Talk:Appeal to ancient wisdom

Appeal to tradition

This isn't much different from Appeal to tradition and is applied by the same people in the same way. Should they be the same page? - David Gerard (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I get the impression (by reading the articles as well) that appeal to ancient wisdom more often than not takes a form that can directly be refuted via science, whereas appeal to tradition is a bit more problematic as it can involve "Why shouldn't we have slavery? We used to have it after all." Things that cannot be refuted via science and are more appeal to emotion or something similar play into appeal to tradition at times. Appeal to ancient wisdom is more of a subcategory I suppose, so it could be a section in the appeal to tradition article. Nullahnung (talk) 19:07, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Trepanning is still used in some cases of head trauma where the damaging effects of hematomas are relieved by removing part of the skull. Maybe not the best example for unwise ancients. Slave labor, humors, witch hunts, and so on all seem equally unwise and ancient, but also more accurate. 66.65.153.122 (talk) 06:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)