Spot the Fallacy: Loch Ness Expert

The obvious answer is the appeal to false authority, a subset of the argumentum ad verecundiam. However, we have to be careful we don’t fall into a fallacy ourselves in calling this out.

As Wikipedia puts it in the entry for the appeal: “It is also a fallacious ad hominem argument to argue that a person presenting statements lacks authority and thus their arguments do not need to be considered.”

Nessie, here I come!

The discussion in the original posting seems to lead more strongly to a conclusion about whether Meagan has reason to  believe in Nessie than it does to whether Nessie exists.

As I see the argument, we have:

Edgar reads -- a premise we can probably accept as true

Edgar reads enough to have a solid base of knowledge -- another premise we can probably accept as true

Edgar reads about Nessie -- another premise we can probably accept as true

Edgar claims to be an expert -- another premise we can probably accept as true -- an unsupported implication that others (beyond Meagan) would agree with the claim

Meagan believes Edgar -- a statement that we can accept since Meagan is making the statement and we have no reason to suspect she's being anything but truthful, about her belief or the reason for it.

So, as I see it, we have 4 premises (that, for the purposes of this exercise, we can probably accept as true), 1 implication (that beyond claiming to be an expert, Edgar actually is), and 1 statement of fact about someone's belief.

[ Of course, we also have the implied congruence between "Nessie existing" (Edgar) and "believ(ing) in Nessie" (Meagan).  Perhaps those two situations are the same; however, perhaps there's a distinction between believing in something and thinking that the something exists. ]

For me the words boil down to "I know this person who claims to be an expert because of his reading who says that Nessie exists, therefore I believe in Nessie."  Meagan seems willing to accept that she has sufficient evidence for her belief.  That amount of evidence may or may not be a sufficient threshold for anyone else to believe in Nessie.

At best, the argument is weak ("Someone else said it so I accept it.") with many unsupported claims.  Beyond that, there's the ambiguity of what it takes to be an expert, whether expert opinion is sufficient evidence, and what "believing in" means in this context.

We have to accept the conclusion that Meagan believes in Nessie, since she is the one making the claim and we need to accept her honesty.  We can also accept that Edgar claims Nessie exists. As others have said, none of the above gets us any closer to whether Nessie actually does exist.

 I believe in the Loch Ness monster because my buddy Edgar says it exists, and Edgar is something of an expert. 

This is an appeal to false authority. As we shall see, Edgar isn't really an 'expert', and in any case, we don't know what their 'expertise' is in...so we cannot even trust what is being written here. Also, believing in something because an expert does, even if they're a relevant expert, is still a fallacy - the trust should be based on the expert's word and arguments (informed by their expertise), not the expert themselves.

No, he doesn't have a degree or research experience on the subject. No, he's never been to Loch Ness and has no evidence beyond what he has read. But Edgar claims he's an expert.

Claims of expertise need to be tangible, otherwise the person is simply lying.

So I believe in the Loch Ness monster, too. 

"So I'm not very good at critical thinking either." Ha.

Is there a fallacy that could be called "Appeal to an Unfalsifiable Claim?" I ask this  fully aware of Dr. Bo's stating that the proof of the claim is not the issue. Nonetheless, I ask out of curiosity.

EDIT:" Ha! I just found the answer to my query. There IS such a fallacy called, interestingly enough, "falsifiability!" (Arguably would be better named "UN=falsifiablity.")