Biology evolves: One-third of biologists now question Darwinism

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 11, 2019

Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design

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Darwinism
Evolution
Intelligent Design}

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The figure is suggested by Michael Behe, based on reading and conversations with his colleagues. Of course, it’s a bit like asking how many citizens of the People’s Democratic Republic of Dungeon disapprove of the government. It’s not like you can ask them to vote on it or anything. Still:

A controversial letter to Nature in 2014 signaled the mounting concern, however slow and cautious, among thoughtful professional biologists. Other works by atheist authors like “What Darwin Got Wrong” and “Mind and Cosmos” find “fatal flaws” in the theory and assert it is “almost certainly false.”

Another project, The Third Way, seeks to avoid a false choice between divine intervention (which it outright rejects) and the Neo-Darwinian model (which it finds unsupported in the face of modern molecular theory) while presenting evidence to improve evolution theory beyond Neo-Darwinism. Some even believe billions of years have not been adequate for Darwinian theory to accomplish current complexity, as the theory currently exists.

This dissatisfaction is a matter of public record, even if it lacks public attention, and despite the narrative running contrary. Indeed dedicated Neo-Darwinists often say “no serious scientists disagree” or “only creationists have problems.” These contentions are increasingly disproven. Benjamin R. Dierker, “Why One-Third Of Biologists Now Question Darwinism” at The Federalist

Don’t miss Dierker’s interesting information about the Third Way.

Meanwhile, what was that story flapping past just the other day?

Oh, yes: Astronomer Martin Rees reacts to Suzan Mazur’s Darwin Overthrown. The story addresses the way Rees has been in the background of creative thinkers in biology who are grappling with what we now know.

Non-Darwinian things.

Naw. Just a fluke. Then there’s this one: Backing down on Darwinian fundamentalism? If we are going to talk about “considerable debate” and “much that is unknown,” let’s consider the way underlying Darwinian fundamentalism skews discussions.

Hey, look, everything could just be a fluke, you know.

See also: If no one is really a Darwinist any more… (as some commenters claim) … How come Darwinian philosopher Michael Ruse says, “Today’s professional evolutionists are committed Darwinians… ?” Could he be blowing smoke?

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Comments

@19 Bornagain77 According to materialist atheists, the human brain is garbage produced via 'mindless, unguided, purposeless processes'. (Sic). And yet this stupid brain is the same that has arrived at the undeniable, unequivocal, unassailable conclusion that their ridiculous combination of atheism+evolution is true (they obviously can NOT see the glaring contradiction). Are not these atheists real superstitious weirdos? :) The EAAN is another nail in their rotting coffin.Truthfreedom_{January 10, 2020
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@17 Hazel. Meaning you have no fu****g idea how to reply to the argument :) Typical. Plantinga has mentally ra**d you, atheists. Emotional outbursts are your only option. UD Editors: TF, you are new here, so you get a warning. Tone it down or you will be shown the exit.Truthfreedom_{January 10, 2020
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BO'H: In the thread above, we see Plantinga's formal framework, laid out in an expression across four hypotheses. He then remarks on the sort of rough quantification that is possible and why it is adequate for relevant purposes. Surely, you know that such is often the case, and that in many cases even the sign of a trend is enough. The case, with onward discussion on objections etc is there to see. It is not a mere dubious assumption to provide responsible estimates. If you disagree, on what credible grounds do you provide alternative values? Especially, given the challenges and simulations that are also on the table. What would be question-begging would be to infer that we are here, so as we will only consider blind naturalistic forces, their likelihood of success must be sufficiently high. KF PS: I clip further from the clips in 54, which give key context:
P(R/N&E) will be the weighted average of P(R/N&E&P i ) for each of the four possibilities P i –weighted by the probabilities, on N&E, of those possibilities. The probability calculus gives us a formula here: P(R/N&E) = (P(R/N&E&P 1 ) x P(P 1 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 2 ) x P(P 2 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 3 ) x P(P 3 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 4 ) x P(P 4 /N&E)). Of course the very idea of a calculation (suggesting, as it does, the assignment of specific real numbers to these various probabilities) is laughable: the best we can do are vague estimates. But that is all we need for the argument. For consider the left-hand multiplicand in each of the four terms on the right-hand side of the equation. In the first three, the sensible estimate would put the value low, considerably less that 1/2; in the 4th, it isn’t very clear what the value would be, but it couldn’t be much more than 1/2. But then (since the probabilities of P1 and of P2 (the two forms of epiphenomenalism) would be fairly high, given naturalism, and since the right hand multiplicands in the four terms cannot sum to more than 1) that means that the value of P(R/N&E) will be less than 1/2; and that is enough for the argument. But the argument for a low estimate of P(R/N&E) is by no means irresistible; our estimates of the various probabilities involved in estimating P(R/N&E) with respect to that hypothetical population were (naturally enough) both imprecise and poorly grounded. You might reasonably hold, therefore, that the right course here is simple agnosticism: one just doesn’t know what that probability is. You doubt that it is very high; but you aren’t prepared to say that it is low: you have no definite opinion at all as to what that probability might be. Then this probability is inscrutable for you. This too seems a sensible attitude to take. The sensible thing to think, then, is that P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable.
Notice, his carefully balanced estimation and conclusion which he will proceed to defend. Onward, the significance is, the confidence that blind naturalistic forces easily account for minds that can apprehend truth and reason soundly, is ill-founded.kairosfocus_{May 16, 2019
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Bob (and weave) was asked, "So you, as a materialist, assume that you have reliable cognitive faculties, i.e reliable “observations”, prior to seeing if Darwinian processes can produce them?" Bob (and weave) answered "At least partly reliable. Reliable enough to figure out, for example, that leaping off a 100 ft high cliff is a bad idea." Bob (and weave) was corrected thusly, "materialism does NOT get a free pass in assuming into the premises the very thing that needs to be explained. The question is “CAN Darwinian processes produce reliable cognitive faculties?” The answer to that question is not, “We have fairly reliable cognitive faculties therefore Darwinian evolution must have produced them.” Caught in a hopeless dilemma, Bob (and weave) tries to retreat thusly, "you’re obviously trying to discuss something different," No Bob (and weave), I was very specific in my question. The issue is clear cut. You have no warrant to believe Darwinian evolution can produce reliable cognitive faculties. Your refusal to deal honestly with the results does not negate that finding. You want to quibble over his GENEROUS concession of 50% to materialists of initial beliefs probably being true. What you don't understand is that in that GENEROUS concession he also conceded to materialists 'the hard problem of consciousness' itself. In other words, he conceded to materialists a 'blank slate' immaterial mind in which true or false beliefs could be formed in the first place. I never would have done that. The failure of Darwinian processes to produce reliable cognitive faculties pales in comparison to the failure of reductive materialism to ever be able to give an adequate account of consciousness, i.e. specifically qualia. ,,, As David Barash stated:
The Hardest Problem in Science? October 28, 2011 Excerpt: ‘But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.’ - David Barash - Professor of Psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-hardest-problem-in-science/40845
Thus, Plantinga was VERY generous to materialists in that, in his argument, he granted not only that any given set of initial beliefs have a 50% probability of being true, (which kf explained exactly why he allowed that probability), but Plantinga also conceded a subjective immaterial mind in which beliefs could be formed. i.e. he conceded 'the hard problem' to materialists. Moreover, despite being far more generous than was necessary in his initial premises that he granted to materialists, the results STILL refuted the claims from Darwinists that Darwinian processes can produce reliable cognitive faculties. Bob, you further made a comment about not getting 'derailed'. But having a 'train of thought' that can potentially be derailed, in and of itself, refutes your materialistic claims for the mind since having a 'train of thought' in the first place presupposes teleology, i.e. goal directed purpose.. In short, having reliable cognitive faculties in and of itself is antithetical to your entire materialistic framework and thus us having reliable cognitive faculties in and of itself refutes your position. Dr. Egnor explains the irresolvable dilemma for materialists thusly,,,
Teleology and the Mind - Michael Egnor - August 16, 2016 Excerpt: From the hylemorphic perspective, there is an intimate link between the mind and teleology. The 19th-century philosopher Franz Brentano pointed out that the hallmark of the mind is that it is directed to something other than itself. That is, the mind has intentionality, which is the ability of a mental process to be about something, rather than to just be itself. Physical processes alone (understood without teleology) are not inherently about things. The mind is always about things. Stated another way, physical processes (understood without teleology) have no purpose. Mental processes always have purpose. In fact, purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) is what defines the mind. And we see the same purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) in nature. Intentionality is a form of teleology. Both intentionality and teleology are goal-directedness — intentionality is directedness in thought, and teleology is directedness in nature. Mind and teleology are both manifestations of purpose in nature. The mind is, within nature, the same kind of process that directs nature. In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts. The link between intentionality and teleology, and the undeniability of teleology, is even more clear if we consider our inescapable belief that other people have minds. The inference that other people have minds based on their purposeful (intentional-teleological) behavior, which is obviously correct and is essential to living a sane life, can be applied to our understanding of nature as well. Just as we know that other people have purposes (intentionality), we know just as certainly that nature has purposes (teleology). In a sense, intelligent design is the recognition of the same purpose-teleology-intentionality in nature that we recognize in ourselves and others. Teleology and intentionality are certainly the inferences to be drawn from the obvious purposeful arrangement of parts in nature, but I (as a loyal Thomist!) believe that teleology and intentionality are manifest in an even more fundamental way in nature. Any goal-directed natural change is teleological, even if purpose and arrangement of parts is not clearly manifest. The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/teleology_and_t/
Thus in conclusion, not only can Darwinian processes not produce reliable cognitive faculties, but us having reliable cognitive faculties, specifically us having 'intentionality in thought' that might be subject to being 'derailed', in of itself, refutes the reductive materialistic foundation of Darwinian evolution. In short, If Bob believes his thoughts can be 'derailed', Bob does not believe in reductive materialism. Bob SHOULD rightly become a Theist if he believes in rational thought.bornagain77_{May 15, 2019
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ba77 @ 64 - you're obviously trying to discuss something different, which doesn't have much to do with Plantinga's claim about beliefs having independent 50% probabilities of being true. So if you don't mind, I'll leave you to it & not get derailed. kf - Plantinga has written a lot, and I was responding to one small point which is within my area of expertise (Bayesian probabilities). I've read the relevant part of the interview with Cutting, and he doesn't give a reason for his 50%: he assumes it. So I don't know what part of his work I would have to read to find out where he gets his 50% from. How this relates to his four alternatives, Darwin, FSCO/I and ba77's sims I've no idea. And, frankly, if he has to go through all of that just to arrive at the principle of indifference, I don't think I want to read more.Bob O'H_{May 15, 2019
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BO'H: Why don't you read Plantinga and respond to what he actually says as he interacts with first Darwin then Churchland? Particularly on convictions of any of a monkey brain and truth whatever that is taking hindermost after food, flight, fight, reproduce? Why does he identify four alternatives and how does he discuss quantification, to what result? What about the actual sims BA77 brings up? Then, I have raised the relevant FSCO/I concern on getting to a computational substrate by blind forces and to the gap between computation and rational contemplation. What of those? KFkairosfocus_{May 14, 2019
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Bob, materialism does NOT get a free pass in assuming into the premises the very thing that needs to be explained. The question is "CAN Darwinian processes produce reliable cognitive faculties?" The answer to that question is not, "We have fairly reliable cognitive faculties therefore Darwinian evolution must have produced them." And when we look at it from that angle, without assuming Darwinian evolution is true, then the answer is found to be, by logic, math, and computer simulations, "No Darwinian evolution cannot produce reliable cognitive faculties". Again, "You are not helping alleviate the implication that you are ‘utterly ignorant’ by assuming your desired conclusion of Darwinian evolution into the premise of the argument."bornagain77_{May 14, 2019
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ba77 @ 61 -
So you, as a materialist, assume that you have reliable cognitive faculties, i.e reliable “observations”, prior to seeing if Darwinian processes can produce them?
At least partly reliable. Reliable enough to figure out, for example, that leaping off a 100 ft high cliff is a bad idea. kf @ 62 - Does Plantinga argue anything different from this? [EDITTED to remove a dumb comment, my apologies to anyone who was confused by it]Bob O'H_{May 14, 2019
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BO'H, please see the actual argument by Plantinga. I spoke to a supplementary point, and in so doing, I made exactly the point you just tried to use as a rebuttal, as a part of the framework. My interest is why is 1/2 often used as a threshold for such arguments. Going beyond, BA77 is right that the issue is how to account for the faculties we need to be observers, i.e. we are back to the Hoylean argument that the world must be such that we are possible as we are actual. Further to this the evidence is that computational substrates depend on prior designers [given the config space challenges to get them] and do not account for rational, contemplative, responsible intelligent inferential thought. Computation is not contemplation. Therefore, we need a world root adequate to account for morally governed rationally contemplative creatures, where even the rationality is governed morally through known duties to truth, right reason, prudence, justice etc. Indeed, to illustrate how central this is, law can be seen as highest reason on matters of justice; on pain of descent into nihilism of might makes 'right.' We are playing around with the foundations of just society. KFkairosfocus_{May 14, 2019
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"The problem with this argument is that it assumes we don’t have any observations" So you, as a materialist, assume that you have reliable cognitive faculties, i.e reliable "observations", prior to seeing if Darwinian processes can produce them? "Plantiga is implying that materialists are utterly ignorant." You are not helping alleviate the implication that you are 'utterly ignorant' by assuming your desired conclusion into the premise of the argument.bornagain77_{May 14, 2019
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Hazel @ 56 - I think kf is pointing to a Bayesian argument. One way of looking at it is if we know nothing then we should be indifferent to whether TRUE of FALSE is the more likely, so we should assign equal probabilities to them. The problem with this argument is that it assumes we don't have any observations - once we have data, the probabilities will shift. And by the time we're old enough to seriously reflect on the nature of reality, we have quite a bit of information, so we know (for example) that throwing ourselves off a 1000 ft cliff is not a good idea. So, basically Plantiga is implying that materialists are utterly ignorant. Think of it as the Jon Snow premise.Bob O'H_{May 14, 2019
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F/N: I should note that when one has minimal info on a binary solution set, where uncertainty is maximal, so far as one knows, the odds of the two states are 50 - 50. This is probably where reference to this threshold comes from (I have seen it in other contexts and its close relative. Bernoulli indifference across a span of potential outcomes . . . leading onwards to informational metrics and to certain approaches in Stat Mech), and onward we see that indications of lower uncertainty shift ratings, as is used in expertise calibrated probability elicitation. This last has been used with our volcano and its potential hazards for many years now. It is also related to Gibbs formulations in stat mech and related info metrics, on sum over i of p_i log p_i. Just some context. KFkairosfocus_{May 13, 2019
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H, I posted the actual core argument in the reference paper. I think you should read it, including where he makes reference to the value 1/2 in light of Bayesian probability calcs. That is the core more or less of the substantial argument. I am busy with a budget and have neither time nor inclination for rhetorical dance about games as I have seen far too often. KF PS: Maybe you don't know that Plantinga is a past President, American Phil Association (for one of its regions, that seems to be how they do it). He has made several major contributions and your obvious dismissiveness in that context says a lot more about you, than him. In addition, there are several highly relevant contributions that give teeth to the point. Even Darwin's monkey brain remark used to shoddily brush aside doubts by selective hyperskepticism, speak. This is a longstanding and unanswered problem that is largely being ducked.kairosfocus_{May 13, 2019
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re 55: it appears to be a game where the goalposts are always someplace else.hazel_{May 13, 2019
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kf, in all that is there anything that addresses the claim that given materialism, the probability that the average belief is true has "got to be fairly close to 50/50." You copied and pasted a lot of stuff, but where does it address this specific claim?hazel_{May 13, 2019
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the assumption that evo almost certainly gets it right is pretty shaky.
It appears that the goalposts have been shifted slightly. :PdaveS_{May 13, 2019
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H, the main argument at core is an exercise in Bayesian probability, starting from some remarks by Churchland. For instance on the 5th page we see:
We can put Churchland's claim as P(R/N&E) is low,where 'R' is the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable, 'N' the proposition that naturalism is true, and 'E' the proposition that we have evolved according to the suggestions of contemporary evolutionary theory. 11 I believe this thought--the thought that P(R/N&E) is low--is also what worries Darwin in the above quotation: I shall therefore call it 'Darwin's Doubt'. Are Darwin and Churchland right? Well, they are certainly right in thinking that natural selection is directly interested only in behavior, not belief, and that it is interested in belief, if at all, only indirectly, by virtue of the relation between behavior and belief. If adaptive behavior guarantees or makes probable reliable faculties, then P(R/N&E) will be rather high: we (or rather our ancestors) engaged in at least reasonably adaptive behavior, so it must be that our cognitive faculties are at least reasonably reliable, in which case it is likely that most of our beliefs are true. On the other hand, if our having reliable faculties isn't guaranteed by or even particularly probable with respect to adaptive behavior, then presumably P(R/N&E) will be rather low. If, for example, behavior isn't caused or governed by belief, the latter would be, so to speak, invisible to natural selection; in that case it would be unlikely that most of our beliefs are true, and unlikely that our cognitive faculties are for the most part reliable. So the question of the value of P(R/N&E) really turns on the relationship between belief and behavior.
Picking up from a remark by Darwin, he pivots to Churchland on the 4th page:
? 8 The same thought is put more explicitly by Patricia Churchland. She insists that the most important thing about the human brain is that it has evolved; this means, she says, that its principal function is to enable the organism to move appropriately: Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in . . . feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival [Churchland's emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost. What Churchland means, I think, is that evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn't care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave. It selects for certain kinds of behavior, those that enhance fitness, which is a measure of the chances that one's genes are widely represented in the next and subsequent generations. It doesn't select for belief, except insofar as the latter is appropriately related to behavior. But then the fact that we have evolved guarantees at most that we behave in certain ways--ways that contribute to our (or our ancestors') surviving and reproducing in the environment in which we have developed. Churchland's claim, I think, is best understood as the suggestion that the objective probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, given naturalism and given that we have been cobbled together by the processes to which contemporary evolutionary theory calls our attention, is low.
By pp. 6 - 7, we see:
To try to guard against interspecific chauvinism, I suggested that we think, not about ourselves and our behavior, but about a population of creatures a lot like us on a planet a lot like earth (Darwin suggested we think about monkeys in this connection). These creatures are rational: that is, they form beliefs, reason, change beliefs, and the like. We imagine furthermore that they and their cognitive systems have evolved by way of the mechanisms to which contemporary evolutionary theory direct our attention, unguided by the hand of God or anyone else. Now what is P(R/N&E), specified, not to us, but to them? To answer, we must think about the relationship between their beliefs and their behavior? There are four mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive possibilities. (1) One possibility is epiphenomenalism: their behavior is not caused by their beliefs. On this | possibility, their movement and behavior would be caused by something or other--perhaps neural impulses--which would be caused by other organic conditions including sensory stimulation: but belief would not have a place in this causal chain leading to behavior. This view of the relation between behavior and belief (and other mental phenomena such as feeling, sensation, and desire) is currently rather popular, especially among those strongly influenced by biological science. Time (December, 1992) reports that J. M. Smith, a well-known biologist, wrote "that he had never understood why organisms have feelings. After all, orthodox biologists believe that behavior, however complex, is governed entirely by biochemistry and that the attendant sensations--fear, pain, wonder, love--are just shadows cast by that biochemistry, not themselves vital to the organism's behavior . . . ." He could have added that (according to biological orthodoxy) the same goes for beliefs--at least if beliefs are not themselves just biochemical phenomena. If this way of thinking is right with respect to our hypothetical creatures, their beliefs would be invisible to evolution; and then the fact that their belief-forming mechanisms arose during their evolutionary history would confer little or no probability on the idea that their beliefs are mostly true, or mostly nearly true. Indeed, the probability of those beliefs' being for the most part true would have to be rated fairly low. On N&E and this first possibility, therefore, the probability of R will be rather low.(2) A second possibility is semantic epiphenomenalism: it could be that their beliefs do indeed have causal efficacy with respect to behavior, but not by virtue of their content. Put in currently fashionable jargon, this would be the suggestion that beliefs are indeed causally efficacious, but by virtue of their syntax, not by virtue of their semantics. On a naturalist or anyway a materialist way of thinking, a belief could perhaps be something like a long-term pattern of neural activity, a long-term neuronal event. This event will have properties of at least two different kinds. On the one hand, there are its electrochemical properties: the number of neurons involved in the belief, the connections between them, their firing thresholds, the rate and strength at which they fire, the way in which | these change over time and in response to other neural activity, and so on. Call these syntactical properties of the belief. On the other hand, however, if the belief is really a belief, it will be the belief that p for some proposition p. Perhaps it is the belief that there once was a brewery where the Metropolitan Opera House now stands. This proposition, we might say, is the content of the belief in question. So in addition to its syntactical properties, a belief will also have semantical 14 properties--for example, the property of being the belief that there once was a brewery where the Metropolitan Opera House now stands. (Other semantical properties: being true or false, entailing that there has been at least one brewery, being consistent with the proposition that all men are mortal and so on.) And the second possibility is that belief is indeed causally efficacious with respect to behavior, but by virtue of the syntactic properties of a belief, not its semantic properties. If the first possibility is widely popular among those influenced by biological science, this possibility is widely popular among contemporary philosophers of mind; indeed, Robert Cummins goes so faras to call it the "received view." 15 On this view, as on the last, P(R/N&E) (specified to those creatures) will be low. The reason is that truth or falsehood, of course, are among the semantic properties of a belief, not its syntactic properties. But if the former aren't involved in the causal chain leading to belief, then once more beliefs--or rather, their semantic properties, including truth and falsehood--will be invisible to natural selection.| But then it will be unlikely that their beliefs are mostly true and hence unlikely that their cognitive faculties are reliable. The probability of R on N&E together with this possibility, (as with the last), therefore, will be relatively low. (3) It could be that beliefs are causally efficacious--'semantically' as well as 'syntactically'--with respect to behavior, but maladaptive: from the point of view of fitness these creatures would be better off without them. The probability of R on N&E together with this possibility, as with the last two, would also seem to be relatively low. (4) Finally, it could be that the beliefs of our hypothetical creatures are indeed both causally connected with their behavior and also adaptive. (I suppose this is the common sense view of the connection between behavior and belief in our own case.) What is the probability (on this assumption together with N&E) that their cognitive faculties are reliable; and what is the probability that a belief produced by those faculties will be true? I argued that this probability isn't nearly as high as one is initially inclined to think. The reason is that if behavior is caused by belief, it is also caused by desire (and other factors--suspicion, doubt, approval and disapproval, fear--that we can here ignore). For any given adaptive action, there will be many belief-desire combinations that could produce that action; and very many of those belief-desire combinations will be such that the belief involved is false.
The parable of Paul the hominid and the Tiger follows. Then, p. 11:
P(R/N&E) will be the weighted average of P(R/N&E&P i ) for each of the four possibilities P i --weighted by the probabilities, on N&E, of those possibilities. The probability calculus gives us a formula here: P(R/N&E) = (P(R/N&E&P 1 ) x P(P 1 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 2 ) x P(P 2 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 3 ) x P(P 3 /N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P 4 ) x P(P 4 /N&E)). Of course the very idea of a calculation (suggesting, as it does, the assignment of specific real numbers to these various probabilities) is laughable: the best we can do are vague estimates. But that is all we need for the argument. For consider the left-hand multiplicand in each of the four terms on the right-hand side of the equation. In the first three, the sensible estimate would put the value low, considerably less that 1/2; in the 4th, it isn't very clear what the value would be, but it couldn't be much more than 1/2. But then (since the probabilities of P1 and of P2 (the two forms of epiphenomenalism) would be fairly high, given naturalism, and since the right hand multiplicands in the four terms cannot sum to more than 1) that means that the value of P(R/N&E) will be less than 1/2; and that is enough for the argument. But the argument for a low estimate of P(R/N&E) is by no means irresistible; our estimates of the various probabilities involved in estimating P(R/N&E) with respect to that hypothetical population were (naturally enough) both imprecise and poorly grounded. You might reasonably hold, therefore, that the right course here is simple agnosticism: one just doesn't know what that probability is. You doubt that it is very high; but you aren't prepared to say that it is low: you have no definite opinion at all as to what that probability might be. Then this probability is inscrutable for you. This too seems a sensible attitude to take. The sensible thing to think, then, is that P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable.
Then, p. 13:
But (to return to our argument) can the defeater the naturalist has for R be in turn defeated? I argued that it can't (WPF 233-234). It could be defeated only by something--an argument, for example, that involves some other belief (perhaps as premise). But any such belief will be subject to the very same defeater as R is. So this defeater can't be defeated. 19 But if I have an undefeated defeater for R, then by the same token I have an undefeated defeater for any other belief B my cognitive faculties produce, a reason to be doubtful of that belief, a reason to withhold it. For any such belief will be produced by cognitive faculties that I cannot rationally believe to be reliable. But then clearly the same will be true for any proposition they produce: the fact that I can't rationally believe that the faculties that produce that belief are reliable, gives me a reason for rejecting the belief. So the devotee of N&E has a defeater for just any belief he holds--a defeater, as I put it, that is ultimately undefeated. But this means, then, that he has an ultimately undefeated defeater for N&E itself. And that means that the conjunction of naturalism with evolution is self-defeating, such that one can't rationally accept it. I went on to add that if naturalism is true, then so, in all probability, is evolution; evolution is the only game in town, for the naturalist, with respect to the question how all this variety of flora and fauna has arisen. If that is so, finally, then naturalism simpliciter is self- defeating and cannot rationally be accepted--at any rate by someone who is apprised of this argument and sees the connections between N&E and R.
Of course, there is much more. However, the spectre of grand delusion is already abundantly clear, pointing to an infinite regress of Plato's Cave worlds and absurdity. Mix in the sorts of exercises BA77 has pointed to and the assumption that evo almost certainly gets it right is pretty shaky. KFkairosfocus_{May 13, 2019
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Translation, "navel gazing is good" Plantinga's argument is validated period! If you want to pick a real beef with the argument that has some merit, start with the fact that they conceded the hard problem of consciousness to naturalists before proving the argument valid. I NEVER would have conceded that point as a starting position to naturalists!bornagain77_{May 13, 2019
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I see: responding to the details of something you quoted, twice, is "splitting hairs". Pardon me for paying attention what people actually say. Plantinga, I know, believes that Naturalism cannot produce reliable cognitive faculties, and he may have some good arguments, but the arguments that I quoted in 5 and 37 from him are NOT good arguments. I'll take your dismissal of my thoughts, and the lack of any direct response, as an implicit concession of that point, unless you can come up with something new and relevant.hazel_{May 13, 2019
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Whatever, you may have a point or not. I don't care because your point doesn't matter. The main point of Plantinga's argument that Naturalism cannot produce reliable cognitive faculties is validated by Hoffman. Period! You can split hairs til the cows come home for all I care. Whatever trips your pointless trigger. Perhaps next you can get into navel gazing.bornagain77_{May 13, 2019
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ba writes, "Who cares." Well if you don't care whether Plantinga has a rationale for his 50-50 remark, that is fine. But please be clear that he is NOT assigning a probability as to whether materialism is true. He is saying that assuming materialism is true, on average every belief has a 50-50 chance of being true. I see that you have no explanation of justification for that remark. And this has nothing to do with Hoffman, who I am not discussing. But you don't care, so we won't go any further.hazel_{May 13, 2019
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Who cares? I hold the initial set of beliefs that might be true in a naturalistic scenario (since naturalism is false) to be 0%. Plantinga, after some long winded reasoning that kf alluded to, gives naturalists a generous 50/50 chance. Hoffman splits 'true perception' into varying degrees, (i,e, 1/3's or perhaps even more), and let's the varying degrees of true perception fight it out for survival. i.e. Hoffman: "Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness." And again, true perception always goes extinct in Hoffman's simulations. You are not arguing with me. You are arguing with the mathematics of population genetics and with very many computer simulations. You want to disprove the argument? Fine, prove mathematically that Hoffman was wrong, then go program a computer with your corrected mathematics, run the simulations, and then go publish in peer review that you have overturned Hoffman's proof. Good luck with all that. Until then you got nothing.bornagain77_{May 13, 2019
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Yes, but can you defend the 50-50 remark?hazel_{May 13, 2019
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A few more quotes that predate Plantinga's argument by decades: Both Einstein and Wigner are on record as to regarding the "comprehensibility of the world as a miracle"
On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein – Letter to Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
To be clear:
mir·a·cle /?mir?k(?)l/ noun a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
Thus the argument is not even completely original to Plantinga. He just put some meat on the bones of what several prominent people had already taken notice of several decades before Plantinga came along. kf has already mentioned Haldane, Then there is also CS Lewis's 'the argument from reason' as well. Moreover, to repeat, Donald Hoffman has now validated the main gist of Plantinga's argument with numerous computer simulations:
Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? – Video – 9:59 minute mark Quote: “fitness does depend on reality as it is, yes.,,, Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it is fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution. So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness. Who wins? Well I hate to break it to you but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality, but are just tuned to fitness, drive to extinction that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those (accurate) perceptions of reality go extinct. Now this is a bit stunning. How can it be that not seeing the world accurately gives us a survival advantage?” https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY?t=601 The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality – April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/ The Case Against Reality – May 13, 2016 Excerpt: Hoffman seems to come to a conclusion similar to the one Alvin Plantinga argues in ch. 10 of Where the Conflict Really Lies: we should not expect — in the absence of further argument — that creatures formed by a naturalistic evolutionary process would have veridical perceptions.,,, First, even if Hoffman’s argument were restricted to visual perception, and not to our cognitive faculties more generally (e.g., memory, introspection, a priori rational insight, testimonial belief, inferential reasoning, etc.), the conclusion that our visual perceptions would be wholly unreliable given natural selection would be sufficient for Plantinga’s conclusion of self-defeat. After all, reliance upon the veridicality of our visual perceptions was and always will be crucial for any scientific argument for the truth of evolution. So if these perceptions cannot be trusted, we have little reason to think evolutionary theory is true. Second, it’s not clear that Hoffman’s application of evolutionary game theory is only specially applicable to visual perception, rather than being relevant for our cognitive faculties generally. If “we find that veridical perceptions can be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality” (2010, p. 504, my emphasis), then why wouldn’t veridical cognitive faculties (more generally) be driven to extinction by non-veridical strategies that are tuned to utility rather than objective reality? After all, evolutionary theory purports to be the true account of the formation of all of our cognitive faculties, not just our faculty of visual perception. If evolutionary game theory proves that “true perception generally goes extinct” when “animals that perceive the truth compete with others that sacrifice truth for speed and energy-efficiency” (2008), why wouldn’t there be a similar sacrifice with respect to other cognitive faculties? In fact, Hoffman regards the following theorem as now proven: “According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness” (Atlantic interview). But then wouldn’t it also be the case that an organism that cognizes reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that cognizes none of reality but is just tuned to fitness? On the evolutionary story, every cognitive faculty we have was produced by a process that was tuned to fitness (rather than tuned to some other value, such as truth). http://www.gregwelty.com/2016/05/the-case-against-reality/
Thus the resident atheists on UD can argue till they are blue in the face, but the argument is a long standing argument made by many prominent people before Plantinga, and on top of all that, the argument is now validated by numerous computer simulations. Thus, the claim from Darwinists that "our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately" is simply not a reasonable statement that they can make in good faith anymore since the claim has now been demonstrated to be a false claim.bornagain77_{May 13, 2019
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AaranS1978
Plantinga, I don’t think is assuming, he starting off with the fact that every single belief, has to have a physical origin and or genetic origin if it didn’t exist in the first place.
I have never read Plantinga so I have no desire to get into a discussion about what he has said. However, I think that what you say here makes sense.
Now without having to get into a large discussion about it, yes certain beliefs might survive over others but again survival does not indicate truth.
I would agree with this. For example, the social cohesion and cooperation that comes hand-in-hand with a common shared religion almost certainly imparts a survival advantage. However, that doesn't mean that the religion itself is true, or based on truth.Brother Brian_{May 13, 2019
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kf writes, "Plantinga’s argument is not 50-50." Yet the quotes that ba provides say clearly, "What is the probability given that naturalism and evolution and materialism that the belief is true?” It’s got to be fairly close to 50/50" I'm not going to go read a 58 page paper, but given the quote above, maybe you can explain what you mean when you write "Plantinga’s argument is not 50-50" when I clearly show that his argument is that it's 50-50. And again, kf, I am not defending materialism. I am critiquing Plantinga's argument as presented in the quote in 37, which begins by assuming a hypothetical world where materialism is true.hazel_{May 13, 2019
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nmdaveS_{May 13, 2019
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Alex Rosenberg is a tenacious atheist. I’ve read a lot of his stuff and he goes to great lengths and I mean great lengths to prove naturalism and Scientism Edward Fessor and him duke it out quite a bit Alex Rosenberg, he finds that all forms of naturalism lead to this ultimate conclusion To him our decisions and beliefs are not 50-50 nor the even kind of one way or another, all beliefs are illusions. The only way to escape this is through science and even then that’s not 100% Plantinga, I don’t think is assuming, he starting off with the fact that every single belief, has to have a physical origin and or genetic origin if it didn’t exist in the first place. That is what the 50% comes from I believe. Now without having to get into a large discussion about it, yes certain beliefs might survive over others but again survival does not indicate truth. Something only needs to see the color red to see that it’s dangerous not it’s details and his point is anything that’s geared for fitness is going to survive better than things that are geared to truth. Alex Rosenberg goes into great deal about this as well and scientism is the answer to that problemAaronS1978_{May 13, 2019
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F/N: Here is my own 101 level thought on the matter, stretching back decades:
First, some materialists actually suggest that mind is more or less a delusion, which is instantly self-referentially absurd. For instance, Sir Francis Crick is on record, in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis:
. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
Philip Johnson has replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.] In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin. For, there is a very good reason we are cautioned about how easily self-referential statements can become self-refuting, like a snake attacking and swallowing itself tail-first. Any human scheme of thought that undermines responsible [thus, morally governed] rational freedom undermines itself fatally. We thus see inadvertent, inherent self-falsification of evolutionary materialism. But, “inadvertent” counts: it can be hard to recognise and acknowledge the logically fatal nature of the result. Of course, that subjective challenge does not change the objective result: self-referential incoherence and irretrievable self-falsification. (An audio clip, here, by William Lane Craig that summarises Plantinga's argument on this in a nutshell, is useful as a quick reference.) This issue can be discussed at a much higher level, but it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way for blog level discussion:
a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity. b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances.
(This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or "supervenes" on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure -- the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. Such physical causal closure, clearly, implicitly discounts or even dismisses the causal effect of concept formation and reasoning then responsibly deciding, in favour of specifically physical interactions in the brain-body control loop; indeed, some mock the idea of -- in their view -- an "obviously" imaginary "ghost" in the meat-machine. [There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. "It works" does not warrant the inference to "it is true."] )
c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this meat-machine picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick's claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as "thoughts," "reasoning" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains that (as the Smith Model illustrates) serve as cybernetic controllers for our bodies. d: These underlying driving forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. And, remember, the focal issue to such minds -- notice, this is a conceptual analysis made and believed by the materialists! -- is the physical causal chains in a control loop, not the internalised "mouth-noises" that may somehow sit on them and come along for the ride.
(Save, insofar as such "mouth noises" somehow associate with or become embedded as physically instantiated signals or maybe codes in such a loop. [How signals, languages and codes originate and function in systems in our observation of such origin -- i.e by design -- tends to be pushed to the back-burner and conveniently forgotten. So does the point that a signal or code takes its significance precisely from being an intelligently focused on, observed or chosen and significant alternative from a range of possibilities that then can guide decisive action.])
e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And -- as we saw above -- would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain? f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely cognitive, conceptual error, but delusion. Borderline lunacy, in short. But, if such a patent "delusion" is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it "must" -- by the principles of evolution -- somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be a major illustration of the unreliability of our conceptual reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism. g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too. h: That is, on its own premises [and following Dawkins in A Devil's Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, "must" also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this "meme" in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. Reppert brings the underlying point sharply home, in commenting on the "internalised mouth-noise signals riding on the physical cause-effect chain in a cybernetic loop" view:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A [--> notice, state of a wetware, electrochemically operated computational substrate], which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief [--> concious, perceptual state or disposition] that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
i: The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist (as well as Socialist) J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (NB: DI Fellow, Nancy Pearcey brings this right up to date (HT: ENV) in a current book, Finding Truth.)]
j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the "thoughts" we have, (iii) the conceptualised beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt based on such and (v) the "conclusions" and "choices" (a.k.a. "decisions") we reach -- without residue -- must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to "mere" ill-defined abstractions such as: purpose or truth, or even logical validity.
(NB: The conclusions of such "arguments" may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or "warranted" them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.)
k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that -- as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows -- empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: in science, one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one's beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.) l: Worse, in the case of origins science theories, we simply were not there to directly observe the facts of the remote past, so origins sciences are even more strongly controlled by assumptions and inferences than are operational scientific theories. So, we contrast the way that direct observations of falling apples and orbiting planets allow us to test our theories of gravity. m: Moreover, as Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin reminds us all in his infamous January 29, 1997 New York Review of Books article, "Billions and billions of demons," it is now notorious that:
. . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel [[materialistic scientists] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [And if you have been led to imagine that the immediately following words justify the above, kindly cf. the more complete clip and notes here.]
n: Such a priori assumptions of materialism are patently question-begging, mind-closing and fallacious. o: More important, to demonstrate that empirical tests provide empirical support to the materialists' theories would require the use of the very process of reasoning and inference which they have discredited. p: Thus, evolutionary materialism arguably reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, as we have seen: immediately, that must include “Materialism.” q: In the end, it is thus quite hard to escape the conclusion that materialism is based on self-defeating, question-begging logic. r: So, while materialists -- just like the rest of us -- in practice routinely rely on the credibility of reasoning and despite all the confidence they may project, they at best struggle to warrant such a tacitly accepted credibility of mind and of concepts and reasoned out conclusions relative to the core claims of their worldview. (And, sadly: too often, they tend to pointedly ignore or rhetorically brush aside the issue.)

KF
kairosfocus_{May 13, 2019
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H, actually, no -- it is you who are injecting an unjustified assumption; in effect, if it works well enough it must be nearly right. That which is adaptive and that which is accurate (especially as regards complex abstracta involved in forming perceptual and conceptual beliefs about the world) are quite different things, which is precisely what Plantinga took time to draw out. This is also why it is important to also have on the table the challenge of computational substrates vs rational contemplation, and we have not even got to the issue of getting to even such substrates i/l/o the functionally specific complex organisation and associated information required. The only empirically known source of such FSCO/I is design, which is being ruled out a priori by naturalism. You have three parallel problems to address, not just one. KFkairosfocus_{May 13, 2019
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