Failed arguments
This section will list many failed arguments Evolutionists use to defend their beliefs in Evolution/Atheist view of science and history.
Straw Man Argument.
A Straw Man is a classic logical fallacy where a person manufactures a caricature (usually a misinterpretation or oversimplification) of his opponent's argument, and then sets out to attack or dismiss the exaggeration. i.e. Building a straw man and then knocking it down. This is a very dishonest line of argument, since a person puts words into his opponent's mouth then ridicules them.
This is often seen by Creationists debating Evolutionists. The Evolutionist will say something akin to " Creationists believe that a man in the sky used mahic to make everything instead of a scientific explanation for life". This is not what Creationists believe and misrepresents and oversimplifies the actual evidence and arguments. The Evolutionist has stated something erroneous as if it were the actual belief of his opponent and then torn down the argument, thereby displaying a false victory. Another Straw Man would "Christians don't believe in science and can't be scientists". Again, this is not accurate since Christians have no problem with science, but with Evolution, and in fact there are many Christian researchers.
Argumentum Ad Hominem.
An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. The ad hominem is normally described as a logical fallacy, but it is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.
Ad Hominem attacks are personal attacks directed at an opponent instead of addressing the argument of the opponent. An example would be "You're a Creationist so you're clearly too stupid to understand Evolution". This does nothing to address criticisms of Evolution and shows that the opponent really has no answer. Another example would be "You don't understand Evolution". This insenuates that Christians don't subscribe to Evolution because they don't understand it, but in fact the reason many Christians do not subscribe to Evolution is because they do understand it, usually better than Evolutionists themselves because they admit to and explore the numerous weaknesses with the theory of Evolution.
Argumentum Ad Populum.
This fallacy is also known commonly as Argument from Consensus. This argument states that soemthing must be true if many or even all people believe it is true. An example would be " The majority of scientists believe in Evolution so it must be true". This type of fallacy suggests that majority decides truth instead of facts or even logic.
Glittering Generalities.
Glittering generalities, better known as stereotypes, is that fallacious argument that a highly valued concept is correct 100% of the time without fail or exception. An example would be "All Christians are southern Rednecks". This is clearly not true since there are a large number of fundamentlaist Christians living north of the Mason Dixon line and there are even a number of Fundamental Christian universities in northern states such as Michigan. This type of argument oversimplifies statistical evidence as well as common knowledge.
Loaded Language.
Loaded language is the use of wording that attempts to influence someone by appealing to their emotions. An example would be " All Christians are against Diveristy Education". This implies that Christians are against any diversity by not explaining the true definition of the term. A better thing to say would be "Christians are gainst teaching Homosexuality to children in a school setting". This type of argument has some things in common with Straw Man in that it sets up a false argument but also tries to appel to people emotionally so they decide with their heart instead of their brains.
Intimidation.
Intimidation is the act of making someone feel unsafe in some way, often physically but it may also be threatening to some other aspect of life such as being fired from a job. It can also be stated as the use of power or authority to coerce someone into a desired reaction. An example would be "Stop teaching your students to question Darwinian teachings or you'll be fired". This clearly shows someones low level or even disdane for an opposing view to the extent that they try to make their opponent feel unsafe in hopes to silence their opinion.
Ridicule.
Ridicule is the attempt to discredit your opponent by means such as name calling, jokes or personal attacks on their character.
The argument often portrays the opponents claims in a way that appears ridiculous often to the point of it being a straw man. An example would be "Creationists are backwoods hicks too stupid to understand science so they just thump their Bibles". This is clearly untrue since most Creationists understand and discuss the fallaices of Darwinian Evolution moreso than Evolutionary proponents, and many Creationists do not live in rural areas since they are researchers at esteemed institutions. The ridicule is obviously untrue and normally the result of having no counter argument.
Circular Reasoning.
Circular reasoning is the fallacious argument in which the proposition to be proved in assumed, often blindly.
Circular reasoning is fallcious because it assumes what needs to be proven, thereby negating the entire purpose of proving the premise to begin with. It sets out relying on it's own proposition to support it's premise. It assumes it's premise is already proven true and proven so, and uses this to support itself.
An example would be "We date the rock layers by what fossils we find in it, and we date the fossils by what rock layers we find them in". This leads one in a complete circle of reasoning, it leads nowhere.
Infinite Regress.
Infinite regress is the fallcy in argument that pushes the explanation for a proposition back further and further until it reaches infinity. This type of fallacious argument puts off the explanation for the origin of the propositions so it is never reached.
An example would be "We know that this feature can be traced back to this common ancestor, which can be traced back further to another common ancestor". This never adresses the origin of the feature or the organism, but simply places it back further and further. It never actually answers the original question of where either came from.
Non-Sequitor.
Non-sequitur is the logical fallacy whereby the conclusion does not follow the premise.
Whether the conclusion is true or false makes no difference since the argument is fallacious because there is a gap between the premise and the argument. An example would be "Archeopteryx has teeth and a long tail so it msut be a transitional form between reptiles and birds". This ignores the scores of other features that must be in transition, as well as placement in history. Simply because an organism has features of another animal class does not equate it to being a transitional form since many organisms have a few traits in common with another type.
Post Hoc.
Post hoc is the logical fallacy that states if soemthign came after something else, that other something must have been the cause of this something that followed.
An example would be "We are here, therefore we evolved". This does little more than blindly correlate two events without evidence.
Circumstantial Evidence.
Circumstantial evidence is the fallacious argument that assumes evidence is causally related.
An example would be "Fossil ape bones are used to determine human ancestry". Circumstantial evidence is historical evidence but can be interpreted incorrectly. Simply saying that many ape bones are found in strata dated older than strata with human remains found in them does not equate that apes preceded and therefore are the ancestors of humans. Esepcially when we have seen that the strata dating is circular reasoning.
Circumstantial evidence is not generally a bad thing or even a fallacious argument sicne anythign to do with the past is circumstantial sicne we cannot directly observe it, however many interpretations can be incorrect based on faulty assumptions and then Circumstantial evidence leads us down the wrong path. The fallacious argument should not necessarily be equated with solid evidence though it is perfectly fair to question things.
False Dichotomy.
False dichomoty is the fallacy commited by arguing that there are only two possible alternatives in a controversy.
This type of argument falsely forces a choice bewteen two choices, excluding any others, thereby creating the illusion that there are only the two named choices available. An example would be "The controversy is Science vs. Religion". This creates a false issue and misrepresents the real issue. It insenuates that the controversy is about practicers of science versus believers in religions, when in fact it is about the interpretation of scientific evidence based on personal beliefs.
Personification.
Personification is the fallacy of attributing personla attributes or aspects ot inanimate objects or concepts.
An example would be" Reptiles evolved scales sicne Evolution had millions of years to practice". This is in error since Evolution is not concious so cannot act in a guided manner. A force of nature cannot act with any goal since it cannot comprehend or discern a goal, it cannot think.
Reductionism.
Reductionism is the fallacious attempt to reduce a complex concept to to a mere subset of it's components or propositions.
This reduces the alledged complexity of the issue to much less than it really is. An example would be "Organisms are just the sum of the minerals and elements they are comprised of". This ignores that life is seperate of mere chemicals and minerals, even if all the parts are there soemthign cannot live without Life. Nor can these parts have assembled themselves or account for things like Human concscience or metacognition or morals.
Argument form Authority.
The arugment from authority is a fallacious argument that argues a statement is true because someone considered to be of authority says it is, assuming they are not wrong since they are an authority.
An example would be "Richard Dawkins says the Bible is not true and Evolution is, therefore the Bible is false and Evolution is true since Richard dawkins is a highly paid researcher". This implies that since Richard Dawkins is someone who works as a researcher in the field of science he cannot be wrong about anything related to science. It ignores any personal bias and axioms that he has and his interpretation of evidence, as well as his bias against religion.
Best in Field.
This fallacy argues that a model is the best possible even if it has many glaring problems.
This argument states that even if there is a better model, it may be excluded based on it's premise. An example would be "Even though Evolution has issues that we have yet to solve, we cannot accpet Creationism as a model because it involves a Creator". This means that even if Creation makes mroe sense it is excluded based on the involvement of a creator, and instead a model with many more problems is used because it excludes a creator.
Self Refuting Argument.
The self refuting argument is one that disqualifies it's own argument by means of it's premise.
The arguments falsehood is a logical consequence of it's premise. It assumes something to be true by blind faith but the conclusion defeats the premise.
An example would be "There are no absolutes". How can one be aboslutely sure? If there are no absolutes then one cannot logically say that there are none since one can never be sure.
Side Stepping.
Side stepping is the fallacy of dodging the issue by changing subjects.
This tactic is often seen by means of changing the subject when the opponent is presented with a question they cannot answer, so they shift focus to another topic. AN exampel would be "there is plenty of evidence for evolution, but what about evidence for God?".
The argument was not about providing evidence for God, that is a seperate topic, it was about providing evidence for Macro Evolution, but since the opponenet could provide none, they shifted focus to the person asking for evidence for Evolution. The Evolution proponent couldn't back up their claims so they simply dodged it by passing focus to the Christian proponent's evidence for God. The evidence for the Evolution was never provided.
Red Herring.
Red herring is the tactic of luring an opponent off topic by going off on a tangent.
The argument is often used when someone has no answer so they go off on a tangent to distract an opponent from their original questions. An example would be "The issue is not really about transitional forms, but about Christians being threatened by science". The issue was clearly about transitional forms since that is what was beign currently discussed, the opponent switched to another subject to attemtp to hide the fact that they could give no evidence of transitional forms. The allegation of Christians being threatend by science were in no way related and are an unfounded accusation.
Equivocation.
Equivocation is the tactic of using vague terms and confusing the definitions of terms in order to cause confusion.
Equivocation attempts to confuse an opponent by equating the definition of a term with another more vague definition. An example would be " Evolution is genetic changes in an organism over time".
This is a half truth due to the equivocation, it gives a very broad definition of evolution and equates Macro Evolution to Micro Evolution, Macro Evolution is gain in genetic material and changes from one type of major Phyla to another, while Micro Evolution is simply change within a Species or Family/Genera of ogrganisms. Only the latter has been observed so the former must be equated to it in order to give the appearance that it has been observed as well.