Young Australian Skeptics

As promised, Doctor of Astrophysics Jason Lisle has begun writing a series of articles about two topics he hasn’t even a remote familiarity with — logic and evolution. Week by week he will introduce us to various logical fallacies, until the average creationist’s arsenal of catchphrases is large enough that they will be able to set their brain to cruise control in debates for hours at a time without repeating themselves once. As evil evilutionists who are evil, we should all presumably be quaking in our boots. Don’t rush out to buy a vibrating chair just yet though — you may find yourself underwhelmed. For whatever reason, Jason has decided to write his first piece about the fallacy of reification. Take it away, Jason!

“Reification is attributing a concrete characteristic to something that is abstract. Perhaps you have heard the old saying, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” This is an example of reification because “nature” is an abstraction; it is simply the name we give to the chain of events in the universe. Nature is not a person and cannot literally be fooled, since nature does not have a mind. So, this expression would not make sense if taken literally.”

Cherish this paragraph, people. You’ll not see as much factually correct material as this for a long time coming…

“Of course, not all language should be taken literally. There is nothing wrong with reification as a figure of speech. It is perfectly acceptable in poetry. Even the Bible uses reification at times in its poetic sections.”

‘At times’? Really — gosh, I’d hardly noticed it it’s so subtle.

…

“For example, Proverbs 8 personifies the concept of wisdom. This is a perfectly acceptable (and poetically beautiful) use of reification. However, when reification is used as part of a logical argument, it is a fallacy. The reason for this is that using such a poetic expression is often ambiguous and can obscure important points in a debate. It is very common for evolutionists to commit this fallacy. Let’s look at some examples of the fallacy of reification as they are commonly used in evolutionary arguments.”

Here we go: Foreplay’s over, Jason. Show me what you’ve got.

“Sometimes in an argument, an evolutionist will say something like this: “Nature has designed some amazing creatures.” This sentence commits the fallacy of reification because nature does not have a mind and cannot literally design anything.”

First up, I’m calling strawman — a fallacy I’m sure Jason will write about in some later propaganda piece. I truly do not know that many people who actually say that  nature has designed anything, and on the rare occasions that they do it is used in more of a lyrical rather than literal sense — a succinct stand in phrase to take the place of a complex description of reality. What I have definitely not seen is anyone claiming that nature is some kind of conscious being capable of planning and construction, and Jason’s assertion that it means exactly that demonstrates either intent to deceive his readers or a third grade level of reading comprehension.

“By using the fallacy of reification, the evolutionist obscures the fact that the evolution worldview really cannot account for the design of living creatures. (Keep in mind that he may be doing this unintentionally).”

Poppycock and handcream! Evolutionary biology accounts fantastically well for the apparent existence of design in living creatures. In fact, as has been pointed out by many people before me, the ‘bottom up’ approach to design that we see in nature of cobbled together improvised systems and the restructuring of organs to suit different purposes than they were initially useful for is much better accounted for by evolutionary biology than creationism, which tries to impose on nature a ‘top down’ preplanned system that just isn’t there.

“God can design creatures because God is a person. Nature is a concept and cannot design anything.”

Crap. Now I need a new irony meter.

““Creationists say the world was created supernaturally, but science says otherwise.” Here the person has attributed personal, concrete attributes to the concept of science. In doing so, he or she overlooks the important fact that the scientists draw conclusions about the evidence and verbalize such conclusions — not “science.” Science is a conceptual tool that can be used properly or improperly. It says nothing. It does not take a position on issues. So, this common example of reification is logically fallacious.”

Again, what we have here is not so much a fallacy of reification as an inability to understand the basics of the English language. Yes, Jason, science (being an abstract concept) can’t actually say anything. Yes, scientists do draw conclusions based on the available evidence, as they also reject hypotheses based on the available evidence. Yes, ‘science’ in this context is being used as shorthand for “the collected knowledge and overwhelming consensus of the scientific community for over a century, as well as anyone who understands the basics of evolution and who doesn’t have an agenda to push” — you can see how ‘science’ is a wee bit more succinct. No, you can’t have a cookie until you learn to read.

““The evidence speaks for itself.” This expression is quite common, but when used as part of an argument, it is the fallacy of reification. Evidence does not speak at all. Evidence is a concept: the name we give to a body of facts that we believe to be consistent with a particular point of view. People draw conclusions about evidence and verbalize their thoughts. But evidence itself does not have thoughts to verbalize.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake — now you’re just being silly.

Actually, the entire rest of the article is silly, and if you really hate your brain you can go over and check out the few examples I’ve left off this list for sanity’s sake. Just don’t be surprised if your temporal lobe takes out a restraining order against you.

Tags: answers in genesis, Logic, Reification

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Creationism, Evolution, 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.