Comment on Intelligence enhancement as existential risk mitigation

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:53:04 GMT

There's an argument from authority that's a fallacy, and one that's not.

Arguments of the form, "S is an authority on X and says p, so we have reason to think that p" can be valid (possibly missing some easy steps) but might be unsound.

Arguments of the form "S is an authority on X and says p, therefore p" are just plainly invalid.

There is no contradiction here.

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