Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Coincidence / Appeal to Luck / Appeal to Bad Luck

Appeal to coincidence 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 appeal to coincidence occurs when a certain effect or result is attributed to chance even though the evidence strongly points to another cause.

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Coincidence

“The eye of the cuttlefish, like that of the squid, has a very similar design to our own, however, both eye types evolved separately, so the similarity is just a coincidence."

When such an explanation of coincidence is given for such amazing design, and an alternate explanation that actually makes sense is available, we have an example of the logical fallacy of appeal to coincidence. Of course, the other option is the dreaded, “God did it.” And we know that God did it because He reveals to anyone who will listen to Him that He did create the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them in six days. Revelation is reliable, but stories like evolution are not reliable.

"Don't tell me it's improbable that the first self-replicating life could have come into existence by coincidence. Just lay out a deck of card on the table after having shuffled it. The odds that you could get that exact combination is: 1 in 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000."

The odds of getting that combination is low, but the odds of getting a combination is 100%. The same is true of winning the lottery. It is designed to have winners. Many people by tickets and there are a limited number of possible lottery numbers. Someone will win. But try to shuffle the deck a thousand times in a row and get the same exact order each time. Now you are talking about putting together some raw material to build a cell, a primordial soup. This is not self-replicating life.

This argument is being taught on an Atheist website. It takes you back to the days of Darwin when they thought that the cell was a blob of matter. It is easy to prove that some random act has a high rate of improbability, but both the DNA and proteins must have been functional from the beginning, otherwise life could not exist. Even the most simple self-replicating life is amazingly complex beyond the DNA and RNA. There are molecular machines that function like robots in every cell, without which the cell could not live. There is more to than even this, but this is enough to show that coincidence is an irrational explanation. And then there is the problem of life. How do you make something alive? http://creation.com/rubiks-cubes-and-blind-men