Sunday, March 04, 2007
Response to God guy
A colleague sent me a link to this article; I found it interesting and responded; I'm posting the response here.
An interesting article; it seems like both of them are using versions of the same arguments to criticize each other's version. Dawkins attempts to one-up the 747 argument, and says God is even more improbable than evolution, and therefore must not be true if evolution is not. Plantinga starts with the premise that God is necessary, so his probability is 100%, and asks Dawkins to refute that God is necessary, which seems pretty unfair. Conversely, I could argue that life is real (something far easier to prove than that God is necessary), so the probability of naturalistic evolution having worked is 100%. That's no more acceptable an argument than Plantinga's is. The rest of Plantinga's piece seems to get lost in the weeds of theistic statistics.
I've often thought the probabilistic analysis of the evolution of life as completely silly. Hoyle's hyperbole about the tornadic 747 aside, the fact that an event is improbable does not make it impossible. In a universe of billions of galaxies each with millions or billions of planets, the probability of an improbable event may be close to a guarantee.
It's not surprising that those whose existence is shaped by improbable events have difficulty recognizing or understanding that improbability. I'm sure lottery winners have a different take on the odds of winning than do the chumps who put up two futile bucks a week for life, and I'm sure most of them feel that they won "for a reason." That's human nature, and I think the same kind of thinking has given rise to religion.
It's harder to imagine or accept a life that's the result of a confluence of chemical processes and contingency than it is to imagine there's a magical man looking out for you, particularly if your society provides the latter framework for you and exults in it. Ironically, there might even be a selective advantage to thinking you're specially designed, if the alternative is depressing (or gets you imprisoned or stoned to death). Perhaps religion, even false religion, is a beneficial adaptation providing a competitive advantage?
I actually have no problem if people push God far enough back in the process to where he's indistinguishable from contingency (i.e., a good bit earlier than Ussher's October 23, 4004 BC). Suppose the universe we're in or the planet we're on actually is improbably finely tuned for life (something I'd be more inclined to believe were my species to have explored more than two other planets). I might see that as dumb luck. Others might see it as "for a reason." Depends on your view of the lottery, I guess.
An interesting article; it seems like both of them are using versions of the same arguments to criticize each other's version. Dawkins attempts to one-up the 747 argument, and says God is even more improbable than evolution, and therefore must not be true if evolution is not. Plantinga starts with the premise that God is necessary, so his probability is 100%, and asks Dawkins to refute that God is necessary, which seems pretty unfair. Conversely, I could argue that life is real (something far easier to prove than that God is necessary), so the probability of naturalistic evolution having worked is 100%. That's no more acceptable an argument than Plantinga's is. The rest of Plantinga's piece seems to get lost in the weeds of theistic statistics.
I've often thought the probabilistic analysis of the evolution of life as completely silly. Hoyle's hyperbole about the tornadic 747 aside, the fact that an event is improbable does not make it impossible. In a universe of billions of galaxies each with millions or billions of planets, the probability of an improbable event may be close to a guarantee.
It's not surprising that those whose existence is shaped by improbable events have difficulty recognizing or understanding that improbability. I'm sure lottery winners have a different take on the odds of winning than do the chumps who put up two futile bucks a week for life, and I'm sure most of them feel that they won "for a reason." That's human nature, and I think the same kind of thinking has given rise to religion.
It's harder to imagine or accept a life that's the result of a confluence of chemical processes and contingency than it is to imagine there's a magical man looking out for you, particularly if your society provides the latter framework for you and exults in it. Ironically, there might even be a selective advantage to thinking you're specially designed, if the alternative is depressing (or gets you imprisoned or stoned to death). Perhaps religion, even false religion, is a beneficial adaptation providing a competitive advantage?
I actually have no problem if people push God far enough back in the process to where he's indistinguishable from contingency (i.e., a good bit earlier than Ussher's October 23, 4004 BC). Suppose the universe we're in or the planet we're on actually is improbably finely tuned for life (something I'd be more inclined to believe were my species to have explored more than two other planets). I might see that as dumb luck. Others might see it as "for a reason." Depends on your view of the lottery, I guess.
Labels: religion, stuff that will get me in trouble