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  1. Appeal to Authority

    by , 03-23-2017 at 06:25 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    This is another in my occasional series of logical fallacies. Appeal to Authority (Latin argumentum ad verecundiam) is quite popular, and some people think that it operates as a trump card. If old So-and-So says so, then it must be true. Well, that's not how one wins an argument; the one with the best facts and the logic wins. Even if your authority is a recognized authority on the subject at hand you have to present the data and the logical argument, but it is more common for people to cite an ...