The Courtier's Reply isn't a fallacy

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

The Courtier's reply is a so called 'fallacy' invented by atheist Pz Myers, the fallacy is when a respondent to criticism claims that the critic lacks sufficient knowledge, credentials, or training to pose any sort of criticism.Basically the person you're arguing with must show why the argument is wrong instead asking to learn about the subject.

However there is one big problem with it which is that it's subjectively applied, you only ever see this reply to philosophy or theology.If a biologist were to tell creationist that they don't know biology, and the creationists responds with Courtier's reply most atheists would say that they're in the wrong and that the scientist is right.The fallacy would also mean that subject experts must treat criticisms of their subject matters from laymen seriously even when the laymen dont know anything about the topic.For example a physicist would have to listen to someone who hardly knows basic physics, criticize the theory of relativity and take it seriously because if he didn't he would be invoking Courtier's reply.

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[u/HDYHT11]

Two things that are important to understand from the get go:

• A fallacy, broadly speaking, is an argument that doesn't follow.

• Even if the premises and the conclusions are correct, an argument can still be fallacious.

Now, Courtier's Reply is fallacious only when it is presented as an argument. So, instances where it isn't fallacious:

• When it is accompanied by an actual argument.

• When it is a thesis statement.

• When it is not presented as an argument.

This is even stated in the wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply?wprov=sfla1

A key element of a courtier's reply, which distinguishes it from an otherwise valid response that incidentally points out the critic's lack of established authority on the topic, is that the respondent never shows how the work of these overlooked experts invalidates the arguments that were advanced by the critic.

However there is one big problem with it which is that it's subjectively applied, you only ever see this reply to philosophy or theology.If a biologist were to tell creationist that they don't know biology, and the creationists responds with Courtier's reply most atheists would say that they're in the wrong and that the scientist is right.

No, I would see that the scientists is right but that it is a fallacious argument. If I saw Dawkings in a debate saying that without presenting an argument, I would agree with him, but I would acknowledge that he has lost the debate, because he has used a fallacious argument.

The fallacy would also mean that subject experts must treat criticisms of their subject matters from laymen seriously even when the laymen dont know anything about the topic.For example a physicist would have to listen to someone who hardly knows basic physics, criticize the theory of relativity and take it seriously because if he didn't he would be invoking Courtier's reply.

This doesn't follow. It is only an fallacy if it is presented in place of an argument. Here, the Reply is not working as an argument, it is an explanation.

And, even if it was fallacious, it wouldn't force anybody to do anything.

[u/Brilliant_Bug9699]

I think consideration is key here.

If you're having a voluntary interaction with someone, you owe it them to at least consider the merits of their claim.

In that scenario, a respondent who is competent in their field is obligated to at least give consideration to a person's claim.

The thing is most competent people can tell very quickly when someone is out of their depth. For example, just by listening to the first few bars of a music piece, an experienced musician can tell if a person playing the violin was a total beginner or a professional soloist.

After a respondent considers a person's claim and decided that the other person does not even have a basic understanding of a subject and thinks a productive conversation would be impossible, there is nothing wrong with excusing oneself.

However if a respondent does not even consider the merits of a person's claim simply because of the other person's lack of training or qualifications, then that's when Courtier's reply should apply.

In the example you gave, within the context of a voluntary interaction, if a biologist dismisses the claims of a creationist simply because the creationist did not major in biology, then that would be Coutier's reply.

However, if after listening to the creationists argument and seeing the creationist completely misrepresent biology and evolution, it's fair game for the biologist to call out the creationist for not actually understanding evolution.

Aside: If an interaction is involuntary, you are not obligated to listen or continue interacting with anyone.

[u/Hivemind_alpha → u/Brilliant_Bug9699]

Worth adding: if the biologist makes a theological claim or quotes a biblical argument and the creationist dismisses it because they don’t have faith or the lived experience of their religion, the same applies.

[u/Brilliant_Bug9699 → u/Hivemind_alpha]

Does having faith or a certain lived experience affect the strength of the theological claim the biologist makes?

[u/Hivemind_alpha → u/Brilliant_Bug9699]

No, that’s the exact point. It would be making the fallacy to assume that it did.

[u/Brilliant_Bug9699 → u/Hivemind_alpha]

Agreed.

[u/Hivemind_alpha → u/Brilliant_Bug9699]

… in exactly the same way as a biologist telling a creationist that they wouldn’t listen to their claims about transposons explaining the pigment changes between corn kernels because they hadn’t been to university for biology or refused to wear an ‘I heart Dawkins’ t-shirt.

Of course, overwhelmingly I don’t see that happen. Scientists are trained to focus on the evidence, theists are trained to defer to the authority of their elders and guard against contaminating thought.

[u/Brilliant_Bug9699 → u/Hivemind_alpha]

Why would creationist care to debate how corn kernels have different colour? Most creationist these days believe in "microevolution". Most of them will brush of changing heritable characterisic as "not the kind of evolution" they're talking about.

A better example would be

"...in exactly the same way as a biologist dismissing a creationist for raising doubts about the authenticity of a very specific fossil because they believe that talking snakes existed in a particular garden"

[u/adeleu_adelei]

If a biologist were to tell creationist that they don't know biology, and the creationists responds with Courtier's reply most atheists would say that they're in the wrong and that the scientist is right.

What some imagined atheist does isn't of consequence. The creationist wouldn't be wrong because they are a creationist. Their wrongness would be due to the content of the criticism not its source.

[u/iosefster]

I don't know that it is subjectively applied in the way you're saying, at least not by any of the biologists or physicists or biblical scholars that I follow.

Yeah sure they might say something like 'you have no clue what you're talking about and you're clearly not educated on this' but then they go into detail about why that person's argument is flawed. If they weren't doing that they would be worthless content to watch in my opinion.

The fallacy is just saying 'the person making this critique is uneducated' and that's the whole argument. Saying the person is uneducated and then tearing apart their uneducated argument is not a fallacy.

I guess, watch better content creators?

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/iosefster]

Explaining it would make sense if they have some knowledge, but if they don't know anything about it would'nt it make more sense if they read it first and then criticize.

[u/iosefster → u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

I'm having a hard time following what your problem is.

If an uneducated person said to another uneducated person that their uneducated opinion was wrong because educated people say so, yeah that's 100% a fallacy. If they can't actually explain what the person is wrong about they should just keep their mouth shut until someone who can comes along. But this isn't what the fallacy is about.

I think you're either misunderstanding what the fallacy actually is or I'm just misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/iosefster]

What if they can explain it but it would be tedious to do that, if a creationst does not athing about biology it would take ages for a biologist to fully explain everything, thats why they would ask the creationist read up on it first before criticizing evolution.Your idea only works if your oppenent knows what their talking about, if they don't then explain it would make sense because they don't even have the basics understood yet.

[u/WorldsGreatestWorst]

I hadn’t heard this term before and don’t find it useful in the vast majority of cases (the small exception being in-group conversations among experts).

However, I would argue that oftentimes a religious person will manufacture Catch 22s or misinterpret subject matter expertise to protect their views so I can understand that idea here.

Catch 22 example: I say the Abrahamic God is impossible because of the PoE. Theist says, “you’re not a theologian or a Christian scholar so you don’t understand omnipotence.” So I’m expected to defer to those who have dedicated their lives to studying something I don’t accept is real or simply accept my incorrectness because I’m too ignorant to understand.

SME misinterpretation: I say God isn’t real, theist says philosophers have proved God is real. This simply ignores that things that actually exist in the material world aren’t the realm of philosophy, they’re the realm of science.

If I was having a discussion about the history of the Bible, a theologian would be an expert. If I was having a conversation about whether God is real, a theologian has nothing more to offer than you or I. Multiplied tenfold for philosophers.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/WorldsGreatestWorst]

God isn't seen as being part of the natural realm in Abrahamic religions and also in Hinduism(but he is in most polytheistic religions), so science can't prove his existence or inexistence.I agree with you in that some theists do indeed misinterpretate science to prove their religion, however in the context of the POE many theologians have indeed spen time trying to debunk it, in fact there are theology texts called theodicies that are specifically about this topic.So if you want to know if those criticisms are true then you'd probably have to read theology.

[u/Opening_Shame8258]

The problem is that in theology, you can cherry pick your Bible passages, and say pretty much anything you want. The primary means to stay in good standing in theology is to adhere to the dogmatic statement of faith.

This isn't true for archeology, paleontology, biology, physics, or other academic disciplines. You have to publish your work, and it has to stand up to scrutiny. You are required to document your methods, tests, and results. You spend a lot of time studying previous work which has also had to stand up to extreme scrutiny. Yes, you learn from a textbook, but the material in that textbook is based on extremely large quantities of data.

A physicist spends years learning how to derive formulas. They don't just learn the formulas. They learn how those formulas are structured the way they are, and the principles involved. They spend years recording experimental results that inform those formulas. So, when you come in with your pet theory that Quantum Mechanics is the music of God... if you don't know how to do any of that work, you don't actually have anything interesting to say about Quantum Mechanics.

The problem for theologians, is that if someone is making an external critique, they don't need to know anything about the religion. If I ask you how your religion explains the physics of stars.... I don't need to know anything about your religion. Your religion has to justify itself. If your religion claims that all humanity is descended from 2 individuals 6000 years ago (or 10000 years ago for some), then I don't need to know anything about your religion. Your religion has to provide counter evidence to what we have documented about Earth being over 4 billion years old and the fact that we know evolution exists.

In contrast, I can't make an internal critique unless I know your religion. For example, if I'm arguing the Problem of Evil, then my argument will likely be quite weak if I don't already know the common ways a specific religion addresses it.

TL/DR: When making an external critique based on non-religious information (like say Physics), I only need to know Physics and ask how your religion explains something. It is only when making an internal critique that I need to study your religion.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/Opening_Shame8258]

The Bible is kind of a vague book, in that many passages don't have one clear meaning to it hence theologians try to find which meaning is the most likely.Also things like the Problem of Evil are part of theology(look at theodicies) so you have to at least dabble in some theology to understand whether or not those theodicies work.Also Courtiers reply is also used towards philosophy which is a much more rigorous field, and where the Problem of Evil and God's existence is a topic

[u/Opening_Shame8258 → u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

You're addressing the internal critique aspect.

The larger and more important aspect I'm highlighting for you is external critiques.

I'm going to give a silly example. Do I need to know your religion in order to boil water? No. But, lets for example say that someone's religion DID have instructions on how to boil water. If those instructions did not reflect reality, then if I already know how to boil water, I can criticize those instructions without knowing anything else about that religion.

So, when a theologian makes a claim about the Big Bang, the problem is they're making an internal critique of Physics. Physicists have lots of information about the Big Bang. They have debates about it, but a theologian like William Lane Craig is incorrect about his critiques of the Physics involved.

A physicist who is explaining how William Lane Craig is wrong about Physics, doesn't need to know anything about WLC's religion.

Edit: I want to add something, you may be unaware of. Most religious people differ from each other quite a lot. Person A believes X, while Person B (from a nearly identical religion) believes not-X. It's often better when dealing with Person A that I don't make any assumptions about X, and just wait for them to tell me what they believe, and then address that directly.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/Opening_Shame8258]

If you mean that then I agree, if religions make claims about the physical world then it's within the realm of science and so theology is of no use

[u/Opening_Shame8258 → u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

So, from my perspective, since nothing about theology is demonstrably true (in the context of the real world that we live in), I consider theology pretty useless.

Like... how about all of you religious people come to an agreement about something. Then tell us atheists what that is.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/Opening_Shame8258]

Religious people aren't really a monolith with there being not much agreement on almost anything within theist communities.Can you expand on what mean by demonstrably true, I'm also not a theist.

[u/Opening_Shame8258 → u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

Does your religion make a claim about reality?

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/Opening_Shame8258]

Well I dont believe in religion, I'm a deist so I just believe God exists and thats all

[u/Opening_Shame8258 → u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407]

To me, that is a religious claim. But, I find that to be a weaselly response, and my interest to pursue this further is massively diminished.

I hope your conversation with others goes well.

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/Opening_Shame8258]

How so? I don't believe there are any true claims for specific religions.I hope yours as well

[u/smbell]

I think you're right that it's not a fallacy. It's more an outgrowth of two different things. 

That someone who is lacking in understanding, or a bad faith opponent, will use many fallacies, and Brandolini's Law.

A biologist could take the time to identify and refute all of the actual fallacies argued by a creationist, but it would practically become a full time job, it would play into the creationists hand, and the creationist wouldn't change their mind anyway. 

[u/Basic-Lifeguard-5407 → u/smbell]

I agree there's no point in trying to waste time when your opponent wont bother to read up on the topic or even change their opinion at the end of the day.