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Extreme appeals to authority negatively impact conscious and critical thinking by substituting the judgment of an individual for a thorough examination of the argument or evidence, which disregards the need for independent verification. This reliance creates a state of “epistemic dependency” where individuals accept claims based solely on the status of the speaker rather than the content of the message, often leading to the acceptance of incorrect or incomplete information.
Key negative impacts include:
Suppression of Critical Inquiry: Unquestioningly adopting an expert’s position prevents the evaluation of actual merits, effectively bypassing critical thinking and logical reasoning.
Cognitive Bias and Error: The “appeal to authority” fallacy acts as a cognitive shortcut where people prioritize the speaker’s prestige over empirical data, potentially causing communities to hold onto incorrect views for years (e.g., the historical persistence of the 24-chromosome theory due to a single authority).
Organizational and Social Stagnation: Excessive respect for authority can lead to groupthink, stifling engagement, diminishing individual responsibility, and creating toxic environments characterized by fear and a lack of open communication.
Moral and Intellectual Passivity: Relying on authoritative pronouncements rather than personal reason results in “borrowed wealth” that offers no real knowledge to the recipient, fostering a habit of authority bias that hinders the development of autonomous moral agents.You’re a member of the wrong religion. Judaism does not comport to your ethos.
That’s a really interesting take, especially the idea of “epistemic dependency.” I agree that blindly deferring to authority can shut down critical thinking and make people accept claims without really understanding them.
At the same time, I think there’s a balance to strike. In a lot of areas—like science or medicine—we kind of have to rely on experts because we can’t personally verify everything. So the issue isn’t authority itself, but when it replaces reasoning instead of guiding it.
I also liked your point about how this can lead to long-term errors sticking around. It makes me wonder how many ideas today are accepted more because of who says them rather than how strong the evidence actually is.
Overall, I think you’re right that people need to stay mentally active and question things more, even when the source seems credible.To shkoyach r noach
I happen to agree with you but only to a certain extent. In 2023 I showed up at YWN and in the course of a certain thread I “admitted” that I watch TV. I was universally pilloried and one poster wrote, “watching TV is no different than eating a cheeseburger in Burger King.?” I made it clear that I wasn’t trying to convince anyone to get a TV, I was simply stating my situation. Eventually, I went to a Posek, and he told me that there’s no problem with watching TV. So how did it become ingrained in so much of the Yeshiva World that TV is the “Great Satan?” Decades ago, a certain Rabbi started a Crusade against the “Boob Tube.” and he was successful in developing followers even though there was no substance to his anti-TV rants. The reason I qualified my approbation of your comment is that it’s dangerous to endorse “rescue” who has publicly declared that one should not follow the laws of the Torah since they run counter to man’s free will.
Rambam “accepted emes regardless of a source”. In science also, there is a system of open publications that allows other knowledgeable people to verify what is published. So, if you are looking at a popular publication and there are several studies on the issue, you might rely on the exppertise. Still, context matter. While generally halakha defers to one doctor, R Mayer Twersly had a teshuva early on during covid where he explains that in this case of great uncertainty, we should consult several sources and act cautiously according to all of them. Now, our lack of knowledge about covid was not greater than medieval lack of knowledge about any diseases of the time, but we simply know better what we don’t know 🙂
Torah @rescue, Torah @rescue what you are omitting from all your posts here and in ‘the coffeehouse/coffeeroom topic you started named, “Dehumanizing others” is Torah Knowledge’. You expound upon ideas that are not from Torah, but from your own fancies. You are a RASHA/Wicked Person. You are not of Torah nor are you Yiddishe/Jewish. Stick to the Torah and its related Seforim/Books/Scrolls. Stop expounding on your own personal non-Jewish non-Torah agenda. We are Jews here, not anti-Jewish. Be specifically Torah or leave these coffeehouse/coffeerooms flat.
I agree with the dangers of epistemic dependency. That’s exactly why replacing the dogma of the Rambam with the dogma of The Lancet doesn’t make you a critical thinker, it just changes which robes you bow to.
Science isn’t resilient just because it says so. A real expert is someone who loses something when he’s wrong. Most “experts” today get tenure, grants, and TV spots. If their model blows up, you eat the downside, not them.
That’s not science. That’s scientism — a belief system with lab coats instead of bekishes. It inherits all the pathologies you listed: authority bias, groupthink, suppression of inquiry. “Peer review” becomes “peer pressure.” The 24-chromosome error lasted because no one wanted to contradict the big name. Same mechanism, different hat.
Antifragile systems don’t care about credentials. They care about survival. Water doesn’t ask if the engineer went to MIT. It finds the leak. Markets don’t ask if the Fed has a PhD. They reprice. When “science” becomes an institution that can’t be disconfirmed without career risk, it’s no longer science. It’s a guild. Guilds are fragile.
You’re correct that blind authority is dangerous. It’s also why a yeshiva isn’t a lab. The beis medrash isn’t built to test hypotheses; it’s built to transmit a mesorah. Its error-correction is chazara, machlokes l’shem shamayim, and 2,000 years of people trying to break it and failing.
Posting this here is like giving a lecture on peer review in the middle of Krias HaTorah. Not because the points are wrong — many aren’t — but because the forum has a different telos.
The beis medrash survived longer than any university because there’s a difference between mesorah & Kabbalah versus intellectual passivity. And there’s a very fine line where “epistemic dependency” can veer either to blind faith or to scientific dogma.
No human is immune to confirmation bias and narrative fallacy. That’s not a bug; it’s the operating system. We’re pattern-matching machines who tell ourselves stories so we can sleep. Scientists do it, rabbis do it, you do it, I do it.
The question isn’t “who’s unbiased?” Everyone’s biased. The question is “whose bias has been punished by reality for 3,000 years and lived?”
That’s why humbly accepting faith in Hashem isn’t a cop-out from thinking. It’s the recognition of epistemic limits that makes you reach outside the human box toward Hashem! You anchor to something outside your own head, something that outlived empires! That’s why Chazal say “al ta’amin b’atzmecha ad yom mos’cha”.
qwerty613:
I found the “Crusade”, as you ineptly put it, against television by the Rabbis “decades ago”. Except that it wasn’t by “a certain Rabbi”, but rather by over 40 of the most eminent Rabbis of the generation. Here’s partial list:
Rabbi Avrohom Pam
[Yeshivas Torah Vodaath]Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Levin
[Yeshivas Telz, Chicago]Rabbi Aaron Schechter
[Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin]Rabbi Binyomin Paler
[Yeshiva Mkor Chaim]Rabbi Binyomin Zeilberger
[Yeshiva Bais HaTalmud]Rabbi Chaim Baruch Wolpin
[Yeshivas Telz, Chicago]Rabbi Chaim Epstein
[Yesshiva Zichron Melech]Rabbi Chaim Stein
[Yeshivas Telz, Cleveland]Rabbi Elya Fischer
[Kollel Gur]Rabbi Elya Svei
[Yeshiva Gedola of Philadelphia]Rabbi Gavriel Giinzburg
[Yeshiva Ner Yisroel, Toronto]Rabbi Henach Leibowitz
[Yeshiva Rabbi Yisroel Meir]Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan
[Yeshiva Toras Chaim, Denver]Rabbi Joseph Rosenblum
[Yeshiva Shaarei Yosher]Rabbi Leib Bakst
[Yeshiva Bais Yehuda, Detroit]Rabbi Levi Krupenia
[Yeshiva Kamenitz, Toras Emes]Rabbi Lipa Margolis
[Yeshiva Torah Temima]Rabbi Malkiel Kotler
[Beis Medrash Govoha, Lakewood]Rabbi Meir Stern
[Yeshiva Gedola of Passaic]Rabbi Mordechai Gifter
[Yeshiva Telz, Cleveland]Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum
[Yeshivas Mir]Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky
[Yeshiva Gedola of Philadelphia]Rabbi Shimon Shwab
[Rav, Khal Adas Yeshurun]Rabbi Shmuel Faivelson
[Bais Medrash LaTorah, Monsey]Rabbi Shrage Moshe Kalmanowitz
[Yishivas Mir]Rabbi Simcha Bunim Ehrenfeld
[Mattersdorfer Ruv, Yeshiva Ch’san Sofer]Rabbi Simch Schustal
[Yeshiva Bais Binyomin, Stanford]Rabbi Tuvia Golstein
[Yeshiva Emek Halocho]Rabbi Yaakov Perlow
[Novominsker Rebbe, Yeshiva Novominsk]Rabbi Yaakov Schnaidman
[Yeshiva Bais Moshe, Scranton]Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg
[Yeshiva Ner Yisroel, Baltimore]Rabbi Yechiel Perr
[Yeshiva Derech Ayson]Rabbi Yekusiel Bittersfeld
[Yeshiva Zichron Shneur]Rabbi Yisroel Perkowsky
[Yeshiva Bais HaTalmud]Rabbi Yitchok Feigelstock
[Yeshiva of Long Beach]Rabbi Yosef Harari Raful
[Yeshiva Ateret Torah]Rabbi Zecharya Gelly
[Rav K’hal Adas Yeshurun, Yeshiva Rabbi S.R. Hirsch]Rabbi Zelig Epstein
[Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah]But, thankfully, we here have the anonymous “Posek HaCR” qwerty613 who is far smarter, far more qualified, and far wiser than not only any one of the above Rabbis, but of all of them combined.
Unless coffee addict was correct in 2023 when you showed up at YWN.
In case anyone cares to read the text of the “Crusade” qwerty613 referred to, here it is:
Television: A Cry of Anguish and Appeal to Our Jewish Brethren ?
To dlm
I have no idea why YWN keeps printing this lunatic’s posts. He has every right to practice Judaism as he sees or doesn’t see fit and Hashem will then use His right to send him to hell. It’s really that simple.
To yittish
Not only are you completely correct, but you also write beautifully. At the end of the day, however, it all comes down to that jerk’s Gaavah. Rescue reminds me of a Reform Rabbi who wrote in the now defunct Jewish Week, “Maimonides is a Rabbi and I’m a Rabbi. Why is his opinion any more valid than mine?” Rescue is convinced that he knows more than all our Sages and he even has the hubris to state that Hashem doesn’t want us to keep the Torah.
Agreed.
Thank you qwerty613. He’s so annoying and I believe he knows it. And yes, you’re right H”M has already sent him to gehinnom, just look at how many posts he writes. One right after another. Confusion of mind and Verbal Diarrhea. He can’t stop, nor can he help himself. And, speaking to him is useless. He just goes on and on without aim or knowledge of what he is saying or doing. Once again, thank you for calling him a lunatic, because he is definitely cursed for disobeying Torah Laws right and left and H”M is not sorry for putting him in the position he is in. I’m sure of it. Be well.
At Matan Torah we all had a group think experience. We saw the mountain being held over our heads & were coerced to accept all of Torah Shebaal peh. It wasn’t until many years later after the nes of Purim that we reaccepted it willingly.
We also participated in the brochos & klalos at har gerizim vhar avol where we cursed anyone who doesn’t uphold the Torah. In other words, we ostracized those of us who refuse to obey the laws of the Torah. Just like society doesn’t accept thieves & murderers, a Torah society doesn’t accept open & willful desecration of Hashems will.
This is also for the greater good of society. If society condones immoral behavior, they will be influenced by it & begin to emulate it.
I’m not a frequent participant here but recent posts contained nivul peh, & a general lack of basic Torah background which led to statements of apikorsus.
Judaism doesn’t share any of the cruelty of the umos ho’olom.
Judaism is the perfect guideline for life made by a benevolent & merciful creator. Any comparison between the punishments of the Torah for certain sins, & the savagery of the nation’s of the world, is a complete disgrace of our sublime Torah.
A Jew who spent a few years learning in kollel would have the background in Torah knowledge, not to make these critical mistakes.To dlm
Let’s consider what the numbskull wrote yesterday in a different thread, “Querty I never said G-d has no right to keep our commandments.” What this functional illiterate meant is that we don’t have to keep G-d’s commandments. And I can prove that this was his intent from another post of his dated 2/4/26 on the thread involving Sheitels. “Do some halachos not make logical sense?” Alot of them don’t. Your(sic) allowed to admit that and speak the truth. Do you keep it anyways? Yes, but again that’s a personal choice.” So, we see this atheist’s attitude to our religion. If he feels like keeping something he does so, but if not, not.
To ujm
You are apparently a follower of leading Chareidi Rabbonim, so why have you ignored the Gedolim who banned using the internet? You are a total hypocrite. I can watch TV because my Rabbis permit doing so, but you reject the position of your own mentors. What a lowlife you are.
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