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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 6849240" data-attributes="member: 23751">The wiki is wrong in that claim and actually contradicts itself.  The form of the fallacy which it lists a bit down the page is correct.  Other research will also show you that an appeal to authority applies to real authorities.  Below is the form of the fallacy from the wiki which you seem to value so much.  Note how that's exactly what Pemerton did.  He held that a claim was true because he was an authority on the subject.  He later claimed a consensus of authorities agreed.  Lawyers and philosophers.  Never mind that lawyers and philosophers disagree all the time.X holds that A is true.X is an authority on the subject.The consensus of authorities agrees with X.There is a presumption that A is true.Now, the reason that it's a fallacy is that authorities very, very often will disagree on positions.  Something that lawyers know very well since they hire experts (authorities) to swear under oath that the other experts (authorities) are wrong about what they are swearing under oath.  To further illustrate the point, it takes 10,000 hours to become an authority (expert) on something.  Many, if not most of us here are authorities on D&D.As someone with waaaaaaay more than 10,000 hours in D&D, I am declaring that I am right about int.  The thread is over, right?  Wrong.  As this thread and every other thread here and on other forum shows, just being an authority doesn't mean you are correct, so any claim of correctness based on authority, even real authority, is an Appeal to Authority and therefore invalid.  If you want to argue that you are correct, you need more than a claim of authority to make the argument valid.</blockquote>

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