Talya wrote:
Logical Fallacies are useful to know, but not all are meant for every situation.
If we're discussing physics, and I decide an actual physicist is likely to be correct while Lenas the web-designer is likely to be wrong, solely because of credentials, while this is an appeal to authority, it is simply playing the odds. Subject matter experts arguments count for more than those in other fields. The "appeal to authority" fallacy is there for when academic types who actually have the understanding of the subject matter argue things, to prevent them from falling back on those who have gone before, and examine an issue anew.
An Appeal to Authority is only a logical fallacy when the person in question isn't really an authority, or when the insistence that the "authority's" conclusion
must be true based solely on the credentials of said person.
Talya wrote:
Similarly, "Appeal to probability."
If something is 99.999999% likely to have happened, lacking any other specific evidence to the contrary, it is best to assume it has happened, while still recognizing the slim possibility that it has not. The odds actually do matter.
There are a bunch of fallacies on that chart that are similarly problematic for a regular discussion.
Similarly, an appeal to probability is only a logical fallacy when there is insistence that the probable event
will, or must, occur based on the probability alone.
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