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The fallacy of "popularity" or "appeal to popularity" refers to an argument form whereby something is justified on the basis of the fact that so many people believe it. This term can be understood broadly enough to encompass both beliefs and behavior, both past and present. Or, alternatively, is can be understood more narrowly to refer only to current beliefs, with other terms being used for the others. If we use the term in the latter, narrower, sense, we can distinguish four different such argument forms and label them as follows: Popularity * Premise: x is widely believed. * Conclusion: x is true. Traditional wisdom * Premise: x has historically been widely believed. * Conclusion: x is true. Common practice * Premise: x is widely done. * Conclusion: It is justified to do x. Past practice * Premise: x has historically been widely done. * Conclusion: It is justified to do x. Now let's look at some examples of each of these four related argument forms: Popularity * Premise: Polls indicate 80% of people think President Mellish will seek re-election. * Conclusion: President Mellish will seek re-election. Traditional wisdom * Premise: Most people in history have believed their consciousness will survive in some form after death. * Conclusion: Our conscious self will still exist after death. Common practice * Premise: A huge number of people in the world use some form of mood-altering or mind-altering substance, such as alcohol, marijuana, tranquilizers, etc. * Conclusion: There's nothing wrong with using alcohol or drugs. Past practice * Premise: People have eaten meat for all of human history. * Conclusion: Vegetarians who criticize meat eating must be mistaken. An important point that needs to be stressed about almost all types of fallacies is that really arguments of these forms can be anywhere from very strong to very weak, and thus are not all fallacious, and certainly not all equally fallacious. Critical thinking requires examining an argument more carefully than just putting a label on it and concluding that that establishes that it's a fallacy. So once we've determined that the evidence being offered for a certain claim consists of an appeal to its popularity, we then need to ask how much support that really provides, because that will differ from case to case. A promising way to approach that question is to think of these argument forms as being subsets of what is called the appeal to authority argument form, wherein one is being asked to accept a claim on the basis of the reliability of the source asserting it. In assessing an appeal to authority, one of the things you want to consider is how likely it is that the source is indeed knowledgeable and trustworthy in this area. So for the argument forms under discussion in this article, in effect we can ask the same thing, understanding that the source, or "authority," for the claim is the population at large rather than some specific individual or institution. Thus we want to know, is this the sort of thing "the masses" likely have insight into? Two types of cases come to mind immediately where this is not the case, where the popularity of a position is of little relevance. One would be where specialized knowledge is necessary. For example, that a large number of people swear by some folk remedy tells me little or nothing, because I know the majority of lay people are not aware of the scientific method, the placebo effect, the weakness of anecdotal evidence, etc., nor are they likely to be familiar with relevant material in medical journals pertaining to the matter at hand. So the popular opinion simply doesn't deserve much weight, compared to the opinions of doctors and scientists. The second would be where it's dubious that anyone really knows what they're talking about. For example, it doesn't impress me that a certain percentage of people believe something supernatural will occur to enable us to survive death, because I can't see that they'd have any way of knowing that. Not because they aren't experts, but because arguably no one's an expert, no one knows what the heck happens when you die. But now consider a contrasting case where the fact that a belief is widespread constitutes a very strong reason to accept it. Let's say I don't watch the Super Bowl one year. But afterwards, I come across person after person saying the Tuscaloosa Rambling Rabbis won. Numerous people mention it to me in conversation, I see where countless people have written it in books, newspapers, magazines, online, etc. By all appearances, it's simply common knowledge that the Rambling Rabbis won that year's Super Bowl. So, my only evidence that the Rambling Rabbis won the Super Bowl is "everybody says so." Well, that's excellent evidence. The Super Bowl is seen by millions of people, and the winner is not some obscure piece of information that is hard to discern or that people are inclined to lie about. This is a case where you can trust the masses to be accurate in their belief. There are many points, of course, that you can look at when critically assessing arguments of any of these forms, in order to determine if they are fallacies, or how fallacious they are. I'll mention one more as an example. Consider now, something from the sub-category "common practice." Let's say your company is putting together a new phone book. Not surprisingly, you're putting the entries in alphabetical order. Why did you choose that? Because that's the way it's always done. So the reasoning would be something like this: * Premise: Phone books are always in alphabetical order. * Conclusion: Our phone book should be in alphabetical order. Is this sound reasoning, or a fallacy? Should we care that this happens to be the common practice? I'd say common practice in this case provides a very strong reason to organize your phone book alphabetically. That's because you want your phone book to be user-friendly, and an important element in achieving that is giving people something that functions the way they're used to, the way that happens to be conventional. If by chance phone books had always been organized by some other principle, then you'd probably want to do it that way instead. Again, so as to fit people's expectations and give them something they already know how to use from past exposure. Which is not to say it's impossible to imagine some circumstances in which it would be justified to issue a phone book organized in something other than the established, popular way. But there are areas, such as this, where the main considerations are pragmatic ones, and where common practice provides at the very least a strong reason in favor of doing something a certain way. |
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