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Appeal to authority

Conaeolos

Conaeolos

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My question: does modern academic culture hurt the development of critical thought with its emphasis on sourcing? And rather than developing discerning educated people with strong understanding of their own positions creating a cult of authority?

The popular perceptions of science is a running joke in academic circles, yet, I don’t know if I can count how many times I hear when reading debates these days on what “science” says with a link to this or that source, which are rarely a primary sources might I add, but a third party interpretation often poorly sourced themselves. Once we review the methodology, scope and actual conclusions of the studies in question the public interpretation is almost always seen as a bit of a stretch. We are all guilty of appealing to it to make an argument. It’s what we are encouraged to do in our education as we need to summarize often complex issues and argue with brevity which holds with "good sourcing".

The need for correction is not unprecedented. In post-secondary math, it is trend to start developing undergrads mental math by the removal of calculators as people were noticing that with the introduction of technology, with its ability to increase our mathematical understanding, it was still having a side effect of was creating students which did not have a strong enough understanding of the fundamentals to utilize the higher potentials in the technology.

I am deeply suspicious this is becoming the case with critical thinking. In the past, one had to do a fair bit of research thus taking in vast amounts of knowledge to accurately source a statement, a process which builds ones radar for weak arguments and evidence. This process however has been replaced by filtering algorithms which open huge new possibilities, but leaving students without the ability to discern bad methodology/arguments from solid methodology/clear arguments preferring instead to filter based on reputation which may get “right” answers but is hollow when taken into the real world. The effect seem to be a culture obsessed with an appeal to authority, concerned more with the source of ones position than the merits of the arguments themselves. Thoughts?
 
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Conaeolos said:
My question: does modern academic culture hurt the development of critical thought with its emphasis on sourcing? And rather than developing discerning educated people with strong understanding of their own positions creating a cult of authority?

The popular perceptions of science is a running joke in academic circles, yet, I don’t know if I can count how many times I hear when reading debates these days on what “science” says with a link to this or that source, which are rarely a primary sources might I add, but a third party interpretation often poorly sourced themselves. Once we review the methodology, scope and actual conclusions of the studies in question the public interpretation is almost always seen as a bit of a stretch. We are all guilty of appealing to it to make an argument. It’s what we are encouraged to do in our education as we need to summarize often complex issues and argue with brevity which holds with "good sourcing".

The need for correction is not unprecedented. In post-secondary math, it is trend to start developing undergrads mental math by the removal of calculators as people were noticing that with the introduction of technology, with its ability to increase our mathematical understanding, it was still having a side effect of was creating students which did not have a strong enough understanding of the fundamentals to utilize the higher potentials in the technology.

I am deeply suspicious this is becoming the case with critical thinking. In the past, one had to do a fair bit of research thus taking in vast amounts of knowledge to accurately source a statement, a process which builds ones radar for weak arguments and evidence. This process however has been replaced by filtering algorithms which open huge new possibilities, but leaving students without the ability to discern bad methodology/arguments from solid methodology/clear arguments preferring instead to filter based on reputation which may get “right” answers but is hollow when taken into the real world. The effect seem to be a culture obsessed with an appeal to authority, concerned more with the source of ones position than the merits of the arguments themselves. Thoughts?
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Appealing to authority is the lazy way to make an argument. No need to think the issue through, just bring in an expert who seems to back up your argument. Perhaps you don't even understand the expert's argument.

But even beyond that, people have no ability to discern a good authority from a bad one. Errors arise that get propagated through a field of study for years and years, and efforts to get people to see the errors are rebuffed. I can think of one particular field in which wrong data resulted in the waste of billions of dollars of R&D money. It was as if they built hundreds of airplane prototypes based on incorrect engineering assumptions and then watched plane after plane crash into the ground before they realized they had a problem. Quite literally 100% failure on over 100 attempts. Then they finally learned not to trust the data being offered. Then they learned they had to be able to understand the expert's opinions and validate their data. Even so, the ability to progress in that field has been severely damaged, possibly for generations.
 
Conaeolos said:
It’s what we are encouraged to do in our education as we need to summarize often complex issues and argue with brevity which holds with "good sourcing".



The effect seem to be a culture obsessed with an appeal to authority, concerned more with the source of ones position than the merits of the arguments themselves. Thoughts?
Click to expand...


An appeal to authority does not exclude sourced information, and as you say, the education system we have encourages debate and disagreement in order to advance on a subject. Disparaging the oppositions claims as you have done are part of that.

I am deeply suspicious
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In the era of internet that is probably the best way to be.
 
you should see the bigger picture: confusion and sabotage of the science can be done with intention to make science subordinated to the government and big business.
the same as the science was subordinated to the church in the middle age.
maybe the gov doesn't need a progressive science anymore, maybe they need subordinated science i.e. students and professors.

they educate you that you make more money to them, not that you do something good for society.
 
Well since this thread didn’t really take off as no-one who disagrees seems to have posted. I’ll discuss.

alanford said:
you should see the bigger picture: confusion and sabotage of the science can be done with intention to make science subordinated to the government and big business.
the same as the science was subordinated to the church in the middle age.
Click to expand...
The scientific method has not been modified. The term science is simply being used to mean something very different from everything it teaches by a mostly non-scientific audience although even that may be changing.

I am reminded of an undergraduate biology class I had back in the day, where in we were learning all about skepticism and the reliability of lab data. The assignment was to plot your lab results with those of the class as to establish why we need ranges to account for experimental error.

Me and my partner were the only ones who voided another groups data as outliers making our report a lot more accurate and narrowing the range significantly, we had a different plot graph. Leaving the note: the math on this result is impossible as it was clear they made an arithmetic error and we showed based on their reported data what that error likely was. What we did was science, yet we got the same mark as everyone else and despite a wink and smile from the graduate student running the lab it was never discussed or shown to others(not even the group to have done the error) leaving the class to believe they had all gotten the assignment correct as they had followed the directions.

Not all negative societal forces have to be orchestrated. I think the public naivety of scientific research are simply being exploited by those force intent on what you are saying and are not themselves orchestrating it. It may even been unintentional.

they educate you that you make more money to them, not that you do something good for society
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Well then the jokes on they because all there doing is creating opportunities for others and creating their wealth on a house of cards…not that I believe that makes me unless sure there are those doing just that. Although we probably have a very different opinion on the scale of the problem.
 
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” -- Max Planck

So maybe old people like me just need to die and get out of the way.
 
texasedu said:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” -- Max Planck

So maybe old people like me just need to die and get out of the way.
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In due time, that will happen. Or, just retirement is quite often good enough
 
LowDown said:
Appealing to authority is the lazy way to make an argument. No need to think the issue through, just bring in an expert who seems to back up your argument. Perhaps you don't even understand the expert's argument.

But even beyond that, people have no ability to discern a good authority from a bad one. Errors arise that get propagated through a field of study for years and years, and efforts to get people to see the errors are rebuffed. I can think of one particular field in which wrong data resulted in the waste of billions of dollars of R&D money. It was as if they built hundreds of airplane prototypes based on incorrect engineering assumptions and then watched plane after plane crash into the ground before they realized they had a problem. Quite literally 100% failure on over 100 attempts. Then they finally learned not to trust the data being offered. Then they learned they had to be able to understand the expert's opinions and validate their data. Even so, the ability to progress in that field has been severely damaged, possibly for generations.
Click to expand...

The problem gets a bit worse when the conclusion is based in confirmation bias and or circular reasoning.

It is perfectly fine to cite an expert in fact it is the right thing to do but it is the vetting of that expert that most people don't do.

On appeal to authority it has more to do with citing someone as an authority when they are not.
 
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