From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Jul 28 2002 - 23:00:30 MDT
At 10:27 PM 7/27/02 -0500, Thom Quinn, a person of excellent taste, wrote:
>1) A PhD alone does not elevate statements of opinion to the level of fact.
>Heck, as the old saying goes "two PhDs, three opinions". In all disciplines,
>you'll have a wide variety of viewpoints. I'll use the example of
>Evolutionary Psychology. Take a look at the writing of Stephen Jay Gould,
>Stephen Pinker, E.O. Wilson on the topic. Then, contrast the conclusion with
>those of Steven Rose. You can't just take a three letters "PhD" at face
>value.
Quite so, which is why argument from authority risks failure. My point was
not in support of authority, but an attempt to clarify who might be thought
to have that status.
On the other hand, I'm not arguing *against* reference to authorities,
since if you were evaluating the claims of evolutionary psychology would
you learn more by consulting Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Pinker, E.O. Wilson
and Steven Rose, or Joe-Bob Lipchewer your hooch distiller?
Damien Broderick
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:44 MST