The argument from popularity is a logical fallacy for a good reason: there is nothing about the popularity of unpopularity of an idea which has any relation to its truth or falsehood. Popular ideas can be false and unpopular ideas can be true. Perhaps even worse than this, however, is the fact that people who use "popularity" in their arguments frequently misrepresent just how popular the relevant idea really is.
The really irritating thing about the use of the "popular=true" argument is that, almost without fail, they will include people who disagree with them in their voting bloc.
For example, a Christian will argue that the popularity of "Christianity" indicates that it's true, but this includes all the different and mutually exclusive Christianities (38,000 at last count, I think). When you actually look at the specific Christianity to which the Christian in question subscribes, it's as much of a minority view as anything else. So, according to their argument, it can't be true.
And some will even have the nerve to claim that, because there are so many "religious people" or so many people who "believe in God", that there must be something to religion or God. As if all these people don't belong to thousands of totally exclusive sects from all over the world, with competing theologies, explanations and rules.
It's almost as if they know their beliefs are nonsense and are grasping for any straw they can so they won't have to face up to that fact. But I couldn't possibly comment...
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It probably won't come as a surprise that people who use an argument from popularity will suddenly discover that popularity is no longer relevant when they find themselves on the unpopular side. In fact, many Christians who might otherwise argue in defense of theism on the basis of its popularity regularly make a fetish of the idea that Christians are a persecuted, minority group. So the popularity of theism proves that theism is true and the oppression of Christianity as a minority faith proves that it's true -- whether popular and secure or unpopular and struggling, their beliefs somehow proven true.
There are all sorts of other silly conclusions that follow from this premise as well.
After all, Jesus himself wasn’t particularly popular. I mean, sure he made enough of a stink to fall foul of the authorities, but they had to pay one of his friends to point him out so they could arrest him. Also, not all of his closest followers believed he’d been resurrected at first, so he can’t have been that convincing. Christianity really owes its success to the work Paul put in. So does that mean that Christianity wasn’t true at first when Jesus was supposedly around, then became true when it reached a certain popularity threshold? Some sort of magic number of followers that makes a belief system true?
What is the popularity threshold? A million followers? A billion? How many followers does the Church of Scientology need to get before its popularity means its claims must be true? If something is true because it’s popular, if it becomes unpopular does that mean it stops being true?
This is also one of those arguments that’s never really put across clearly by the theists. They’ll just make some oblique comment that nods in the direction of it so that if it’s shot down they can claim to have never seriously put it forward in the first place.
Mark:
It’s also interesting to note even they don’t accept popular = true. Most fundamentalists especially like to make a big deal about all these modern attitudes that have swayed “everyone” to think or do things they believe to be wrong.
One thing that always makes me laugh is that they’ll take something like a marine fossil on a mountain top and call it proof of Noah’s Flood. When you point out that the expert consensus is that it was a fossil that was put there by glacial movement that formed that same mountain range, they’ll claim scientists are educated idiots.
So, “consensus” is only meaningful when it is a consensus that supports the belief they want to support. They’ll flock to a handful of experts espousing a hugely minority opinion, and hold them up as experts. But if you hold up the heaving majority of experts that witness against them, they’ll say that all that book learnin’ amounts to a hill of beans.
And they’ll choose interpretation of some preacher over a vast community of scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of a specific area or phenomena.
I totally get/understand that even a widely and well established theory can one day be shown to be invalid (oddly enough, by scientific scrutiny, not by preachers), but in any given moment, we can only make decisions based on the best data we have access to and the most expert views we have access to. I don’t hold to the argument from authority. But I do hold to the best reason and evidence in any situation and at any given time, holding the most weight. What else would you use to base your own views on? _Less_ reasonable ideas and _worse_ evidence? I mean, we all have to work with what we “know”–and “know” can only mean the most accurate guess about what’s true we can make based on the best data that’s around and the most reasonable explanation/s…?
I will condense post 1 and 2 into a very short truism by an unknown author. When one person has a delusion it is called insanity. When millions have it, it is called religion
it also points to the appropriateness of SHEEP as a common metaphor for believers.
tracieh (2). Could you please quote a reference for the expert consensus that a marine fossil found on a mountain top was put there by glacial movement that formed the same mountain range.
While it is possible for a glacier to drag a fossil to a mountain top and deposit it, it is highly improbable. Most fossils lying on mountaintops are weathering out of underlying sedimentary rocks.
EXAMPLE: Mt. Everest is capped by a highly fossiliferous shallow warm water limestone, containing fossils ranging from foraminifera, to clams, to fish. The fossils are exposed as the limestone is broken down by chemical and mechanical weathering.
Glaciers do not form mountain ranges; however, they do form several types of low positive and negative erosional and depositional features.
38,000 different Christianities? Not even close. “Put two Baptists in one room with one Bible and you will end up with three different opinions”. They probably won’t even agree about whether Baptists should dance.