I came across these statements in this forum section (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2176065/+1840#). It seemed that the poster's method of inquiry that seeks to describe, explain, and predict occurrences in the natural world, tends to work backward from desired results. This is also referred as “motivated reasoning.” It indirectly helps in my research to investigate the percentage of Malaysians who are “scientifically illiterate,” despite the profound impact science has on our daily lives.

Since I’m neither evolutionary biologist nor geneticist, I’m wondering if that is some kind of unscientific thinking masquerading as scientific thinking. Does the thinking appear to be scientific but is, in fact, faithless to science’s basic values and methods? This definition is indebted to Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, p. 13.

Because pseudo-scientific thinking often looks and sounds like real science, it can be quite hard for non-scientists or casual readers to tell them apart. Luckily, there are certain criteria of pseudoscience that any educated person can use to distinguish it from true science, including the following:

· 1. Does it make claims that are not testable?
· 2. Does it make claims that are inconsistent with well-established scientific truths?
· 3. Does it explain away or ignore falsifying data?
· 4. Does it use vague language that almost anything could be counted as confirming it?
· 5. Does it lack of progressiveness?
· 6. Does it involve no serious effort to conduct research using scientific method?

Our discussion of the case study in this thread is indebted to William D. Gray, Thinking Critically about New Age Ideas (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991), chap. 5.

Thank you for the findings. You’re resourceful. Now I remember that Killer bees are hybrid of the european honey bee and african bee.

At least, I found the probable motive behind SalahAdDin’s reasoning for creationism (see below), much to my dismay. Probably through the process of elimination, but I don’t see any causal hypothesis at issue, that any evidence against evolution leads to strong evidence for creationism. Furthermore, there are multiple other possible origin explanations have been suggested and discussed.

As a Case Study, the primary cognitive flaw that marks a belief system or behavior as denialism is moving the goalpost, or always demanding more evidence for a claim than is currently available. When that burden of evidence is met, then the goalpost is moved back further and even more evidence is demanded. As an example, SalahAdDin, who engages in evolution denial, or creationism in this forum section (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2176065/+1860#), claims that there is no evolutionary species in the genome descent mapping. He uses vagueness in defining the term evolutionary species to move the goalpost. (See key points below)

At first, it seems as if SalahAdDin means evolving a new species is scientifically impossible because there is no scientific evidence that a new species can change the number of chromosomes through the interbreed between two extant species or between a descendent species and its ancestor. When such examples are provided, he then moves the goalpost by changing the definition. He then demand specific evidence that if Human is really a new species descended from the Great Ape, then Human should have the same chromosome count as his ancestor, Ape, or the Ape at least, should exhibit a vocalized speech capability like its descendent, Human.