No. 22 Appeals to Authority and the Crowd
Genetic Fallacy
In Turkish: Genetik Safsata
You checked who said it. You never checked what.
Uncle, the river road’s shorter. I go to school that way every day.
A road a child suggests? Go and play with your ball.
Doesn’t matter who said the road, Temel. Look where the road goes.
What is it?
Accepting or rejecting an idea because of where it came from: who said it, which source it appeared in, what motive it had. The source gives birth to the idea; it doesn’t decide whether the idea is true.
The pattern
- Idea X comes from this source.
- The source is bad / unreliable / unlikeable.
- Therefore X is false. (Or: the source is good, so X is true.)
Why it fails
Checking the source is a practical shortcut; nobody has time to verify everything themselves. But a shortcut can’t replace the claim. Children can know the right road, a newspaper you dislike can print a true story, a bad person can say a true sentence. Where an idea was born doesn’t change what it says.
How to spot it
- The reply is about the source, not the claim: who, where from, with what motive.
- Sentences starting “if it comes from them…”.
- The decision is made without the content ever being discussed.
What to say
“Let’s set the source aside. Is what was said true or false? How would we tell?” If the source really matters, handle it separately: “We can discuss the source’s reliability too, but the claim first.”
When it’s not a fallacy
If you can’t check a claim directly, looking at the source’s reliability is reasonable; treating a source that is often wrong with caution is sensible. That means “I won’t accept this without checking”, not “it’s false”. The fallacy is putting the source where the evidence should be.
Examples
- Work“This suggestion came from the intern.” Nobody read the suggestion.
- Family“I got this from my mother-in-law.” The recipe isn’t tasteless because it’s hers.
- Social media“If that site says it, it’s a lie.” Maybe; but it’s evidence that shows it, not the site’s name.
- Health“A company made this drug, and companies want profit.” True; whether the drug works is still a separate question.