There is a special kind of argument you hear only from academic Experts. Non-academic non-Experts never use it; or, if they do, I’ve not seen any example (beyond parroting AEs). This academic Expert argument is a fallacy, and a beloved fallacy. One name for it is the Self-Flattering Fallacy. But the better one is the I Have Ascended Beyond Fallacy.
May 9, 2023·edited May 9, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
I know it's passe nowadays to compare secular movements to a religion, but science(tm) is definitely a religious movement (or rather, a cult) and the scientists are its white-robed (rather than black) missionaries. This is especially clear with evolution, which is the founding myth of science(tm). Why else would they be so offended that people dared to reject evolution? (don't give me "muh scientific evidence")
Haha 😂 brilliant - I love it! Yeh you hear that all the time.
It’s very old too - Genesis 3: “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Translation: “you can ascend beyond what God told you”
I am pretty sure the priests of Baal and Ishtar and Moloch used this argument on the people of Israel too in Old Testament time - “you can ascend beyond the worship of Yahweh”
In my (unwise) teens I read authors like Daisetz T Suzuki and T Lobsang Rampa and Madame Blavatsky - they all claimed that if we follow them we can ascend beyond morality, God, the Bible.
It has certainly become a ubiquitous argument these days among adherents of scientism.
There is a kind of parallel to this in the free speech 'debate'.
I, me, strong and moral minded person that I am, have read this comment, and I, me, wonderful me, deem it to be hate speech/misinformation. I am far too superior a being to be affected by it, but it must be banned in case you, who are decidedly inferior, are swayed by the content.
Any one who writes 'consensus' and 'science' in the same sentence is quite obviously a moron and does not deserve an answer or respect.
Quoting the number (or percentage) of 'scientists' who hold a certain belief is another flag that the speaker is an idiot. The Big Bang Theory, in spite of thousands of PhDs subscribing to it is finally being shown to be nonsense. Thank you JWST.
This fallacy clarifies something that's always rubbed me the wrong way about these statements: the implication that, because they hold a Correct Belief™, they are intellectually and morally superior to those who disbelieve. They and they alone have been guided in their thinking by the pure light of the pole star of Reason®, which the non-believers in their ignorance cannot even perceive, let alone follow. The inevitable result is a clownish lack of self-awareness, in which they accuse others of their own sins - as for example a genderfluid graduate student I knew who studied propaganda, and was simultaneously of the opinion that her (I use the appropriate biological pronoun) conservative family members had been brainwashed, *and* that there were in fact an infinity of genders. Propaganda, you see, had no influence whatsoever on her.
I know it's passe nowadays to compare secular movements to a religion, but science(tm) is definitely a religious movement (or rather, a cult) and the scientists are its white-robed (rather than black) missionaries. This is especially clear with evolution, which is the founding myth of science(tm). Why else would they be so offended that people dared to reject evolution? (don't give me "muh scientific evidence")
Haha 😂 brilliant - I love it! Yeh you hear that all the time.
It’s very old too - Genesis 3: “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Translation: “you can ascend beyond what God told you”
I am pretty sure the priests of Baal and Ishtar and Moloch used this argument on the people of Israel too in Old Testament time - “you can ascend beyond the worship of Yahweh”
In my (unwise) teens I read authors like Daisetz T Suzuki and T Lobsang Rampa and Madame Blavatsky - they all claimed that if we follow them we can ascend beyond morality, God, the Bible.
It has certainly become a ubiquitous argument these days among adherents of scientism.
I just love a good self-defeating argument.
Your initialisms rock! 🤩
AE = academic Expert = Adverse event
PS Fun permutations: Adverse Expert = academic event 🤭
That quote from the abstract is the most collosal example of projection I've seen in some time.
There is a kind of parallel to this in the free speech 'debate'.
I, me, strong and moral minded person that I am, have read this comment, and I, me, wonderful me, deem it to be hate speech/misinformation. I am far too superior a being to be affected by it, but it must be banned in case you, who are decidedly inferior, are swayed by the content.
Any one who writes 'consensus' and 'science' in the same sentence is quite obviously a moron and does not deserve an answer or respect.
Quoting the number (or percentage) of 'scientists' who hold a certain belief is another flag that the speaker is an idiot. The Big Bang Theory, in spite of thousands of PhDs subscribing to it is finally being shown to be nonsense. Thank you JWST.
‘...something besides lack of education, something dark and structural, must instead account for critics’ doubt.’ Racism?
The more I think about it, a Great Reset is necessary. Just not the one that's been bandied about by our "elites."
Intellectualism is a common cover up for fear of direct experience.
This fallacy clarifies something that's always rubbed me the wrong way about these statements: the implication that, because they hold a Correct Belief™, they are intellectually and morally superior to those who disbelieve. They and they alone have been guided in their thinking by the pure light of the pole star of Reason®, which the non-believers in their ignorance cannot even perceive, let alone follow. The inevitable result is a clownish lack of self-awareness, in which they accuse others of their own sins - as for example a genderfluid graduate student I knew who studied propaganda, and was simultaneously of the opinion that her (I use the appropriate biological pronoun) conservative family members had been brainwashed, *and* that there were in fact an infinity of genders. Propaganda, you see, had no influence whatsoever on her.