A site for skeptics and critical thinkers. Hundreds of real life examples of fallacies, updated regularly. An eBook version of Humbug! The skeptics’ field guide to spotting fallacies in thinking. A weekly podcast on each fallacy: Hunting Humbug 101 – a crash course in shooting down bad arguments. We take fallacies seriously, but not ourselves.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Podcast: Hunting Humbug 101 Tutorial 25: Appeal to Authority

Sorry for the delay in this podcast. We were busy. We're very important people you know. In this podcast we look at the fallacy Appeal to Authority.  It is arguably one of the hardest to identify - or rather, easiest to Red Flag Faux Pas . We also discuss the most vile, sickening, morally bankrupt and inane version of this fallacy - Appeal to Celebrity. Examples from 9-11 troofers, anthropogenic climate change, Monty Python and Team America

Some other links mentioned in the podcast
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2 comments:

CryoTank said...

Hi, glad to have you back. Although I'm having a slight feeling of deja-vu (listening just now).
Did you use text passages and examples from previous episodes or am I imagining it?

best wishes, Chris

Jef said...

Chris, thanks for your comment. I don't think we've re-used audio material from previous programs, but some stuff often exemplifies more than one fallacy. I'll start to keep a log of extracts used to avoid inadvertent re-use. I also need to start pulling my weight by suggesting extant audio and video extracts to Theo - he has been the main man so far in this enterprise!