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Greg Ganssle (via Pale Blue Dot) on Dawkins’s “Fitness” Argument

October 21, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Yale Professor Greg Ganssle provides in this Pale Blue Dot episode what is perhaps a more charitable response to the new atheists than we did.

First, he points out something I hadn't quite considered in this way before: We at PEL complain about how difficult and tedious it is (or would be) to write something fit for a peer reviewed journal. On the one hand, there's no substitute for a qualified professor to kick your ass and make you revise something 90 times until it's right. But the sheer amount of second-guessing involved, of making sure you've read and incorporated anything anyone ever has written about what you're trying to express: it makes it nearly impossible to express anything and surely saps the passion out of the endeavor. Ganssle points out that even in the case of the only bona fide philosopher among the group, Dan Dennett, all of these guys are taking the role of "public intellectual," taking their message directly to the people instead of putting through the academic publishing process (Dennett is a well established philosopher, but does not publish in academic philosophy of religion journals). For some reason this way of phrasing it makes me like them a bit more, maybe because it's comparable to what we're trying to do with the podcast.

Ganssle covers some of the same ground we covered in our two episodes, providing what sounds like an academically respectable (as opposed to apologetic) response. He discusses the ontological argument not as establishing the existence of God, but of providing support for the claim that if God exists, He must be a necessary being. Towards the end he gives an unconvincing response to the pluralism argument (there are lots of religions; why would you buy into yours and not the others) that amounts, I think, to the admission, that both theists and atheists of any variety have to have reasons for their positions (he doesn't seem to recognize here any epistemic difference that introducing "faith" might have).

One of the points in Dawkins that he picked up on that we didn't emphasize is an analysis of "fitness" as increasing the probability of atheism. We discussed this as refutation of Paley's design argument: because we have the explanatory power of natural selection at our disposal, we no longer have to see apparent design as implying actual design. Dawkins further argues that the amount of bad, inefficient design that natural selection results in argues against the probability of a God designer, and Ganssle buys this. Ganssle is accepting the claim (that both Mackie and Swinburne made central in their arguments) that it's sensible to talk about probability in the matter of God's existence. He then uses this to argue back that, yes, while in isolation, the lack of fitness observed does support atheism more than theism, other issues like the existence of consciousness lend probability to theism instead.

This was exactly the point that we (under the battering of Wes) seemed to deny on in our discussion. On a strict Kantian line (stricter than Kant's, actually), we simply can't say anything either way about the ultimate metaphysical causes of things, so while evidence about appearances should feed into our theories of evolution and of mind respectively, neither of these is ultimately relevant to whether there's a God or not. It's not that accepting the existence of God has no experiential consequences whatsoever (it provides a framework for interpreting the whole of experience), but God is not a hypothesis for explaining the kinds of appearances explained by science, and when people try to use the concept that way, they're imposing on science's domain and generally giving a very pisspoor concept.

Part of this divide between empirical science and speculative metaphysics implies that probability judgments are going to be grounded in the first instance and not in the second. To dip back into the discussion of miracles for a moment, any predictions and judgments we make about the empirical have as their only possible source of grounding other observations of the empirical (either made directly by us, or more often, gathered through the sum of human observation). We can use our understanding of baseline probabilities to make calls on how likely something is to be in the future. We could always be wrong about these baselines, but any unexpected occurrences can feed into and alter these, making future predictions that much more accurate. In the metaphysical realm (the beginning of time, the smallest and the biggest things, the underlying ground--if any--of existence, experience after death, etc.), we're out of our depth: we have no baselines to argue from.

The best we can do is make analogies: we expect a designer of the universe would be like a designer of something familiar, and thus have motivations that we could speculate about, and so charge God with the problem of evil or ask about apparently bad designs. On the other hand, we have no experience of intentions without a brain apparently hanging about which relates to said intentions in a certain way and somehow transmits them via nerves, etc. and through the physical world to make things happen; this is an argument contra Swinburne that the idea of a divine actor not restricted by physical reality makes any sense. For a strict Kantian, I think both of these analogies are utterly baseless. They are artistic endeavors rather than any attempt to get knowledge. For William James, our choices about some things (i.e. whether we're going to embrace beliefs that affect our life) are forced; we have to, or at least we often do, leap ahead of the evidence in some cases even when our epistemic standards are not met. In such a case, these probability judgments aren't justifications, but they can serve as psychological post-hoc rationalizations. They're all bullshit, and though one bit of bullshit may be easier to swallow than another, there's no objective difference in quality between the two.

-Mark Linsenmayer

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Filed Under: Misc. Philosophical Musings, Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts Tagged With: argument from design, Greg Ganssle, philosophy blog, philosophy podcast, Richard Dawkins

Comments

  1. Ernest Prabhakar says

    October 21, 2011 at 4:33 pm

    “God is not a hypothesis for explaining the kinds of appearances explained by science, and when people try to use the concept that way, they’re imposing on science’s domain and generally giving a very pisspoor concept.”

    I tend to agree, but then wouldn’t the converse be equally true?

    “Science is not a mechanism for explaining the kinds of appearances explained by theology, and when people try to use the concept that way, they’re imposing on theology’s domain and generally giving a very pisspoor concept.”

    I think the problem (not yours, it seems to infect the entire field) is that we don’t really have a good articulation of the kind of “God hypotheses” actually used by believers — even deists like Einstein — and thus we end up in a conceptual muddle when we try to prove or disprove them.

    I’ve taken a stab at that with what I call the Deistic Hypothesis:

    “the various systems encompassing humanity are the result of a Purpose sympathetic to human Reason, Virtue, and Happiness”
    http://2transform.us/2007/01/10/diablogue-a-minimal-set-of-shared-beliefs/

    Do you know of any better such definitions?

    Reply
  2. David Buchanan says

    October 23, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    For William James, the pragmatist’s truth is “wedged and controlled” like no other because it has to answer to empirical reality and to the conceptual order. He considered charges of relativism to be “impudent slander”. As the name suggests, his radical empiricism is so thoroughly empirical that it amounts to a claim that experience and reality are two names for the same thing. Experience sets parameters. He says philosophers must find a way to include anything that is experienced and exclude everything that can’t be known in experience. The radical empiricist says that traditional empiricism a good start, but it isn’t empirical enough.

    James, Dewey and Pirsig all take this view, which includes both pragmatism and radical empiricism. All three of them move beyond traditional sensory empiricism and the relatively narrow conception of experience as direct observation. They think the disinterested observer of scientific objectivity is an unrealistic pretense. We carve out everything according to our interests. We’d do a lot better to admit that our feelings, for lack of a better word, play a central role in the construction of our philosophies, worldviews and the like. As I see it, this is a reassertion of Protagoras’s slogan, “Man is the measure of all things,” but as an expression of epistemological humility, as an admission that we are limited to a human perspective.

    Anyway, radical empiricism is more or less designed to prevent “trans-experiential” entities and “metaphysical fictions” from leaking into our philosophies. I think it would be hard to overestimate the impact that this kind of empiricism would have on most conceptions of God.

    Reply
  3. Justin Couron says

    October 26, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    During podcast #44 on the new atheists I’m not sure who but one of the hosts kept saying that they made straw men arguments and that most people don’t actually believe in the virgin birth or other such concepts; anecdotely I can say this is roundly false. I’ve worked in retail for the bast 15 years in the fairly moderate Bay Area and I can tell you are large portion of the population does believe in virgin birth, miracles, angels, and divine intervention.

    These were not freak incidents at my jobs but common everyday things. I’ve been told many times I would burn in hell when casually talking to coworkers or friends about evolution, or how astronomy is a lie and it says so in the bible. A lot of these sentiments came from fairly reasonable well to do people . When you claimed that these people were in the minority I can only point you to giant megachurches and pastors who have millions of followers, I’ll repeat that millions, that speak in tongues and believe in faith healing and the like.

    Speaking on what Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens were trying to do with their books was make emotional arguments. As a person whom loves science and requires more evidence I would like to say emotional arguments don’t work on me, but they do and evidence suggest they work better than any evidence based argument; which is very depressing but seems to be in line with human nature.

    I know I’m not very intelligent, and your podcast did challenge some of my ideas, but when making bold statements about how one can’t find wackos like the ones Harris, and Hitchens describes it makes you sound willfully ignorant when one can encounter them on a daily basis in a moderate part of the country.

    Reply
  4. Mark Linsenmayer says

    October 27, 2011 at 9:50 am

    Justin Couron :

    During podcast #44 on the new atheists I’m not sure who but one of the hosts kept saying that they made straw men arguments and that most people don’t actually believe in the virgin birth or other such concepts; anecdotely I can say this is roundly false.

    If we described the literalist as a “straw man,” that doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge that there are plenty of actual literalists. Insofar as Harris et al are arguing against people who deny the evidence for natural selection, global warming, the obviously bogus character of the mass of alleged miracles, etc., then they’re right on. That’s not a philosophical discussion, though; it’s a political one. If you’re going to denounce theism as a whole, you have to argue against theists who are not willfully ignorant, and there are plenty of them out there (thus my many links on this blog to interviewees on Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot).

    Reply
  5. Maynard Dixon says

    January 9, 2013 at 1:19 am

    Ok, I respond to your post—how it relates I hope will become clear at the end.
    Aw shucks, please, let us define God, shall we? Almost every time God is discussed, God is not defined.
    If one defines God as Being, pure Being untouched by the world and unchanging—then if one is even
    a bit of an idealist, Being exists, Being is a thing and so God exists. What is more patent than the existent —the one thing that all things, all objects and properties— are made of?
    All has existence as a common. All things are presumed to exist or how could they be things? Constituting all things and yet transcendent. Valid and so both internally and externally (if you insist on making that Descartian distinction).
    This, one may say is the underlying ground, this Being. Who could deny that there is existence, and that existence continues whatever form or formless or void or end of all thought and universe—what exists then? Whatever is the case!
    Of course, a nominalist will say (yes, I will simplify)—Being is just general term, a mental object only.

    I reply thus: No matter what, if it arises as the case, as so, and upon further observation and investigation is still so—that is what makes things so–then it is so. And that is valid whether you call what is so mentally so or physically so (or whether you label everything mental or label the mental a physical thing— and try parsing what is mental and what is physical—you will not escape ever that labyrinth of ambiguity) and whether in science or religion.
    To continue, it is valid because we, none of us, at anytime, have anything for the truth, for what is the case, –than what arises as so. What else have we got? If it arises that Being is so to you , then it is so if
    it arises and arises as so. But, of course, to others it may not arise as so.
    And so, we’re back to the starting line; some hold there is a God and to some there ain’t. So
    the ones to whom there ain’t, to the ones to whom there is, say, “there ain’t”.
    My point is that to both groups something has shown up that is the case. And it will be the same with any issue whether it be probability or God or what have you. And if arguments change an ain’t into an is–it will be because something has arisen that is the case, that is an is rather than an ain’t.
    So, the Dawkin’s of the world and the God folks of the world are both right. Why? Because there is no
    universal indubitability, and all we have for truth, for the actual state of affairs– is what shows up as so.
    In other words what arises as so, is indeed so, until something else arises that says something else is so to those involved.
    The upshot is that Dawkins and the God folks have equal right to claim truth–because this is what has arisen to them as so. What is the truth beyond what arises as so? I would say, it is that something does arise as so.
    Beyond that–oh! we’re back to Being!

    Reply

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