Studying Creationist Rhetoric Exposed Me To Fallacies

The Beginning of My Journey with Rhetoric

Long before I went to graduate school for rhetoric and composition at the University of Cincinnati, I went to the Creationist Museum as a curiosity. A high school friend and I decided to meet there. At the time, I was contemplating going back to school to study secondary math and science education. At the time I went to the Creationist Museum, I was a Christian--but not a creationist.

Besides the outlandish displays of cavemen being next to dinosaurs, I mostly commented on the explanatory placards the Creationist Museum posted throughout the building.

The Creationist Museum had these man vs. God placards all over the museum. See photo credit below.

Photo credit: "A tour of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY in July 2011. It's science, or something like that." by David Berkowitz is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Seeing these placards pushed me into what I call "rhetorical skepticism." I would read the placards explaining the exhibits. I very loudly and rudely commented on how nonsensical some of these placards were. My friend told me to stop making these loud comments. Aside from the rudeness, I know these comments signify one of my first rhetorical analyses of both creationist rhetoric and rhetoric in general. I didn't have the vocabulary and knowledge to label and dissect the lack of logic I saw in these placards.

Entering the Conversation: Fallacies

I began blogging on MySpace and doing research into creationism as a rhetorical construct.

Though I had such a strong reaction to the museum, I didn't have the epiphany that I wanted to study creationists' arguments and rhetoric. I simply blogged on MySpace about my feelings on creationism and evolution. However, once I admitted to my skepticism, I began watching YouTube videos about creationist rhetoric.

Creationism as Fallacious

The YouTube video I watched, Top 25 Creationist Fallacies, fascinated me.

Several things fascinated me. The rhetorical form of the video have a particular arrangement: the narrator both shows the name of the fallacy and says the name. From there, he reads the definition and explanation of the fallacy. Lastly, he includes a video clip example of the fallacy. This was the first multimodal, rhetorical form I recognized.

At the time, I also didn't realize that I was going study classical rhetoric and teach writing.