science and learning. If you think an argument from authority is categorically fallacious, it is because you learned how to think from reading a website, not from a real university.

OK, I'll try to go slower...

Argument from Authority, under the two conditions I cited, is fallacious not because a website on logical fallacies says so. This would be an example of the second condition I cited.

The reason the argument is fallacious in the first condition is an expert in one field, even a very smart expert, is not necessarily knowledgeable of other fields. Neither does the expertise in one field necessarily translate to another. For example, Newton, though a genius in matters of physics, isn't necessarily qualified in the field of philosophy or theology.

In fact, Sir Issac Newton, just to expand on the example, had a number of nutty ideas about alchemy. Today, we realize that alchemy is crap. However, just because Newton believed in it doesn't mean we reconsider the value of the study of alchemy. Similarly, just because Newton believe in nutty things like alchemy doesn't mean he's discredited in his contributions on physics (see fallacy "Poisoning the Well").

My explanation as to why the Argument from Authority in the second example should be sufficient. "Because I said so" is never a good proof of anything. Even experts need to provide evidence to substantiate their claims.

Both conditions underscore how science evaluates evidence. Science doesn't care about reputations or past contributions. Neither does science dismiss evidence simply because the presenter is discredited from advocating other crackpot ideas. Science evaluates the evidence itself.

That's why Argument from Authority is a fallacy under either or both of the two conditions I stipulated.