Talk:Evolutionary argument against naturalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on October 6, 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep and remove any WP:OR.
Socrates
Philosophy Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.
Creationism Portal
This article is supported by the Intelligent design WikiProject.

This project provides a central approach to Intelligent design-related subjects on Wikipedia.
Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

Contents

[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)
The F&S stuff is still given undue weight, and it's v confused. I've had a start at NPoVing it but really it needs condensing and fitting into the wider picture. 217.41.10.161 21:54, 10 April 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)

[edit] F & Sober

Some of this is almost gibberish:

  1. "The mere fact that an improbable event occurred does not mean that the event was foreordained. For example, in poker, the probability of being dealt a straight is very low; however, being dealt a straight is not evidence that the game was fixed if there are adequate assurances that it was not fixed. Even if one accepts the argument that certain features of human cognitive faculties are unlikely to have evolved, there is still a great deal of evidence that the features did, in fact, evolve." Plantinga never suggests that human cognitive faculties did not evolve - this has nothing to do with the EEAN!
  2. Plantinga never suggests that true and false beliefs are equally likely to evolve, so the whole rigmarole about tigers is irrelevant.
  3. In other words, until he can show that E&N defeats the proposition that "50% plus 1 of our beliefs are true," Plantinga has not provided a reason for proponents of E&N to doubt their beliefs. (This is obvious nonsense. If you knew that a computer was programmed so that whenever it did a calculation, at the end it would make a significant random error 49% of the time, that would clearly be a reason to doubt all the output of the computer. I can't believe that even very minor philosophers would have made such a blunder, so I can only assume it was a mistake in the summary. NBeale 22:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seems a very strange definition of evolution

The argument uses a very strange definition of evolution. As far as I know, no mainstream biologist has ever argued that beliefs are selected for/against in biological evolution. Behavior is clearly important in selection but behavior results from instinct (i.e. no beliefs involved) or through learning mechanisms including primitive ones such as imprinting (which can go wrong easily in artificial settings but given most natural environments, turns out to work) and, for humans, much more complicated ones. Since his arguments involves selection of beliefs which is NOT a feature of biological evolution, it seems that this argument is actually not dealing with evolution but a strawman version of it. A much more convincing argument would be one which deals with the selection of general learning mechanisms. Maybe I am missing something big as I have not read the original sources but that would mean that the page presents the argument in a very misleading way. Are there any biologists who have taken part in the discussion?

Srikantmarakani 11:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


As far as I know the argument refers to the development of reliable cognitive mechanisms, or as you say, "the selection of general learning mechanisms", and does not refer to the evolution of specific beliefs. However, theoretically evolution could favor specific beliefs via the Baldwin Effect. Romanpoet 22:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
This is contradicted by point 4 in the argument presented on the page as it says "natural selection would have no reason for selecting true but non-adaptive beliefs over false but adaptive beliefs" which clearly states that beliefs are selected for/against in natural selection. I found a long discussion of this at http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/b217c0404cce3931/f8a6629e453a3a2d?lnk=gst&q=plantinga&rnum=2#f8a6629e453a3a2d but nobody seems to be particularly clear about what he means - I tried reading the original article and it too has this problem of specifying beliefs as the selected entities which would make it an argument about cultural evolution, not natural selection. Further, it is well known that human cognition is far from perfect - that is why we have invented procedures such as the scientific method and, atleast in science, nothing is stated to be emphatically true. Functional naturalism is presupposed in science, so it is possible that this is what Plantinga's argument is about, but if one doesn't use functional naturalism, you end up with solipsism or something similar AFAICS. Unfortunately, Plantinga seems to engage in pretty sloppy language in his articles which doesn't help and is surprising considering he is a tenured professor of philosophy.

Srikantmarakani 22:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Further, it is well known that human cognition is far from perfect - that is why we have invented procedures such as the scientific method and, atleast in science, nothing is stated to be emphatically true. Functional naturalism is presupposed in science, so it is possible that this is what Plantinga's argument is about, but if one doesn't use functional naturalism, you end up with solipsism or something similar AFAICS. These are all legitimate criticisms, and they are already in the criticisms section. As far as your first point, "natural selection would have no reason for selecting true but non-adaptive beliefs over false but adaptive beliefs", that is clearly a case of Plantinga not being as careful in his language as he [c/sh]ould be. But from the rest of the paper it is clear that he is referring to the validity of general-purpose "cognitive/reasoning mechanisms", not of the validity of individual beliefs. Romanpoet 03:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out that the criticisms already have these points. Unfortunately, the short stubs were not always clear enough to me (once I get some free time, I will try and expand them after reading the cited sources) and I didn't look up the secondary sources which I should have but didn't have quite the time to as my main beef was with the claims on selected entities which would seem odd to anyone acquainted with evolutionary theory. I suggest that I add a note indicating that the language there is not careful and does not quite mean what it says since it is likely to confuse many people - if it is agreeable to everyone. Further, the probabilities indicated in Plantinga's arguments don't seem to be based on strong statistical or observational evidence (or atleast, he neglects to cite such evidence) - again I suggest I add a note about this if it is agreeable to everyone.

Srikantmarakani 05:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


I suggest that I add a note indicating that the language there is not careful and does not quite mean what it says since it is likely to confuse many people - if it is agreeable to everyone. Sure, go ahead. There's no need for permission for things like that.
Further, the probabilities indicated in Plantinga's arguments don't seem to be based on strong statistical or observational evidence (or atleast, he neglects to cite such evidence) This would be alright to mention, but as Plantinga is careful to NOT say that the probability is low, but that the probability is either "low or *inscrutable*" (emphasis on the inscrutable), the mentioning should not be phrased as a slam to Plantinga. Determining non-pulled-out-of-your-ass probabilities for evolutionary systems in the real world is just about impossible for evolutionary biologists, physicists, or Plantinga -- Plantinga should not be singled out for this defect. The only environments even remotely controlled enough to get probabilities like these are simulations like Avida, and Avida has no obvious relevance to the evolution of reliable cognition. Romanpoet 18:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, natural selection acts upon actions; but if the actions are caused by beliefs, then it also makes sense to say that natural selection selects for the beliefs. As it happens, neither the beliefs nor the actions are inheritable traits- only the correlated reliable cognitive faculties are. But we say that giraffes are selected for long necks, even though it is the genes for long necks which are actually transmitted. So I don't think Plantinga's use of language is incorrect. Gabrielthursday 22:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Gabriel, you've made no points that I disagree with, as such I don't see why we're disagreeing. Without the slightest contest or ambiguity, the Baldwin Effect allows evolution to select for particular, individual beliefs. However, this isn't what Plantinga means. Looking at the entire essay, he contests evolution's ability to produce belief-generating "reliable cognitive mechanisms", not the ability of evolution to select for individual beliefs. It's been a while since I've read his essay, but I recall several times Plantinga did use the word "beliefs" when he meant "reliable cognitive mechanisms" (or something of that sort). It's reasonable to think readers could be confused by this -- putting a short note in this article about what Plantinga means is completely within the spirit of the 'pedia. A clarification is all that is needed, this does not entail a generic slam of "sloppy word usage". Romanpoet 19:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Natural selection then does NOT select directly on beliefs but for learning mechanisms causing those beliefs or correlated cognitive faculties - i.e. what is selected for is one step removed from the beliefs or their representation, that is why I think his use of language is incorrect, an opinion which his own articles gives much weight to as it is very clear from his articles that it is the beliefs (or correlated cognitive faculties) that is being selected for, not the learning mechanism generating those beliefs (since we are not born with beliefs). I have yet to see a reasonable learning mechanism which will give rise consistently to false beliefs which generate useful actions. The learning mechanism can, of course, generate beliefs arbitrarly for actions which are unimportant selectively. In other words, belief generation comes under developmental, not evolutionary biology. Srikantmarakani 16:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This is just a silly semantic argument. I'd note that your preferred terminology is just as erroneous by your own lights. On your standard, "learning mechanisms" aren't selected for either, just the genetic elements that create such mechanisms. Gabrielthursday 21:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Causality versus correlation

It seems that Plantinga is arguing concerning the causal relationship between (adaptive) behaviours and (true) beliefs. This is, I strongly suspect, an irrelevance. What matters is not causal relationship (whether beliefs cause behaviour, behaviour causes belief or neither causes the other), but the correlation between the two. As long as true beliefs and adaptive behaviours are strongly correlated, selection for adaptive behaviours will also lead to selection for true beliefs as a bypoduct, irrespective of the causal relationship between them (and thus irrespective of Plantinga's categories 1-4). This leads to a high value of P(R|N&E). That the two are strongly correlated can be seen from the far higher probability of true belief-adaptive behaviour combinations than false belief-adaptive behaviour combinations.

Of course this argument is OR, but I would be surprised if somebody somewhere hasn't seen this flaw in Plantinga's logic, to provide a reliable source for this counter-argument. Hrafn42 17:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further Discussion section

I see that somebody has deleted this section. Admittedly, I was never particularly comfortable with it in the first place, as it didn't seem to fit too well into the overall article, but discussion first would have been preferable. Are people happy with its deletion? Hrafn42 06:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)