Young Australian Skeptics

In a show of “just can’t keep me down” boneheadedness spokesman for the pig-​​ignorant Jason Lisle has written another article on logical fallacies. This time he’s turned his attention to the fallacy of begging the question, with…amusing results. Let’s journey into the den of the moron, shall we?

“I once did a telescope session with a small group of people, including a four-​​year-​​old boy who was particularly interested in astronomy.”

The four year old’s PhD thesis was, on the whole, much better received than Jason’s.

“I asked this young budding astronomer if he believed in alien spaceships. “Of course,” he said. I then asked him why he believed in alien spaceships. I’ll never forget his clever response: “How else would the aliens get here?” Pretty logical isn’t it? The aliens would never be able to get to earth without a spaceship. So, clearly, there must be alien spaceships!”

As silly as that argument is, it still makes more sense that anything I’ve heard come out of Jason Lisle’s mouth. Seriously — this kid is Jason’s intellectual superior.

“This is a wonderful example of a very common error in reasoning — the fallacy of begging the question. This 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 upon its conclusion. In this case, our young student was attempting to prove the existence of alien spacecraft by taking it for granted that aliens have traveled to earth. But that is essentially the point in question. This young aspiring astronomer was reasoning in a circle.”

Actually, in a technical sense that’s two different fallacies — the fallacy of begging the question, and circular reasoning. Due to the similarity in definition the two meanings generally get blurred, just as ‘begging the question’ has taken on a life of its own with the meaning ‘suggests a question that needs answering’. Traditionally, ‘begging the question’ relates to an argument in which the conclusion is explicitly or implicitly assumed in the premises, while engaging in ‘circular reasoning’ means that you are arguing for two different conclusions using each conclusion as a premise for the other. Now, far be it from me to turn all prescriptivist on your arsicles and say that this usage is wrong, but take note of the previous two definitions and you too can amaze all your friends with your pedantic irrelevancies. If you still have friends, that is.

“Of course, we expect such humorous reasoning from a four-​​year-​​old. As we grow up, we are expected to become rational and not make these kinds of logical mistakes.”

…seriously, Jason? Seriously? Dinosaurs lived with humans, the earth was created after the domestication of the dog, T-​​Rex was a vegetarian, there was a world wide flood (whatever happened to that water, anyway?), snakes can talk, Africans are the cursed descendents of Ham, and the different languages of the world came about at the same time because god was pissed at the Babel Construction Union. All things promoted either directly or indirectly by you or the Creation Museum. I know I expect people to be rational, but if you do too I must say you’re setting a piss-​​poor example.

“That’s why it is so disturbing to find that many adults commit the fallacy of begging the question in debates on origins. Some examples are obvious: “Evolution must be true because it is a fact.””

Show me one person who has ever actually used that argument in the history of ever and I will eat my Optics textbook.

“But, more commonly, the fallacy is much more subtle. Consider some of the following arguments. “The Bible cannot be true because it contains miracles. And miracles would violate the laws of nature!””

Oh, Jason, Jason, Jason…why can’t you use arguments that people actually make rather than engaging in these strawman shenanigans? Surely you’ve got better things to do than inventing fictitious evilutionist arguments? That said, you do work at Answers in Genesis…so maybe not.

“Yes, miracles can potentially involve a temporary suspension of the laws of nature (not that all of them necessarily do). Since the Bible makes it clear that God is beyond natural laws, He can suspend/​violate them if He wishes to. But the critic’s argument has simply taken it for granted that violations of the laws of nature are impossible. In other words, the arguer has already assumed that the Bible is false — in order to argue that the Bible is false. He has begged the question.”

Except that, and this is a subtle distinction I don’t expect Jason to understand, he hasn’t. Rather than start with the assumption that the laws of nature are inviolable, it is more likely that he has noticed that we have no evidence that the laws of nature have ever been broken, and thus have drawn the conclusion that it is probably impossible to transgress them. If Jason would like to falsify that idea, all he needs to do is present evidence of one case where the laws of nature have been unequivocally broken — simply pointing to the fact that there are miracles in the bible is like justifying fairy dust with fairies.

“You may have heard people argue: “The Bible cannot be true because it teaches that the earth is only thousands of years old; whereas, we know the earth is billions of years old.” All such arguments commit the fallacy of begging the question. Here is why. Old earth arguments are all based on the assumptions of naturalism (nature is all that there is) and a large degree of uniformitarianism (present rates and processes are representative of past rates and processes). Then, by extrapolating from present rates of various earth processes, the person estimates how long it would take to build up or erode certain geological features or how long it would take for a radioisotope to decay.”

Yeah. And it’s just a complete coincidence that every single independent method of conformation gives roughly the same answer, I suppose? I mean, give me a freakin’ break — the when you start talking about something like radioactive decay, you’re not requiring some kind of minor adjustment to calculations in order to give a 6000 year old Earth; essentially, you require that the very fundamental laws of physics as we know them are either phenomenally incorrect or have changed over time. We know that the laws of physics haven’t changed over time anywhere in the observable universe (looking at distant stars — which obey the same rules by all observations — is essentially looking back in time), so what you need to show us is why and how the laws as we know them are so tragically wrong. In doing so, you need to take into account the apparent success of our physical theories to date, as well as presenting at least the outline of a viable alternative. Don’t rush. We’re not holding our breath.

“But the Bible denies naturalism and uniformitarianism (e.g., erosion rates during the global flood). By assuming naturalism and uniformitarianism, the critic has already merely assumed that the Bible is wrong. He then uses this assumption to conclude that the Bible is wrong. His reasoning is circular.”

Poppyphallus. Just because you worship a book that denies reality doesn’t mean that in accepting reality we are a priori assuming that your book is wrong. Your book is wrong because after looking at the evidence it comes out looking worse than Lindsay Lohan on a trip to Columbia.

““Creation cannot be true because you would have to ignore all that scientific evidence.”

But this argument begs the question because it presupposes that scientific evidence somehow provides support for evolution, which has not been demonstrated.”

Okay, screw it — I’m done with this article. You know what I think? Jason Lisle is dirt. He is a lying douchebag whose only legitimate purpose in life is to serve as a warning to educational systems around the world, both of the dangerous results of poor education and of the scumbags out there who are trying to sell blatant lies to children in an attempt to indoctrinate the young. His blanket denial of reality, unjustified by argument or evidence, highlights once again the untenability of his position.

If the creationists had any sort of evidence to back up their claims they would be screaming it from the rooftops. It would be a revolution in science — it would completely change the way we look at the world and our understanding of where the universe is going. But they don’t — indeed, even cogent arguments are beyond them. Instead they turn to indoctrination and sophistry; animatronic dinosaurs and child oriented ‘educational’ programs to get converts young, and then rudimentary argumentative techiniques such as Jason presents in this series on how ‘evolutionists’ allegedly use logical fallacies. In reality, all he’s doing is exposing further the ridiculous nature of his own position — and, of course, proving once and for all that he is a strawman aficionado.

Tags: answers in genesis, jason lisle, Logic, logical fallacy, Richard Hughes

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Creationism, Logic, Richard Hughes, Skeptic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.