[extropy-chat] Appeal to Authority

[Keith Henson]

At 05:13 PM 3/16/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>I thought that it was obvious why Ian was raising this
>interesting question about Appeal to Authority. We were
>just concluding a thread in which two thoughtful and
>well-respected  :-)  writers, Hal and Robin, were in
>essence encouraging us to believe the consensus of experts
>in lieu of our own ruminations.

I didn't get that from either Hal or Robin.

>Yet we have *all* at one time or another in the middle of
>argument been irked by a sudden appeal to authority from
>out of the blue. It strikes us as irrelevant! As Eliezer
>likes to say "trust content, not speakers".

While both of them said "this happens to be the consensus of experts" I did 
not get the impression they were using the experts as reasons to believe 
the consensus, rather it was the data that the experts presented that had 
the force of conviction.

Perhaps Eliezer could judge if content was presented rather than 
speakers.  (Frankly, I didn't know any of them.)

Keith Henson