From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Re: Calcium/Magnesium
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 02:44:00 GMT


Ted Wayn Altar) writes:

>>Instead, we are asked to take Mr. Dyer's word for it that
>>Professor Moon is a crank.  Ok, then in that case I would like know what
>>Mr. Dyer's credentials are.  Does he have a PhD from accredited
>>university?  Has he any publications?  Has even a graduate degree of
>>any kind?

Steve Dyer replies:

>Argument from authority.  Is this your favorite form of
argument?

It seems to be yours as you don't bother to cite your references
but simply burden the reader to take your word for it.  Nor have
you provided any discursive or factual evidence for your unseemly
name-calling of Professor Moon as a "crank".

As it turns out, arguments from authority do have validity if the 
authority is credible, and certainly such arguments carry more 
weight than the always fallacious `AD HOMINEM' arguments of the 
abusive variety (like name-calling Professor Moon as a "crank").  
To cite a prestigious authority on this matter:

    Agumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority)  . . . This
    method of argument is not always strictly fallacious, for the
    reference to an admitted authority in the special field of
    his competence may carry great weight and constitute relevant
    evidence.  If laymen are disputing over some question of
    physical science and one appeals to the testimony of Einstein
    on the matter, that testimony is very relevant.  Although it
    does not prove the point, it certainly tends to support it.
        (from Irving Copi, INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC, 3r ed., p. 66-
        7)


>I have a masters degree in software engineering and a bachelor's in
>biology, but I have 20 years of study in pharmacology, which has always
>been an interest of mine.

So, all you have is a BSc in biology.  That hardly makes you an
expert on "vitamin" D, and it certainly does not make you an
accomplished expert like Professor Moon.

Ok, so you've had a 20 year interest in pharmacology, but I take
it that you don't actually have any degree of any kind in
pharmacology?  Is that right?.  Certainly, you don't have PhD as
does Dr. Moon, nor do you have a teaching/research position at an
university, nor have you published any papers in this area.
Indeed, have you  published anything at all?  A master's degree
in software engineering hardly gives one much confidence in your
expertise on vitamin D as does Moon's PhD in toxicology, his
professorship in toxicology/nutrition and the fact that Moon has
a successful publishing record on this topic  in respectable
scientific journals.

Look, I don't intend to belittle or demean your background, but
really, a little HUMILITY is in order before you go around
calling just anybody a "crank" and putting down readers on the
net for simply and sincerely reporting what they have read from
accomplished researchers publishing in respectable journals.

Calumny and name-calling are the tactics one should refrain from
employing, especially if one values the higher standards of
scientific evidence and good scholarship.



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