I'm in a email discussion with a Mormon about religion and science and in the process of me trying to explain to her the kinds of things that should be required to accept an extraordinary claim as true we got onto the topic of the Texas Sharp Shooter Fallacy and she made the following statement (my bolding):
I've already addressed the sharpshooter stuff in my email, but I'm having trouble explaining in a short way how Darwin developing his theory of evolution is not him committing the sharpshooter fallacy.
The best I've come up with so far amounts to something like "Darwin made observations while on the Beagle, yes. He based a hypothesis on those observations, yes. And then he spent years testing that hypothesis before publishing Origins, and his original observations were far from his 'only proof'."
It's short but I was trying to come up with something more pithy and just a couple sentences long.
Anyone got a suggestion?
Quote:From what I understand, a genuine sharpshooter fallacy would occur when a hypothesis is formulated based on observational data and then the original observational data is used as it's only proof. The theory of evolution started out as a hypothesis trying to explain observational data - that didn't make it a sharpshooter fallacy as continual observations since then have supported the hypothesis.
I've already addressed the sharpshooter stuff in my email, but I'm having trouble explaining in a short way how Darwin developing his theory of evolution is not him committing the sharpshooter fallacy.
The best I've come up with so far amounts to something like "Darwin made observations while on the Beagle, yes. He based a hypothesis on those observations, yes. And then he spent years testing that hypothesis before publishing Origins, and his original observations were far from his 'only proof'."
It's short but I was trying to come up with something more pithy and just a couple sentences long.
Anyone got a suggestion?
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
