Bad appeals to authority.

I thought reading this part of Chapter 5 (D. Common Mistakes in Evaluating Premises) was very interesting because I can definitely relate to it in so many ways. It instantly reminded me of the peer pressure I get from some of my friends with drinking. I learned that we may appeal to “bad” authority (such as my friends) because of the bad appeal to common belief (a mistake to accept a claim as true just because a lot of other people believe it). Now, I can see why peer pressure is so hard to overcome. We often see our friends as authorities because it seems like they know what they’re talking about or that we don’t want to be embarrassed not to. For example, there are times when my friends would be talking about something and would throw in a word that I don’t know the meaning of and just be like, “Oh wow…” making them think that I understand just because I don’t want to be embarrassed not knowing what the word means. Or when my friends gossip and if I go against them, I’d be a bit embarrassed to say so and so I would just accept their claim. Going back to being pressured to drink. They always say, “Come on…it’s not like you’re going to die drinking…look, everyone else is drinking…” From this, it seems that they know what they’re talking about and you can see the bad appeal to common belief.