RED HERRING
An extremely common tactic employed by critics is to use the red herring. A red herring is a fact or detail raised by your opponent that is unrelated to the topic. This is done in an attempt to derail the conversation or to force the Christian to waste time addressing irrelevant issues. The thing that is so annoying about red herrings is that the points raised often contain an element of truth – they're just not pertinent to the subject. In a debate about evolution and creation, for example, my views on something like Revelation are not directly relevant.
One of my very early blogs was a response to an editorial in the Courier Journal written by militant evolutionist, James K Willmot in which Willmot committed a number of logical fallacies. In the midst of his rant against the then new Creation Museum, Willmot made the comment, “AIG also believes in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation.” This would certainly qualify as a red herring. It contains an element of truth since I'm sure that AiG accepts the entire Bible as the inspired word of God. However, they also recognize the obvious use of symbolism in the book of Revelation. AiG certainly does not believe there will be a “literal” harlot named Babylon who rides on the back of a scarlet beast in the last days. However, just the simple fact that AiG would have to clarify this point demonstrates the danger of a red herring. AiG is put on the defensive and is forced to waste time defending a point that's not relevant to the creation v. evolution debate in the first place.
The best way to deal with a red herring is to let it go. If someone you've engaged in debate throws out a red herring, tell him, “that's interesting. Maybe we'll discuss that later but for now could you please address the topic?”
ARGUMENT BY VERBOSITY (Argumentum verbosium)
Many evolutionists will often try to make a point by simply throwing out terms. It's a type of red herring. One very common example of this occurs when an evolutionist says something like, “Evolution is supported by geology, biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology, anthropology, dendrochronology, … etc.” It seems like the longer the evolutionist can make the list, the more evidence it is for evolution. The reality is that none of it is “evidence” for evolution; they're merely empty words. “Biology” for example, is a scientific discipline which studies living things. To merely say “biology” isn't evidence for evolution any more than saying “theology” is evidence there is a God. How does biology support evolution? When the critic answers that, then he actually begins to address the topic. Until then, he is merely spouting words.
One time on FaceBook, an atheist once wrote, “Things creationists must deny” followed by about 20 terms; included were many of the terms above but there were several others including “logic” and “trigonometry.” Besides being a straw man, how should a Christian respond to that? Does anyone really expect me to write even a short paragraph for each term explaining how I don't disagree with it?
Besides simply throwing out terms, another variation of this fallacy is to roll out long, detailed terminology in hopes of confusing your opponent or even to wear him down. I cannot count the number of times I've been in internet debate forums where an evolutionist will merely cut and paste a lengthy section from some technical paper. The sad fact is that, in most cases, it would simply take too long or too much space to post a reply so it's easier to just skip over it. This gives the false impression that the creationist is unable to answer the question.
It's true that we defend our positions with words. However, there's no rule that says the most words wins. Throwing around long lists of terms or minutia isn't an argument.
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN
The No True Scotsman fallacy is where a critic argues that the only legitimate position is his and thus every dissenting position is illegitimate. The name of this fallacy is derived from this classic example:
Person 1: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person 2: “My uncle Angus puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person 1: “Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
In that example, poor uncle Angus is disqualified from being a true Scotsman only on the flimsy grounds that he puts sugar on his porridge when such a qualifier is merely arbitrary.
I've mentioned before that the ad hominem is the fallacy most frequently used by critics. Since the No True Scotsman is a type of ad hominem, we see it too used frequently. Here are some common examples:
“No legitimate scientist believes in creation.”
“The Creation Museum is not a real museum.”
“No rational person believes in God.”
Have you ever heard any of these before? If you've spent any time debating opponents of Christianity, I'll bet you have. We identify groups by a common denominator. All Christians, for example, believe in Christ (though they might believe different things). Be on the look out, though, for arbitrary conditions. There are legitimate scientists who believe in creation. The Creation Museum is a real museum. And rational people do believe in God!
Further Reading
6 comments:
Jonathan Sarfati has coined the term "elephant hurling" for what you call the "argument from verbosity:" it is the claim that vast amounts of evidence exist without detailing that evidence.
I'm not sure you want to complain about "verbosity;" a lot of the sesquipedalian jargon used in adducing the evidence for evolution (e.g. the nine shared pseudogenes of the cytochrome-c gene in the human and chimpanzee genomes) are actually attempts to explain complex concepts in as few words as possible.
Also, I'm not quite sure how dendrochronology is supposed to supply evidence for evolution; it provides evidence against a 6000-year-old Earth or a global flood within the last 5000 years, but there are plenty of old-earth creationists who have no particular quarrel with dendrochronology. The age of the Earth and evolution are not the same issue.
No matter how many true Scotsmen eat sugar on their porridge, some people are not true Scotsmen. And while there are real scientists who support creationism, a scientist who endorses the guiding principles of, say, Answers in Genesis ("By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record") is not doing science when he deals with questions of the age of the Earth or evolution.
I'm not sure why you care, but why do you regard the Creation Museum as a real museum? Yes, it has some fossils lying around, but so does my sister's living room. To describe it as (to quote Wikipedia) "an institution that houses and cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary" would seem to misstate its primary activity and emphasize aspects of its mission that its own directors and promoters do not emphasize.
Steven J,
You said, “Jonathan Sarfati has coined the term "elephant hurling" for what you call the "argument from verbosity:" it is the claim that vast amounts of evidence exist without detailing that evidence.”
Yes, I've heard the term. It's a good term but I've noticed that it's used more by Christian apologists than by the population at large. The more generic term is “argument by verbosity.”
You said, “I'm not sure you want to complain about "verbosity;" a lot of the sesquipedalian jargon used in adducing the evidence for evolution (e.g. the nine shared pseudogenes of the cytochrome-c gene in the human and chimpanzee genomes) are actually attempts to explain complex concepts in as few words as possible.”
Technical terms are fine. The “problem” arises when the technical terms become the argument. But besides that, there are times when people introduce long, technical posts in forums that aren't accommodating to long, technical answers. I think they do it intentionally.
You said, “Also, I'm not quite sure how dendrochronology is supposed to supply evidence for evolution.”
Neither am I sure. I didn't pick that term out of the air, though. I was specifically thinking of an instance where the folks at Talkorigins.org used the term along with several others in an obvious “argument by verbosity.” They argued that evolution was supported by biology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, dendrochronology, etc. I would have linked to it but I believe they have since removed the list from their site.
You said, “No matter how many true Scotsmen eat sugar on their porridge, some people are not true Scotsmen. And while there are real scientists who support creationism, a scientist who endorses the guiding principles of, say, Answers in Genesis ("By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record") is not doing science when he deals with questions of the age of the Earth or evolution.”
AiG has written volumes about the nature of science. When you're dealing with unique, unobserved events of the past, they cannot be studied “scientifically” in the sense that they can be observed, tested, or repeated. Of course, that doesn't stop evolutionists from studying the past “scientifically.” So creation science is as much – or as little – a science as evolutionary science.
You said, “I'm not sure why you care, but why do you regard the Creation Museum as a real museum? Yes, it has some fossils lying around, but so does my sister's living room. To describe it as (to quote Wikipedia) "an institution that houses and cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary" would seem to misstate its primary activity and emphasize aspects of its mission that its own directors and promoters do not emphasize.”
Does your sister exhibit her fossils for public viewing? I admit that the term “museum” can be abused. Sometimes a deceased celebrity's house is roped off and labeled a “museum” as in an “Elvis museum” at Graceland. However, the Creation Museum is a little more respectable than that.
There is a huge misunderstanding among evolutionists concerning the nature of the Creation Museum. It is NOT an apology for creation where scientific evidence is presented in a way to rebut evolution or support creation. Rather it is a museum that simply presents a biblical perspective of history. Certainly there is some scientific discussion in the displays but the overall theme of the museum is more evangelical.
Thanks as always for visiting. God bless!!
RKBentley
AiG has written volumes about the nature of science. When you're dealing with unique, unobserved events of the past, they cannot be studied “scientifically” in the sense that they can be observed, tested, or repeated. Of course, that doesn't stop evolutionists from studying the past “scientifically.” So creation science is as much – or as little – a science as evolutionary science.
That, I suppose, puts paid to all the varied forensic sciences: we might as well fire all the medical examiners, crime scene technicians, arson investigators, etc. All these people, after all, investigate unique past events that are often unobserved (or, if observed, the witnesses might well be lying or mistaken).
Indeed, we might as well abandon history, or at least regard it as a necessarily faith-based enterprise. Not only is, e.g. Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon a unique past event that no one alive witnessed, but so was the state of mind of everyone who recorded it: we have no proof regarding any of our conjectures about why they would write such things, or produce such monuments, or strike such coins.
For that matter, the whole point of science depends on the assumption that observations in the lab apply to similar phenomena at other times and other places. From the coldly practical (if we're building a bridge, we're counting on the steel to have the same properties in the bridge that similar steels had in the lab) to the most "pure" (we confirm hypotheses that matter in the lab is made out of atoms, and assume this applies to matter that was never tested the same way), we depend on the assumption that reality does not change undetectably in times and places when we are not looking.
And while particular evolutionary events are as unique and unrepeatable as particular heart attacks or bridge collapses, the particular mechanisms of evolution -- reproduction, inheritance, mutation, selection, drift, and speciation -- are not. They can be investigated, tested, reproduced. The identically-disabled GULO pseudogenes in humans and other old world anthropoid primates aren't just "similarities;" they are similarities (and differences) that are explicable in terms of observed mechanisms that operate in known ways.
Steven J,
I think you're getting a little carried away. Perhaps it would help if you read my response again. You highlighted a relevant section but let me narrow it down a little for you:
I said, “When you're dealing with unique, unobserved events of the past, they cannot be studied “scientifically” IN THE SENSE they can be observed, tested, or repeated.”
Science can only be conducted in the present. A scientist could examine the radioactive isotopes of a rock and conclude the rock is 10,000,000 years old. Another science can repeat the experiment and come to the same conclusion. Even though we can repeat the experiment, WE CAN'T REPEAT THE 10,000,000 YEARS! This is not a hard concept for the lay public to grasp and I believe evolutionists lose credibility by acting like they can examine the past under a microscope as easily as they study a germ under a microscope.
Certainly we can drawn conclusions – even correct conclusions – about the past based on evidence we have in the present. But you need to be honest about the indirect nature of studying past events.
One final note, when we study many events or people of history, we rely nearly exclusively upon the written accounts of the people who were there. Even in the case of forensic science, say in the event of a plane crash, examiners will question any witnesses there may be. Why then do scientists automatically reject the Bible in favor of “scientific” evidence? If they consider eyewitness accounts in other instances, it's rather arbitrary to reject the Bible.
I look forward to more comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
Okay, we can't repeat the ten million years. Again, we can't repeat the plane crash. We can't repeat the house fire, or the death by (alleged) heart attack. And while we can see germs under a microscope, their genes are still studied indirectly, inferred from their effects on things we can see. A very great deal of science is done on things beyond direct observation.
Historians rely heavily on accounts written by people in the past (at least, we assume they were written by people; it's not as though we can directly observe Julius Caesar, or anyone else, actually writing the Gallic Wars; the inference that written texts arise through the agency of writers is as much an assumption of the uniformity of nature and causes as the inference that shared ERVs at homologous loci result from shared ancestry). Even on the assumption that the Gallic Wars have a human author, and that this author is in fact G. Julius Caesar, historians are keenly aware that this is propaganda; you can't take Caesar as an infallible and unbiased witness. And so it is for most historical texts: we know someone said it, for some reason, and that it may very well be true. Or it may be false.
Now,I recently read a book by Adam Gropnik titled Angels and Ages; it's a rather odd book, a sort of parallel intellectual biography of Darwin and Lincoln. The title refers directly to the fact that we have contradictory accounts of Seward's remark on Lincoln's death: he said either "now he belongs to the ages," or "now he belongs to the angels," depending on which eyewitness you believe (Gropnik sides with "angels"). Gropnik also notes that there are a suspicious number of eyewitnesses to Lincoln's death, considering that the President died in a room the size of a large closet; it didn't have room for the sheer number of people who claimed to be there. Not everything purporting to be an eyewitness account actually is; not everything that actually is, is necessarily entirely accurate.
There's no obvious reason to prefer eyewitness accounts to circumstantial evidence (indeed, a number of people convicted on eyewitness testimony have had convictions overturned based on circumstantial evidence). A rock containing uranium and lead might be tested badly, or misinterpreted, or the tester might outright lie about it -- but the rock won't lie to him. An eyewitness very well might (even about being an eyewitness in the first place).
Steven J,
You said, “Okay, we can't repeat the ten million years. Again, we can't repeat the plane crash. We can't repeat the house fire, or the death by (alleged) heart attack. And while we can see germs under a microscope, their genes are still studied indirectly, inferred from their effects on things we can see. A very great deal of science is done on things beyond direct observation.”
I guess you're sticking to your guns on this one. That's fine. Like I said, this is not a hard concept to grasp and scientists lose credibility when they deny it. You seem to insist that much of science is indirect observation so we really do examine the past the same way we study anything else. Hey, if you think that's a winning argument, then have at it.
You said, “There's no obvious reason to prefer eyewitness accounts to circumstantial evidence (indeed, a number of people convicted on eyewitness testimony have had convictions overturned based on circumstantial evidence). A rock containing uranium and lead might be tested badly, or misinterpreted, or the tester might outright lie about it -- but the rock won't lie to him. An eyewitness very well might (even about being an eyewitness in the first place).”
You're all over the place on this one. On the one hand you seem to say we must rely on the witnesses to know about historical events but then you say we can't really trust anything they say. If science always trumps witnesses, then why do we even question witnesses in the first place? It's because scientists, like forensic examiners, still consider their testimony to be part of the evidence. However, evolutionists REFUSE to consider the Bible as evidence for anything. It's arbitrary and irrational. It's special pleading.
Thanks for visiting and for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
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