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Sunday, October 6, 2024 - 02:35 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

While this is not listed among the formal logical fallacies, it definitely qualifies as a logical fallacy. I have seen this fallacy used repeatedly by some who insist that a perspective that they disagree with is wrong because it does not work under their way of looking at the data.

The essence of this fallacy is let's say you have two different views on a given set of data. Model 1 interprets the data as A, while model 2 interprets the data as B. A person holding model 1 then insists that the data means A therefore model 2 must be wrong.

This fallacy is often used by evolutionists and old earth proponents, by insisting that the evidence only means what the models relevant to their perspectives say it means. Consequently, they insist that these interpretations prove other models such as young Earth creation or intelligent design are wrong despite the fact that they interpret the same evidence differently.

Despite fact that this is not on the formal logical fallacy list, it is definitely a fairly common logical fallacy used when discussing not only origins but many other topics as well. The key to overcoming this fallacy is to understand different perspectives on evidence affect how that evidence is interpreted.