Is an appeal to popularity a fallacy of popularity?

Abstract

It is common to view ap-peals to popularity as fallacious. We argue this is a mistake and that Con-dorcet's jury theorem can be used to justify at least some appeals to popu-larity as legitimate inferences. More importantly, the conditions for the application of Condorcet's theorem (binary claim, competent judge, epis-temic independence) can be used as critical tools when evaluating appeals to popularity. The application of these three concepts to appeals to popularity provide a more fine-grained critical strategy for argument evaluation and, also, allow us to see the real problems that often arise with such appeals more clearly.