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People should really be taught about logical fallacies in school. It occurred to me reading this thread that a lot of people haven't been educated on the topic (not knowing the meaning of straw man, ad hominem, etc.) It's interesting to note the extreme number of fallacies present in creationism and other religious dogma (Warning, long post!):
Appeal to Tradition ("X" must be true because it's been around for a long time) - Christianity/Catholicism/Judaism has been around for thousands of years and survived, so its beliefs must be true.
Appeal to Belief ("X" must be true because most people believe it) - Most people believe God exists, so God must exist.
Appeal to Consequences of a Belief (If good/bad things come as a consequence to "X", then it must be true/false) - My religion has helped [me/all believers] to lead a better life, so its beliefs must be true.
Generalization (If a small sample has a certain characteristic, then the entire thing must have it) - all the atheists I've met are immoral people, so all atheists must be immoral and need religion to teach them how to be righteous.
Relativist (Truth "X" is not objective because it's not true for me) - maybe YOU think the story of Noah's Ark is impossible, but you just have to believe.
False Dilemma (A and B can't both be true [the fallacy is that they can both be true], and A is/isn't true, therefore B isn't/is true) - either God created the universe or life evolved on Earth, and life didn't evolve on Earth. So God must have created the universe.
Straw Man (presenting a distorted version of someone's argument and knocking that version down) - Evolution is impossible. It's theorized to happen very slowly and gradually, but we can't find any transient species, so the theory must be wrong. (This would still be fallacious even IF there were no transient fossils).
Ad Hominem - (using irrelevant information about the person presenting an argument to try and prove the falseness of his/her argument - does not have to be abusive but often is). How many times have we seen that in this thread alone?
Appeal to [insufficient] Authority ("X" must be true because person "Y" says it, even though "Y" isn't an expert on the subject "X" pertains to) - Mr. X, [my priest/an evangelist/a Christian scientist], says that the big bang couldn't have happened, and he's an expert on religion, so he must be right.
Circular reasoning (use of precept "X" to prove precept "Y" which is in turn used to prove precept "X") - God must exist, because the Bible says he exists, and we must believe the Bible because it was handed down from God. (This is the big one, and is used practically as a definition of cirular reasoning!)
Composition (assuming that what is true for parts of something must be true for the entire thing) - organic life is structured, therefore the entire universe is structured (which is then used to start the "Creation implies Creator" argument).
Speaking of the above: Inductive Fallacy ("X" has characteristic "Y", and "Z" is related to "X", so "Z" must have characteristic "Y") - Most complex things [i.e. a watch] do not occur naturally, and Life on Earth is complex, therefore someone must have created it.
Post Hoc (assuming that "X" happening before "Y" implies that "X" is actually the cause of "Y") - My life was in shambles, then I turned to God and the Bible and prayed, and now I've turned my life around. God must surely have helped me.
Deductive Fallacy (If "X" is true, then "Y" is true. "Y" is true, so "X" must be true) - The Bible says that God created man in his own image, intelligent and free-willed. People are intelligent and free-willed. Therefore, God created them.
Oh, almost forgot the classic Burden of Proof fallacy - God exists because you can't prove he doesn't.
Wowie, for all the intelligent people out there, doesn't this get frustrating to deal with on an almost daily basis? I can't remember the last time I met a "believer" who didn't try to use at least one of these!
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Last edited by DigiNut on Oct-14-2003 at 00:27
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