Appeal to authority

Living the fallacy

“Appeal to authority” or argumentum ad verecundiam is regarded as a logical fallacy since the mere fact that Joe Expert SAYS something, in the absence of actual evidence, his statement—in and of itself—proves nothing. There are at least two problems with this, however.

Some things, such as the meaning of words and axioms in geometry, are taken to be true by definition, since without them further progress could not be made. Moreover, from our early childhood, the way we learn is to “listen to teacher” because we must assume what they say is true to advance in our education.

Of course, at a relatively young age, many of us start to question things we hear, even from experts such as our teachers and politicians. As we get older, we discover that to be part of a group, we must often accept certain customs and mores that we secretly may not believe. But, we compromise: We “go along to get along.”

We find that life can be easier if we just listen to the Experts—our betters. Thus, the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy that is practiced by nearly everyone, every day of their lives.

In a grotesquely egregious example, Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the COVID pandemic, along with corresponding bureaucrats at the CDC and FDA, were given near-dictatorial powers. This was accomplished either without any evidence whatsoever, or by the citation of farcical “studies” in which the desired results were already baked into the methodology.

Worse still, formerly world-renowned experts such as Dr. Peter McCullough were “canceled,” since they dared to question the prevailing orthodoxy. Moreover, long established tenets of medicine such as being scrupulously careful in prescribing meds to pregnant and lactating women were abandoned in the case of the “vaccines.”

Pfizer openly stated upon the release of the vaccines that they did not have sufficient data to establish safety for that cohort, but the “experts’ stepped in and ordered the pregnant and lactating women to get the jabs. A more flagrant example of the appeal to authority fallacy can scarcely be imagined!

A current version of the fallacy expands it, whereby TRUTH itself is defined as whatever is uttered by the preferred expert, and no dissent is tolerated. This “truth,” then, is eagerly promoted by the mockingbird media, and its attack dogs will use Alinsky-like tactics to mock anyone who dares to disagree.

An amusingly ridiculous example of a media attack dog is one Mike Freeman, USA Today’s Race and Inequality Editor--Sports. (No, I didn’t make up that title.) Freeman specializes in click-bait headlines, and is so imbued with the Establishment viewpoint that sometimes it’s difficult to believe that he is serious. To make matters worse, he often links out to pages that don’t support the point he’s making.

In a recent piece entitled “With Bronny James vaccine tweet, Elon Musk continues to show he's a malignant danger,” Freeman decries the fact that anyone should even be suggesting that the “vaccines” were responsible for James’ July 24th cardiac arrest. Never mind that it is incredibly rare for an otherwise healthy 18-year-old to have cardiac arrest or that that heart issues are a known side effect of the jabs. Freeman states:

“You can imagine the worry of the family over their son. A civilized person certainly would. Musk instead used James' potentially life-threatening situation as an excuse to continue his deep dive into conspiracies and dangerous behavior.”

I would bet that the vaccine issue came up in the James household, since it is human nature to wonder about the cause of an unexpected health crisis—especially in a child. Yet, even here, Freeman has to carry water for his Establishment masters. Just how free is Freeman, anyway?

Expect to see even more mockingbird media appeal to authority meltdowns as they tie themselves into knots defending Joe Biden’s quite obvious corruption.