"Differing Worldviews" - Brave New Propaganda

Atheists are one of the fastest growing minorities in the U.S. As more and more of us "come out" for what we are, and stand up for reason in the face of militant religiosity, even more of the millions of skeptical "social" religious observers are encouraged to openly admit what they already know for themselves.

With this ever-growing community of freethinkers willing to challenge the (empty) grounds for religious belief, many creationists--particularly the self-termed "Intelligent Design" camp--are seeking new ways to avoid their complete lack of evidence for god. Misleading rhetoric has so far been their most effective means of obscuring this issue. For example, just look at the ongoing "teach the controversy" campaign. There is obviously no controversy in the scientific community regarding the veracity of the fact of evolution, but unfortunately IDers are right in believing that they can dupe many lesser informed Americans into thinking there is.

Well, this trend has now led them to actually create a new logical fallacy. From now on, I'm going to call it the "worldviews fallacy." It is a bewildering and brain-fogging mix of non sequitur/red herring, ad hominem ala genetic fallacy (fallacies of relevance), false cause, and the subjectivist fallacy (fallacies of presumption.) Yet the most interesting (and highly amusing) thing I've found in researching this--atheists prepare to soil yourselves in delight--is that the nearest single fallacy there is to it is something called "polylogism," a fallacy so insidiously condescending that it was a cornerstone of Nazi propoganda. This fallacy states that one group (in the Nazi's case Jews, or for IDers "evolutionists") is, simply by merit of belonging to that group, flawed in their basic capacity to reason, while there is usually an idealized group (Nazis/IDers/Pastafarians) who are the only ones who can perceive true reality.

It is also similar to C.S. Lewis' Bulverism, except that this is an appeal to motive, whereas the fallacy we're investigating is an obfuscation of the very foundation of logic. If you want more info on polylogism, go to this link from the Ayn Rand lexicon website.

The claim believers put forth in the worldviews fallacy is that two conflicting theories or ideas (e.g. evolution and creationism) do not result from different data sets or scientific processes, but are simply the inevitable product of differing worldviews. (They also like to tie this in to the old "you have to have faith in science" zinger...but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.) What they are really saying is that it's impossible to use the scientific method without simply imposing your predetermined beliefs onto the research in question; regardless of what the data supports, they claim that human interpretation will always lead conclusions to conform to one's preformed worldview, defeating the purpose of the scientific method. (Nevermind the glaring irony that they go on to claim that creationism is completely backed by science.) I suppose this belief in extreme bias does hold true in the case of creationists themselves, given that they are the presiding experts in believing something no matter what amount of evidence comes up against it.

But the real shame is that this kind of surreptitious rhetorical bunk actually persuades that demographic of people who aren't as scientifically informed and/or lack the critical thinking skills to see this argument for the fallacy that it is. This "worldviews" strategy is spreading like wildfire among IDers and other believers. I believe one of the most important things we can do as a community is to educate ourselves on exactly what this fallacy is so that we can make it crystal clear to anyone listening anytime one of us encounters it.

In order to help the effort to raise consciousness, I'd like to open a discussion here on the worldviews fallacy. Do you agree or disagree that it is complete bullshit? Why? Specificity will be much appreciated! This is a relatively new issue, so anything you can add to the discussion is helpful =)

(Skip to 0:40 for the important part.)

Dawkins: "How old are those fossils?"

Mackay: "Well if I was speaking as an orthodox geologist I'd say anywhere between 100,000 and 10 million, right? Up to 40 million, right? So, the age is a product of our theories about how we view the world."

Dawkins: "It's not a product of fact, not a product of evidence?"

Mackay: "No. . . .it doesn't really matter because what you've got is different philosophies."