The latest scientific fallacy promoted as a fact.
So what? That doesn’t mean you can observe how it happened or when t happened.
Tour beliefs about ancient history are no more demonstrable than my beliefs about God
And that argument cannot be demonstrated y facts.
So it is not based on facts
it is based on belief
And the argument fails according to your own definitions and the OP
Richard
It is a fact that birds are classified as dinosaurs. How is that a fallacy?
I am not claiming that we can observe it. What I am claiming is that the argument about how dinosaurs were birthed in the past is supported by facts, such as the fact of fossil dinosaur eggs.
The difference is my arguments are backed by facts.
What definition is that?
Do you really not understand the difference between facts and arguments?
“Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts.”–Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Theory and Fact”
A few additional options that I’ve noticed in bad arguments that I’m not certain quite fall into one of those categories:
Presence of definite factual errors that are irrelevant to the argument itself.
Extreme resistance to or lack of acknowledgement of correction (usually only applicable after a longer interaction or a series of papers).
Poor documentation of sources (whether published sources or sources of raw data).
Not when I was at school. Birds are classed as birds.
Whether birds evolved from dinosaurs is not a fact.
Back to definition of fact.
You know the difference between inference and observation.
That it is based on observable facts.
You have not observed the transformations evolution claims.
Perhaps you do not know the difference between observable and inferred.
Richard
Bats are classified as bats and they are classified as mammals. Birds are classified as birds and they are classified as dinosaurs.
Correct, it isn’t a fact that birds evolved from an ancestor shared with other dinosaurs. It is an argument backed by facts.
I loudly and freely agree that common ancestry and evolution are inferences from facts and are not facts themselves. I’ve been saying that all along. The inference of evolution is based on observable facts but is not a fact itself. The Gould quote I gave you said the exact same thing.
Whether you do or not, that is not what comes across from science in general and to the public at large. Also you do not seem to allow for other inferences from the same data.(Which was what our recent confrontation was centered upon).
At this point we should rest and let others discuss the OP
Richard
Ignorance is greater than all knowledge. To a clinical degree here. There is something wrong here. Seriously wrong. There is no faith position associated with it, unlike @adamjedgar.
Some of the above discussion made me think of this meme that I have on a bulletin board in my classroom:
Your misperceptions of science are your misperceptions.
That’s a straw man fallacy.
I am constantly asking for inferences for various sets of facts. For example, I am constantly asking for inferences based on the observed fact of the nested hierarchy. I constantly get refusals to make these inferences. In fact, I usually get refusals to even acknowledge the facts.
You have also said that we should judge inferences on their merits, right? So why can’t I do that?
What are your thoughts on the idea that evolution is a fact and a theory from the talk origins site?
Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact . It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution.
Gould: Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don’t go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Today, nearly all biologists acknowledge that evolution is a fact. The term theoryis no longer appropriate except when referring to the various models that attempt to explain how life evolves… it is important to understand that the current questions about how life evolves in no way implies any disagreement over the fact of evolution. - Neil A. Campbell, Biology 2nd ed., 1990,
Since Darwin’s time, massive additional evidence has accumulated supporting the fact of evolution–that all living organisms present on earth today have arisen from earlier forms in the course of earth’s long history. Indeed, all of modern biology is an affirmation of this relatedness of the many species of living things and of their gradual divergence from one another over the course of time. Since the publication of The Origin of Species, the important question, scientifically speaking, about evolution has not been whether it has taken place. That is no longer an issue among the vast majority of modern biologists. Today, the central and still fascinating questions for biologists concern the mechanisms by which evolution occurs. Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology 5th ed. 1989, Worth Publishers, p. 972
Is the usage of the word fact and evolution on that website consistent with your own here?
Vinnie
It starts out well and then muddies the waters, as does Gould’s essay. No matter how much evidence we have for an inference it remains an inference. When we have overwhelming evidence for an inference we don’t relitigate it every time we expand on the idea because we are practical and pragmatic. So in a practical sense, we treat overwhelming supported inferences like we would a fact and strive to discover new things. If someone decides they want to relitigate these inferences, then do so, but don’t complain that scientists refuse to do the relitigation for them when there is mountains of evidence already supporting it.
Another bad approach is confusing want with need. Like someone arguing against veganism by saying they need meat or they just can’t live without meat when reality they don’t and they can but they want it. Want, not need, the corpses of animals as food.
Yes, it includes a bunch of logical fallacies and then lists logical fallacies a category. It’s like creating a list of popular songs and then adding the term music to the list as one example of a popular song.
Maybe we should add “Coming up with misleading and clever acronyms instead of just delivering information in a straightforward way” to the list.
FLICCC!
For an argument to be true (sound) its premises must be correct and it must be valid in that the conclusion follows from them. That’s it. I mean, we could make it more complicated if we want:
Vinnie
There are fossils of dinosaurs, many of which give clues to behaviour and activities.
Do you have any similar fossils for God?
I was familiar with the “standard description” of arguments long before I asked Richard how he defines “an argument”. So why did I ask? Because I wanted to know how “he” defines an argument. On the one hand, I said to myself, he could have defined it in such a way that it would be false to claim that an argument does not stand on it’s own merit. Or he could have defined an argument in such a way that it would be false to claim that an argument does stand on its own merit.
The fact that he refused to define an argument because he did not write the OP and because he deferred a definition of “an argument” to James tells us what?
IMO, it tells me that his definition was either very confused or not the standard definition of an argument. Why? because the standard definition of an argument does not preclude something that draws support from expert testimony. The moment that one or more arguments draw support from expert testimony, Richard’s claim [which he avoided stating explicitly] would sometimes be false, if not always false, no?
That sounds quite respectful. Francis Collins recommends that approach, too. We don’t have to agree–but asking where someone has come from in their decision making gives them respect as individuals with an opinion that matters.
Thanks.
That’s not the point, in either case.
Dinosaurs existed, brilliant. You still have never seen one being born, or giving birth to an avian.
God’s existence does not rely on material evidence.
Richard
Let’s trace the conversation we had before.
RichardG: The birth of a dinosaur is a fact. Show it happening.
Me: If are talking about dinosaur species that existed in the past, then it wouldn’t be fact that they were born in the same way modern dinosaurs are born. That is an argument with a whole host of facts to support it, such as the fact of fossil dinosaur eggs.
RichardG: So what? That doesn’t mean you can observe how it happened or when t happened.
Tour beliefs about ancient history are no more demonstrable than my beliefs about God
I think it is entirely fair to ask for fossils of God since that is the evidence I offered for how dinosaurs in the past were born.
I agree with this point. But I think the inference is there. It is certainly an inference. That is true. It is logically possible God planted them there to test our faith or some advanced alien planted them as part of an experiment among us the lab rats etc. But I think everyone should default to “natural” explanations. By natural I do not mean devoid of God. I mean the ordered nature of reality that is created and sustained by God every instant ex nihilo. As a practical example, if I saw a woman holding a baby, even though I didn’t see it being born, I would assume it had a birth. If there were hospital records I would be confident where it was born and when it was born. I could be wrong but I think the evidence and l facts that I do see and observe would lead to this conclusion. I feel the same for evolution. But it is not a logical certainty and there are numerous assumptions about the world that have to be granted.
You are 100% correct. Material objects rely on the existence of God who is actus purus. Asking for material evidence for God gets things backwards. The reality of the situation is the non-theist has to show how co to gent things and any actualized potentials can exist in the here and now at any instant.
Vinnie
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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