Logical Fallacy of Innuendo

Logical Fallacy of Innuendo / Implication

Innuendo 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 innuendo, or implication, occurs when a conclusion is suggested to be true without directly stating the point. This is a fallacy because it is a deceptive tactic. Innuendo is generally used as a substitute for evidence. In other words, the innuendo technique is used as the only proof for a claim. It is often more persuasive than a straightforward statement because a clear statement is easier to evaluate for logical fallacies, to realize that a claim (implied) has no basis, no proof. Note that this is different from simply being unclear. What makes this a fallacy is that there is no evidence and the use of innuendo is a mechanism to hide the fact that there is no real evidence.

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of Innuendo / Implication

“Here tonight, we’re gonna have two stories and we can compare Mr. Ham’s story to a story from what I will call the story from the outside, from mainstream science.” ~Bill Nye, debating with Ken Ham

"the story from the outside" Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of innuendo, implying that there is a kind of inside group, almost a cult, that believes what God says through the Bible. Had Bill simply stated his implication it would be easy to evaluate. He would say something like this. "Ken Han has a little group of wacko followers. They are the only people in the world to read the Bible as written and believe that God speaks through the Bible." Of course, such a statement would be easy to identify as a lie. Thus, the use of innuendo.
"Mr. Ham’s story" Nesting fallacies in this way makes them very difficult to analyze. Also, identifying the historical account that God tells us through Scripture as "Mr. Ham's story" continues the innuendo that implies that very few people believe God. It is a clever trick. In his opening sentence, Bill Nye used tactics that he continuously wove into his messages throughout the debate. By calling it “Mr. Ham’s story” rather than rationally dealing with the concept of creation, Bill Nye used a form of ad hominem fallacy, debating about a person or personality rather than rationally dealing with the issue at hand on its merits. In addition, Bill Nye wove in a plain folks fallacy throughout the debate and used several techniques to portray Ken Ham as unapproachable, isolated, and not a plain folks type of guy like good old Bill Nye is. The repetition of "Mr. Ham" worked to that end. None of this is directly stated. Everything is by innuendo.
"the story from the outside, from mainstream science.” The very term, mainstream science implies there is a mainstream group and anyone who disagrees with what those folks say is the minority and should just fall in line with the old ideas. This censoring of disagreement within the scientific community was a difficult picture for Bill Nye to paint while still maintaining that Bill Nye’s definition of science is open to new ideas. However, Bill Nye did irrationally maintain both mutually exclusive views throughout the debate, which is the logical fallacy of internal inconsistency. He was plainly holding two mutually exclusive, conflicting, views at the same time.
Bill Nye used the fallacy of misused statistics for the purpose of persuasion. Throughout the debate, Bill Nye’s main effort was to make those who follow Christ seem like the fringe of society (tactic of marginalizing), when, in fact, over 90% of Americans self-identify as Christians and about half of those take the Bible as it is written. This is both a fallacy of relevance, specifically, bandwagon (how does majority opinion affect reality?) and a fallacy of misused statistics. Since this is all by innuendo rather than direct statement, it is even less subject to challenge. So, there are two points of fallacy: Bill Nye implied that biblical Christianity is a fringe group and the atheistic/agnostic belief system is mainstream. Whether something is fringe or mainstream has no effect on reality, and a reasonable man would not have brought it up.

The complexity of God’s Way understood in a single diagram

Obey your flesh and descend into darkness

How can we know anything about anything? That’s the real question

Logical Fallacy of Innuendo / Implication

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of Innuendo / Implication

Other Pages in this section

Recently Viewed