Post by ck4829 on Oct 28, 2022 8:47:35 GMT
This tactic is extremely common in debates with creationists, who will often say "show me an example of something evolving today", or "show me an example of information increasing through random processes." When either of these are shown to the creationist, they will suddenly change the standards of what they meant by "evolving" or "information" to try and avoid losing an argument they clearly lost. The distinction between "micro-" and "macro-" evolution is often left intentionally vague by creationists and intelligent design proponents just for this purpose.
An excellent example of the fallacy is when looking into a so-called "test" on creationist wiki ASK to see if information could be increased in a genome by making a (somewhat poor) analogy to the English language. In this case, it was asked to increase the "information" in the phrase "trap big animal paws." When this was repeatedly demonstrated, new and relatively unreasonable rules — unknown from the participants in the first instance — began to appear. This, combined with outright denial and objection to the original answers, guaranteed a win in the eyes of the self-appointed judge.
The manufactroversy surrounding the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate has seen plenty of goalpost-moving — often to a greater degree than any other conspiracy. First, the Birther movement demanded a birth certificate and Obama duly released one. Next, they protested that this wasn't good enough, and began a long campaign to have the original, long form version released. After getting a special exception made by the state of Hawaii, Obama released this "long form" version. However, the cognitive dissonance was too great for the conspiracy theorists, who had invested a lot of emotional involvement in their denial of his citizenship, and they shifted the goalposts again to demand college and school records, and even proof that his mother was in the hospital at the time. What is particularly galling about the affair is the amount of focus given by the Birther movement onto the "long form" certificate — and their constant goalpost-moving proves that they will never be convinced.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Goalposts_on_wheels
An excellent example of the fallacy is when looking into a so-called "test" on creationist wiki ASK to see if information could be increased in a genome by making a (somewhat poor) analogy to the English language. In this case, it was asked to increase the "information" in the phrase "trap big animal paws." When this was repeatedly demonstrated, new and relatively unreasonable rules — unknown from the participants in the first instance — began to appear. This, combined with outright denial and objection to the original answers, guaranteed a win in the eyes of the self-appointed judge.
The manufactroversy surrounding the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate has seen plenty of goalpost-moving — often to a greater degree than any other conspiracy. First, the Birther movement demanded a birth certificate and Obama duly released one. Next, they protested that this wasn't good enough, and began a long campaign to have the original, long form version released. After getting a special exception made by the state of Hawaii, Obama released this "long form" version. However, the cognitive dissonance was too great for the conspiracy theorists, who had invested a lot of emotional involvement in their denial of his citizenship, and they shifted the goalposts again to demand college and school records, and even proof that his mother was in the hospital at the time. What is particularly galling about the affair is the amount of focus given by the Birther movement onto the "long form" certificate — and their constant goalpost-moving proves that they will never be convinced.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Goalposts_on_wheels