[net.religion] Creation Numbers

gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (05/01/84)

Newsgroups: net.religion, net.origins
Subject: Re: Some numbers for the Creation (long reply)
References: <111@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <1350@uw-june>

This response will be much shorter! David's calculations were
a marvelous bit of good mathematics (though I cannot speak for
the ins and outs of correlation. I am merely a generalist).

I have just recently done a lot of typing on the net about the
presence of informal fallacy in the course of argument (last time
around, you'll recall it was a set 'em up-knock 'em down invective
against Humanists). You can imagine that my ears pricked up at
the closing of David's posting:

"If you can't trust Boa and Moody on simple calculations, you
can't trust them on the origin of life."

As a cautionary statement, he is absolutely correct in saying this.
That statement functions in the course of his argument as the
informal fallacy of diversion. THis is the defense of a proposition
by stating another proposition which is not necessarily a refutation
of theargument, but one which diverts the discussion to another
question, generally to one which the person who makes the diversion
feels more certain. In the class of diversion one also finds the 
slightly more subtle tactic of fastening on some point of an opponent's
argument, defeating that, and then leaving it supposed that he has
been defeated on the main issue. The incorrectness of that fact may
not be enough to entirely undermine the conclusion ITSELF, but the
impression is left that this is so.

Given David's level of mathematical rigour, I do not believe that he
is knowingly engaging in a crooked argument. Diversion is OMNIPRESENT
in the modern Post-Advertising universe, and we must all watch out for
it, especially as it looks unbecoming next to clear reasoning.

g(a specialist in Herpetological Epistemology)taylor@cornell