Is Appeal to Authority Ever Acceptable?

[DeistPaladin]

I've been noticing an increasing number of people saying that an appeal to authority argument isn't fallacious if said person is actually knowledgable in the subject matter. This doesn't make sense to me.

Person says x is true
Person is very knowledgable in field that x is in
Therefore, x is true.

What?

As others have posted, even experts need to provide reasons why they believe something is true. Otherwise, it's little more than a "cause I said so".

For example, I don't believe in evolution because Dawkins says so. Dawkins says so and then provides evidence to back up his claims.

Some of the identified logical fallacies are so because there's an assumption that X MUST be true because of Y rule of thumb. For example:

Slippery Slope: One former friend of mine disputed this was a logical fallacy because political movements and careers are sometimes built on a series of minor victories, one opening the door for another. To use a fictional X-Men example, today's "registration" of mutants might be tomorrow's rounding up of mutants. However, this is not what the Slippery Slope is. The Slippery Slope Fallacy is the assumption without supporting evidence that A MUST INEVITABLY lead to B.

Correlation and Causation: If you find correlation, there is cause to further examine whether or not there is causation. It becomes a logical fallacy when there is the assumption without evidence that correlation = causation. It may be, as with the famous example of ice cream sales and violent crime rates (both go up in the summer) that A and B have a common causation even though the two have nothing to do with each other.

In both examples, the reason they are fallacies is because the involve an assumption without evidence.

[Anomalocaris]

Person says x is true
Person is very knowledgable in field that x is in
Therefore, x is true.

What?

Person says X is true
X belongs in field Y
Person DEMONSTRATES impressive knowledge in field Y
Prerson DEMONSTRATES intellectual integrity
Upon examination and reflection it does not become appearent to me why person might be wrong about X
I accept "X is true" to be A CONTENDER as a working theory.

[kılıç_mehmet]

No, not necessarily Mehm. "Well educated" people are as capable of being incorrect as the completely uneducated.............

(that's ignoring those "experts" in fields in which there is little or nothing in the way of "fact" to begin with)

Well, of course, but the correctness of educated people are for people of their own field to decide.
Not us.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

No, not necessarily Mehm. "Well educated" people are as capable of being incorrect as the completely uneducated.............

(that's ignoring those "experts" in fields in which there is little or nothing in the way of "fact" to begin with)

Well, of course, but the correctness of educated people are for people of their own field to decide.
Not us.

But that just takes us to appeal to majority fallacy.