Content over Source
also Judge Ideas by Content Not Source · Anti-Authoritarianism
Ideas should be evaluated by what they actually say, not by who said them or how they were produced.
Content over source is the principle that an idea’s worth depends on its content, not on its origin. Credentials, prestige, popularity, peer-review status, and the method by which an idea was generated are all irrelevant to whether the idea is true or useful. As CF puts it, all ideas are guesses with no special status; you judge only by criticism of what the idea claims.
CF derives this from Critical Rationalism and fallibilism. Because no idea can be positively justified, appealing to a source is really an appeal to authority: the idea is supposedly good because it comes from, or is endorsed by, some authority. CF argues this is the structure of all justificationism — every justification rests on a source of justification (a person, a book, “reason itself”), and asking what gives that source its authority launches an infinite regress. Authority is therefore an irrational route to truth.
The practical upshot: a refutation must explain why an idea fails at its purpose. An idea lacking backing may still be correct; only a criticism of its content can show it is wrong. CF specifically attacks deferring to peer review (“it passed review, so the criticism must be answerable somewhere”) as a status-laundering appeal to authority, and rejects judging ideas by accumulated argument strength in favor of binary evaluation. Honoring content over source means not blocking error correction: every idea, whatever its pedigree, stays open to criticism.