Bad appeal to authority
The bad appeal to authority is a fallacy that claims that whatever an authority figure says about anything is most likely to be true. This fallacy exists because people tend to trust authority figures, however not everything they say is actually true. For example, my mother has always told me that pulling out my white hairs from my head will cause me to have more and more. I never questioned this because my mother has always told me that she is always right. However, I have recently learned that it is actually not a scientific fact that pulling out white hairs will lead you to have more. Bad appeal to authority is a fallacy because the authority is not always right. It is important for people to respect their authority, but it is also good for people to come up with their own opinions and beliefs.
I love the example you used for this topic. My Mom also mentioned pulling white hairs will cause more to appear. I never believed her so i ignored her statement. I remember a friend telling me she was surprised she had a few white hairs, so i told her to pull them. She argued that the white hair will only cause more if they were pulled or plucked. I did not argue back because I am not the person to prove something is wrong with out proven facts. I still do not believe that pulling white hairs causes more. If so, i'll pluck my short black hair so ill always have black hair! =)
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