Example Of Critical Thinking On Fallacies In Reporting Science And Technology

Fallacy is an error in reasoning, and reasoning is the process of making sense out of the things around an individual. Fallacious arguments are persuasive and seem correct whereas they are not. They may be created intentionally or unintentionally to deceive people, and can range from definitions, reasons to explanations (Gardner 4). Fallacy can also mean causing a false belief. Often, individuals create intentional fallacy redirecting arguments to unrelated issues, identification of false causes and results and making jumps in reasoning. Gardener in his work stated that “one curious consequence of the current boom in sciences the rise of promoter of new strange scientific theories.” In general individuals will employ fallacies in arguments to confuse and even convince an audience (Gardner 7).
With reference to Science and pseudoscience, in most cases, pseudo-scientists make us of logical fallacies in order to discredit science. An example of fallacious arguments against science is the several experimental observations that suggest that evolution is wrong. Evolution theory by Charles Darwin has faced a lot of attacks at different times by various research and studies done by different scholars and scientists. Opponents’ claim is based on the fact that no one has ever seen evolution take place (Gardner 24). They maintain that, if it were a real process, some form of change should still be occurring. Several experiments done by evolutionary geneticists on rapidly reproducing species has seen no truly new species being produced. Jeffery Schwartz, a leading evolutionist at the University of Pittsburgh, acknowledged that the formation of new species by any means has not been achieved except for the case of Dobzhansky’s claim. Opponents insist that the fact that microevolution has never been recorded would seem to exclude the idea from the domain of actual science (Gardner 32).
At the primary level, a fossil believed to be human’s found in layers of rocks bellow sedimentary layers are thought to be human fossils. Opponents of revolution suggest that there should be no human fossils below the sedimentary layer, since; Homo sapiens arose only about 200,000 years ago. They further maintain that the occurrence of a human fossil about 60 million years ago falsify the evolution theory; since there is no possibility of a future man having travelled back into the past (Gardner 74). Such results can cause turmoil in the evolution theory, given that the mistaken identity of the fossil, poor dating of rock, fraud and all the other possibilities are rejected. Given a set of environmental conditions and genes, we can make sense of how natural selection may force an evolution process to an organism since we can draw meaningful predictions of how it will continue. However, it is a fact that many instances can be found where science itself has used fallacies to dispute possible alternative scientific facts and theories (Gardner 124).
In conclusion, false argument neither gives room to a range or alternate explanations. The assertion may be either partially correct or wrong in most instances. Scientists should be open to all possibilities. In fact, a real expert should be open to the Idea that evolution theory, which has been welcomed by almost every biologist, could b e wrong. Should there be found evidence that suggest that evolution could be wrong, they should be able to agree and go back to the drawing board.

Works Cited

Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Publications, 2012 Internet resource Pp. 3-173