Another way of recognizing ad hoc hypotheses is : (1)if the hypothesis was brought in solely for the purpose of saving a weakly tested hypothesis and (2) if the hypothesis itself has been previously untested and not verified in any way, then the probability it is ad hoc is even more likely.

Another controversial example of the Redefinist Fallacy should indicate not only its frequency but its importance. Consider the following:

Certain religionists never tire of telling us that God loves mankind and each and every one of us. But what would count against this apparent synthetic (empirical) claim? Well, what about the tragic deaths of some six million Jews during the Holocaust of WWII?

‘Well,’ it is claimed, ‘God loved all those innocent people but allowed them to die for some good reason.’ But what possible good reason could offset the agony, terror and death of millions of people?’

‘Well, God has his reasons and he simply chooses not to tell us.’

‘But what about little five-year-old Johnny tragically shot by a police officer when Johnny raised a toy gun in a darkened room?’

This is not to say, however, that the defender of this claim is not warranted in defending the ad hoc assumption; there is nothing irrational in this. It is only to say the defender of this belief cannot switch the main assertion from synthetic to analytic when the going gets rough. To say God has his reasons but we cannot know them is surely suspect, especially when men of the cloth seem to know what God’s reasons are in some cases but not in all cases. How do we distinguish between those cases where we know and where we do not know God’s reasons? The distinction appears to be arbitrary and capricious especially since this ad hoc assumption pertaining to God cannot be disproved, and it is logically possible. Ultimately, the defender of such religious claims should make ft clear at the outset what will (and will not) count as evidence against God’s loving mankind and each one of us. If this is not done, further discussion seems to be superfluous, a waste of time. (P. Ricci see Bibliography)

Stenton, the secretary of the International Flat Earth Research Society, and his followers-- and he says he has them all over the world-- believe that the earth is not only flat, but static in space, and that the theory of gravity was advanced to support the spinning earth theory.

Talking to reporters, Stenton answered a few questions raised by round-earthers:

The voyage of Sir Francis Chichester around the world?

"He was just following a zig-zag course ‘round the fiat disc of the earth."

Astronauts wheeling around the earth in space?

[Although not included in the above article, when asked how they explain why a large ship appears to slowly disappear below the horizon as it travels further out to sea, they claim that refraction of light through the atmosphere bends the light in such a way that after a distance the ship slowly disappears.

Such explanations are not unlike creationists who need to explain why stars appear hundreds of thousands of light-years away They do this by claiming that light has actually slowed down over the millennia (some ten or so) to give the APPEARANCE of such distant stars. The further stars are from us, the faster light was moving just the correct speed to allow a 10,000 year-old universe! (Of course, the data over the past couple of centuries shows no such slowing down of the velocity of light. As a matter of fact, the first somewhat accurate measurement of the speed of light in the 18th century was actually LOWER than the current, more accurate, measurements.)

THE EXAMPLE OF THE FIRE-BREATHING DRA GON.

‘‘A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage." Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you would want to check ft out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Where’s the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she’s right there," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention she’s an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the flour of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.

"Good idea, "I say, "but the dragon floats in the air"

Then you will use an infrared sensor to detect the in visible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea except she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation (called AD HOC hypotheses, my comment) of why it won’t work

Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? if there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does ft mean to say my dragon exists? Your inability to in validate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in inciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.’

(The allusion to certain religious beliefs is unmistakable here. My comment)

Carl Sagan, THE DEMON-HA UNTED WORLD, 1996, (pps. 171-172)

Some last examples of the Redefinist Fallacy taken from my text:

Fundamentals of Critical Thinking, 2nd Ed.

a) If I were to tell you that, since we last met, the universe and everything within it has doubled in size, what would be your reaction? Could this assertion be proved false? What could count against such a claim?

b) Suppose I now try to convince you that you were having a perfect hallucination of the flag (or television, or whatever) you think you see in front of the room. What would count as a counter-example to such a claim? What might be a reply to your counter-example?

c) Marxists have often argued that capitalism always involves worker exploitation. But when it is pointed out to those Marxists that many people enjoy their work under capitalist management, they reply by saying these workers are being exploited but are not a ware of it. Do you suspect something wrong with this kind of ad hoc reply?

d) I was once told by a student that the group he belonged to was not a religion, but just a way of life. He tried to convince me that religious organizations are all harmful because they become institutionalized and stray from the word of God after all, religion was responsible the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Thirty-years war in Europe, and the many witch trials in the past centuries. After further questioning he told me that his group not only believed in God, the Resurrection, God’s triune nature, the infallibilli7 of the Bible and man ~s need for God. I suspected something had gone wrong with his claim that he belonged to no religion. What do you think?

e) In the tumult of the ongoing creation-evolution debates, creationists often make the bold claim that there were simply no intermediate forms between classes of animals or even species. Evolutionists often cite the remains of a prehistoric creature called Archaeopteryx as a counter-example of the creationist claim. This creature had wings and feathers, could fly, but had teeth, a long, bony tail, and a skeleton quite similar to the reptiles of its day. Creationists replied that since Archaeopteryx had feathers, it was a bird and, hence, not an intermediate species between reptiles and birds at all! Discuss the difficulty with such a reply. Do you suppose any kind of fossil evidence would convince creationists of the truth of evolution? Where, exactly, was the Redefinist Fallacy here?