Moving the goalposts

[[File:Mobile_Goalposts.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Not fair, isn't it?]]
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{{cquote|If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.|||allegedly [[George Carlin]]}}

'''Moving the goalposts''' is an informal [[logical fallacy]] in which previously agreed-upon standards for deciding an [[argument]] are arbitrarily ''changed'' once they have been met. Usually the "losing" side in an argument deploys this gambit in a desperate bid to save face. If the goalposts are moved far enough, then the standards can eventually [[evolve]]{{efn|Pun intended}} into something that cannot be met no matter what (or anything will meet said standard&nbsp;— if the losing side is trying to meet the standard using this tactic). Usually, such a tactic is spotted quickly. Often, moving the goalposts is an exercise in [[slothful induction]].

The fallacy is an ''[[ad hoc]]'' fallacy and an [[informal fallacy]].

==Goalposts on wheels==
This tactic is extremely common in debates with [[creationist]]s, who will often say something like, "show me an example of something evolving today", or "show me an example of information increasing through [[random]] processes." When either of these are shown to the creationist, they will suddenly change the standards of what they meant by "evolving" or "information" to try and avoid losing an argument that they clearly lost. The distinction between "[[microevolution|micro]]-" and "[[macroevolution|macro]]-" [[evolution]] is often left intentionally [[vague]] by creationists and [[intelligent design]] proponents just for this purpose.

An excellent example of the fallacy is when looking into a so-called "test" on creationist wiki [[ASK]] to see whether information could be increased in a [[genome]] by making a (poor) analogy to the English [[language]]. In this case, it was asked to increase the "information" in the phrase "''trap big animal paws''." When this was repeatedly demonstrated, new and relatively unreasonable rules&nbsp;— unknown from the participants in the first instance&nbsp;— began to appear. This, combined with outright [[denial]] and objection to the original answers, [[Danth's Law|guaranteed a win]] in the eyes of the self-appointed judge.<ref>[http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/index.php?title=Talk:Great_Flood&oldid=13181#A_test A Storehouse of Knowledge - A Test]</ref>{{dead}}

The [[manufactroversy]] surrounding the release of [[Barack Obama]]'s [[Obama citizenship denial|birth certificate]] has seen plenty of goalpost-moving&nbsp;— often to a greater degree than any other [[conspiracy]]. First, the Birther movement demanded a birth certificate and Obama duly released one. Next, they protested that this wasn't good enough, and began a long campaign to have the original, "long form" version released. After getting a special exception made by the state of [[Hawaii]], Obama released this "long form" version. However, the [[cognitive dissonance]] was too great for the conspiracy theorists, who had invested a lot of emotional involvement in their denial of his citizenship, and they shifted the goalposts again to demand college and school records (irrelevant to citizenship), and even [[Jerome Corsi]]'s demand for proof that his mother was in the hospital at the time (also irrelevant).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110502013008/http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=292457 What is it about twin girls born day after Obama?] by Jerome Corsi (April 27, 2011) ''WND'' (archived from May 2, 2011).</ref> What is particularly galling about the affair is the amount of focus given by the Birther movement onto the "long form" certificate&nbsp;— and their constant goalpost-moving proves that they will ''[[Denialism|never]]'' be convinced.{{efn|What are the deniers trying to hide? One must must it is their [[racism]].}}

Moving the goalposts is also similar to the [[Texas sharpshooter fallacy]], only inverted: Rather than redefining the initial criteria to exclude evidence that disproves the argument, the initial criteria are redefined to include evidence to prove the argument.

==Calvinball==
"Calvinball" is a fiction game developed by Bill Watterson in his long-running (1985-1989) syndicated comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes". The game recurred several times in the latter years of the strip, always differently.<ref>''The Complete Calvin and Hobbes'' by Bill Watterson (2005) Andrews McMeel. ISBN 0740748475. Volume 2.</ref>{{rp|e.g.,&nbsp;292,336}} At the time that the strip ended, he described the game as follows:<ref>''The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book'' by Bill Watterson (1995) Andrews and McMeel. ISBN 0836204387.</ref>{{rp|192}}{{efn|Unofficial sets of rules for Calvinball game play based on analysis of the strips was posted at various times.<ref>[https://www.qbwiki.com/yahoo-group/5413.html Calvinball] (26 Apr 2001 07:18:28 -0700) ''QBWiki''.</ref>}}<ref>[https://archive.ph/YHH8s The Unofficial Official Rules of Calvinball] ''Bartel.org'' (archived from 7 Jul 2013 14:06:42 UTC)</ref>}}
{{cquote|It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go.}}

During play, the main strategy is to change the rules along the way. Calvinball is in fact moving the goalposts applied to play. It is notable, that during play Calvin (the boy) and Hobbes (his imaginary tiger playmate) are always wearing eye masks, as if to hide their true identity and intent.

[[Statistics|Statistician]] [[Nate Silver]] referred to the [[2016 Republican Party presidential nomination]] as [[Calvinball]]:<ref>[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-is-following-obamas-path-to-the-nomination/ Clinton Is Following Obama’s Path To The Nomination] by Nate Silver (Mar. 16, 2016, at 7:32 AM) ''FiveThirtyEight''.</ref>
{{cquote|We're fond of sports [[metaphor]]s here at FiveThirtyEight. If the [[Republican]] race is Calvinball, with everyone making up the rules as they go along, the [[Democratic]] race is more like — [[Sleep|zzzzzzz]]&nbsp;— [[golf]].}}

Calvinball has been referenced several times in real life by economist [[Paul Krugman]] with regard to [[Modern Monetary Theory]] (MMT) in 2019:<ref>[https://archive.ph/s8VBu#selection-319.0-323.44 Running on MMT (Wonkish): Trying to get this debate beyond Calvinball.] by Paul Krugman (Feb. 25, 2019) ''The New York Times'' (archived from 25 Jan 2022 05:50:44 UTC). responding to Stephanie Kelton]</ref>
{{cquote|Now, arguing with the MMTers generally feels like playing Calvinball, with the rules constantly changing: every time you think you’ve pinned them down on some proposition, they insist that you haven’t grasped their meaning.}}

In 2025, [[Supreme Court]] Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion that the [[far-right]] majority on the court were constantly changing the rules as in Calvinball:<ref>[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a103_kh7p.pdf National Institutes Of Health, et al. v. American Public Health Association, et al.] by Ketanji Brown Jackson August 21, 2025) ''Supreme Court of the United States''.</ref>{{rp|7}}
{{cquote|In a broader sense, however, today's ruling is of a piece with this Court's recent tendencies. "[R]ight when the Judiciary should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the law’s constraints," the Court opts instead to make vindicating the [[rule of law]] and preventing manifestly injurious Government action as difficult as possible. '… This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and [[Donald Trump#Term 2|this Administration]] always wins.}}

==Misuse==
Users of this fallacy will, [[ironic|ironically]], often invoke it to characterize the arguments of their opponents: a debater argues based upon an unorthodox definition of some term (and, when the argument is demolished by presenting the orthodox or widely-accepted definition (''[[argumentum ad dictionarium]]''), complains that his/her opponent is "moving the goalpost." Surprisingly, this sort of thing can happen even when the user of the unorthodox definition has stated right out that the definition is unorthodox. This is a form of [[Strawman|hanging a strawman]] by attempting to set an unreasonable goalpost for your opponent, which you can then later either say they did not meet the standard of evidence for or that they moved the goalpost to prove something simpler.

A specific example is the accusation of goalpost-moving against proponents of evolution, when they state that the theory of evolution is not supposed to explain the [[origin of life]]. Although some features of [[natural selection]] are thought to be key in [[abiogenesis]], the theory of evolution ''has never'' been about explaining how life began. That evolution was an explanation of ''diversity'' was made clear even in the earliest forms of the theory put forward by [[Charles Darwin]] in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. In the case of this accusation, the goalposts have not been moved at all by "[[evolutionist]]s", but by the creationists who unrealistically want a theory to explain something it's not supposed to. The [[crocoduck]] is another example of this. By claiming that evolution can't be true unless you find something that evolution predicts wouldn't happen, opponents of the science can later point out that you haven't met their bogus standards or you have somehow changed your argument because it doesn't match their caricature of it.

==Non-fallacious use==
Sometimes, "goalpost moving" happens because the original standard is realized to be incomplete in some way; for example, asking for documentation of a contested historical event… and then needing to ask for '''non-forged''' documentation; or a claim that no product exists in a certain setting that can easily kill fleas on [[cats]]… and then needing to clarify that the product must also '''leave the cat alive'''.

A famous example of this: [[Plato]] had defined humans as [[animals]], bipedal and featherless. {{wpl|Diogenes||,}} exploiting a loophole, plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!" Plato, in response, added "with broad nails" to the definition.<ref>[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_VI Diogenes Laërtius (no relation), Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VI, 40]</ref> Assuming Plato was attempting to find a simple way to describe "human" in a general classification system, he was entirely non-fallacious in this addition.

==Literal meaning==
In professional American football, the goalposts were ''literally'' moved on several occasions. The first was in the 1930s on the suggestion of {{wpl|George Preston Marshall}} when they were moved from the end line ten yards into the field onto the goal line. Later the short-lived WFL ({{wpl|World Football League}}) who set out to challenge the NFL for major league status but folded after two seasons, moved the goal posts back to the end line and abolished the kicked extra point. The NFL would follow suit on the former a couple of years later and is currently discussing the latter, though another moving of goalposts was also seriously proposed.

==Not just humans==
According to [[British]] environment secretary Owen Paterson, badgers can move goalposts.<ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/09/badgers-moving-goalposts-owen-paterson-cull 'Badgers are moving the goalposts' says Owen Paterson of cull] by Damian Carrington ( 9 October 2013) ''The Guardian''.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Baraminology]]
*[[The Dragon in My Garage]]
*[[Escape hatch]]
*[[Motte and bailey]]
*[[No True Scotsman]]
*[[Texas sharpshooter fallacy]]

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Ad hoc]]
[[Category:Fallacious arguments]]
[[Category:Informal fallacies]]
[[ru:Отодвигание ворот]]

Categories: Ad hoc, Fallacious arguments, Informal fallacies