The first common fallacy canvassed in our book Humbug! is Appeal to Authority. Our short definition of appeal to authority is as follows: "The advocate makes an unwarranted appeal to an authoritative person or organization in support of a proposition". Unwarranted in this context means that the appeal is without foundation, and that the supposed "authority" does not really lend any weight to the advocate's proposition (because the authority of the authority on this particular matter is not convincing, or because the advocate is falsely claiming that the authority would agree with the advocate's position).
There is a subspecies of appeal to authority which is much more bizarre than a commonplace appeal to authority. This subspecies of appeal to authority is worthy of comment here because it is increasingly common, and often passes unnoticed by those who should know better. It is Appeal to Celebrity.
Consider the commonplace case. The celebrity is appearing on a chat show, or a news and current affairs program. The celebrity is perhaps an actor, a model, a sportsperson, a "reality television" contestant, or a Greens senator. Whatever the claim to fame, the celebrity is not known for deep thinking. And yet... the interviewer inevitably asks the celebrity about his or her profound thoughts on some deep and complex issue – multilateral defence treaties, bilateral trade agreements, reform of the United Nations, health funding, dry land salinity etc etc etc. And the celebrity is eager to pontificate at length on any of these, and presumably the more impressionable viewers will be swayed by the celebrity's half-baked opinions, just because the celebrity is a celebrity.
Just once I'd like to see a journalist-interviewer practice real journalism and say: "sorry to interrupt you there Sean, but you're talking about politics now, and we're not interested; after all, you're only an actor".
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The Skeptic's Field Guide by Theo Clark and Jef Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
4 comments:
I have to agree, it's a mystery why people take so much notice of celebrities. All a celebrity has is a platform from which they can shreik their half-baked opinions. There's no reason why a top-flight model's opinion on any political topic should have any more weight than my newsagent's, or the bloke next door.
Actually Mongo, I have to say that my newsagent's opinion is exactly the same as the bloke next door's. It's the same person.
"sorry to interrupt you there Sean, but you're talking about politics now, and we're not interested; after all, you're only an actor".
But wouldn't this be an ad hominen?
Sorry to comment on such an old post, but I have found your blog just recently while learning about logical falacies.
It is indeed ad hominem Leo, but as we state in our blog header, we sometimes engage in "breathtaking hypocrisy". Also like all fallacies, there are degrees, and there is a valid point here: the views of celebrities are treated with reverence by many, but the views of celebrities should carry no more intrinsic weight than anyone else. Some (like me) would assert that the views of celebrities should carry less weight than the average person as they are often motivated by a hunger for publicity... rather than sincerity.
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