Faulty Appeal to Authority

Answers in Genesis always provides me with a steady stream of irony. Here is the latest in their series on Logical Fallacies called Faulty Appeal to Authority. This logical fallacy basically says that it is wrong to argue that something is true simply based upon the authority of the one making the argument. In the other parts of this series AiG seemed to at least make the pretense that they were considering that creationists make logical fallacies at times. But in this one they do not; all the blame is on the evolutionists. They do acknowledge that appealing to authority is not always a fallacy. If a source is good and credible there really shouldn't be much problem with believing it; however, people should always examine issues of importance and not just believe them outright. This is often a criticism lobbed at evolutionists by creationists who think that they haven't researched the issue. At any rate AiG gives us common ways this fallacy presents itself.

1. "Appealing to an expert in an area that is not his area of expertise."
Obviously asking a professor of ancient history to do patient care in a hospital is not a good idea. We all should be weary of charlatans trying to convince us of things that they have no idea about; we should get our information from reliable sources. Though this doesn't seem to be the point of AiG. Somehow in their mind a person who has a PhD in Biology can not speak on anything historical in the world. They say that "He has no more direct observations of the ancient past than anyone else today." It is true to say that no one has observed ancient history themselves, but it is not true to say that persons learned in history have nothing insightful to say about it. Biologists can speak on our origins because history still exists in geological and paleontological evidence and evolution is based upon that evidence.

2. "Failure to consider the worldview of the expert and how this might affect his interpretation of the data."
Anyone who has read a conspiracy theory will know that someone who believes weird things will produce weird facts. When reading a scientific theory you should be convinced by the facts and not the argument. This point that I have quoted up above is a good example of the contortions that AiG goes through to protect its ideas. The don't mention that there is a bias in a creationist worldview, but say that an evolutionist because of her evolutionary ideas can not be trusted.

3. "Treating a fallible expert as infallible."
There are always limitations in the amount of books a person can read and things they can know, so nobody knows everything. However, this is not a problem when you consider the source, weigh evidence and know your limitations. Let me quote something from AiG: "The Bible claims to be such an infallible source—a revelation from the God who knows everything and cannot lie. Thus, there is no fallacy in appealing to Scripture as absolutely authoritative." I've also heard it said that urinal graffiti is a fount of faultless inspiration. Who told me this? Why urinal graffiti of course. There is a problem with this: We can never trust a statement of inerrancy. Truth should be considered truth on the merit of the facts presented.

I know that this is a creationist site writing to creationists to increase their faith, but this blind faith coupled with the error mentioned in number 2 troubles me. To see the errors in other people, but not in yourself is a serious problem. There is no hope for truth only ignorance.