F058 • Informal - Relevance/Authority
Also known as: Argumentum ad Aetatem, Age-Based Authority Fallacy
Age is one of the first things we notice about a person, and we have strong intuitions about what it means. Older people have more experience. Younger people are closer to new ideas. Both of these can be true, and both can be completely irrelevant to whether a particular argument holds up. The argument from age is what happens when we let someone's age stand in for an evaluation of what they actually said.
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Age correlations are real. Older people often do have more experience in their field, and younger people often are more familiar with recent developments. These patterns are useful as rough guides, and we rely on them all the time. The failure mode is when the rough guide becomes the final verdict -- when 'you are too young to understand' or 'you are too old to get it' closes the conversation instead of opening it. Age tells you something about the kind of experience a person is likely to have. It tells you nothing about whether the argument in front of you is sound. A twenty-two-year-old can make a rigorous economic argument, and a sixty-year-old can make a confused one. Using age as a shortcut to skip the evaluation is the same underlying pattern as any ad hominem: letting a property of the person substitute for engagement with what the person said.
| When age directly relates to relevant experience in the specific domain being discussed. |
| When discussing age-appropriate policies or developmental stages. |
| When combined with other evidence and reasoning rather than used as sole justification. |
| When pointing out lack of direct experience that age would typically provide. |
| You catch yourself thinking 'they are too young to know what they are talking about' or 'they are too set in their ways to see clearly' -- and realize you have not actually evaluated what they said |
| Age is mentioned as a qualification or disqualification in a context where the argument itself could be evaluated on its merits |
| You notice that the same point would feel more or less credible to you depending on the apparent age of the person making it |
| Phrases like 'when you are older you will understand' or 'OK, that is boomer thinking' are doing the work of a rebuttal without actually rebutting anything |
| You find yourself deferring to age or dismissing because of age in a domain where age is not a reliable proxy for expertise |
| Thinking that age-based experience is never relevant -- sometimes years of practice in a specific domain genuinely produce insight that cannot be acquired any other way, and recognizing that is appropriate |
| Confusing this with legitimate developmental considerations -- a child's cognitive development is genuinely relevant to what kinds of reasoning they can perform, which is different from dismissing an adult's argument because of their age |
| Not noticing that the argument from age runs in both directions: dismissing the young as inexperienced and dismissing the old as outdated are the same pattern with different targets |
| Argument from Age |
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| Arguing that someone is right or wrong, credible or not credible, based primarily on their age rather than the merit of their argument or evidence. Can manifest as either dismissing younger people as inexperienced or older people as out-of-touch, or conversely, assuming age grants automatic wisdom or that youth provides special insight. |
| Age correlates imperfectly with knowledge, wisdom, or correctness. While experience can provide valuable perspective, truth and validity aren't determined by the age of the person making an argument. Both young and old people can be right or wrong depending on evidence and reasoning. This fallacy substitutes a demographic characteristic for actual evaluation of arguments and evidence. |
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