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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (614283)	6/3/2011 6:24:03 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1576883

An argument from authority isn't necessarily a fallacy. I didn't call an argument from authority a fallacy, I said it was a weak type of argument. And it is, experts are wrong all the time, and frequently different experts will say different things. An argument made by an expert isn't an argument from authority, and not only isn't (necessarily) a fallacy, it doesn't even (automatically) fall under the "weak type of argument" category, that I'd put arguments from authority under. An argument from authority is different than an argument made by an authority. The latter is any type of argument (including possibly an argument from authority from his own authority or someone else's, but its far from limited to that it can be any other type of argument). The former is "X is right because Y says it is". If Y is a false authority that's considered a fallacy. If Y is a legitimate authority its not, its just a weak type of argument. What was intellectually dishonest (or sloppy, or ignorant, I don't presume to guess which) was not the use of an argument from authority, but the claim that I was using an argument from authority when I was not.