Who To Believe: An Eight Year Old Or An Expert?

Yesterday's post was about the heinous conclusions of the so-called ethical experts from Oxford University.  Citing experts, while useful in backing up an argument, is not always sufficient to establish one's position as truth, or, as in this ethical case, as right.  It is our duty as humans, created in the image of God, to think critically - to ensure that the truth is faithfully represented, and to protect it from being distorted.

Just because someone is an academic elite, does not give them the right to say or conclude what they want without careful criticism.  We must remember that PhD's do not set us free, the truth does. And when PhD's give us that which is not truth, they cease using their abilities for the sake of freedom, and instead lock the masses inside the intelectual (and moral) box of their own arbitrarily professed authority.

The fallacy is called an appeal to authority.  McDurmon, in his book on biblical logic, states that such an appeal "attempts to persuade by leveraging expertise, tradition, boasted credentials, fame, social status, celebrity, etc., when these characteristics do not necessarily pertain to the issue at hand. Even when cited authorities have legitimate expertise in the topic, their expertise itself does not guarantee the truth of the argument under discussion, nor does it even prove the cogency or soundness of the argument. Even the most learned individual can make mistakes, and even the most practiced expert can formulate poor arguments.  So, whenever you encounter a declaration that amounts to, "Expert X accepts Position A as true, and Expert X is an expert, therefore, Position A must be true," you have just witnessed an Appeal to Authority, and you have no necessary obligation to accept Position A as true simply because Expert X does...The fallacy assumes a link between authority and truth that does not of necessity exist."

Seeing this fallacy rescues "the average person" from the tyranny of the "above average person." Good logical reasoning is not reserved for the academic elite, but is given, by our Maker, to each and every individual.  Learning and furthering education certainly does sharpen our logical skill, but it does not produce it.

As I have said before, just because an atheistic scientist has spent thousands of dollars and hours in his search for how the universe came to be, does not make his conclusions immune from the corrective voice of a six year old, who simply quotes the authoritative Word of God.  And just because the ethicist from Oxford concludes that murder is right, does not mean that he cannot stand corrected by an eight year old who tells him that murder is wrong.