Logical fallacies with Dr. Jason Lisle

Logical Fallacies and the Laws of Logic

Alright, so as you guys know, we've been going through the book, Always Ready, by Greg Bonson, and it's a presuppositional defense of the faith. And one of the preconditions of intelligibility are the laws of logic.

In other words, we have laws of logic in the world. The only way that anybody can ground the laws of logic is in an immaterial mind. In other words, without the existence of God, we couldn't have laws of logic.

So laws of logic are a great evidence for the existence of God. Without God, we wouldn't be able to have logical reasoning. So tonight, what we're going to do is go through several, eight, I should say, eight of the most common logical fallacies.

We'll go through what each one is, give a little example, it'll be pretty brief, and then we'll go through a little memorization and maybe a little test at the end if you're up to it. So let's go through logical fallacies.

This is a quote by Dr. Jason Lyle. Whenever I hear people debating some issue, abortion, gun control, origins, religion, politics, et cetera, I often spot a number of mistakes in their arguments. Mistakes in reasoning are called logical fallacies, and they abound in origins debates.

I often thought it would be fun to carry a little buzzer that I could push when someone makes a fundamental mistake in reasoning. Of course, that would be impolite. However, we should all become familiar with logical fallacies so that our mental buzzer goes off whenever we hear a mistake in reasoning.

Now, everything that you see tonight is going to be pulled from Dr. Lyle's books. And I'll show you the books at the end, you can get them, they're excellent. He does a lot of debates on evolution, so when he talks about origins, he's talking about people who don't believe in young earth creation, who believe in evolution.

He's constantly involved in debates like that, and in those debates, the scientists, or the person he's debating, make logical errors in their thinking all the time. So what he's going to do is show us the most common ones, and he does a great job of going through it simply.

So we're going to hit them, you know, each one briefly. We're not going to be able to spend too, too much time. So logic is the study of correct and incorrect reasoning, and has become a lost skill in our culture.

That's why one of the things in a classical Christian school they do is specifically teach logic classes, to teach the kids how to think and how to spot logical errors, so that when somebody's trying to hoist their position on you, you can spot their logical error and say, no, no, this is why that's wrong, okay?

Our mission, biblically, we are supposed to argue in this way. We are to provide a reasoned, a logical defense, an argument for the Christian faith with gentleness and respect, right? If you're not going to use logic, at least use gentleness and respect.

But let's get all three down. Logic involves the use of arguments, and when some people think of arguments, they think of an emotionally charged exchange, like a yelling match. But that's not what's meant in this particular instance.

An argument is a chain of statements, propositions, in which the truth of one is asserted on the basis of the other, right? So usually we'll have something that says that Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal, right?

Proposition, proposition, conclusion. Now, we would test the argument to see if it's valid and sound. If it's valid and sound, then it would be a valid argument, which couldn't be refuted. Sadly, detractors often commit logical fallacies, and it's important that Christians learn to identify and refute such faulty reasoning, as well as not use faulty reasoning when we're putting our position in front of someone else, arguing for it.

Logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought. Some people use this intentionally. They know what they're doing, and they often very sneakily use, are sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people.

Go figure. Here's a common one. You're wrong because you're arrogant. That's called the ad hominem fallacy, right? And usually when somebody tells me, well, you're wrong because you're arrogant, I say, well, I'm ugly and bald too.

Now let's deal with my argument, right? It doesn't matter what I look like. It doesn't matter what I sound like. What is the basis for my argument? That's what you need to focus on. Scientists are right because they practice science.

Very intelligent, right? That's begging the question. The first premise is assumed to be true. In other words, they assume their premise up front before proving it. If you don't buy oatmeal, you're neglecting your children's health.

It's a non sequitur. The conclusion doesn't follow. Some people might say, if you buy oatmeal for your kids, you really don't like them. That's a non sequitur too.

Right?

All right.

The Fallacy of Reification

So here's the first logical fallacy we're going to go over. It's called the fallacy of reification. And reification is attributing a concrete characteristic, usually personal, to something that is abstract.

Perhaps you've heard the old saying, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature, right? They give a personal attribute, Mother Nature, to the natural order. This is an example of reification because nature is an abstraction.

It is simply the name we give to the chain of events of the universe. Nature is not a person and can't literally be fooled since nature doesn't have a mind. So this expression would not make sense if taken literally.

There's another one. The evidence says evolution is true. Does evidence say anything?

No.

And one of the apologists that I listened to, he says, science doesn't say anything. Scientists do. Now, if you've gone through the book, Always Ready, up until this point, you recognize that no one is neutral, right?

They're all coming at it from a certain point of view. So when the scientists say something, it's going to be skewed by their underlying presuppositions. When you talk about a miracle, they say, well, miracles can't happen.

Well, why?

Science. Well, wait a second. You're ruling that out because your worldview doesn't include an immaterial realm, right? Another example would be the evidence speaks for itself. Evidence doesn't speak.

We interpret the evidence and we try to come to a conclusion. Natural selection caused this. How can natural selection, which is just a natural process, cause anything? Doesn't cause anything. It's the description of what happened.

Let's see.

Oh, you've heard this one. Follow the evidence where it leads. Does evidence lead us in a direction? Or is it just there and it's up to us to interpret the facts and put them in order, right? So this is the fallacy of reification, assigning personal attributes to an impersonal thing.

The Fallacy of Equivocation

Second is the fallacy of equivocation, also known as debate and switch. When debating any topic, it's important that we pay close attention to the meaning of words and how they're being used in the debate.

Most words have more than one meaning, but only one of those meetings will properly fit the given context. When someone shifts from one meaning of a word to another within an argument, he or she has committed the fallacy of equivocation.

Here's a facetious example. Doctors know a lot about medicine and Dr. Lyle is a doctor, so he must know a lot about medicine, right? So anybody with a PhD is considered a doctor, but that doesn't mean they're a medical.

Doctor.

So what the person is doing is taking the word doctor and meaning it in one sense at the beginning of the argument and in another sense at the end of the argument or conflating.

It.

The short argument shifts from one meaning of the word doctor, medical doctor to another meaning, PhD. So this would be another example. I know evolution is true because we see evolution happening all the time.

All right, so what word are they using in there and have two different meanings with?

Someone?

Evolution, right? We know evolution is true and what they mean by evolution is macro evolution. Change large scale changes over time because we see evolution happening all the time. The second evolution is micro evolution.

Yeah, we see changes. We see adaptation, but we never see something going from one species to another species. So they take macro evolution and say it's true because we can see micro evolution. That's a big jump.

They're using that word with two different ways. So that's the fallacy of equivocation. Third is begging the question. The fallacy is committed when a person merely assumes what he or she is attempting to prove or when the premise of an argument actually depends on its conclusion.

So the argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion rather than supporting it. So you're basically baking your answer in the question or in the statement without proving it. Here's a good example.

I believe in alien spaceships. How else could aliens get here? So you assume aliens exist. And I mean, if they're here, obviously they had to come in something. So your conclusion is baked right into the statement.

Another one that would be a good example would be evolution must be true. After all, it's a well established fact of science.

Right.

So they're saying they're taking this well established fact of science and imposing it on evolution, saying that it's that it's true because it's a well established fact. Well established fact by who?

Who?

I mean, there's some scientists that hold to it, but there's other scientists that don't. So it's called begging the question. Any questions at this point?

We're good. Okay.

The Complex Question Fallacy

Four is the complex question. This is the interrogative form of begging the question when the arguer attempts to persuade by asking a loaded question. You've probably heard this boy. Classic examples.

Have you stopped beating your wife? Imagine getting asked that question. Either a yes or no answer would seem to imply that the person is beating his wife, which may not be the case. You know, I.

Yeah.

When have you stopped beating your wife? Any answer to that question assumes that you are beating your wife. So it's a complex question. It should be broken up in two parts. The question is complex, should be divided into two questions.

First would be, did you ever beat your wife? And the second would be, if so, have you now stopped doing this?

Right.

Do you see the difference? You have you have to cut those. It's it's two questions in one. And your job is to listen to what they say and try to separate those things out so that they don't pass this by you.

A good example of this would be. So you're going to vote for that incompetent candidate.

Right.

So he's assuming that the person is going to vote and the vote that he makes is an incompetent candidate, right? Whereas he should separate those two things and say, well, are you going to vote?

Yes.

Who are you going to vote for?

Right.

Those are two different things. So if the guy says, no, I'm not going to vote vote for that person. He's he's assuming that it's an incompetent candidate because it's baked into the same question. You've got to separate those two things.

Another example would be if the world is so young, then why does it look so old? If the world is young, then why does it look so old? They're assuming, OK, again, it's two different two different questions.

You have to break that out. Why do you have why do you what is your reasoning behind why the earth is young? What is your facts for why the earth looks so old? Those are two different questions. You want to separate those two out when talking with somebody.

The Bifurcation Fallacy

Five, the bifurcation fallacy. It's an either or fallacy or what's called a false dilemma. So a bifurcation fallacy is committed when two propositions are presented as if they were mutually exclusive and the only two possibilities when, in fact, they're not could be more possibilities.

In other words, it could be that another option exists. Either the traffic is light, either the traffic light is red or it's green, commits the fallacy of bifurcation because a third a third possibility exists.

The light could be yellow. Somebody says, well, the light is either red or green. There's another option. So they're trying to to limit it to two options. So red and green are contrary, but not contradictory positions.

Instead, it may be that two positions are fully compatible and that they can both be.

True.

An example would be, do we save lives or do we save the economy? Right, that's that's typical of politicians. They try to pit one issue against the other. Are we going to save the environment or are we going to keep drilling for oil?

You know, they try to put these two things and pit them against each other as if there's not a third option or it would be it could be OK environmentally to take out a certain amount of oil. They do this with all of the issues and they try to to pit them against each other called bifurcation.

The Ad Hominem Fallacy

Next is the ad hominem fallacy. The phrase ad hominem in Latin means to the man. OK, add to hominem the man. The fallacy is so named because it directs an argument against the person making a claim rather than the claim itself.

The critic hopes that people will reject his opponent's claim simply on the basis that there is something objectionable about the person making the claim. So it's not they're not objecting to the actual claim itself.

They're attacking the person making the claim. And we get this all the time. Like if someone if we say, well, we believe the earth is young. Oh, he's a Christian.

Right.

They they they try to attack the person. Oh, he's one of those those loony tune creationists.

Right.

Rather than addressing the argument, he tries to tear down the man. Again, another example. You cannot honestly accept John's claims about politics because he can't even find a job. So what what's what's the person doing?

He's attacking the man's ability to get a job and saying that that disqualifies him from making a logical statement. However, John's inability to find employment is logically irrelevant to the political claim he's making.

OK, here's a good example that can't be true because you're an idiot.

Right.

Unfortunately, we're laughing, but this happens routinely in debates.

Right.

You're making attack an attack on the man or they'll they'll attack their credentials rather than the argument. So if I have a Ph .D. and the other person doesn't, you know, I'll just you know, you can come out, say that guy doesn't even have a bachelor's degree.

Well, that might be true. But is that attacking his argument or is that attacking him and his his understanding?

Right.

Him as a person. I mean, you don't need a bachelor's degree in order to come to a conclusion scientifically.

Right. No.

So, again, that's that's trying to tear the man down so that it would stain his argument. So another another ad hominem fallacy would be. No, I'm not going to do that.

Sorry.

The Faulty Appeal to Authority

Seven faulty appeal to authority. The faulty appeal to authority is in a way the opposite of the ad hominem fallacy, whereas the ad hominem fallacy denies a claim based on the person making it. Oh, they're not smart enough or whatever to make the claim.

The faulty appeal to authority endorses a claim simply based on the person making it and their degree or their whatever characteristic it is that they have. Essentially, the faulty appeal to authority is the argument that a claim is true simply because someone else believes it.

So the basic structure of the argument is this. Bill believes this. Therefore, X is true. That happens in a lot of churches that have a cult following.

Right.

You'll have a strong leader, right, who teaches them something and you'll ask the person, well, why do you believe this? Well, Pastor so-and-so believes it. As if that means it's right.

Right.

That's not making an argument. That's a faulty appeal to authority. Just because someone who's smart or in authority believes something doesn't necessarily mean that the argument is true.

Right.

We need we need to recognize that you need to spot that when you're going back and forth with somebody, even if it's on the street.

Right.

Whether it's in in a public setting on the street, wherever it is, even at the dinner table, you know, talking with family. Well, so-and-so believes this. It's like, so what? You know, as of late, it's like, well, Joe Rogan believes it.

Yeah.

And what does that mean? That could be bad.

Right.

So, of course, it's almost never stated this explicitly. Often the person to whom the appeal is made is considered highly esteemed for one reason or another. But the truthfulness of the claim at issue is not necessarily relevant to the popularity of the individual making the claim.

And you've seen stuff like this before. More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.

All right.

This is an actual ad.

Right.

So what they're saying is, well, but the doctor smokes it. So if he smokes it and he's in the know, I mean, he's a doctor. Then it should be OK to smoke that cigarette. So, again, this is a faulty appeal to authority.

They're trying to get. And this happens a lot in sales. I mean, most of the marketing and the sales material you read have some kind of logical fallacy baked in there, begging the question, faulty appeal to authority.

You know, four out of five dentists say, you know, have this particular gum.

Sure.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You so and so. This particular movie star drives this car. OK, so faulty appeal to authority. You another another faulty appeal to authority is if creation is true, then why do the vast majority of scientists believe in evolution?

All right.

It's a faulty appeal to authority. Why did the vast majority of so just because it's a majority means that your argument is valid. That's that's not always true. And again, when when when you're arguing with somebody and they're going back and forth with you and they throw these things out, you have to be you have to be quick enough to listen to what they say, recognize that that's a fallacy.

And it really has a lot of weight if you know the name of the fallacy and you can say it.

Back to him.

That's a faulty appeal to authority fallacy or the fallacy of faulty appeal to authority. And all of a sudden, everybody in the room is like, oh, this guy knows what he's talking about. So it would help us if we went through these things, you know, and refreshed our mind.

And I'm going to show you a couple of resources that we can you can get at the end of this. That'll help. Eight, the straw man fallacy. This happens all too many times. Straw man fallacy is when a person misrepresents his opponent's position and then proceeds to refute the misrepresentation.

The straw man rather than what his opponent actually claims. Sometimes evolutionists will say something along these lines. Creationists do not believe that animals change, but clearly animals do change.

So creationists are mistaken. Now, what's wrong with that argument? Bingo.

All right.

How is it wrong?

Exactly.

Creationists do believe that animals change. What a creationist doesn't believe is that it changes from one kind to another. The fact that animals change is apparent. I mean, there's a whole industry created for designer dogs.

Right.

You know, you get a poodle with the with the Labrador, you get a poodle with the Bernie. Everything's a something doodle.

Right. Right.

Because poodles don't shed and they're smart. And well, we got to get the poodle in there. So that that doesn't create a different species. Still a dog. OK, so we do believe in change and, you know, variations in in fur color, height, all that kind of stuff.

But the dog doesn't become a cat.

Right.

Not yet anyway. Well, you got to. You got to ask the dog if it identifies as a cat. You got to ask him.

You have to.

And a lot of people will say, well, you know, chimpanzees have 96 percent the same DNA as a human being. So my next question usually is, OK, would you get a blood transfusion from them? Think about this.

You can't even get a blood transfusion from some other women, depending on some other human being based on your blood type. A, B, O. You know, there's so many different types. Even within the human species, if you get a different blood and that could cause major problems.

Right.

So just because something has 96 percent the same DNA doesn't mean has a common. They share a common ancestor. What I would say is, well, you say they share a common ancestor. I say they share a common creator.

Right.

So since creationists do believe that animals change just not from one basic created kind to another, the argument is a straw man fallacy. The straw man does not refute what creationists actually claim.

It may be unintentional or it could be that a particular evolution is simply misunderstands what a creationist is teaching. If the fallacy is deliberate, then it's a dishonest approach. Yet it's quite common in debates.

Here's an example. They're flat earthers. They don't believe in science. They don't believe in change. If only these creationists had a brain. Right now, as Christians, what is one of the biggest straw men that that people hit us with, especially from?

I'll give you a hit. Jehovah's Witnesses. What's their straw man argument against Christianity? What do we believe in that they don't?

Do you?

Okay. Say again. That there's only well, they believe that there's only one God, right? And what will they say about what? What do we call what? What's the nature of the God we believe in? Triune. You believe in three gods.

Father, son, Holy Spirit, the Father's God, the Holy Spirit's God. Jesus is God. That's three gods. And is that what we believe? No, no. We believe in one God in three persons.

Right.

One essence, one being three subsistences. So they, they look at us and they say, you believe in three gods. That's a straw man.

Okay.

So they represent your view this way. You believe in three gods and then they knock it down. See, see how easy that was. And that's what you have to be careful for with. Now for us, I think our issue goes the opposite way.

We sometimes straw man, their position. And what we have to do is what's called the opposite. It's called steel manning. Their position actually learned their position the way they understand their position and make sure you get it right because you don't want to be caught in a position where this person says, I don't even believe that.

That's not even my position. Here's what my position is. Now you, you went through this whole thing of erecting a false understanding of their position. You knocked it down. The guy's like, that's not what I hold to.

So you want to make sure you steel man, their argument, you get it right. So basically it goes like this is a, how to do a straw man fallacy. First year, ignore the real argument. You create a pretend argument, the straw man, you defeat the pretend argument and you claim victory over the real argument.

And then you do a victory dance. See our position is better because I just, I just annihilated your whole position. Meanwhile, unfortunately that wasn't their position to begin with.

Okay.

All right, let's keep going.

That's the last one.

All right.

So we have complex question, reification, ad hominem, bifurcation, begging the question, faulty appeal to authority, equivocation and straw man.

All right.

You think we can memorize them? Now you guys know, you, you, some of you know what's coming, right? I'm not only pastor Anthony, I'm pastor acronym.

Okay.

So this is the way I memorize things, right? So we're going to go through crab fest. So each one of those, each one of these fallacies begin with the letters.

So crab fest, right?

You're tracking with me.

All right.

I know it's a little silly, but work with me here. Well, S T fest, I had to work, work it. I, you know how many times I was reworking this thing? This is the best I could come up with crab fest.

You'll remember it.

You'll remember it.

All right.

So you guys ready? You want to go through them again? Complex question, reification, ad hominem, bifurcation, begging the question. Fourthly, appeal to authority, equivocation, straw man. Who wants to take a shot?

C complex question. R reification. A ad hominem. B bifurcation and begging the question to B's. Good job, right? Fest F fall to appeal to authority. E equivocation. S T straw man.

Excellent.

Okay.

So you want to do one more time? Anybody want to take another shot? Give you another look just in case. These are all staring at the crab, aren't you? I can't get anybody's attention. This is a bad idea, but you're not going to forget crab fest.

What's C R E? No, a C. Just trying to catch it. Keep me on your toes. A C or a B B F E S T straw man.

Okay.

All right.

Let's practice what we learned. And I'll even give you the little acronym up there. So, you know, you know, what's coming.

All right.

So I'm going to we'll we'll we'll throw out a statement. And you guys try to figure out what, what logical fallacy it commits. You want an example of evolution? You're speaking to one ad hominem. That's begging the question.

Why you're looking at one, right? He assumes evolution and says, look, I'm an example, right? 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. Virtually all the top scientists believe it. Say it again loud. Faulty appeal to authority, right? All the top scientists. 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.

All right.

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 based on the Darwinian model. That one species turns into another species.

Okay.

They do believe in microevolution. That's observable. But macroevolution is not observable. Did you have a question?

Sure, sure.

Absolutely. You could say that.

Sure.

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. Oh, boy. Yeah, good job, Callista.

Fallacy of reification. Natural selection, or nature, is conceptual and does not actually guide anything. Again, they give him personal characteristics to evolution. I'm sorry, 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?

Good job.

And if this takes practice in going over, even as I've gone through these, when I look at the statement, you know, I have to process this. It's not something that just comes naturally. Although we really do need to go over these things a little bit more.

And again, I'll show you some resources at the end that we can look at. 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. That's not contradictory.

Exactly.

Okay.

Creationists take the Bible literally. They must believe the earth has corners and pillars. How absurd.

All right.

Straw man, right? 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.

I passed this famous example two weeks ago where the palm trees are clapping their hands. And what did he say? What was his pun? He came up. Palm trees, right? He said the trees up. Yeah, I blew it.

All right.

I'm sure he's disappointed. 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. The fact that bacteria have evolved resistance to various antibiotics.

So creationists are wrong to say 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. So Thomas Morgan Hunt did an experiment with fruit flies. And he had like thousands of fruit flies in this glass tank.

And because they reproduce so fast, they went through something like 8 ,000 generations, right? So they can observe what the first generation was. And then after 8 ,000 times multiplying, they could observe what the last generation was.

And at the end, there was three different types of fruit flies. Normal fruit flies, mutant fruit flies, and dead fruit flies. The bottom line is this. After 8 ,000 generations, they were still fruit flies.

Now, some of them changed in the sense that one had an extra wing, okay, or some kind of deficiency, but it didn't change into a different animal. It didn't start a fruit fly and end up a butterfly, right?

They were fruit flies. Didn't end that way, right? It didn't change, I should say. Okay, we're getting close to the end. You're really stupid if you believe in creation. Well, it's like ad hominem. I heard that one the other day.

You get it?

Anyway, all right. So it's ad hominem. The argument is directed at the person, not the claim. If Genesis is true, then why is there so much evidence for an old earth?

Say it again.

Complex question, right? So if Genesis is true, the question is, is Genesis true? And then the next question would be, well, why do we see evidence for an old earth? They're trying to combine these two things together.

Sometimes this is difficult to spot, especially on the fly. You want to go over these things in your mind several times before and listen to other arguments and try to spot them as they happen. 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.

Right?

There isn't much evidence from an old earth if you know the science behind it.

Okay.

Evolution has designed some amazing creatures. What's the name of the fallacy for that? Say again.