Fallacy Name:
Appeal to Anonymous Authority
Alternative Names:
Hearsay
Appeal to Rumor
Category:
Fallacy of Weak Induction > Appeals to Authority
Explanation:
This fallacy occurs whenever a person claims we should believe a proposition because it is also believed or claimed by some authority figure or figures — but in this case the authority is not named.
Instead of identifying who this authority is, we get vague statements about “experts” or “scientists” who have “proven” something to be “true.” This is a fallacious Appeal to Authority because a valid authority is one who can be checked and whose statements can be verified. An anonymous authority however, cannot be checked and their statements cannot be verified.
Examples and Discussion:
We often see the Appeal to Anonymous Authority used in arguments where scientific matters are at question:
- 1. Scientists have found that eating cooked meat causes cancer.
2. Most doctors agree that people in America take too many unnecessary drugs.
Either of the above propositions may be true — but the support offered is completely inadequate to the task of supporting them. The testimony of “scientists” and “most doctors” is only relevant if we know who these people are and can independently evaluate the data which they have used.
Sometimes, the Appeal to Anonymous Authority doesn’t even bother to rely upon genuine authorities like “scientists” or “doctors” — instead, all we hear about are unidentified “experts”:
- 3. According to government experts, the new nuclear storage facility poses no dangers.
4. Environmental experts have demonstrated that global warming does not really exist.
Here we don’t even know if the so-called “experts” are qualified authorities in the fields in question — and that is in addition to not knowing who they are so we can check the data and conclusions. For all we know, they have no genuine expertise and/or experience in these matters and have only been cited because they happen to agree with the speaker’s personal beliefs.
Sometimes, the Appeal to Anonymous Authority is combined with an insult:
- 5. Every open-minded historian will agree that the Bible is relatively historically accurate and that Jesus existed.
The authority of “historians” is used as a basis to argue that the listener should believe both that the Bible is historically accurate and that Jesus existed. Nothing is said about who the “historians” in question are — as a result, we cannot check for ourselves whether or not these “historians” have a good basis for their position.
The insult comes in via the implication that those who believe the claims are “open-minded” and, therefore, those who don’t believe aren’t open-minded. No one wants to think of herself as being closed-minded, so an inclination to adopt the position described above is created. In addition, all historians who reject the above are automatically excluded from consideration because they are simply “closed-minded.”
This fallacy can also be used in a personal way:
- 6. I know a chemist who is an expert in his field, and according to him evolution is nonsense.
Who is this chemist? What field is he an expert in? Does his expertise have anything at all to do with a field which relates to evolution? Without that information, his opinion about evolution cannot be regarded as any reason to doubt evolutionary theory.
Sometimes, we don’t even get the benefit of an appeal to “experts”:
- 7. They say that crime is increasing because of a lax court system.
This proposition may be true, but who is this “they” who says so? We don’t know and we cannot evaluate the claim. This example of the Appeal to Anonymous Authority fallacy is particularly bad because it is so vague and vacuous.
The Appeal to Anonymous Authority fallacy is sometimes called an Appeal to Rumor and the above example shows why. When “they” say things, that is just a rumor — it might be true, or it might not be. We cannot accept it as true, however, without evidence and the testimony of “they” cannot even begin to qualify.
Prevention and Treatment:
Avoiding this fallacy can be difficult because we all have heard things that have led to our beliefs, but when called upon to defend those beliefs we can’t find all of those reports to use as evidence. Thus, it is very easy and tempting to simply refer to “scientists” or “experts.”
This isn’t necessarily a problem — provided, of course, that we are willing to make the effort to find that evidence when asked. We should not expect anyone to believe it just because we have cited the so-called authority of unknown and anonymous figures. We also shouldn’t jump on someone when we see them doing the same. Instead, we should remind them that an anonymous authority isn’t sufficient to get us to believe the claims in question and ask them to provide more substantive support.
