A proper understanding of logical fallacies will improve the quality of debate

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4) The truth of the matter, for good or ill, is that the majority of scientists are atheists. Finding a few famous counter examples seems to argue that we should accept the beliefs of the famous over the beliefs of the ordinary.

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Are you sure that this is the truth? Do you have any evidence to support it? Or is this an example of the logical fallacy of "hasty generalization"? (Most of the scientists who you are familiar with are atheists, so you think that most scientists must be atheists.)A recent survey of AAAS members by the Pew Center found that half belleved in God or in some other form of "higher power". Less than half called themselves atheists. And a more recent survey of academic scientists by Ecklund concurs that atheism is in the minority.Edited by kbertsche, : Added HufPost referenceEdited by kbertsche, : Add wiki ref

You got me. Sort of.Let's be careful how we interpret the results. We could also say that nearly sixty percent of those surveyed indicated that they do not believe in God. Further a full seven percent refused to answer the questioned.I did abuse the word atheist, but it was not because of my personal experience. I don't pal around with too many scientists. Most of the non-Asians I know are Christians.Still, I'd suggest that the idea of a God who created the universe is not held by the majority of scientists. Yes, the spiritual people who expressly don't believe in God aren't atheists, but they sure aren't practicing Christians/Muslims/Jews either.

I would suggest that the fact that 46% of Physicists and Astronomers are reported as not believing in a God or higher power as against 43% who do is rather bad news for anyone who wishes to claim that the Big Bang supports the existence of a creator.

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I would suggest that the fact that 46% of Physicists and Astronomers are reported as not believing in a God or higher power as against 43% who do is rather bad news for anyone who wishes to claim that the Big Bang supports the existence of a creator.

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How so? Why is this bad news?Unless you are appealing to the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" or "appeal to largest minority" (not even the majority) yourself, I don't see how these opinions have any bearing on whether or not the Big Bang actually does support the existence of a creator.

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How so? Why is this bad news?

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If you want to appeal to the views of scientists, the fact that the scientists in the relevant field seem to have more atheists than believers is pretty bad news.

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Unless you are appealing to the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" or "appeal to largest minority" (not even the majority) yourself, I don't see how these opinions have any bearing on whether or not the Big Bang actually does support the existence of a creator.

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Consider the details. If the Big Bang really supported the existence of a Creator we would expect the specialists in that area to have a stronger tendency to believe in a God. But they don't. They are the least likely of all the fields to believe in a God. The relative numbers are telling, too.

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Consider the details. If the Big Bang really supported the existence of a Creator we would expect the specialists in that area to have a stronger tendency to believe in a God.

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No. You only expect this on the basis of a logical fallacy of an "appeal to authority" or an "appeal to the largest minority".

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No. You only expect this on the basis of a logical fallacy of an "appeal to authority" or an "appeal to the largest minority".

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Here is the argument.1) If the big Bang supported the existence of God then more of the experts in that field should believe in a God. (Because they have the best understanding)2) In the survey, proportionally fewer scientists in the relevant field believed in God than those in any other field.3) This is strong evidence against the idea that the big Bang supports belief in a God.You will note that none of these points argues that a conclusion is true BECAUSE of expert opinion - whether of an individual or the largest minority. It is all based on the clear absence of an effect which should be there if the claim were true.ABE: Just to be clear this argument would still work if the absolute figures showed that the "largest minority" DID believe in a God, so long as the relationships between the figures were maintained. So how it can be construed as an appeal to the "largest minority" is beyond me.(And because I am not claiming a logical proof the assertion of logical fallacies is moot. As you would know if you actually has a proper understanding of logical fallacies. Obviously you have yet to learn even the basics).Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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1) If the big Bang supported the existence of God then more of the experts in that field should believe in a God. (Because they have the best understanding)

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No. This does not necessarily follow; it is a blatant appeal to authority! You are claiming that the experts are more likely to be correct. It's like saying "more doctors prescribe medication X than medication Y for a particular illness, therefore medication X is better". Are the experts in a field ALWAYS correct? Of course not.

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2) In the survey, proportionally fewer scientists in the relevant field believed in God than those in any other field.

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Yes, but barely.

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3) This is strong evidence against the idea that the big Bang supports belief in a God.

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No. Even if you were correct on points 1 and 2, this would not follow unless the Big Bang were the ONLY support for belief in a creator. Perhaps the scientists in other fields believe in a creator not because of the Big Bang, but for completely different reasons. Maybe even for stronger reasons.

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No. This does not necessarily follow; it is a blatant appeal to authority! You are claiming that the experts are more likely to be correct. It's like saying "more doctors prescribe medication X than medication Y for a particular illness, therefore medication X is better". Are the experts in a field ALWAYS correct? Of course not.

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NO. I am not saying that at all. Read the argument. It is based on the RELATIVE numbers, not the absolute numbers as you keep mistakenly insisting.

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Yes, but barely.

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Compare it with the average.
Belief in God is 29% versus 33%
Belief in God OR a universal spirit or higher power - your preferred benchmark - is 43% versus 51%
That's not that small.

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No. Even if you were correct on points 1 and 2, this would not follow unless the Big Bang were the ONLY support for belief in a creator. Perhaps the scientists in other fields believe in a creator not because of the Big Bang, but for completely different reasons. Maybe even for stronger reasons.

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This speculative objection carried little weight since I am not claiming a logical proof However, I note that the most inclined to believe are the chemists. Chemistry does not seem to be a fertile field for arguments for the existence of God, so your objection seems implausible.

Perhaps you did not get a chance to read my summation at Message 314 of the earlier thread. I quoted from Hawking's book A Brief History of Time and he talks about how he changed his mind regarding the big bang and now argues against it... arguing instead for a "no boundary conditions" universe. According to a website I just found, Hawking's no boundary conditions universe is identified with colliding branes. I am not sure this is correct, but it may be. See Philosophy of Science Portal: S. Hawking documentaryWe really need to get back to the subject of this thread.Edited by designtheorist, : Still learning coding!

What is the best way to respond when you spot an appeal to authority? Are all appeals to authority proof an argument is wrong? Of course not. Authorities are not always wrong. How can you determine if a cited authority is leading us toward an accurate understanding?As PaulK pointed out earlier by citing this advice: So, the best course of action when you spot an appeal to authority is to challenge the quotation on these two grounds. First, is the authority really an authority or is this an appeal to an inappropriate authority? Second, are there other authorities which disagree with the quoted authorities?If you can find any support that shows the cited person is not an authority or that other authorities disagree with the cited, citing the appeal to authority as a logical fallacy makes sense. If you cannot find any support for these two, claiming appeal to authority will probably not get you anywhere as the person making the claim will simply ignore... and rightfully so.In a previous thread "Big Bang Theory Supports a Belief in the Universe Designer or Creator God" I was accused several times of an appeal to authority but never once did anyone present any evidence the authorities I quoted were inappropriate authorities or that other authorities claimed the big bang was an argument against a Universe Designer or Creator God. The charge was constantly repeated but never supported.I strongly encourage everyone to gather some evidence before you make claims that your opponent is committing a logical fallacy. Without evidence, your arguments just soak up bandwidth and lessen the quality of the debate.

What is the best course of action when you spot someone quoting an authority out of linguistic context or historical context?This is often called quote-mining and is rarely done on purpose. By far the best course of action is to gather some evidence showing the quote is out of context and why and then present it. The worst thing you can do is make a blatant and unsupported charge of quote-mining when you have not researched the facts yourself.By way of example, I offer Message 122 by Granny Magda charging me with quote-mining. While the tone might have been a tad more polite, the message itself was well supported and the ensuing discussion was quite reasonable. Through this discussion I learned the quote I had been attributing to "atheist Arthur Eddington" was controversial. Eddington had been raised as a Quaker and according to some was a life-long Quaker. Others on the web identify him as an atheist. While this issue has not been clarified to my satisfaction, I will not use the quote in the same way until I can find a reliable source to settle question. Granny Magda also questioned a quote by Allan Sandage but after lengthy discussion Granny admitted I am closer to accurate than she first thought.This is the proper way to argue the issue of quote mining, with facts and evidence. Just calling names does not lift the quality of the debate.Edited by designtheorist, : No reason given.

Your comment "that other authorities disagree with the cited" is troublesome.This brings to mind the creationist's "teach the controversy" nonsense from a few years ago. There was no controversy within science on the particular topics, so creationists drummed up their own controversies and then demanded that schools "teach both sides."This was one of the most dishonest campaigns I've seen from an inherently dishonest bunch.I don't know which logical fallacy this falls under, if it is a logical fallacy at all.It could be just old-fashioned lying.

Coyote,
I am trying to improve proper critical thinking skills, not arouse your emotions.Are all authorities always wrong? If not, how do you know when quoting a authority is good or bad, whether it helps or hinders understanding?I have quoted PaulK who cited a workable test. And I have given an example of what that might look like. Why should that be a problem?In the last thread, someone challenged me to quote Stephen Hawking on the issue of the big bang and the idea of a Universe Designer or Creator God. I did not get a chance to provide that quote until the summation but you can find it in Message 314 of the thread Big Bang Theory Supports a Belief in the Universe Designer or Creator God. Briefly, Hawking said the big bang "smacks of divine intervention."Now if someone really wanted to challenge me, they might have done a little research to see if they could find an expert to disagreed with my thesis. Obviously, Hawking agrees with me so it would have to be someone else. Then, once they have the evidence in hand, they can show that not all experts agree with the thesis. Once they present the evidence, it is easy to point out the claim is an appeal to authorities and other authorities disagree. Does that make sense to you now? Edited by designtheorist, : Still learning coding!

I think I understand the appeal to authority concept, and its uses and abuses.But I don't think this thread exists in a vacuum; logical fallacies are a fine theoretical study on the one hand, but the abuses we see from creationists can't be ignored, and don't always fall into pure "logical fallacy" categories.I pointed out one problem way upthread, but there were no responses. That problem was the tendency of creationists to use all manner of flawed data in support of their arguments, and to ignore the massive amounts of data that refutes those arguments. This renders logic as rather unimportant, as if you bring garbage arguments into a perfect logical structure you still get garbage out the other side. Is this a logical fallacy, or is it just plain lying?In this most recent post I questioned the "appeal to authority" by giving an example whereby creationists drummed up their own "authorities" to create an artificial controversy, then cried "teach both sides." This is certainly a dishonest approach, and probably a flawed "appeal to authority," but creationists certainly won't admit that!Logic is a fine thing, and logical fallacies are fine things to recognize, but from the two examples I have given there are more fundamental problems with creationists' methods and thinking than failure to follow pure logic.