Table 4 Examples of ad consequentiam and guilt by association arguments in creationist writings
From: Argumentation and fallacies in creationist writings against evolutionary theory
Portrayal or citation | Type | Science content | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
“If Darwinism is true, Hitler was our savior and we have crucified him.” | YEC | Yes | Bergman [1999] |
“…the killing of so many millions of people, let alone the onslaught on defenceless unborn babies… such action is totally consistent with evolutionary teaching.” | YEC | Yes | Grigg [2005] |
“The core idea of Darwinism is selection. The Nazis believed that they must direct the process of selection to advance the German race.” | YEC | No1 | Grigg [2005] |
“Science, divested of the moral compass of biblical Christianity, played a significant role in establishing the political and social conditions in Germany that led to the horrors of Nazism.” | YEC | No1 | Harker [2011] |
“…if life is an accident (Darwinist worldview)… why not make human clones? Why not abort unwanted children? Why not euthanize the ’useless’ aged?… Why not ‘steal, kill, and destroy’?” | ID | Yes | Harris and Calvert [2003] |
“Modern racism has always found its strongest and most vicious expression among doctrinaire evolutionists—men such as Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler…” | YEC | Yes | Morris [1972] |
“Genocide, of course, is merely a shocking name for the process of natural selection…” | ID | Yes | Johnson [1995], 144 |
“Evolutionary theory was applied into practice by Stalin and it caused the loss of tens of millions of lives.” | YEC | Yes | Reinikainen [1991], 10 |
Darwinism associated to Stalinism and Lysenkoism2, social Darwinism, eugenics, Nazism, immorality, abortions and euthanasia. | ID/OEC | Yes | Puolimatka [2010], 151–201, 462–477 |