Suppressed Evidence
From EvoWiki
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This page is part of the EvoWiki encyclopedia of fallacies. |
Contents |
Synonyms
- Exclusion
- Card Stacking
- Cherry picking
- Cover-up
- Fallacy of Exclusion
- Fallacy of Slanting
- Ignoring the Counterevidence
- Incomplete Evidence
- Observational Selection
- One-Sided Assessment
- One-Sidedness
- Slanting
- Slanting Fallacy
- Stacking the Deck
- Concealed Evidence
Explanation
When presenting a case, omitting important evidence that would hurt one's own case.
In the case of debating Creationism vs. Evolution. A common suppressed evidence argument would be "Evolution is racist". This is obviously ignoring the evidence that many (in fact most) racist groups who exist in America in the past and today are everything but evolutionist. Most believe in the Bible as well as creationism. One only needs to look around to see, Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, are among the most famous who believe in the statement and claim 'God created races separately' which is actually contradictory to Biblical scriptures. With that said, racism is more seen in creation than in evolution, by simply denying people of different skin color have common ancestor, one is likely racist. The claim also ignores the fact that modern biologists argue that, other than skin colour, "race" is not a valid biological concept.
On the other hand, there is the example of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, who was staunch believer in evolution (certainly not a "creationist") and a proponent of eugenics (the science of creating and engineering the evolution of man through breeding the strong and desirable and eliminating the misfits and the weak). In relating the strategy to succeed with her "Negro Project", she stated (in a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, December 10, 1939), "we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
This is not to say evolution is now perfect because creationism is racist too (Tu Quoque). But just to point out the fact evolution is misused by some in racist actions, does not mean it is inherently racist, not to mention refute the theory of evolution.
Demarcation
You do not commit this fallacy if you:
- omit minor evidence which is irrelevant to your point. To call this "suppressing evidence" would be quibbling.
- omit "counterevidence" that has already been falsified. To call this "suppressing evidence" would be suppressing evidence, namely the fact that the counterevidence has already been refuted. Creationists do this a lot.
Countermeasure
Pointing out the omitted evidence.
Category
Subfallacies
- Cherishing the Zombie
- Eclectic
- False Dilemma
- Golden Hammer Fallacy
- Half Truths
- Hindsight Bias
- Jumping to Conclusions
- Overlooking Secondary Consequences
- Oversimplification
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Suppressed Quantification
- Suppression of the Agent
- Unwarranted Extrapolation
- Wilful Ignorance
External Links
- Fallacy Files [1]
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [2]
- Agnosticism/Atheism [3]
- Stephen Downes [4]
- Global Tester [5] (Card Stacking)
- Wikipedia [6]
Examples in creationist arguments
- Biology can reasonably be taught without evolution
- Archaeopteryx is fully bird
- Evolution hasn't been proved
- Evolutionists haven't met Hovind's challenge to prove evolution
- Moab man was found in Cretaceous sandstone
- Evolutionists don't accept debate challenges
- Evolutionists don't accept Walt Brown's debate challenge
- No gradual biochemical evolution models have been published
- Evolution can't be falsified
- Science's method rules out design
- Lord Kelvin was a creationist
- Neanderthals were humans with rickets
- There should be billions of transitional fossils
- Gravitational time dilation made distant clocks run faster
- Life is deteriorating
- No new fossils are being formed
- 3 planets and several moons revolve backwards
- Explosions such as the Big Bang don't produce order or information
- Learning creationism stimulates mental health, joy, and morals
- Bible says the earth is unsupported
- The brain is too complex to have evolved
- Evolution doesn't explain language ability
- Short-lived isotopes Th-230 and U-236 exist on the moon
- Average soil depth is consistent with young earth
- On an old earth, mountains would have eroded by now
- Volcanic mountains are built too fast for an old earth
- The fossil record shows sudden appearance followed by stasis
- Similar structures for similar functions, different for different
- Complexity indicates design
- There is a law of conservation of information
- Mankind has existed essentially unchanged for billions of years
- The odds of life forming are incredibly small
- Crew could feed and care for animals
- Similarities in DNA and anatomy are due to common design
- A plesiosaur was found by a Japanese trawler
- The coelacanth, thought extinct for ages, is still living
- Some fossil species are still living
- Evolution is racist
- Dawkins could not give an example of increasing information
- It is not true that the church used to teach a flat earth
- Most mutations are harmful
- Polonium haloes indicate a young earth
- Radiometric dating falsely assumes rates are constant
- Animals are not moral, esthetic, idealistic, or religious
- Archaeoraptor was a fake
