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Wednesday, August 10, 2005 at 09:00AM
Figaro
breastplate.jpgQuote: "I am hopeful that the scientific community will eventually admit the possibility of intelligent design, even if that acceptance is discreet and muted." Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe, a leading proponent of the Intelligent Design theory

Term: Ad ignorantiam (ad ig nor AHN tee ahm), the it's-not-disproved-so-it's-true fallacy

How do you disprove a theory that won't name its origin? You can't. And so the Intelligent Design people commit a logical foul: the fallacy ad ignorantiam, which says that something is true if it hasn't been disproved.

By re-branding creationism as "Intelligent Design," fundamentalist Christians inserted themselves into public debate. But the Intelligent Design crowd makes a difficult target. They don't have to defend their Designer in Chief, because they're careful not to mention Him.

"Perhaps molecular machines appear to look designed because they really are designed," Behe says. By who? Steve Jobs?

Snappy Answer: "Who's the Designer?"

Article originally appeared on Figures of Speech (http://inpraiseofargument.com/).
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