mjh's blog

Down the ID Rabbit Hole

Fri 09/09/05 at 12:00 pm

class="mine">This link was sent by a friend. A little heady, but lots ‘o links from here to fallacious creationist claims.

class="sig">mjh

href="http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Argument_from_incredulity">Argument from incredulity – EvoWiki

There are two types of

this fallacy [an appeal to ignorance], depending on whether it’s the arguer’s own incredulity:

* “This is unexplainable”

(meaning, of course, “I can’t explain this”). This is the argument from personal incredulity, and it contains the unwritten assumption

that the speaker is a superhuman genius who should be able to understand everything unless he is missing an assumption. So the superhuman

genius concludes that some assumption (God, aliens, psi, whatever) is true.

* “Scientists cannot explain this” (meaning, of

course, “as far as I know, science can’t explain this”). This variation contains the unwritten assumption that scientists are superhuman

geniuses and should be able to understand everything unless they are missing an assumption. This undue veneration of scientists is a form

of scientism, or using science as an ersatz religion. On top of that, it is simply not true in many cases – scientists do have an

explanation, and the speaker just doesn’t know it.

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/001053.htm">mjh’s Blog: Vox populi and mundus vult decipi

Rate this post:

In ID:
Newer: May god damn these fools