Logical Fallacy of Misused Statistics

The logical fallacy of misused statistics 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 misused statics occurs when statistics are presented that involve errors such as poor sampling, lack of significant differences, misuse of average, or misuse of percentages.

Examples of The Fallacy of Misused Statistics

“All scientists are evolutionists.”

No non-evolutionists were included in the sample.

Bill Nye arguing against Creation science: “You can go to sea shores where there is sand. This is what geologists on the outside do, study the rate at which soil is deposited at the end of rivers and deltas, and we can see that it takes a long, long time for sediments to turn to stone.”

“geologists on the outside” This is the continuing attempt to make the concept of creation seem as if it is isolated to Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. First, this is an implied outright lie. Very few Americans believe in pure naturalism/atheism, so this is a logical fallacy of misused statistics. And the lie is told to facilitate a fallacy of bandwagon. How could a majority opinion affect reality. In fact, God doesn't seem to work with the majority.

“study the rate at which soil is deposited at the end of rivers and deltas,” It seems that Bill Nye probably got mixed up in his notes and actually meant to make two separate points. One is that, at present, deposits are made slowly. The other is that rocks take a long time to form if there is no sudden burial. As far as the concept that sediments are laid down slowly, Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. He is assuming that there was no flood (uniformitarianism), and, based on this assumptions, he is using the logical fallacy of unwarranted extrapolation, extrapolating the current rates back into the supposed billions of years. When he has so extended the numbers back in this way, he uses that same unwarranted extrapolation to prove his original presupposition, that there is no flood. That is question-begging, also known as circular reasoning.

“we can see that it takes a long, long time for sediments to turn to stone.” Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of stacking the deck, sometimes called cherry-picking evidence or omitting evidence. At the end of streams, rock does take a long time to form. However, under certain conditions, rock forms quickly.

More importantly, Bill Nye is contradicting what God says through divine revelation. Are we supposed to take Bill Nye's and his followers' opinions based on assumptions instead of believing God?  It is no great surprise that Bill is unable to make this contradiction in a logical way. You cannot logically prove an untruth. But, you can be pretty tricky and fool a lot of people with fallacies.

• http://creation.com/Speedy-stone-from-sand-to-rock
• http://creation.com/focus-172
• http://creation.com/rapid-stalactites
• http://creation.com/search?q=flood%20rock%20layers
• http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/?q=flood+rock+layers&search=Go
• http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v21/n1/sandy-surprise

It is very common for News Media to use biased polls to help mold public opinion on politics or moral issues. The error may be in a biased sample, but more often the error is in the wording of the questions in the poll.

Bill Nye arguing against Creation science: "Let's just run some numbers. This is some scenes from lovely Antarctic. Let's say we have 680,000 layers of snow ice and 4,000 years since the great flood. That would mean we would need 170 winter-summer cycles every year for the last 4,000 years." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of misused statistics. This relates back to previously jumping to conclusions about the cause of the ice rings. You cannot rationally "run the numbers" when the numbers have been generated by circular reasoning,  presumption, alleged certainty, and jumping to conclusions.

• Do Greenland Ice Cores Show over One Hundred Thousand Years of Annual Layers?
• Do Ice Cores Show Many Tens of Thousands of Years?
• Rapid Changes in Oxygen Isotope Content of Ice Cores