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| (I ate this fig and portabella mushroom pizza in Boston.) |
I'm reading Science and Religion: Are They Compatible, a dialogue between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett. I just finished Plantinga's opening statement. I'm going to here explain his claim that naturalism is incompatible with evolutionary theory. But first I must note that Plantinga is brilliant, and funny. I love his playfulness and sense of humor. That's a lot for me to confess, since I am Finnish, and mostly find nothing funny.
Naturalists are materialists about human persons: "a human person is a material object through and through, with no immaterial self or soul or subject." (17)
Let N mean naturalism, let E mean current evolutionary theory, and let R mean the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable.
Plantinga then reasons:
1. P (R/N&E) is low. (Read this as: "The probability of R, given N & E.")
2. One who accepts N&E, and also sees that 1 is true, has a defeater for R.
3. This defeater can't be defeated.
4. One who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by her cognitive faculties, to include N&E.
5. Therefore, N&E is self-defeating, and can't be rationally accepted. (I.e., naturalism is incompatible with evolutionary theory.)
See pp. 17-21 for Plantinga's defense of these premises. At the heart of this is the idea that "natural selection doesn't give a fig for true belief just as such. It rewards adaptive behavior and punishes maladaptive behavior, but it doesn't care about truth of belief; as Patricia Churchland says, "Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost." (19)
Dennett responds to this, Plantinga responds back, then Dennett again, then Plantinga one more time. Good, healthy reading!
Naturalists are materialists about human persons: "a human person is a material object through and through, with no immaterial self or soul or subject." (17)
Let N mean naturalism, let E mean current evolutionary theory, and let R mean the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable.
Plantinga then reasons:
1. P (R/N&E) is low. (Read this as: "The probability of R, given N & E.")
2. One who accepts N&E, and also sees that 1 is true, has a defeater for R.
3. This defeater can't be defeated.
4. One who has a defeater for R has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by her cognitive faculties, to include N&E.
5. Therefore, N&E is self-defeating, and can't be rationally accepted. (I.e., naturalism is incompatible with evolutionary theory.)
See pp. 17-21 for Plantinga's defense of these premises. At the heart of this is the idea that "natural selection doesn't give a fig for true belief just as such. It rewards adaptive behavior and punishes maladaptive behavior, but it doesn't care about truth of belief; as Patricia Churchland says, "Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost." (19)
Dennett responds to this, Plantinga responds back, then Dennett again, then Plantinga one more time. Good, healthy reading!
