Monday, April 14, 2008

The “Spaghetti Man” (formerly “Straw Man”) Fallacy of Logical Argumentation

Spaghetti Design (SD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)

There is no evidence whatsoever of Spaghetti ever designing anything (nor is there any evidence of spaghetti having any ability to take flight).

On the other hand..

There exists a massive body of evidence of intelligence designing things. (This very document you are now reading was designed {written/composed} by an intelligence {myself}. It was not written by spaghetti {flying or otherwise).

The purpose of "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" (http://www.venganza.org/) crusade is to ridicule ID science (for which there is a massive body of evidence) by pretending it to be equivalent to SD (for which there is no evidence of any kind). By failing to address actual ID arguments and by offering only a disanalogous "straw man/spaghetti man" argument, the proponents of FSM are committing a fallacy of logical argumentation – The classic Spaghetti Man Fallacy.

On to our next great Dawkinian challenge;

Orbiting Teapot Design (OTD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)… No evidence of teapots designing anything …Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation.

And another…

Pink Unicorn Design (PUD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)… No evidence of pink unicorns designing anything… No evidence of pink unicorns period. Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation.

And another…

Roman Mythological Character Design RMCD (Zeus Design {ZD}) versus Intelligent Design (ID). No evidence of Zeus designing anything…No evidence of Zeus. Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation…

3 comments:

M. Atheos said...

Why beat around the bush? Why not just come out and explicitly finger Yahweh Design (YD) aka ID Creationism (IDC) as having no evidence whatsoever of Yahweh ever designing anything (nor is there any evidence of Yahweh having any ability to act omnipotently)

William Brookfield said...

I have no interest in resurecting ancient Roman mythology (Zeus) nor ancient Jewish mythology (Yahweh).

All we are saying is that intelligent causation of some kind, is required to produce the structures in question.

Intelligence is required in order to overcome the probabilistic hurdles involved in the production of functionally integrated specified complexity.

William Brookfield said...

My appologies. Zeus is a Greek mythological character not Roman!