Fa-Lisle-cies

Periodically I search YouTube for lectures on various subjects that may be of interest and came across a recently posted video on "Evolution and Logical Fallacies", so I decided to give it a look. Turns out it is a talk by Jason Lisle, astrophysicist and speaker/researcher for Answers in Genesis.



Turning to Answers in Genesis for advice on logical thinking is a bit like turning to Lehman Brothers for advice on investment banking. While the bones of the talk are fine the ironically titled lecture is riddled with its own fallacies and bad logic. I of course can't cover them all (to do so would result in a video longer than the original) so I will point out one before I get to the howler at the end of his talk.

To his credit, Lisle does point out to his (presumably) Christian audience not to conflate the colloquial and scientific terms theory by saying evolution is 'just' a theory (~19:00). To his discredit though he then proceeds to claim that evolution isn't a scientific theory at all because it has no supporting evidence. Rather, Lisle prefers to say evolution is only a model.



There, got that out of my system.

A scientific theory is a scientific hypothesis with corroborating evidence. The geocentric model of the solar system is a scientific theory; that the sun appears to go around the earth corroborates the theory. However, other data, such as the movement of the planets, falsify the theory and the corroborated datum can be easily incorporated into a more corroborated theory, the heliocentric model of the solar system.

Truth be told the model of creation presented by AIG is also a scientific theory ... albeit a poorly corroborated one. I would say it has been falsified numerous times, but the problem is the theory of creation makes few definitive predictions about how the world should be. All data is jerryrigged post-hoc; it predicts everything and therefore predicts nothing. The model of evolution however has been corroborated countless times, meaning it is the theory of evolution. Lisle really should know better.

Which is a great segue to the howler Lisle presents near the end of his talk.

Lisle goes into talking about formal fallacies and has this to to say about the converse error (affirming the consequent, ~38:00):

In my opinion this is the most common fallacy committed by evolutionists. Number one. They’ll say my theory predicts this, this is true, therefore my theory is true, and that does not work logically because there could be other reasons why that works out.

Lisle claims scientists are making an error in deductive logic. Except when scientists make such claims they are using inductive logic. They aren’t saying since the prediction is true the theory is true; they are saying since the prediction is true the theory is corroborated. The theory can never really be accepted as true. We can tentatively and grudgingly fail to reject it, but never say definitively it is true. The problem of induction, basic knowledge to all scientists. Including creation scientists like Lisle. Which means he knows better than to make such a claim.