If you say or imply that a practice must be OK today simply because it has been the apparently wise practice in the past, you commit the fallacy of traditional wisdom. Procedures that are being practiced and that have a tradition of being practiced might or might not be able to be given a good justification, but merely saying that they have been practiced in the past is not always good enough, in which case the fallacy is committed. Also called argumentum consensus gentium when the traditional wisdom is that of nations.
Example:
Of course we should buy IBM's computer whenever we need new computers. We have been buying IBM as far back as anyone can remember.
The "of course" is the problem. The traditional wisdom of IBM being the right buy is some reason to buy IBM next time, but it's not a good enough reason in a climate of changing products, so the "of course" indicates that the fallacy of traditional wisdom has occurred.
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