Logical Fallacy of False Open-Mindedness

The logical fallacy of false open-mindedness occurs when open-mindedness is claimed while also refusing to look at evidence supporting conclusions that differ from what is currently believed. Often, this false open-mindedness is used as evidence against any competing ideas or claims. The fact is that no one is open-minded to things outside their deep-rooted concept of reality. Each of us has such a thing, call it a paradigm, worldview, or world-perception, it is a fake-reality that seems more real to us that real reality. So, open-mindedness doesn't really exist. We are open-minded to things that don't violate our fake-realities too much.

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of False Open-Mindedness

Bill Nye arguing against Creation science: "If you could find evidence of that, my friends, you could change the world.” "There is not a single place in the Grand Canyon where the fossils of one type of animal cross over into the fossils of another. In other words, when there is a big flood on the Earth, you would expect drowning animals to swim up to a higher level. Not any one of them did. Not a single one where the fossils of one type of animal cross over into the fossils of another. In other words, when there is a big flood on the Earth, you would expect drowning animals to swim up to a higher level."

Throughout the debate, Bill Nye tried to make a case for message control and censorship of anything related to Creation science. He implied that anyone who doesn't just blindly accept the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story cannot be a scientist. He implied that those who don't believe this sacred cow story are dangerous to the future of America and the world. He implied that no one ought to examine the facts concerning Creation science or God. He stated that you can't know God, which would imply that Bill is omnicient. Yet, Bill tried to imply that he is open minded.

Bill Nye gives the impression of openness to evidence that is contrary to his belief, sort of a plain folks fallacy. While projecting a false open-mindedness, Bill makes incompatible statements that expose a mind that is so closed that it doesn't even want to rationally evaluate anything that disagrees with it's internal fake reality. This closed-mindedness seems to be very targeted against Jesus Christ. He even wants those who disagree with him or have come to different conclusions to be silenced (message control). He doesn't want discussion of this issue in public, particularly where it may encourage critical thinking. This would be the logical fallacy of inconsistency.

Even though this is an ambiguous claim, similar claims were made later in the debate that are stated clearly. Those statements about Bill's claim of a very rigid nature of the geologic column, with distinct borders between various species and families of living things, goes beyond unverified evidence. This represent the logical fallacy of the outright lie. If you read the articles below, you will find that index fossils in the wrong place is a huge problem for the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story.

1. • Do Fossils Show Signs of Rapid Burial?
   • Doesn’t the Order of Fossils in the Rock Record Favor Long Ages?
   • Order in the Fossil Record
   • How Fast?
   • Feedback: Where Are All the Bunny Fossils?
   • Where Are All the Human Fossils?
   • Why Don’t We Find Human & Dinosaur Fossils Together?
   • Geologic Column
   • Unlocking the Geologic Record

 The vagueness of this statement makes it difficult to answer. It is a fallacy of ambiguity that is caused by his habit of using innuendo rather that stating things clearly. Innuendo is often used as a hedging tactic by people who don't have a real reason to believe what they believe. It is quite plain that those animals that were more mobile did seem to escape and are found mostly in the upper layers. There is a lot of mixing though, but that is to be expected. It seems that Bill is implying that there is a conflict when no conflict or contradiction exists. Discoveries are constantly being made of fossils that are not where they are supposed to be, and none of the elite ever dare to question the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story. They simple shoehorn the new data into the story.

In the entire argument presented above, Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance, since his claim is really that if we don’t know of any fossils that are found in the wrong place then there are no fossils that exist in the wrong place. Now, we find a growing number of out-of-place fossils that change the definitions of the geologic column. And new stories, rescuing mechanisms, are constantly being made up to explain these out-of-place fossils as they are found. The big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story is a religion. It cannot be falsified by any observation, since there can always be a story, no matter how fantastic, to explain away the evidence against the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story.

1. • Canyon Creation: Faster Than Most People Would Think Possible, Beauty Was Born from Devastation
   • Feedback: What Is Unique About the Colorado River?
   • Durham’s Grand Canyon: A Canyon in an Instant
   • Why Is Grand Canyon So Significant for Geology? (audio)
   • http://creation.com/fossils-wrong-place
   • http://www.icr.org/article/cambrian-fossils-found-wrong-place/
   • http://www.icr.org/article/4818/274/
   • http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/03/06/feedback-bunny-fossils
   • http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v14/n1/fossil
   • http://www.creationism.org/vonfange/vonFangeTimeUpDownChap03.htmhttp://creation.com/index-fossils
   • http://creation.com/the-fossil-record

Question from the audience: "What, if anything, would ever change your mind?"

Bill Nye arguing against Creation science: "We would just need one piece of evidence. We would need the fossil that swam from one layer to another. We would need evidence that the Universe is not expanding. We would need evidence that the stars appear to be far away but they’re not. We would need evidence that rock layers can somehow form in just 4,000 years instead of the extraordinary amount. We would need evidence that somehow you can reset atomic clocks and keep neutrons from becoming protons. Bring on any of those things and you would influ’, you would change me immediately. The question I have for you though, fundamentally, and for everybody watching, Ken Ham, what can you prove? What you have done tonight is spent most of the t, all the time, coming up with explanations about the past. What can you really predict, what can you really prove in a conventional scientific, or in a conventional I have an idea that makes a prediction and it comes out the way I see it. This is very troubling to me."

"We would just need one piece of evidence." This a false open-mindedness. Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the red herring. History has shown that those who are committed to the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man stories never turn because of a piece of evidence. And we also know, by revelation, that evidence is not what changes hearts. It is the proclamation of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit that changes hearts. Many evidences have come that should have moved these people off of their positions against God and His revelation. How many scientific laws have to be broken by these stories before they will consider that the evidence against the stories is strong enough? The stories are believed because those who believe them prefer them to be true. And God also reveals that those who love darkness more than light are the ones who refuse to come to the light. It is because their deeds are evil. And God also reveals that in the last days there will be those who are willingly ignorant of the creation, the flood, and the coming judgment by fire.

"We would need the fossil that swam from one layer to another." Bill Nye is using the logical fallacy of the outright lie by implying a very rigid nature of the geologic column with distinct borders between various species and families of living things. Read the articles below to find out about index fossils in the wrong place. See how this is a huge problem for the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story. There are many tricks and fallacies that are used to deal with these problems, but growing problem of "out-of-place" fossils is a serious one for evolution. So that requirement has been met, and yet, Bill Nye has still not given up his belief system.

1. • Do Fossils Show Signs of Rapid Burial?
   • Doesn’t the Order of Fossils in the Rock Record Favor Long Ages?
   • Order in the Fossil Record
   • How Fast?
   • Feedback: Where Are All the Bunny Fossils?
   • Where Are All the Human Fossils?
   • Why Don’t We Find Human & Dinosaur Fossils Together?
   • Geologic Column
   • Unlocking the Geologic Record

"We would need evidence that the Universe is not expanding." Bill Nye uses a red herring fallacy. Which young Earth cosmology says that the Universe is not expanding? He probably meant to say that if someone were to absolutely prove that the big bang had not happened by going back in time--and they would have to take Bill Nye with them--and they watched God creating everything just about 6,000 years ago, that would be scientific evidence that he would except. Bill Nye is moving the goal posts, setting up a fictitious test, a kind of straw man, an impossible goal that must be reached in order for him to change his mind.

1. • The Big Bang and Evidence for the “Inflation Theory”—A Preliminary Comment
   • Discussing Recent Developments in Astronomy
   • Universe by Design: Appendix
   • Echoes of the big bang … or noise?
   • Universe by Design: Problems with the Big Bang
   • Big Bang Explanations Fall Flat
   • Universe by Design: Misconceptions About General Relativity, Cosmology, and the Big Bang
   • Galaxies—Unexplained Spirals
   • Science Still in the Dark about Dark Energy
   • Do We Live in a Giant Cosmic Bubble?
   • Have Cosmologists Discovered Evidence of Inflation?
   • The Big Bust
   • Universe by Design: Non-Biblical Alternatives to the Big Bang
   • The Hubble Law

"We would need evidence that the stars appear to be far away but they’re not." Bill Nye again uses a red herring fallacy. Which young Earth cosmology says that the stars are not really all that far away. Well, there is one, but not a major contender. This is a straw man argument. What Bill Nye probably meant is that someone would have to take Bill Nye back in time with scientific test equipment that has not yet been developed to see that God used some method to get the sunlight to the Earth, either one of the workable cosmologies that are now on the table or something we have not yet thought of. This, of course, is special pleading for molecules-to-man, big bang, and billions-of-years, since Bill Nye is so dogmatic about these three dogmas that he wants all other ideas silenced and all research on other ideas stopped, but he requires no such absolute physical evidence for the three dogmas. A reasonable man would ask for the same kinds of evidence, without using bare assertions or worldview as proof, for both the big-bang-billions-of-years-molecules-to-man story and the creation-flood account. And a reasonable man would ask for the same kinds of evidence, without using bare assertions or worldview as proof, for naturalism, materialism, uniformitarianism, and any other assumption or story.

1. • A Proposal for a New Solution to the Light Travel Time Problem
   • Distant Starlight: The Anisotropic Synchrony Convention
   • Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem
   • http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/astronomical-distance-light-travel-problem ~ Dr. Danny Faulkner
   • http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/light-travel-time-problem ~ Dr. Danny Faulkner

"We would need evidence that rock layers can somehow form in just 4,000 years instead of the extraordinary amount." Bill Nye is using the fallacy of the outright lie. If proving that rock layers could form quickly, not in 4,000 years, but in very short times, this has been proven. Anyone who follows scientific advancements knows this. Yet, Bill Nye has still not changed his mind. 

1. • Keys to Rapid Rock Formation
   • Rapid Granite Formation
   • Rapid Rock
   • Rock formed rapidly on bell
   • Rapid Rocks
   • Rapid Rocks
   • Rapid Rock Formation (short audio)
   • Rock formed rapidly around a spark plug
   • Rapid formation of granitic rocks: more evidence

"We would need evidence that somehow you can reset atomic clocks and keep neutrons from becoming protons." Bill Nye is again using a red herring fallacy, or, perhaps, a straw man fallacy. No one talked about resetting atomic clocks or keeping neutrons from becoming protons. Bill Nye is supposed to be a science guy, so he must have understood when Ken Ham explained the various assumptions that are made in radio carbon dating to get the "extraordinarily" old age estimates. Obviously, Bill Nye must know about these arbitrary assumptions, and he knows that different assumptions could be made. So Bill Nye is not willing to change his mind even though he knows that the dating methods are rigged.

1. • Feedback: Radiometric Dating and Proof
   • Answers to Questions about Radiometric Dating
   • Does Radiometric Dating Show that Rocks are Millions of Years Old?
   • Radiometric Dating (Video)
   • Fallacies of Radioactive Dating of Rocks
   • Does Radiometric Dating Prove the Earth is Old? (Video)
   • Radiometric Dating Breakthroughs
   • Radiometric Dating Q & A
   • Radiometric Dating the Age of Earth
   • Radioactive Dating Anomalies

"Bring on any of those things and you would influ’, you would change me immediately." This is the logical fallacy of the outright lie. The thing that would change Bill Nye is a real experience with the real Jesus Christ. That would require humility. The arrogance would need to go. That would require a brokenness and a desire to be set free from the fleshly prison. That would require wanting to do the will of God and realizing that he is a fallen, sinful person who can't do God's will without the Holy Spirit of God. It may start with a fear of Hell, but it would have to go forward to a desire to do what is right and eschewing what is evil.

The question I have for you though, fundamentally, and for everybody watching, Ken Ham, what can you prove? What you have done tonight is spent most of the t', all the time, coming up with explanations about the past. What can you really predict, what can you really prove in a conventional scientific, or in a conventional I have an idea that makes a prediction and it comes out the way I see it" Bill Nye returns to the logical fallacy of proof by repetition. Watching the debate with several others, the thought went through everyone's mind, why hasn't Ken Ham answered this?" Well, he had answered it several times, and this shows the deceptive power of the logical fallacy of proof by repetition in the hands of someone who has the audacity to keep repeating the same lie congruently, with conviction, and with complete lack of acknowledgement that the lie has been repeatedly answered.

"This is very troubling to me." Bill Nye again applies the logical fallacy of appeal to emotion. No matter how troubled Bill Nye is, it has no effect on realty one way or another.