Timeline for Is it fallacious to argue that something is correct, of good quality, or acceptable because a community of experts has established it as such?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 1, 2021 at 6:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackPhilosophy/status/1443817960095862786 | ||
| Sep 29, 2021 at 21:24 | comment | added | LarsH | Here's a good example of a serious mathematical error, perpetuated for millennia by the highest experts in the field: ems-ph.org/journals/… | |
| Sep 28, 2021 at 15:24 | comment | added | henning no longer feeds AI | Interesting question. Very pertinent with regards to Covid/vaccination/climate "skepticism". It's impossibe to verify every claim for yourself, especially if expertise is required. Everyday rationality relies strongly on trust in social institutions. | |
| Sep 28, 2021 at 13:26 | answer | added | Matthew Bowen | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 15:05 | answer | added | Flater | timeline score: -1 | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 15:01 | comment | added | Philip Klöcking♦ | @Conifold Please do not answer in comments. They are for clarifications of the question. | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 15:00 | history | protected | Philip Klöcking♦ | ||
| Sep 27, 2021 at 13:52 | answer | added | Ted Wrigley | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 13:48 | comment | added | Richard Ward | It is certainly a very circular argument, but if "correct" means "established by experts" then I see no fallacy. If there is a law that says "you must use process P to do X", then the best way to do X legally is by using process P. If you want to get a high mark in an exam, then the best way to do that is to give the answers required by the examiner. There might be a way that is better in another context, but what is good in one case may not be in others. If the examiner says "the best bakeware is plastic", I will say "the best bakeware is plastic" in the exam and then bake using aluminium. | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 13:43 | comment | added | RBarryYoung | You seem to be assuming that because general users take the advice of experts, that therefore experts may only take the advice of other experts in their decision-making. I myself have been an expert in certain narrow technical domains and I assure you that that is not how experts work. They are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating new (and sometimes old) tools, technologies and techniques in the pursuit of better quality and productivity. That is in part what makes them experts. | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 13:07 | comment | added | Stef | You ask for "the best" way to do X. But there are many criteria to take into account, and any solution will be a compromise between these criteria. One important criterion in programming is ease of understanding and maintainability. If everyone is used to one way of doing things, and you do it the same way, then your code will be easier to understand. In some situations, we have to pull obscure algorithms from research papers; but in most situations, we prefer to stick to well-known functions from standard libraries. | |
| Sep 27, 2021 at 2:56 | answer | added | NotThatGuy | timeline score: 2 | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 20:44 | answer | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | timeline score: 7 | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 14:27 | answer | added | R Giles | timeline score: 9 | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 14:27 | answer | added | Nullius in Verba | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 11:25 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Sep 26, 2021 at 8:36 | comment | added | CriglCragl | There are risks of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink cognitive bias in the form of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect and other aspects of mass psychology. | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 7:46 | comment | added | Dasem | Yes, especially when it is related to programming and accurate stuff, what important is if the tool can do the task successfully and not what people consider the best. Best is a matter of opinion window/mac for example. | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 6:57 | history | edited | AffableAmbler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 5 characters in body
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| Sep 26, 2021 at 6:26 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 1, 2021 at 3:07 | |||||
| Sep 26, 2021 at 6:06 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | @Conifold: IMHO, it's the expectation that a community of experts must be infallible that is the fallacious reasoning here. See my answer. | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 5:08 | comment | added | Conifold | No, it is not. This is exactly the case when an argument from authority is informally valid, especially when it is taken as strong evidence rather than absolutely conclusive. Such arguments are called defeasible rather than fallacious. That means that their conclusions can be overridden, but only if one has really good reasons for doing so (e.g. are themselves experts and/or have extra information unavailable to the experts). | |
| Sep 26, 2021 at 4:53 | history | edited | AffableAmbler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited title
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| Sep 26, 2021 at 3:26 | answer | added | Mozibur Ullah | timeline score: 32 | |
| S Sep 26, 2021 at 3:20 | review | First questions | |||
| Sep 26, 2021 at 14:36 | |||||
| S Sep 26, 2021 at 3:20 | history | asked | AffableAmbler | CC BY-SA 4.0 |