It's not arguing by appealing to authority when they are the experts in a field...
This is like the third time in the past couple of months I've had to make this point. Is there someone out there actually telling people that using what authorities say in an argument is always wrong?
The person with whom you are arguing is making the point that they may have been misdirected by prompting that turns out to have been questionable, and that they acted on this instead of properly applying their expertise.
If you're saying something like, "Well that's just not possible! They're an authority on this topic!" ...then yes, you are committing (arguably the quintessential) fallacy of appealing to authority.
By what stretch of the imagination are these not relevant authorities? Demanding to have that spelled out is either demanding to have your intellect insulted, or simply mendacity. I trust those doctors far more than I trust people trying to chop logic on some random programming site.
Only that’s not what I did. The other party is a neurologist, so the appeal to authority would be the same on either side.
UPenn treated the patients (separately doctors from UM went to Cuba and treated the patients) and all have ruled out A psychosomatic cause. Then you have a neurologist who hasn’t seen/treated the patients diagnosing them with psychosomatic mass Hysteria.
My point is clearly not an appeal to authority. Anyone who is siding with the neurologist is appealing to authority, I’m saying it’s odd to dismiss the different groups of physicians who actually treated patients and have data.
As you said, and I very much agree with "The authority of a source is not absolute proof of a claim. It is evidence, and it is evidence that should probably be given extra weight commensurate with the authority of the source"
I believe what bjourne is saying is that he believed the crickets story because he places more weight with the authority pushing that story.
will_brown is saying he things UPenn doctors have more authority.
quick edit: What I am trying to say is that bjourne should not just blow off the UPenn authority, but instead justify his own authority is better.
Not at all. I am saying UPenn doctors examined and treated the patients. Not mentioned at all is a UM doctor also went to Cuba and treated the patients. All ruled out psychosomatic mass hysteria.
Then an HN poster called that diagnosis/published study flawed and linked an article with a neurologist quoted as saying the UPenn diagnosis is wrong and it is psychosomatic mass hysteria.
My point has nothing to do with authority, I just don’t understand how anyone can dismiss the group(s) that actually examined and treated the patients based on some quotes from a neurologist in a newspaper article that diagnosis the patients without having examined/treated them.
I’ll admit in this context authority is important, but Both sides have authorities, and its those people aiding with the neurologist that are appealing to authority, because what other reason is there to side with the one doctor who hasn’t seen the patients, while all treating physicians ruled out the mass hysteria diagnosis?
Consider an unproven theorem in the MetaMath database. Now consider an amateur mathematician, or perhaps a high school student finding and formalizing a proof. Irrespective of how (un)interesting the theorem is, Norman Megill and the users of MetaMath can verify (by pure reasoning) the theorem regardless of the authority status of the author of the proof.
Appeal to "actual authority" is just appeal to authority, which is a potential proxy for truth, and the phrase "appeal to authority" reminds us that sound reasoning and logic is superior to any reference to status or past achievements.