Logical Fallacy of Fake Precision / Over Precision / False Precision / Misplaced Precision / Spurious Accuracy

False precision is one of the many smokescreens that are used to cover the fact that the reasoning is based on one of the three fallacies of Agrippa's trilemma. Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regress, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This problem is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known without Divine revelation; however, that is not true. There is no reason to trust either logic or math without Divine revelation. Science is also limited to the pragmatic because of the weakness on human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma.

The logical fallacy of fake precision / over precision / false precision / misplaced precision / spurious accuracy occurs when the language to communicate statistics implies much more accuracy than the data allows.

Sometimes, just the comment that one thing is more likely than another is false precision. The word, likely, implies a percentage of probability. How was the research conducted? How were the numbers derived? In many cases, the numbers were pulled from the air, PFA.

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of Fake Precision / Over Precision / False Precision / Misplaced Precision / Spurious Accuracy

“We know that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old.”

The methods and the math don’t allow that kind of accuracy, and we know, by Divine revelation, that this is wrong. However, a statistic like this to this level of accuracy sure implies a high level of confidence. Looking into the data more carefully reveals several assumptions upon which this math is based. The math can be no more dependable than the assumptions. Assumptions have no validity at all. They are made up things.

“We know that the Earth is 6,349.5 years old.”

Taking the information that God is giving us through the Bible, we can only roughly estimate the time from Adam to Christ using genealogies. It is Divine revelation, but God doesn't get that specific. We cannot dogmatically claim to know that the Earth is 6,000 years old. We know that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and we know the number of generations between Adam and Christ. That's about it. Even though a plain reading of Scripture seems to indicate a young Earth; even though there is zero observed evidence and only circular reasoning and speculations that support old Earth stories, we can't even deny the possibility that God could have done something that Scripture doesn't hint at and that has left no scientific evidence. It is possible. It just is not worth the time to think about it.We really cannot estimate the age of the Universe except from the standpoint of Earth since God has not told us how He got distant starlight to the Earth. Using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, God could have caused billions of years to pass in distant space while literally no time passed on Earth during the creation week, but we have no revelation on that. To say that this happened would be pure speculation. Some people speculate about a prior creation between the first and second verse of Scripture; however, there are severe problems with this speculation. It is fairly well falsified. Others speculate that the first few days of the Creation Week were billions of years long. Beyond being very speculative, this story doesn't work scientifically or logically. That being said, if God deems it important for us to know the exact amount of time that passed since the Creation (or any other event that has taken place), He is well able to provide the information. In the mean time, there is no need to commit fallacies of false precision.