Logical Fallacy of the Week: Week 60, Appeal to Accomplishment

Appeal to accomplishment –  is a genetic fallacy wherein Person A challenges a thesis put forward by Person B because Person B has not accomplished similar feats or accomplished as many feats as Person C or Person A.

The reverse, appealing to the fact that no one has the proper experience in question and thus cannot prove something is impossible, is a version of an argument from silence. The inverse, saying that a person of a particular type cannot be trusted to speak on a matter (e.g. a rich person cannot speak on the plight of the poor), is a version of ad hominem attack.

Appeals to accomplishment are fallacies only when they are simple appeals to authority. It is not fallacious to rely on the testimony of a person who has attained a certain level of education or experience if they can produce further evidence to back up their positions when required....To Read More