Often times in debates and discourse over hotly divided issues the oft-used, seldom supported slippery slope argument rears its head.
It is common knowledge to every one on the left that the right is the home of the slippery slope. I have even been known to sling a few slippery slopes around myself. One of the current issue where liberals become so exhausted with conservatives over their use of slippery slope is, of course, gay marriage.
So one would expect when looking at the current evolution debate that Christians and those on the right would be the ones most loundly injecting the term into the debate. You may expect that, but you would be wrong.
An op-ed in the New York Times today explains to all the simpletons out there that intelligent design is just a gateway to for Bible-thumpers to get all your school children “saved.”
That is not entirely true, maybe true enough for Newsweek, but here is the actual quote from the editorial:
They [the supporters of reforms in the science cirriculum of the Kansas school system] insist that they are not even trying to incorporate intelligent design into state science standards – that all they want is a critical analysis of supposed weaknesses in the theory of evolution. That may be less innocuous than it seems. Although the chief critics say they do not seek to require the teaching of intelligent design, they add the qualifier “at this point in time.” Once their foot is in the door, the way will be open.
Whoa, we’d better lock and bar the door to make sure those evil intelligent design scientists don’t come in to rape and pillage. Hide all the science text books and your young daughters – Intelligent Design supporters are in town.
While the New York Times attempts to hide the slippery slode argument by not using those words, Clarence Page blares it from the headline: ‘Intelligent design’ a slippery slope.
Page not only uses the slippery slope tactic, he even gives us scare quotes around “intelligent design” for the entire article. Showing the world that if anyone knows how to resort to base level debating and dismissal of an opposing viewpoint, its Clarence Page
He also references the 1925 Scopes or Monkey Trial*, which ironically enough, it is within the Scopes trial that we find, presumably, the first public use of the slippery slope in reference to the evolution and creation debate. Guess which side it was on?
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men…After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.
– Clarence Darrow lead defense attorney in the Tennessee v. Scopes trial
So, it seems that the slippery slope argument has been with us for a long time, just not always on the side where it is supposed to reside.
I guess all we need to sink the debate to the basest level would be for someone to refer to proponents of Intelligent Design as analogous to communist or for someone to fulfill Godwin’s law. (The mainstream media takes care of the communists and the blogs take care of the Nazis.)
*For more information on the Scopes Trial and the many misconceptions about the trial go here.
Outtakes05.18.05
Slopes Both Ways — Conservatives are often derided for using slippery slope arguments when debating issues such as same-sex marriage or gun-control. So why are liberals using the same tactic in warning of the dangers of teaching Intelligent Design the…
Intent plays a big part in this "slippery slope" logic. Some slippery slope arguments are very obviously exaggerated. Take, for instance, the idea that gay marriage will lead the way to human-animal nuptials: There's really no reason to think that this is the case, and only a very silly person would think that gay rights activists are interested in legalizing human-animal marriages.
On the other hand, the debate over intelligent design is one where the intent is pretty clear. The most vocal supporters of intelligent design (and the loudest opponents of evolution) are conservative Christians who would no doubt be pleased-as-punch to see Biblical creationism returned to public schools.
Most people agree that religion has no business being taught with public funding, but the fundamentalists who are leading the ID-crusade are not among them. Realizing that there's no support for the integration of public school and Christian theology, they're settling for the more-generic 'intelligent design', which is why we're now seeing these attacks on the theory of evolution.
But come on: honestly evaluate the intent, here. What do these people want? They're not just looking for a critical evaluation of evolution (in middle-school classes, no less). After all, ID has a lot less evidence than evolution does. This is just the first step for them, because they're actual goal is unachievable in the public eye.
Close, but no cigar. The Christian argument v SSM is that once SSM is illegal, there will be no way to stop the legalization of polygamy, regardless of the intentions of the interested parties. By contrast, the Times's argument is that ID'ers have secret motives, and getting ID in the classroom is their step in their overall agenda to get God in the classroom.
The former uses the slippery slope as a logical entailment. If we allow SSM, then the legalization of polygamy is somehow legally entailed. In the latter, it's that IDers actually want to get God in the classroom, and we don't want to let them take even that first step (not because God in the classroom is logically or rationally entailed by ID – it’s not – but because these ID’ers have ulterior motives, and we should stay on our guard. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile.
Actually being a supporter of ID theory, I do not want Genesis Biblical creationism taught in high school science classes. I do not even want ID theory given as much time and emphasis as evolutionary theories. I would simply be happy if they spent 75% of the time discussing evolution and then 25% of the time looking at other plausible alternatives like ID.
In the future, depending on scientific advancement, the situation may have to be changed. If find some huge discoveries that undermine either theory or any possibilities, then they should be given less (if any) time.
As to the gay marriage slippery slope. I don't know anyone who thinks that gay rights activists care or are interested in legalizing beastiality marriages. The logic (in all likelihood faulty) flows that the door would be opened for numerous changes to the fabric of marriage. The gay rights people would not want to see animal-human marriages, but those who are in that lifestyle may.
I think it is inflamatory to compare the two for obivious reasons, but that is the logic behind the argument. It is not that gay rights people would love to see a man marry his dog, but that the man "in love with" his dog would like to see it and would argue his case similarly to the way many argue the gay marriage debate.
But as to your whole basis for judging on intent, it is always shaded by the side of the debate you are on. You see no malice or any future harm in gay marriage being a supporter of it. Of course you view the intent of it to be positive. On the other hand, you disagree with ID so you tend to view their motives and intent more suspiciously.
There may be people on both sides of either argument that wants to carry it to the unpopular extreme, but I believe in both cases they are in the minority.
How can it be fair for someone on the opposite side of a debate to tell those that are disagree with that they know better their motive? You claim you know the motive for the opposite side of one debate, but reject the motives or intent linked with your side.
Intent is a very hard thing to prove, especially coming from a hostile (or contrary) witness (on either side).
jpe, thanks for proving my point. "…these ID’ers have ulterior motives, and we should stay on our guard. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile."
We automatically assume the worst about the other side in a debate.
"Those crazy ID'ers want to force God on everyone."
" Those crazy gay rights people won't stop until people are marrying dogs. "
Both of those seem illogical to me, but the side in favor of the either issue has a tendency to readily accept one but discount the other as nonsense.
Those crazy gay rights people won't stop until people are marrying dogs.
That's not the slippery slope argument, of course. The SS works through logical entailment, not the imputation of hidden motive. Two different things at work.
But as to your whole basis for judging on intent….
Slow yo' roll, pal. I'm not judging intent; I was explaining the Times' argument, which does claim that IDers have this hidden intent. Whether or not ID'ers have said intent doesn't interest me particularly. My only interest was in delineating the boundaries between the SS argument and the argument from hidden intent.
I don't think ID'ers have an ulterior motive at all. It's clear as a mountain spring that they want to teach God in the classroom. ID is merely the practical tool for doing so.
As it is, I don't see a shred of evidence anywhere that advocates for gay marriage want anything more than gay marriage. If you have it, show me. btw: gay marriage does not equal polyandry or bestiality or whatever you want to throw in any more than opposite-sex marriage does. The only real argument against gay marriage I've see is that opposite-sex marriage is traditional – that's the way it's always been so that's the way it should stay. At least it's open in it's irrelevance. It's kind of like saying, well, negroes have always been subservient to the white man (all the way back to Ham and Noah), so that's just the way it always has to be. Or, we all know that the world is flat and the sun revolves around it – that's the way the Greek taught it and that's the way it's always been- so it's the rack for you, Galileo! The argument, "That's the way it's always been, so that's the way it should stay, humph!" is pretty dumb.
I understand that but you (and Stewart) find the slippery slope argument in regards to gay marriage to be illogical since some say that gay marriage starts the SS to polygomy and human-animal marriage.
That is dismissed as silly, but not the ID SS argument, now those have to be true because "ID'ers have ulterior motives" to eventually force God on everyone.
You see ulterior motives in one, but not the other. Why do you think that is?
There is a difference between hidden motives and slippery slope, but they usually go together when arguing (as Stewart illustrated in the first comment).
The Times clearly went down the slippery slope when they spoke of "the foot in the door" insinuating that more was to follow if ID was allowed in the classroom.
As to Louis, comment. I have clearly said here in this discussion and other places that gay activist do not have any intrest in animal marriage or anything else other than gay marriage. The slippery slope argument in that case is one of unintended consequences (not that I support the SS in that case).
The throw away line of "negroes" being subservient to white man back to Noah and Ham. I assume you are referencing the nutjob position that many racist take in trying to defend themselves by saying Noah cursed Ham to be black. Someone making that argument would show their ignorance of the Bible, since Noah actually cursed one of Ham's sons Canaan whose decendents settled around Sodom and Gomorrah was not black. The curse was more likely to do with a rebellious spirit Noah saw in Ham and then in Canaan. It definitely had nothing to do with race.
I didn't mean to start a large argument about polygamy here, but let me clarify what I meant.
There is a difference between what gay rights activists want, and what proponents of ID want. In the case of gay rights activists, the push for gay marriages ends with gay marriage. It's possible that the logic might be picked up by polygamists or zoophiles at some later point, but there's no confusion about where gay activists stand on the issue.
That's not true of ID proponents who are virtually all fundamentalists Christians, most of whom, I'd wager — given the choice — would bring Biblical teaching back to our public school systems.
I can claim "slippery slope" with both of those cases, but the truth is that there's really not a serious activist movement out there for zoophilia or polygamy, regardless of what scared fundies think. On the other hand, the majority of ID proponents are also Biblical Creationism proponents, so I believe the slippery slope argument is a much bigger concern there. This really is a case of "getting a foot in the door", no matter how you look at it.
Does the slippery slope result have the be the original intent of the those who started down it?
My contention is that in the gay marriage debate (again, I don't really subscribe to us, but…) the outcome would not be the real intention of the gay marriage supporters but rather an unintended consequence of opening up marriage.
And I would totally disagree with your assessment that "virtually all" ID proponents are "fundamentalists Christians" This may be mere semantics in your view, but there is a huge difference between fundamentalists and say evangelicals. I did several posts on it over at Wardrobe Door.
You could say that virtually all ID proponents believe in God. You could even say that virtually all ID proponents believe in the Christian God.
But you have to give me more proof than just "I'd wager" (your opinion) that the majority of ID proponents (those educated on the issue) would want to teach Genesis creation specifically and Bible teaching generally in mandated classes in our public schools. (I see no harm in teaching the Bible or any other religion or all religions in a voluntary religion class or even in the release time program where students can sign up for a course and go to a local church/synagogue/mosque for a religious class during school time. Both of those have been upheld by Supreme Court rulings.)
Some ID'ers believe in evolution, just not as an explanation of how life began. There is a wide variety of beliefs in the ID field.
It is very easy to force our own preconceived ideas about the other side on to someone and impugn their motives without even knowing what their intentions are.
But again the question remains who gets to determine which slippery slope "is a much bigger concern'?
It always amazes me how little ID's detractors — AND many of its supporters — know about it.
ID is not an "alternative" to evolution. It's a theory for detecting design in anything, biological or not. As applied to origins, it's an alternative to *naturalism*, not to evolution (many of the ID "fathers" believe in evolution.) There was extensive discussion of this here which I won't rehash…
What's unfortunate is that most of the people who've latched on to ID really are creationists, so they've created a sort of "guilt by association" judgement of ID. Most of the people who want ID in schools really do view it as an alternative to evolution, and a way to insert God into the curriculum. And that's where the slippery slope / motivation hybrid argument comes in — most people arguing for ID don't really want ID taught, they want creationism taught, and they're using ID as a stepping stone. So it's a fair argument.
The slippery slope argument, applied to gay marriage, has significantly less merit. There's a slight chance of a slippery slope, but not so much as people suppose.