MiloCast

A false dichotomy is when a person argues than since one thing isn’t true, another must be. A common example is the creationist who says “This world couldn’t have happened by accident, therefore God did it.” The main problem with this is that they are narrowing the possibilities down to exactly two. That frees them up to ignore the infinite number of other possibilities. How about “the earth was created by an invisible pink unicorn”? Now there are three options represented.

There is only one right answer to questions such as “How old is the earth?” and “Is there a god?” Maybe we don’t know all the answers today, but ruling out one possibility only narrows down the options; it doesn’t prove anything.

So how can we consider anything to be reasonably true, since we obviously can’t even think of, much less disprove, infinite possibilities for everything? We can’t believe nothing, or we wouldn’t be able to live our lives. Here is how it’s done: We take the best explanation we have so far and test it by trying to prove it’s not true. If we can’t prove it’s not true, then we use it for the time being — until we find something better. By this method, we are able to do the best we can in the present.

The important thing is that we’re willing to change our minds if our current ideas are shown to be false. Doing so is the scientific method. Not doing so is religion.