Rhetoric versus Science: Perfectionist Fallacy/Subjectivism/Argument from Ignorance

This clip contains a "witches brew" of fallacies. This may explain Dawkins' inability to lucidly counter-attack.



O'Reilly's argument seems to be something like this:

P1: Science hasn't figured out everything, including how life began--(i.e., it is not perfect).
P2: Christianity proposes an explanation, albeit, non-scientific.
_______________________
C: One ought to believe the Christian explanation.

It seems for this argument to go through the absurd "suppressed premise" must be something like:

P3: Any explanation that merely claims to be definitive is correct. (!)

or

P3': If science hasn't come up with a definitive explanation (i.e., is not perfect) go with any other contender irrespective of likelihood/unlikelihood.

Also notice at one point (2:41) O'Reilly says that Dawkins "cannot prove to me [O'Reilly] that Jesus is not" God therefore he is entitled to his belief in God.

Dawkins correctly points out that you can use this form of pseudo-reasoning to "prove" anything exists (e.g., Zeus).

This situation is complicated by the fact that O'Reilly is treating this as a matter of opinion where Dawkins is treating this (correctly) as a matter of fact.

[Submitted by former student John Razi.]