Nieminen and Mustonen Evolution: Education and Outreach 2014, 7:11 http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/7/1/11 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Argumentation and fallacies in creationist writings against evolutionary theory Petteri Nieminen1,2* and Anne-Mari Mustonen1 Abstract Background: The creationist–evolutionist conflict is perhaps the most significant example of a debate about a well-supported scientific theory not readily accepted by the public. Methods: We analyzed creationist texts according to type (young earth creationism, old earth creationism or intelligent design) and context (with or without discussion of “scientific” data). Results: The analysis revealed numerous fallacies including the direct ad hominem—portraying evolutionists as racists, unreliable or gullible—and the indirect ad hominem, where evolutionists are accused of breaking the rules of debate that they themselves have dictated. Poisoning the well fallacy stated that evolutionists would not consider supernatural explanations in any situation due to their pre-existing refusal of theism. Appeals to consequences and guilt by association linked evolutionary theory to atrocities, and slippery slopes to abortion, euthanasia and genocide. False dilemmas, hasty generalizations and straw man fallacies were also common. The prevalence of these fallacies was equal in young earth creationism and intelligent design/old earth creationism. The direct and indirect ad hominem were also prevalent in pro-evolutionary texts. Conclusions: While the fallacious arguments are irrelevant when discussing evolutionary theory from the scientific point of view, they can be effective for the reception of creationist claims, especially if the audience has biases. Thus, the recognition of these fallacies and their dismissal as irrelevant should be accompanied by attempts to avoid counter-fallacies and by the recognition of the context, in which the fallacies are presented. Keywords: Argumentation scheme; Creationism; Evolution; Fallacies; Intelligent design Background humans separate from other organisms and emphasize The antagonism between religion and natural sciences is the literal interpretation of the Bible (Numbers 1982, often a reflection of perceived contradictions between McGrath 2010). scientific data and (personal) interpretation of religious Traditionally, creationism has been classified into four texts, especially the Bible (McGrath 2010). The accept- principal types (Scott 1997, McGrath 2010). Young earth ance of biological evolution by the public varies being creationism (YEC) states that the earth was created the highest in Iceland (84.9%) and Denmark (82.2%) and 6000–8000 years ago and the flood of Noah occurred the lowest, e.g., in the United States (39.7%) and Turkey exactly as written in the Old Testament. Old earth cre- (26.0%) (Data360.org 2006; 34 countries sampled). The ationism (OEC) interprets the six-day creation story theory of evolution since Wallace (1858) and Darwin symbolically to represent longer time periods to accom- (1859) suggests that humans developed naturally over a modate the geological age of the earth. Intelligent design very long period of time from other life forms. This is a (ID) requires supernatural intervention during the for- challenge for some forms of religious faith that perceive mation of basic body plans and biological molecules by trying to identify “irreducible complexity”, i.e., structures * Correspondence: [email protected] that could not have evolved by natural processes only. 1Institute of Biomedicine/Anatomy, University of Eastern Finland, Faculty of Theistic evolution accepts biological evolution as a tool Health Sciences, School of Medicine, P.O. Box 1627, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland of a deity to produce the observed biodiversity (McGrath 2Philosophical Faculty, School of Theology, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland © 2014 Nieminen and Mustonen; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Nieminen and Mustonen Evolution: Education and Outreach 2014, 7:11 Page 2 of 14 http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/7/1/11 2010) and, thus, it is “creationism” only in the broadest Durrett and Schmidt 2008, Panda’s Thumb 2013). These sense. scientific rebuttals are not discussed in detail here. Cre- YEC, OEC and ID mostly share a common notion of ationist writings present also repeated arguments that -min], “kind”;e. are not directly connected to the scientific proof of evo] ִמין individually created kinds” (Hebrew“ g., Genesis 1:11–25, 6:19–20; King James Bible 2013). lution. We used argumentation-oriented textual analysis Creationists (especially YEC) consider variation and change to unravel prevalent practices that dominate the cre- possible within the “kinds”; however, any change of a ationist–evolutionist debate. We hypothesized that dis- “kind” into another or the appearance of new “kinds” cursive practices not based on debating observational requires supernatural intervention (ID). While there is evidence per se would contain fallacious arguments that disagreement on the classification of “kinds”,YEC,OEC could eventually affect the reception of the creationist and ID state that the evolutionary concept of these taxa de- claims by their audience. veloping as a result of natural processes is false (McGrath 2010). The creationist “kind” is not the same as the taxo- Methods nomical species but corresponds often closely to biological Creationist authors and publications were chosen for families (Numbers 2011). analysis based on their visibility and impact in social Creationist writings attempt to disprove biological media (Table 1). To assess the potential significance of evolution (YEC, OEC and ID) and the age of the earth these English-language-derived creationist arguments lo- (YEC) by various strategies. One approach is to present cally, highly-cited Finnish creationist authors were also selected data from natural sciences as counter-evidence analyzed. We included a sample of rebuttals by evolution- against evolution, which has produced also numerous ary proponents to analyze if similar fallacies could be ob- rebuttals from evolutionary proponents (Young 1985, served on both sides of the debate. The analysis proceeded Shermer 2002, Pennock 2003, Isaak 2006, Deming 2008, as follows: we determined the position of the writer Table 1 Sources of principal sample material Institution/Author Format Type Source/Publisher Answers in Genesis Online articles YEC http://www.answersingenesis.org/ Creation Ministries International ● Creation Magazine YEC http://creation.com/ ● Journal of Creation Creation Research Society ● Creation Matters YEC http://www.creationresearch.org/index. html ● CRS Quarterly Institute for Creation Research Online articles YEC http://www.icr.org/ Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Online articles ID/OEC http://www.ideacenter.org/ (IDEA) Center Intelligent Design network Online articles ID http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork. org/index.htm UK Apologetics Online articles YEC http://www.ukapologetics.net/ Behe, MJ The edge of evolution. The search for the limits of ID Free Press Darwinism (2007) Johnson, PE ● Darwin on trial (1993) ID/OEC http://www.talebooks.com ● Reason in the balance (1995) InterVarsity Press Puolimatka, T (in Finnish) ● Faith, science and evolution (2009) ID/OEC Uusi Tie ● A test for openness in science discussion (2010) Reinikainen, P (in Finnish) ● The forgotten Genesis (1991) YEC Uusi Tie ● The enigma of the dinosaurs and the Bible (2003) Kuva ja Sana ● Darwin or intelligent design (2011) Uusi Tie Davis, P, and Kenyon, DH Of pandas and people. The central question of ID Haughton biological origins (1998) Morris, HM The remarkable birth of planet earth (1972) YEC Bethany Fellowship TalkOrigins archive (many authors) Online articles ET http://www.talkorigins.org/ Panda’s Thumb (many authors) Online articles ET http://www.pandasthumb.org/ Young, W Fallacies of creationism (1985) ET Detselig Enterprises YEC = young earth creationism, OEC = old earth creationism, ID = intelligent design, ET = proponents of evolutionary theory. Nieminen and Mustonen Evolution: Education and Outreach 2014, 7:11 Page 3 of 14 http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/7/1/11 in the creationism–evolution conflict (pro-creationism, not met, with the Fisher’s exact test (SPSS v19 software anti-creationism). The creationist texts were classified as package, IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). The results are pre- YEC, OEC or ID, but there was a lot of overlap between sented as percentage of texts within category (YEC, ID/ OEC and ID, which is indicated by ID/OEC. We excluded OEC or pro-evolutionary) that contained the fallacy. theistic evolution, as it basically accepts biological evolu- The p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. tion (International Theological Commission 2004). The arguments were analyzed and classified according to argu- Results mentation theory with methods employed previously Ad hominem fallacies (Sahlane 2012). We also inspected the arguments accord- The direct ad hominem attempts to disqualify the ing to the context of proving or disproving theories within opponent’s legitimacy in the issue (van Eemeren and natural sciences, i.e., we documented if the texts, books, Grootendorst 1992, Sahlane