Talk:Evolutionary argument against naturalism

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This article was nominated for deletion on October 6, 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep and remove any WP:OR.

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Contents 1 Redundancy 2 Direction of the Criticism Section 3 C. S. Lewis 4 Wait a second...

[edit] Redundancy

"[...]leaving no good reasons to suppose that natural selection is generally successful in producing cognitive faculties with the ability to construct accurate cosmologies. Thus, Plantinga argues, the probability that our minds are reliable under a conjunction of philosophical naturalism and evolution is low or inscrutable. This result Plantinga classifies as an epistemic defeater, which results in the belief of naturalism and evolution together to be irrational."

"[...]he simply argues that they provide no reason for believing that we actually have reliable cognitive faculties.[4] Thus, asserting that naturalistic evolution is true is also asserting that one has a low probability of being right in any of his assertions. This, Plantinga argues, epistemically defeats the belief that naturalistic evolution is true - ascribing truth to naturalism and evolution becomes self-referentially incoherent."

Is it just me or do these sections look almost identical to anyone else? Starghost (talk | contribs) 21:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I've largely resolved the redundancy. Gabrielthursday 08:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Direction of the Criticism Section

I'm pleased that the criticism section now represents the arguments of academics, but I wonder if they are representative of the dominant criticisms. I suggest that what the section should eventually aim for is a summary of the criticism presented in the book "Naturalism Defeated". Gabrielthursday 08:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I have expanded the Fitelson and Sober section of the criticism and given it a subheader. I don't have Naturalism Defeated?, but I think that Fitelson and Sober present a very cogent case against Plantinga. In particular, I am pursuaded by the criticisms that I have seen fit to add to the article. Also, I recognize that the criticism section is getting long - however, I see no part of it that could be removed without reducing the quality of the article. You may want to make the presentation of the argument bigger, but I don't think it falls to opponents of the argument to expand it (not that you have asked me specifically to do so). You will recall that at Critique of atheism the accusation was made that many of the arguments were just straw men made up by proponents of atheism in order to present great rebuttals. I am of the opinion that opponents of an argument have no duty to carry water for fans of the argument. If there is a lot of criticism, it is only because the argument is more full of holes than swiss cheese. Lamont A Cranston 13:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, we differ on our views of the merits of the argument, but that's neither here nor there. I wasn't saying delete what's there, only suggesting what might be a better solution that we might implement in the future. I largely agree with you about not having to "carry water" for the other side, though of course both sides need to be wary of POV by disproportionate weight or structure. One of the advantages of using Naturalism Defeated, aside from the fact that it's bound to be fairly representative, is that it also includes discussion by Plantinga of the various criticisms.

Now, some caveats- I do wonder if the criticism of the Bayesian methodology is appropriate at this point. The argument right now is not presented in a Bayesian manner, so I question whether the criticism of Bayesian methodology is appropriate now. If eventually the argument is expanded to include P's Bayesian mechanics, it would fit the rest of the article, but I don't think it does now. I'm also unsure of the merit of F & S's argument that theism has similar problems- the merit of the EAAN isn't that it suggests N&E has no answer to global skepticism, but that it is internally inconsistent with respect to reliable cognition (which is how it is described in the argument section: "self-referentially incoherent"). I do think the other criticisms are appropriate for inclusion, at least for the time being.

One final question- much of the criticism that the EAAN has attracted has been responded to. Perhaps we ought to eventually transform the criticism section into something more resembling a controversy section. Gabrielthursday 19:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I was in a bad mood when I made my last comment, and I'm sorry if it came off as rude. I don't have the understanding of probability necessary to really go into the Bayesian side of the argument (either presenting Plantinga's view or the criticisms of it), and that is partly why the mention of a Bayesian framework is just made in passing. I do think that if the argument depends on Bayes' theorem (and if Bayes' theorem is the subject of extensive criticism) then the presentation of the argument and the criticism section should reflect that. I just don't have the technical knowledge necessary to do so, as my training was in literature and law, and my philosophy study is limited to one class on logic eight years ago. I agree that Plantinga's responses to his critics have a place in the article, although there are obviously limits at which the back-and-forth must stop. As an aside, I think the article has really progressed, and I think we (all of the contributors to it) have done some good work and shown that the article is worth keeping.Lamont A Cranston 18:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

There is more space given to one paper than to the argument itself and the whole book about it. We need to re-balance this. NBeale 07:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, by expanding the article, not slashing the explanation of what's wrong with it. Guettarda 13:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

That was a major change to institute with no discussion. The F&S section laid out a resounding rebuttal to Plantinga's argument. If you think Plantinga's argument needs to be discussed in more detail, feel free to do so. If anything in the F&S section is wrong, or is mere surplussage, please discuss before gutting the whole section. An example of why we need this section - Plantinga's epistemological alternatives are laid out in nauseating detail. The gaping hole in his reasoning is not. F&S very clearly explain the problem with Plantinga's too-clever-by-half tiger hypothetical, and it is clearly appropriate to include their rebuttal. I think there's no question that it makes the article more informative. Lamont A Cranston 23:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] C. S. Lewis

The section on C. S. Lewis mentions Plantinga before he has been introduced in the article. I think that it should be renamed "Lewis" instead of "Early form" and that the Plantinga presentation should be called "Plantinga" instead of "The argument." If we really are just talking about an argument that two prominent intellectuals have made, I think it is fair to label each presentation according to who actually made it. Currently, the article sort of infers implies that there are others out there somewhere making this argument in academic settings, and I don't think that's actually the case. I also think the Lewis section could stand a bit of expansion. Lamont A Cranston 18:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. — goethean ॐ 19:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have made the changes, as no contrary opinion seems forthcoming. Lamont A Cranston 21:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Anyone else confused about just what OR (per the summary of the AfD) is actually in the article? Gabrielthursday 21:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

None really stands out to me. There are long sections with no citations, but they are clearly just presenting ideas that are in the papers being discussed (which are cited at the beginning of the discussion of each paper).Lamont A Cranston 22:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wait a second...

The whole premise is that it if an unlikely event occured, it must have been caused by divine intervention?

Probability only comes into play if you have something to compare the results to. I doubt he observed the same evolutionary process in 100 or 1000 parallel worlds. If he did and the same event with a, say, 0.1% chance occured in more than, say, 10 of those worlds, I'd say he has a point, though.

That something occured doesn't mean it was probabilistically necessary. It only means it was necessary given ALL circumstances (which isn't what probabilities are about) — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 19:39, 3 March 2007 (UTC)