Appeals to authority, such as those you've made, are worthless.
The motto of the Royal Academy of Sciences is quite literally "take no one's word for it".
If you wish to blindly swallow assertions made by people with academic titles, perhaps you should start to listen to those who advise against it.
An appeal to authority is perfectly reasonable if the person in question is actually an authority in the topic discussed. The logic fallacy you probably meant is about appeals to authority in cases where the authority is in another domain.
> No. An appeal to authority is always fallacious.
Says who? ;)
> Your heuristic may be useful, but it is just that - a heuristic, not an argument.
Indeed, but in many but the most trivial cases (stuff like newtonian physics, or computer science, where most arguments are easily falsifiable) heuristics is all we have. Just look at the set of comments we are currently part of, e.g. many of the p-value posts, or the criticism of the small sample size. Those are valid arguments, but also wrong. But how can someone not trained in empirical science find out? Relying on an authority (relevant to the topic at hand) is a valid way to be wrong less often.
To put it pointedly: How do you know its always fallacious? Have you actually proved it yourself, or is this from a textbook/the internet, e.g. - from an authority? ;)
Yeah, if I'm going to be wrong I'd rather be wrong alongside a bunch of people who are way more qualified than me to guess. What's the P-value on trust in expert advice improving outcomes? For every case where the "x was wrong" there are 1000 non-controversial cases where x was right.
The motto of the Royal Academy of Sciences is quite literally "take no one's word for it". If you wish to blindly swallow assertions made by people with academic titles, perhaps you should start to listen to those who advise against it.