Robert Lynn <[email protected]> wrote: Jed, the argument from authority approach with regard to climate change > doesn't work because there are so many highly educated dissenting voices . > . .
No, there are not many. Sorry, but that is not the case. I have read enough about the controversy to ascertain this. There are many people outside the field who mistakenly believe themselves to be experts, who claim they have discovered mistakes. But they are wrong. This is exactly the situation we have with cold fusion. Self-appointed experts who know nothing about the research, and who have no relevant qualifications or experience have attacked it again and again, for bogus reasons. These are often scientists, but being a scientist does not give you a magic ability to understand subjects you have not studied. I am sensitive about this because of what I have seen in cold fusion. Let me add a minor note about terminology. You have confused the issue slightly by saying "argument from authority." Usually, "argument from authority" is used to mean fallacious appeal to authority (Misuse of Authority), which is what I described before: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html Like the word "inflammable" this means the opposite of what it sounds like it means. If you can show that the authorities you are cite are actually legitimate authorities in the proper area, then your argument is valid by definition, albeit weak. If I show that Dr. X is a valid authority and he says cold fusion is real, and you show that Prof. Y is also a valid authority and she says cold fusion is not real, then we must conclude that legitimate experts disagree. We cannot depend on authority. You are saying that is the situation with global warming. However, you are wrong. There are very few actual, accredited experts in that field who disagree. There will always be SOME experts who disagree. Some people claim there are only a few accredited experts because the majority of climatologists purge the ones who disagree with them. This is unlikely. The fact that there are a few proves they are ignored, not purged. That would be the pattern in other fields. The scientists I know don't care what other scientists think. There are many individuals in cold fusion who disagree with the majority. No one listens to them, but no one tries to purge them either. Even in biology there are few creationists. They are considered eccentric but no one cares what they say. Here is some text from the nizkor.org definition of "appeal to authority:" "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious. This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true. . . . Determining whether or not a person has the needed degree of expertise can often be very difficult. In academic fields (such as philosophy, engineering, history, etc.), the person's formal education, academic performance, publications, membership in professional societies, papers presented, awards won and so forth can all be reliable indicators of expertise. . . . . . . It should be noted that being an expert does not always require having a university degree. Many people have high degrees of expertise in sophisticated subjects without having ever attended a university. Further, it should not be simply assumed that a person with a degree is an expert. Of course, what is required to be an expert is often a matter of great debate. . . ." That last point is true, but not so much for hard science. There is a world of difference between someone who has done the work it takes to get a PhD versus an amateur. I have met some very stupid PhD scientists such as Nate Hoffman and David Lindley. They make elementary logical errors. However, their technical knowledge is miles above mine. I would never challenge their judgement regarding their expertise (mass spectroscopy in Hoffman's case). In my review of Hoffman's book, I criticized him because he thought Ontario Hydro sells used moderator water in bottles. I suspected this was wrong, and quickly confirmed this water is 100 million times too radioactive to sell. I criticized him because he lacked common sense and over the two years he was writing the book, he did not bother to do what any newspaper reporter would do in the first half-hour: call Ontario Hydro on the phone. That's stupid, but it has nothing to do with spectroscopy. It is not technical stupidity. It is ordinary, garden variety stupidity. An expert outside his field is likely to be as prone to making errors is anyone else is. - Jed
