Plantinga - Dennett 2

[Mylth]

That cough at 0:18 gah

[DaveODrisc]

I thought this bloke(Plantinga)was supposed to be some kind of clever clogs.

All arguments for the theistic view are pretty poor by default but to say stuff like God guided the mutations in natural selection is way beyond silly!

[RPFS2008]

@DaveODrisc

Agreed.

He's basically saying that God guides the weather etc.

Maybe that Muslim cleric was right and that hurricanes and other natural disasters are a result of scantily clad babes?

[cero86]

the existence of a being like god, is the most improbable thing of all, why theists don't think about this very simple point

[robotaholic]

So Plantinga's argument is: goddidit!- "well god could have caused mutations"

gosh that's weak

[veritaslogos]

gosh that's weak= "well God could have cause mutations"

[happysplodie]

If god were lazy, this is how he'd do it: Natural selection. I think the argument is that NS is guided by god, thus making this compatible. So, hit it with the razor. Which is more likely? Why insert god when there need not be for the theory to be sound?

The randomness does imply that the process is not guided, because god is (implied) perfect, and we are not. If god designed us, he is a terrible engineer. Only evolution could create this imperfect form, which still works well.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

I think Plantinga could use a 'God works in mysterous ways' reply to the charge of lazyiness. Sure, it may look lazy to us, but to a perfect being, He may see/have reasons that we can't fathom.

As for the razor, that assumes that the no-god hypothesis can in fact account for all of the facts. That's why he relies on Behe's work later in the paper, so he can claim that no-god is insufficient.

Of course, I would deny both claims, but I suspect that's what he would say.

[MisappliedRhetoric]

Behe?!! 

Good God, I would't have thought Plantinga would want any creationist stink on him.

[CrateofStolenDirt]

@SisyphusRedeemed I was absolutely astonished that Plantinga cited Behe. Indeed I'm astonished at his comprehensive lack of the slightest sophistication. Everything I've heard and read from is entirely barren of any signs of all but the modest intellectual gifts. If you gave the guy an IQ test I'd bet serious money he'd score under 125.

Why on Earth do real philosophers not make more conspicuous efforts to disavow him?

[harrylevan]

Well, there's another problem: natural selection guided by God isn't natural selection at all!  What puts the 'natural' in natural selection is the various environmental factors putting selective pressure on one mutation rather than another. If God were to guide evolution, it would be supernatural selection . . .

[happysplodie]

Right. HOWEVER. We're talking about conclusion first thinking here. The theist is going. 1) God exists. 2) There is evidence to support evolution such that I can not deny it.

How do I make 1 and 2 work? Well, god guides evolution.

It's the same argument of common design, common designer that was used on Chimp v Human chromosome 2. They're fused with telomeres in the center of the gene. Same designer, similar design.

It's just bad reasoning.

[DasAmericanAtheist]

Isn't all of this "evolution is compatible with god and naturalism is a defeater" just an example of stealing the concept?

I've pointed out elsewhere that Plantinga knowingly ignores pragmatism and attacks naturalism in a cartesian form and doesn't address the solutions offered by pragmatism.

Plantinga is just shotty philosophy. Sadly.

[Censeo]

As for myself, evolution could be disproven tomorrow and I would still remain an atheist. The notion I have that there is no god comes not from scientific discoveries, but from philosophic inquiery.

[DasAmericanAtheist]

Absolutly. Not to diminish the value of the philosophical problems at all!

[dgdfhfghgfhgfgffjhj]

Yes, it's just adapting religion to fit the new facts. No religion ever set down relevant evolutionary facts which were later supported by real discoveries.

This isn't allowed in science either. Mendel's theory was initially rejected at the early stages because all he did was find numbers which matched the observations. That's a good start, but he didn't succeed until he came up with formulas which could produce data compatible with future observations.