Dr. Jason Lisle #fundie

Dr. Jason Lisle #fundie answersingenesis.org

Most of the examples of circular reasoning used by evolutionists are of the fallacious begging-the-question variety—they are arbitrary. Consider the evolutionist who argues:

“The Bible cannot be correct because it says that stars were created in a single day; but we now know that it takes millions of years for stars to form.”

By assuming that stars form over millions of years, the critic has taken for granted that they were not supernaturally created. He has tacitly assumed the Bible is wrong in his attempt to argue that the Bible is wrong; he has begged the question.

77 comments

old comment by Papabear

"Most of the examples of circular reasoning used by evolutionists are of the fallacious begging-the-question varietythey are arbitrary."

Excuse me? The religious are the experts and champions of circular reasoning. It's almost the only reasoning you folks use.

"Consider the evolutionist who argues:

'The Bible cannot be correct because it says that stars were created in a single day; but we now know that it takes millions of years for stars to form.'

Except we do not assume that. We rely upon scientific evidence which SHOWS stars form over millions of years. We do not assume supernatural causes because there is no evidence showing supernatural forces.

old comment by Wozza

No one is just "assuming" they form over millions of years dickwad. They look at all the avaliable evidence and then decide what explanation is consistent with that evidence.

That conclusion does contradict your explanation (unless one assumes that the stars were created in a form which was also consistent with their forming over millions of years), but your explanation is not based on the avaliable evidence, but rather on a book written at a time when the evidence we now have was unavaliable, and people naturally tended to make up all sorts of shit about things like this that they didn't understand.

Sure, your book could still be right - but all the evidence we have so far says different.

old comment by dionysus

Most of the examples of circular reasoning used by evolutionists are of the fallacious begging-the-question varietythey are arbitrary. Consider the evolutionist who argues:

“The Bible cannot be correct because it says that stars were created in a single day; but we now know that it takes millions of years for stars to form.”

By assuming that stars form over millions of years

I'm going to ignore the fact that cosmology has nothing to do with ToE. Here's the problem: scientists don't ASSUME that stars take millions of years to form, they KNOW that stars take millions of years to form. We can observe stars in all stages of development. And we know how much time each physical process takes.

the critic has taken for granted that they were not supernaturally created

Do you have evidence that they were supernaturally created? No? Then why should I take you any more seriously than my little cousin who claims that a monster broke my remote? At least he had the decency to eventually admit that he was making it up and that it was a bad excuse showing that he's more intellectually mature than any fundie.

He has tacitly assumed the Bible is wrong in his attempt to argue that the Bible is wrong; he has begged the question.

Wrong! He has looked at what reality says and then matched that against what the Bible says and sided with reality over scripture. There's not a circle to be found in that reasoning.

old comment by Prof. Bill Hill

We know that God decided to create everything with the power of his ... er, ... something or the other. The scientists with their intelligence cannot hope to ever find out anything that isn't already obvious to the ignorant clod. The power of ignorance and sheer stupidity is far superior to rationality and should be obvious to anyone who is even remotely aware that they're alive. I gladly inform all you atheists and other smarty-pants out there that we ignorant cretins are more in the image of God than you are. God is an ignorant dolt just like me. And He likes to kill people when He's got a strop on. So there, the Bible proves that our ignorance and stupidity trumps your intelligence and curiosity every time.

old comment by Wehpudicabok

They don't assume it. They show it. Here is the evolutionist's argument in full, including the part you conveniently "omitted" (premise 1):

1. Cosmological evidence indicates that stars took millions of years to form.
2. The Bible suggests that stars did not.
----
Conclusion: The Bible is false.

Nothing circular about that. It is a cogent argument. You just don't like the presence of evidence that discredits your precious "beliefs."

Two notes: First, it is true that the scientists assume that there is no supernatural causation at work when attempting to explain natural phenomena; however, this is the only sane way to reason, because supernatural causes cannot be proven, disproven or even reasoned about in any meaningful way. See methodological naturalism and Occam's razor for support on this idea, and the Omphalos hypothesis for an unintentionally effective reductio ad absurdum on it.

Second, there are women involved in evolutionary biology as well, and they resent your rote exclusion of their work.

old comment by GodotIsWaiting4U

Actually, no, Mr. Lie-le, that's not an example of begging the question, though it IS an example of a false dichotomy...on your part.

See, the age of the stars has nothing to do with whether their origin is supernatural or not. All it indicates is when. Of course, there's also no evidence suggesting that the stars formed supernaturally, so there's no good reason to imagine that they have a supernatural origin. I find it interesting that you yourself commit such a blatant fallacy in your attempt to illustrate a different fallacy. It's even more amusing to note that there is no fallacy in your example. Logic isn't one of your strong suits, is it?

old comment by Anon-e-moose

"the critic has taken for granted that they were not supernaturally created"

Then why did it take your supposedly 'omnipotent' God seven days to create this universe, this planet & all the life on it? And don't forget, the Oxford Dictionary is the definitive lexicon of the English language (it's not their fault if the original writers of the Bible didn't take into account future translations of such, nor the scholars who did so):

Definition of Day:

day each of the twenty-four-hour periods, reckoned from one midnight to the next, into which a week, month, or year is divided, and corresponding to a rotation of the earth on its axis

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com

Why not seven hours, or seven minutes, or seven seconds, or seven nanoseconds? Why couldn't he? (check one):

[ ] Seems your 'God' isn't as supernatural as you fundies claim. Thus he's not 'omnipotent', thus he's a contradiction to himself, ergo he doesn't exist.

[ ] God doesn't exist, and this universe, this planet & all the life on it ocurred naturally.

Choose wisely.

old comment by Doubting Thomas

“The Bible cannot be correct because it says that stars were created in a single day; but we now know that it takes millions of years for stars to form.”

How exactly is this circular reasoning? The bible also says that goats will have striped offspring if they look at striped sticks, but we know that to be false as well. Without any evidence to the contrary, like evidence a god exists & created the universe, it's not circular reasoning to say that stars take millions of years to form so the bible must be false.

You claim that this argument doesn't take the supernatural into effect, but true science only deals with the natural, not supernatural. If you were a true doctor of anything, you'd understand this. My guess is that you paid a bunch of money to a diploma mill.

He has tacitly assumed the Bible is wrong in his attempt to argue that the Bible is wrong; he has begged the question.

And how is this worse than all the Christians who assume the bible is right in attempts to argue that it is right? In fact, assumption that the bible is true beforehand is the only real way to believe all the stories in it.

Dr. Jason Lisle #fundie answersingenesis.org

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