I see this bumper sticker around town occasionally, and it always makes me shake my head. While I get a measure of amusement from such a blatant logical error (which I will explain below), I’m mildly frustrated by the apparent lack of education of those promoting such a slogan.Now, what exactly is meant by the statement, “We have the fossils. We win.”? The implied claim is that the fossil record supports an evolutionary emergence life’s grand diversity, therefore, gradualistic evolution is the correct view of natural history. If you run a web search of this slogan, you will find that promoters of the bumper sticker (and of the meme graphic that floats around on social media) use it specifically against Intelligent Design theory (ID) and various forms of creationism. They often go even further, making the metaphysical claim that the fossil record disproves Christian theism and supports atheism. The little fish-with-legs symbolizes this far more extreme implication by making a mockery of the Christian ichthus symbol.
The focus of this post is to demonstrate that the bumper sticker above and its promoters commit both the straw-man and the false dichotomy fallacies. The sticker’s intended implications cannot be used against ID theory or as a legitimate argument against Christianity.