Ham Hightail
From RationalWiki
The Ham Hightail is a term invented by P.Z. Myers to describe the arguments presented at Ken Ham's creationism museum. In contrast to the Gish Gallop, the Ham Hightail consists of hurtling from point to point, ignoring all contrary evidence, and quoting the Bible whenever proof is required.[1] It sounds even more annoying than Gish's method.
The objective of the Ham Hightail is not to convince the sceptics, but to reinforce the believers. The science does not have to prove creationism, so long as people believe it does. To this ends Ham's Answers in Genesis have been running a long campaign of presuppositionalism in creation science, you assume the bible is correct and then find the evidence that fits, every thing else you just ignore. Minor annoying details, such as radiometric dating and common descent, are brushed aside with comments about them being based on assumptions that are only true depending on your "worldview". If you want to take the Ham Hightail to the lengths the originator has, you can start your own pretend science journal and fill it full of speculative essays, all the while deluding yourself that you are sponsoring real research.
[edit] Ham Hightail in action
In AiG's book The Ultimate Proof of Creation by Dr Jason Lisle (Forward by Ken Ham) we find such nuggets of gold as:
| “ | Our worldview is a bit like mental glasses. It affects the way we view things. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses sees red everywhere, a person wearing “evolution” glasses sees evolution everywhere. The world is not really red everywhere, nor is there evolution everywhere, but glasses do affect our perception of the world and the conclusions we draw. We will find in this book that the Bible is a bit like corrective lenses. Without "biblical glasses," the world appears fuzzy and unclear. But when our thinking is based on the Bible, the world snaps into focus: it makes sense.
Just as a person wearing red glasses perceives the world differently than a person wearing clear, prescription lenses, so evolutionists "see" the world differently than creationists. We have the same facts. But what we make of those facts is colored by our worldview. Thus, creationists and evolutionists interpret the same facts differently. This point cannot be overstated. | ” |
It is good that this point can not be overstated as most of the book reads like that. Notice how they don't have to present a case for creationism, it has already been presented by the evolutionists, they are just looking at it the wrong way. If you look at it as evidence confirming the bible, it does.
[edit] Use on Wikis
The Ham Hightail is the favored argumentation strategy of Philip J. Rayment at A Storehouse of Knowledge, who is known to drive otherwise sane people over the edge with his creationist arguments. These basically consist of ignoring all inconvenient facts, making massive point-by-point rebuttals involving constant use of a quote template that sets his opponents' words in small green type, and (when all else fails) pulling Goddidit out of the hat.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The Creation “Museum” - P.Z. Myer, Pharyngula.
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Ham Hightail | |||||
