11. Logical Fallacy Quiz

Begging the Question in an Evolution Example

Alright, let's practice what we learned. And I'll even give you the little acronym up there so you know what's coming. Alright, so we'll throw out a statement and you guys try to figure out what logical fallacy it commits.

You want an example of evolution? You're speaking to one. That's begging the question, why? He assumes evolution and says, look, I'm an example. He didn't prove it. It's baked right into the question.

So, that people are an example of evolution is the very claim that he's trying to make. That's what's at issue. The person merely asserts evolution as his defense of evolution. Statement. Evolution is a scientific fact.

Appeal to Authority and Microevolution vs. Macroevolution

Virtually all the top scientists believe it. Faulty appeal to authority. The fact that some scientists believe something doesn't necessarily make it so. In fact, right now there's a document called Descent from Darwinism and it's signed by a ton of top scientists.

Some of them are at Stony Brook University. And what they're saying is they don't hold to evolution the Darwinian model that one species turns into another species. Okay, they do believe in microevolution.

That's observable. But macroevolution is not observable. Evolution is not an unguided process. Rather, evolution is guided by natural selection. Nature selects individuals that are most fit, thus driving the process forward.

Reification, Bifurcation, and Straw Man Arguments

Fallacy of reification. Natural selection or nature is conceptual and does not actually guide anything. They give impersonal characteristics to natural selection. Natural selection doesn't guide anything, right?

In order to guide something, you need a mind behind it pushing it in a certain direction where you want it to go. If there's no mind behind it, well then how could you possibly assign personal attributes to that?

Either you live by faith or you have rational reasons for what you believe. Bifurcation. Why? It's only giving you two options. There are other options here. We can have faith and have rational reasons for what we believe.

You can hold to both of those things. Creationists take the Bible literally. They must believe the earth has corners and pillars. How absurd. All right, straw man. Or equivocation. Creationists do not take the Bible in a wooden literal sense.

We do allow for figures of speech and poetic language in those parts of the Bible that are written that way. It's a scientific fact that bacteria have evolved resistance to various antibiotics, so creationists are wrong to say that evolution has not been observed.

Exactly, there you go. It's called equivocation. Again, they're using the same word but two different meanings. The fact that bacteria evolved, right? Bacteria does evolve. It changes, right? But then they apply that to evolution, meaning macro evolution, large change over time.

Ad Hominem, Complex Questions, and Reification

You're really stupid if you believe in creation. All right, so it's ad hominem. The argument is directed at the claim. If Genesis is true, then why is there so much evidence for an old earth? Complex question.

So this question should be divided. Is there much evidence for an old earth? If so, how can Genesis be true? But the biblical creationists would answer no to the first question, so the second question is not meaningful.

Evolution has designed some amazing creatures. Reification. Evolution is a concept and as such it cannot design anything, right? Evolution doesn't design anything. Obviously persons with a mind design things.

So when you start attributing that to a non-personal thing, reification. Okay, questions? Just to let you know, Logic and Faith, this is Dr. Jason Lyle. He's an incredible, he's an astrophysicist and an expert when it comes to creation.

He, you can find all his stuff online. He's got a bunch of books. Logic and Faith is a little five dollar book that you can get online. It has all the fallacies in there and then a little test with questions.

If you want to spend more money, the book Discerning Truth, Logic and Faith actually was taken out of that book, right? So he took an excerpt out and made it smaller just if you want to know logic. Discerning Truth, he exposes errors in evolutionary arguments.

It's excellent, excellent book.