Treating the authority of the speaker as settling a question outside their competence.
A Nobel laureate in physics does not settle a nutrition question merely by virtue of the Nobel; authority carries most weight when it is relevant to the field and supported by evidence. Linus Pauling's vitamin C advocacy is the standard case: two chemistry-adjacent Nobels, and a claim the evidence never supported.
In practice
- A cardiologist's opinion on a school funding formula is quoted at length because he is a doctor.
- A committee defers to the most senior person present on a question about a software licence none of them has read.
- Standing
- Legitimate deference to relevant expertise is not this fallacy.
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- The catalogue of predictable errors