Escape to the future

An escape to the future is a logical fallacy that is functionally similar to the God of the gaps argument and occurs when someone claims their worldview will soon prevail because the evidence is in the making or that their victory is just round the corner. Pseudosciences do this all the time.

Cogito ergo sum
Logic and rhetoric
Key articles
General logic
Bad logic
v - t - e

While the fallacy itself is formal, the act of constructing your world around its (mis)application is per definition delusional. The Hitler bunker scene in Der UntergangFile:Wikipedia's W.svg is a typical example of this,[note 1] as is the statement: "You are on the wrong side of history!"

Alternate names
  • Argument to the Future
  • Future Discoveries fallacy
  • Permanent Promise

Form
P1: Currently, there is no evidence that X is true.
P2: In the future, there will be evidence that X is true.
C: X is true.

Explanation

This argument is fallacious because of the lack of evidence to believe that there will be evidence in the future. This failure reduces the argument to P1 and C, which leaves no evidence for X to be true.

If there is evidence to believe so, then this is not a fallacious argument. For example, it's probable that neuroscience will eventually fully understand how the human brain works, because neuroscience has successfully done so for neurons and for sections of the brain (it would become a fallacy if you said, "The brain works like X, and we will soon have evidence for this, so therefore it is true". Not making a non-specific statement that at some point in the future we will understand the brain). However, there is no reason to believe that homeopathy, for example, will somehow become effective in the future.

gollark: Oh no, did someone *do something* again?
gollark: ddg! palaiaologogogoos
gollark: Bad news.
gollark: Unfortunate time for an outage or something.
gollark: ++apioform

Notes
  1. The original scene from the film and not one of the innumerable parodiesFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.