This is very simple, and I’m baffled how you can’t see it. As a statistician, I’m assuming that you’re familiar with the concept of proof by contradiction. Assume that someone holds the following presuppositions to be true:
- Scripture is inerrant (i.e. what Scripture teaches is necessarily true).
- Scripture teaches a historical Adam and Eve.
from which it follows
- Adam and Eve were historical figures (from 1, 2).
Then any other argument (e.g. from science, philosophy, or theology) that results in the negation of 3) will result in a contradiction in one’s belief system. Surely it is not an informal logical fallacy to desire that one’s belief system be logically consistent. To retain consistency in one’s belief, we have to give up one of the assumptions of the belief system and/or the argument. Some people might prefer to give up the premises of the argument in question rather than 1) or 2), because they regard the latter as epistemologically very certain. That’s all we mean.