No True Skeptic
How often have you heard a skeptical colleague say something like this: “You’re saying you think this herbal remedy works because the Cochrane Collaboration reports it works? Well, that sounds like an appeal to authority! That’s a logical fallacy: no true skeptic would resort to such evidence.”
Every time I hear this, I cringe. It’s a common misconception among skeptics that Appeal to Authority is always a logical fallacy, and that this type of evidence should be eschewed or even mocked. I appreciate that it’s well-meaning, but it’s a very important skeptical tool whose omission is unjustified.
This is a problem for two reasons: firstly, it leads to bad reasoning and therefore false conclusions. Secondly, it contradicts a lot of what skeptics say to outsiders about how to apply critical thinking to everday topics. This undermines skepticism by encouraging muddled thinking and sending a confusing message.
Why does calling Appeal to Authority sometimes make sense; and yet… sometimes it does not make sense?
Confusion is understandable. Let’s consider two examples:
- “I believe that Prozac is not a good prescription for patients with mild depression because Tom Cruise says so.”
versus
- “I believe that Prozac is not a good prescription for patients with mild depression because the American Association of Psychiatrists says so.”
Why does the second one sound like a better argument than the first? The first argument looks like complete crap, but the second argument sounds quite acceptable. Maybe it’s not about the argument’s pattern so much as its content?
If I reject all arguments with this type of format, I may run into serious problems promoting skeptical views. How do I know that Homeopathy doesn’t work? Experiments show this. My experiments? Well, no. Some other people did them. I’m pretty sure the results are correct, because I’m pretty sure the scientists involved are competent. And I guess this is the case because other scientists say they are competent, and anyway, their findings were peer-reviewed by a panel of scientists whom the publisher selected for their competence (no doubt, based on the opinion of their peers).
In an imaginary dialogue with a non-skeptic, every argument we bring forward will ultimately be exposed to be based on a statement by some authority, be that a famous skeptic or physicist, or a publication like JAMA or Cell or Science, or a textbook, or Wikipedia… If we were to decide that we no longer accept scientific publications we have not personally vetted to the last detail, what are we going to use when making decisions?
Worse: if we take the extreme view that we can only have opinions on facts we have independently verified, we as individuals will have a very tiny scope of competence. I can be sure about what brand of toothpaste I used this morning, but I don’t personally understand Riemann tensor applications in four-dimensional non-Euclidean mathematical models of spacetime.
Which means I couldn’t justify having an opinion on general relativity, if I couldn’t appeal to an authority on the issue.
Bottom line: complete rejection of the general format for appeal to authority really works like applied hypocrisy, and i think nonskeptics are correct to point this out.
So, this raises the question: why do we often see appeal to authority listed as a logical fallacy, yet we seem to use it to support the bulk of skeptical claims? Why is this not a contradiction?
If it deducts like a quack
The root of the problem is that appeal to authority is always a fallacy when it’s in a deductive argument framework, but may not be a fallacy in an inductive argument framework.
Deductively, the argument stinks on ice: “X is absolutely true because authority Y says so.” – That’s junk.
But inductively, the argument has great strength, and may be quite valid: “X is probably true because Y says so, and he’s a legitimate authority on this topic.” – That’s critical thinking.
In a world where our scientific knowledge is tenative and probablistic, arguments regarding scientific facts are always inductive. (Except maybe in math, where we can decree facts instead of discovering them through a web of probably-true prior findings.)
Skeptics need to understand how to harness the power of inductive thinking in order to live in a real world with its varying degrees of uncertainty and in order to make decisions in areas where we do not personally have good knowledge. One way is to tap into expertise. But we want to be sure that we’re tapping into legitimate authority or we will come to lots of incorrect conclusions.
Due to the confusion of naming, some philosophers have attempted to distinguish between the fallacy and the legitimate use. A common naming convention is to use the following for correct usage:
- argument from authority or
- appeal to authority
and to label incorrect usage in one of these ways:
- appeal to inappropriate authority or
- appeal to misleading authority or
- appeal to questionable authority or
- appeal to irrelevant authority.
… depending on the reason it’s identified as fallacious
On Who’s Authority?
So: how do we identify a legitimate authority? There’s no perfect system, and no established consensus, but the a widely used approach is to recognize the hidden premises (implied premises) and attempt to validate them, using unbiased judgement.
- an appeal to authority is necessary to resolve this issue
- this issue falls within an established field
- there is a consensus in the field on this issue
- this person is recognized as an authority in his field
- this person is recognized as an authority on this issue
- the authority is disinterested
If all of these hidden premises are likely to be true, then the argument should be accepted by a critical thinker, and that includes skeptics. If any are unlikely to be true, the argument has less weight.
Using this technique, skeptics will find that the dispute really is about these hidden premises. Mostly: is the person actually a credible authority in this subject.
Why does this myth persist within the skeptical community?
My guess is that there are two main reasons: firstly, skeptics do recognize that Appeal to Authority is a poor substitute for actually trying to understand the issue, and it is never a guarantee of being correct. Usually, there’s a nonskeptic trying to refute something that makes perfect sense in its own right with some quote from somebody famous who knows jack about the subject matter. When it’s turned around and we’re shown that much of the scientific evidence skeptics use is argument from authority as well, the subtlety is missed and skeptics seem to be satisfied living with some kind of cognitive dissonance or rationalization.
The second reason is that many skeptics consider themselves to be independent thinkers, counterculture, many are libertarians, and there is a recalcitrant anti-authoritarian streak embedded in the community. There’s also a matter of being confronted with our limitations: I really don’t understand Riemann tensors and can’t apply non-Euclidean geometric theorems to fourspace, but I sure wish I could. When forced into the cognitive dissonance of either confronting my understandable incompetence in this subject matter and admitting that I have to accept the consensus of authorities on general relativity, versus on the other hand, decreeing that I really do understand it somehow and that the authorities are irrelevant… I can understand how emotionally tempting the latter may be.
But that way lies crackpottery, not skepticism.
-graeme kennedy
vancouver, bc
dec 8 2008
Coming up:
- You Can’t Prove a Negative
- Teaching Science and Critical Thinking Will Make People More Skeptical
- Skeptics Are More Intelligent Than Woos
- Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence