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Showing posts from October 5, 2014

Pluto, Special Pleading and Popular Opinion

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The fallacy of " Special Pleading " is a form of "Moving the Goalposts" by ignoring important information, changing criteria to bolster one's position, appealing to emotions, and similar tactics. Christians and creationists have to deal with this quite a bit. F'rinstance, when I said that Bill Nye used bad science and logical fallacies when debating Ken Ham, I produced abundant supporting evidence. A critic cried, "...I have NOT studied it in detail. However, I note that it FAILS to quote anything Nye actually said at the debate with Ken Ham VERBATIM..." That's a clear example of moving the goalposts and special pleading (as well as the brilliant logical procedure of arguing from something not studied). Owlhoots like this tend to defend their logical fallacies with more fallacies, such as appeal to motive . So, how about Pluto, the ninth planet of the solar system. Oh, wait. It was disqualified, and with apparently good reasons . People d