Plantinga on Dawkins
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:58 pm
DAR
What did you think of it Doug?
Promoting Freethinking in NW Arkansas
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Plantinga accuses Dawkins of unkind remarks toward religion, but Plantinga makes many ad hominem remarks himself, such as:Darrel wrote:DAR
What did you think of it Doug?
Plantinga also interprets Dawkins in the worst possible light, such as his interpretation of Dawkins' main argument:You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins' main argument seriously.
Dawkins, as I read him, is not just suggesting that the hypothesis of evolution is true because there are no irrefutable objections to its being possible that evolution is true. Dawkins is saying that. However, Dawkins would also point to the fact (i) there is ample evidence for evolution from various fields of science, and (ii) that unguided evolution is a simpler explanation than that of supernaturally guided evolution.What is truly remarkable, however, is the form of what seems to be the main argument. The premise he argues for is something like this:
1. We know of no irrefutable objections to its being biologically possible that all of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes;
and Dawkins supports that premise by trying to refute objections to its being biologically possible that life has come to be that way. His conclusion, however, is
2. All of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes.
It's worth meditating, if only for a moment, on the striking distance, here, between premise and conclusion. The premise tells us, substantially, that there are no irrefutable objections to its being possible that unguided evolution has produced all of the wonders of the living world; the conclusion is that it is true that unguided evolution has indeed produced all of those wonders. The argument form seems to be something like
We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
Therefore
p is true.
Philosophers sometimes propound invalid arguments (I've propounded a few myself); few of those arguments display the truly colossal distance between premise and conclusion sported by this one. I come into the departmental office and announce to the chairman that the dean has just authorized a $50,000 raise for me; naturally he wants to know why I think so. I tell him that we know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that the dean has done that. My guess is he'd gently suggest that it is high time for me to retire.