J_B_
I have answers to questions no one ever asks.
- May 15, 2020
- 1,332
- 385
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Private
I was replying to the comment by @Occams Barber, not the OP . However, with respect to the OP, it is probably better said that you think believers see unbelievers as making an appeal to authority. Then they make a sort of ad hominem fallacy in trying to discredit that authority. It was you who stated that hypothesis using religious language (and admitted that's what you were doing), so let's not make the mistake of now thinking believers actually make their accusations in those terms.
In contrast, I have seen believers make the types of statements @Occams Barber referred to.
So, no doubt some believers try to discredit people like Darwin, and think that will discredit evolution. That is a type of ad hominem fallacy. No doubt they also view the world through a religious lens, and sometimes struggle to put that aside and pick up the scientific lens. I think it was a clever observation on your part to use the word "apostle" to describe that situation, but don't make the same mistake you're accusing believers of - appropriating the word to the point that you think believers actually say that, or burdening those terms with a subtext that implies believer's are making a unique mistake because of their religious world view.
I was saying that, despite the ad hominem fallacy, believers do have a point. I'm sure none of the superbly educated unbelievers in this forum would ever make the mistake, but it would be naïve to say no unbeliever has ever committed an appeal to authority fallacy - quoting Darwin, Dawkins, or Gould as if that settles the matter.
It would further be naïve to think those names never had any influence on scientists by name only. Though the common sense is that science would eventually root out any mistake they might have made, their name means it would take much longer than overturning the error of John Doe Biologist. Their name influenced where the money went, what questions were researched, etc.
It is a frequent anecdote of scientific history that part of the resistance to Relativity and the 20th century scientific revolution was the indignation that anyone would ever dare challenge the great Newton. That's a major theme of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science and Frederick Gregory's history of science.
Last edited:
Upvote
0