A fallacy is usually incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. While the premises may be true, the conclusion could be false, making it a fallacy. A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument's form without an understanding of the argument's content.
A bad appeal to authority is a fallacy with the following structure:
1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is created when Person A does not have the authority to make claims about subject S. The person in question is not an expert. The claim may be true but because the person making the claim is not qualified to make the claim, the claim can be false. There are no rational reason to accept the claim as true.
Example:
Jack: Do you know the sex of your baby yet?
Jill: I just found out at 1pm today from my psychic Lauren that my baby is going to be a boy.
Jack: And you believed her?
Jill: Why of course, why wouldn't I? She's a certified California Master Psychic.
Jill believed that her baby will be a boy because her psychic told her so. Jack think it's ridiculous that she believes in someone that does not have the credibility in his eyes to make such an assumption. So just because Jill believes in her psychic, it doesn't mean other people will agree with it. This makes the claim a bad appeal to authority.
Hey merrody. I felt that your post was direct and had a very understandable main idea. Your topic was fallacies, and like the previous one I read you concentrated on the "Bad appeal to authority" fallacy. I like this one because it has so many real life and professional applications. Your example capitalizes one of the real-life cases of this fallacy as some may actually depend on psychics to predict the gender of their future baby. Although, psychics aren't scientifically proven to have the power to predict things like this, Jill in your example believes it because she received the prognosis from a certified psychic. The only thing that I would improve on your example would maybe include how Jill believes the psychic because they are a certified psychic who has done baby predictions. But overall good.
ReplyDeleteHey there! Great job with the formatting of this post, I haven't done my post for this particular topic yet, and I felt like this helped me understand the topic even better than the book did. The way you transitioned from definition, to argument structure, to an explanation of the structure was very helpful. The example you used was helpful as well because of the way you structured it similarly to the explanation you gave before, all around your post really helped my learning experience so I figure it must be good! It just goes to show that sometimes layman's terms are the best way to illustrate an advanced concept.
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