A proper understanding of logical fallacies will improve the quality of debate

And that is not an appeal to authority. That is direct evidence of the topic of discussion. If instead you quoted some Einstein biographer on what Einstein believed about religion, that would be an appeal to authority.Edited by subbie, : Better

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Suppose we are discussing what Darwin or Einstein actually said about religion. A quotation from Darwin or Einstein is the best way to answer this, and is logically valid.

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And that is not an appeal to authority. That is direct evidence of the topic of discussion. If instead you quoted some Einstein biographer on what Einstein believed about religion, that would be an appeal to authority.

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If quoting Darwin or Einstein is not an "appeal to authority" in this instance, then we need to better define "appeal to authority". I agree that it is not a logical fallacy, but how is it not an "appeal to authority"?

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If the question is the truth of a particular religious doctrine, quoting Darwin or Einstein or anyone else about the doctrine is an appeal to authority. If the question is what Darwin or Einstein said, their quotes are direct evidence of what they said.In general, a fallacious argument can be described as a form of argument where it's possible for the premises to be true but the conclusion is false. In the following argument:All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortalif the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. This is a sound argument. In this argumentAll men are mortal
Socrates is mortal
Therefore, Socrates is a manit's quite possible for the premises to be true but the conclusion false. (Socrates could be my pet fish.)An appeal to authority is a fallacy because it's possible for the authority to be wrong about what they say. The truth of the conclusion rests on something more than just the premise. The premise can be true (the authority actually said what they are quoted as saying) but the conclusion can be false (the authority is wrong). In the example of the Darwin quote where the subject is what Darwin said about religion, if the quote is accurate, then it is something that Darwin actually said about religion. We're not relying on the accuracy of someone else's claim for the accuracy of the conclusion.

No.An ad hominem attack basically ignores the substance of the argument but instead attempts to refute the conclusion by attacking the person making the argument. To claim that you are using fallacious reasoning actually goes to the heart of the substance of the argument. If the claims are in fact unsupported, that doesn't make them fallacies. It simply makes them unsupported. No. It is neither an attack against their intelligence or their morality. It is simply at attack on the form of the argument they are using. If I were to quote from your post and point out every grammatical error you make, then conclude from those errors that your argument was bollocks, would be an ad hominem response that might be construed as an attack against your intelligence. But If I also were to include a point by point response in addition to pointing out your errors, at least I wouldn't be making a fallacious argument at the same time. It can be. If I were to ignore everything you said in your post and simply respond that nobody should believe it because you are a liar, that would be an ad hominem attack. If instead I were to point out errors in your post, errors that others have described previously to you that you continue to make, I might then reasonably conclude that you were a liar and mention that observation. However, if in addition to calling you a liar, I were to spell out the particulars of your post that lead me to that conclusion, that would not be an ad hominem attack. That would be describing the basis for my conclusion that you are a liar.I'm really quite glad you started this thread. It would be nice if during the course of it you actually learned something about these fallacies, but at least others gain the benefit of the discussion if you refuse to.

Perhaps we could call it the Dawn Bertot fallacy.

Any unsourced quote is an unsupported assertion.

And how would you suggest "someone" do that if the original proponent of the quote doesn't provide the source?

Doesn't it occur to you that it would be much more efficient for you to provide the source to begin with?