A Logical Assessment of Michael Shermer’s Arguments

By Ashton M. and Logan T., with Hannah T.

As we watched the presentation by Michael Shermer at the most recent UT Skeptics Forum, we were surprised to find simple fallacies dispersed throughout his presentation. Having had some high-school-level logic courses, we challenged ourselves to respectfully bring out and examine the most blatant of the fallacies we noticed.

Straw-man Fallacy: Attempting to disprove an opponent’s argument by presenting it in an unfair, inaccurate light (often times this misrepresentation takes the form of an exaggeration or oversimplification of the opponent’s argument).

Example: Dr. Shermer represented Reasons To Believe’s position as being an attempt to fill in the gaps of science by using God.

Reply: Instead of reasoning in a God-of-the-gaps manner, RTB scholars reason abductively (“inference to the best explanation”). They make a biblical case for why the presence of God solves these gaps, but they also use instances that are “proven” to support God as Creator as well. This is seen in Dr. Rana’s arguments, in which he uses the similarity of cells and their parts to modern-day machines to indicate an intelligent Designer. This is the construction that we noticed most often.

Ad Hominem (literally, “attack against the man”): Accusations that distract from the issue at hand by focusing attention to negative aspects of the opponent himself. Ad hominem abusive is a particular branch centered on ridiculing an opponent. Ad hominem circumstantial focuses on discrediting an opponent’s view by casting light on the opponent’s background.

Example: “Good science, bad science…nonscience and nonsense. You’ve heard some [nonsense] tonight in my opinion.” Dr. Shermer did not use the blatantly obvious version of ad hominem abusive. However, instead of outright using degrading names, his entire demeanor spoke distain of his opponents, as seen in the quote above and in numerous other instances.

Reply: This is not a form of argument that you can effectively argue against. Drs. Ross and Rana spoke respectfully and ignored the ridicule from some of the other scientists, to which we tip our hats.

Begging the Question: When an opponent assumes what he is trying to prove. Circular reasoning is also known as begging the question.

Example: Shermer concludes a priori that only natural explanations are acceptable.

Reply: What RTB attempts to prove at the debate, at the most basic level, is that “natural” science and “supernatural” God coexist, and that natural things were created by supernatural events. Shermer cannot fairly reject certain things because they are supernatural. Logically, he must first prove that God and science cannot coexist before using it as one of his premises.

False Bifurcation (also called either/or): An argument that frames the debate such that only two options are possible, when other possibilities may exist.

Example: Dr. Shermer claimed that what cannot be naturally explained by creation scientists must be attributed to supernatural intervention.

Reply: This argument limits events to being explained naturally or supernaturally, but not both, and leaves out the option where God works miracles through His chosen physical laws. Yet, “supernatural interventions, according to the Bible, are not always transcendent miracles (those only explained by a God acting independent or outside of matter, energy, space, and time). ...Far more frequent are the miracles God performs within His chosen physical laws” (Fazale Rana, Origins of Life, pg. 208).

Sweeping Generalization: Arguments that take a generalization and apply it to cases that can be legitimate exceptions to it.

Example: Shermer compares Christianity to several other religions. He implies that religions are ridiculous and cites many cases of absurdity in religions, then makes the case that Christianity is just like these religions.

Reply: While there certainly are many absurd religions, and most of them are wrong, Christianity does not have to be either. The generalization that religious people are irrational and unscientific, we believe, does not apply in this case.

Irrelevant Goals or Functions: Arguments that distract by measuring the opponent’s plan or policy according to things it wasn’t intended to do.

Example: At the end of his presentation, Dr. Shermer compiles a list of questions, which he asks RTB to answer, based on their model and the Bible.

Reply: Not only were some of the questions irrelevant (e.g., Why doesn’t God heal amputees?), most of them could not be answered without some kind of prophetic knowledge. Drs. Ross and Rana did not compile their model in order to answer every philosophical question known to man; they compiled it as a biblio-scientific hypothesis arguing for an intelligent Creator.

So, after all of that, who won?

Was it Dr. Ross and Dr. Rana, who formulated a strong biblio-scientific case for an intelligent designer, specifically the God of the Bible? Was it Dr. Shermer, who, while committing many fallacies, was an excellent showman and clever rhetorician? 

We personally believe that, if the purpose of the debate was a structured intelligent search for truth, no one won. The flippant way Dr. Shermer seemed to view the debate was quickly transferred to the audience, who began to turn polite applause into a battle to see who could be the loudest. We left Gregory Gymnasium disappointed, not because we lost, not because our faith was in danger of being shattered, but because we heard our beliefs presented to the audience in an unfair, biased light. We left disappointed because the search for truth was abandoned in favor of sarcasm and disrespect.

We left disappointed because many of the crowd left without any respect for either position, and that is a pity.