The Lagoon TechMy little blog in Cyberspace.

This logical fallacy is known as “appeal to accomplishment”. This is when Person A agrees or disagrees with given information, based upon the personal accomplishments (or credentials) of Person B who gave the information. Information is true or false, regardless if the person who gave the information is well versed in a particular field.

For example, Greg says that getting too much sun on your skin may cause skin cancer. Tyler then responds, dismissing what Greg said because Greg is “not a doctor”.

Now does Greg not being a doctor change the fact that you may get skin cancer being exposed to too much sun? Of course not. However, Tyler decided to dismiss this information just because Greg is “not a doctor”. He could have at least researched what Greg told him, before deciding to dismiss it.

Summary: Appeal to accomplishment is nothing more than agreeing or disagreeing with what someone said based upon their credentials or personal experience, not if the information itself is correct. Obviously, this is not a good idea and making use of this logical fallacy will eventually cause you trouble.