Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1470

Joe Peschel

Well, that's not too far off. See below.

Nope, that part is not right.

I am saying that appeals to authority are never enough to resolve scientific questions -- not on their own. If you want to resolve a scientific question, you ultimately need to be able to go back to independently verifiable experiments or calculations. In other words, there needs to be something more than just the opinion of some respected authority -- there needs to be evidence.

Trying to resolve a scientific dispute solely by referring to the opinion of respected authorities (without any further evidence to back up their opinions) is almost always going to be fallacious, yes. When the domain of discourse is science, appeals to authority are of some value, but they can't be the final answer.

Reliance on authorities is a crutch that people can use if they do not have the time or inclination to examine the evidence for themselves. That's fine. But if a skeptic asks to see the evidence for themselves, appealing to authority is never a valid answer. There has to be solid ground underneath the crutch, if the crutch is to have any value.

P.S. If you don't like the phrase "appeal to authority" because it means something different to you, I'm happy to use some other phrase instead if that will improve communication.