Are the vast bulk of ID arguments and ID wedge strategies little more than the Chewbacca Defense?
I have one final thing I want you all to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, remember Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this argument? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this argument! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major ID political organization, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense!
None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're deciding what is and what is not science, does it make sense to any old IDiot? No! Ladies and gentlemen, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must support Intelligent Design! I rest my argument.
The above is adapted from South Park, the “Chef Aid” episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ansg8BFbxc”
At first look, the above might seem absurd. The idea of a Chewbacca Defense is easy to dismiss due to its source. Still, animated shows like South Park and the Simpsons excel at social commentary.
Chewbacca Defense is a satirized account of Johnnie Cochran’s defense during O.J. Simpson murder trial.
One writer has defined the Chewbacca Defense as
"D" is for Diabolical | HuffPost Latest News>"someone asserts his claim by saying something so patently nonsensical that the listener's brain shuts down completely” I disagree with this description, though I grant it may be an sometime secondary effect of the defense. The Chewbacca Defense, I think, is better defined as an intentional obfuscation of an argument to create confusion for the purpose of allowing those viewing the argument to be able to rationalize away any legitimacy of the argument. In short, manufacture confusion so that one can point to and exploit the manufactured confusion and claim that the manufactured confusion amounts to reasonable doubt.
A couple of more recent ID arguments which constitute Chewbacca Defenses:
The ”Wedge Strategy’ and ”Teaching the Controversy’ are Chewbacca Defenses because instead of focusing on the actual scientific arguments in favor of the Theory of Evolution, the Chewbacca Defense instead seeks to create and exploit manufactured confusion for the purpose of reframing the question away from any scientific validity.
I have to ask, “Is it not fair to start pointing out that these wedge strategies are little more than lawyer and political tricks and it is not potentially beneficial to call it the Chewbacca Defense rather than or at least in conjunction with the less accessible ”fallacies’?” After all the average person understands lawyer and political tricks far more then they understand logical fallacies.
Edited by Trae, : Refinded the OP.
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