Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Authority

Authority X believes in A, therefore A must be true.

Example A:
Ida Praposar: I'm going to take a flight across the ocean from California to China. I've always been a bit nervous of flying over large bodies of water, since I'm always afraid that the plane will fall in and I'll drown.
Lojika McPhallusy: Don't worry, you won't be flying across the ocean anyway.
Ida Praposar: Why not?
Lojika McPhallusy: You'll be flying in the other direction because otherwise you will fall off the edge of the world.
Ida Praposar: What? Isn't the world round?
Lojika McPhallusy: The great tactician, Julius Caesar, believed the world is flat, and if this wasn't true there would be no way for him to have won all those battles.

Example B:
Ida Praposar: I think divorce is immoral.
Lojika McPhallussy: Well Albert Einstein, one of the smartest men who ever lived, went through a divorce, so how could he be wrong?

Example C:
Ida Praposar (singing): ... Swinging down the streets so fancy free, nobody you meet will ever see the loneliness there insi-
Lojika McPhallussy: Don't finish that last line! My religious text, the Priapus Apocrypha states that it is a holy crime to sing that one line of Georgie Girl!
Ida Praposar: Really? What will happen to me if I do so?
Lojika McPhallussy: You will get struck down immediately in a shower of electric vibrators.
Ida Praposar: ... This is the fifth time that I've sang that song today alone and nothing like that has ever happened to me. Are you sure that what you're reading isn't meant to be metaphorical?

Example D:
Ida Praposar: I think it's good to drink water.
Lojika McPhallussy: Think again, this website shows all the dangers of ingesting too much water. And as we all know, strangers on the internet will never lie to you.

This fallacy is the exact opposite (which is not to say it is good—the opposite of communism is fascism after all) of guilt by association. A person using a guilt by association fallacy will try to discredit your argument by likening it to a controversial figure, while a person using an appeal to authority fallacy will try to empower their own argument by associating it with a respected figure. appeal to authority isn't always fallacious, but it can be extremely tricky to determine when it is and when it is not.

One of the easiest forms of a fallacious appeal to authority to spot would be referencing an authority that has absolutely nothing to do with what you're arguing about. This is very easy to spot, and is shown in example A and B. Martin Luther King Jr. is not the person you should reference in an argument about evolution, and you should not consult the Church of Scientology if you need your stool sample analyzed. Something that would be handy to note is that media reporters are generally not considered authorities. They condense what actual authorities (like the police, religious leaders, doctors, scientists etcetera) have said into a more digestible form, but they are not authorities in themselves. They can, and often do, misrepresent information. This is not to say that media references must be completely discredited, but be wary of any media references used in arguments, especially ones that make no attempts to be unbiased.

Next along the line in terms of difficulty to establish are attempts to argue for unverifiable issues (such as moral or philosophical) ones by referencing that X also supports your argument, X being a popular figure, organization or text. The exception to this would be religious texts, such as the Bible, the Qur'an, the Arzhang, the Tripitaka, whatever, or by religious figures; although these can also be fallacious if they are referred to as an authority in situations where you can easily observe the answer or find it out yourself somehow. This can be seen in example C.

The hardest appeal to authority to establish is when someone actually cites a current (not long-ago-refuted) expert on the subject matter that is being argued. Here you have to determine whether the expert is biased or just plain wrong/lying to you. Asserting bias is not an easy thing to do, and except in the most obvious cases* you will probably make yourself look like a jerkface. Other "authorities" may not be authorities at all, as in example D, or they might just be giving you incorrect information. Approach this last example of appeal to authority with caution, as once you go here, you are no longer dealing with the person you are arguing with, but the source they are citing. This is why it is important to Do Your Research.

*Such as a doctor working for a tanning salon assuring everyone that tanning beds are good for you and do not, in fact, cause skin cancer. Given who his employers are, it is pretty safe to assume that if he were to offer a different opinion he would lose his job.