Cool. I don't particularly enjoy bickering with people and I really appreciate reading the different views here, especially those composed from careful reading and thinking. Which is the reason I joined.

Frankly, I can't help what I beleive. I have read enough to know something of what's out there and I was for many years connected to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, so it's not like I sit with Dawkins.

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. Sure this is fraught. But so are most other approaches.

Frankly, I can't help what I beleive. I have read enough to know something of what's out there and I was for many years connected to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, so it's not like I sit with Dawkins.

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. Sure it's fraught. But so are most other approaches. — Tom Storm

Sure you can. Adjusting your own beliefs is a primary goal of philosophy. The alternative is Blind Faith in an adopted model devised by others. My goal is to construct a belief model of my own. It's similar to some others, but also different.

In college I looked into Theosophy. Like Masonic philosophy, I can see the appeal of the general worldview. But I don't have any experience of Mysticism, so I can't relate to the ecstatic communion with God.

Dawkins has been described as an "angry atheist", but I found him open-minded enough to admit that Deism was not contrary to Science. :smile:

It's a pretty carefully put-together OP, but on an unpopular topic. — Wayfarer

The OP was intended to be a book review blog post, for an almost non-existent audience. But at the last minute, I thought, hey why not stir-up some controversy on the Philosophy Forum? At least I get more feedback that way. Unfortunately, most of the feedback is of the Ad Hominem and Straw Man type, as I expected. Consequently, I haven't learned much so far. :smile:

PS___Although I don't agree with Meyer's religion, I find his scientific summaries to be very well done.

The monkey case is not an article of faith. It's just an upshot of the probabilities.

It is not an article of faith that if you toss a coin long enough, you'll eventually toss 10 heads in a row. The same applies to the monkey and the typewriter: add enough time and the monkey will eventually type something indistinguishable from the works of Shakespeare.

It misses the point to think that Hume's point is undermined if the odds are longer than previously thought. All Hume's point requires is that it'll happen eventually and that this is the simplest explanation of why we observe an ordered universe. The odds are irrelevant.

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning.

First, for any number of ways the universe could have turned out to be, the intelligence could have designed the universe in that way. So if there are 10 trillion ways the universe could have turned out, then there are 10 trillion different designs an intelligent designer could have been working to. For any given way the universe could turn out, is a way an intelligent designer could have wanted it to turn out.

Well, now the odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out the way it actually did, is 1 in 10 trillion. And that is the same probability that it would just turn out that way by chance. (And again, it does not matter what the odds are, the odds are the same either way).

Thus, no explanatory advantage comes from positing a designer. The odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out that way is the same as the odds that chance would produce it.

Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmatic that I don't waste my time dialoging with them. :smile: — Gnomon

Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.

It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence.

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agree with ID proponents about the philosophical shortcomings of naturalism and I do look at that site from time to time. I've read the reviews of Signature in the Cell and I don't think it's all bullshit. It's more that I find their reading of the Bible more problematic than the science.

Thomas Nagel had this to say in the beginning of Mind and Cosmos:

In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture from a very different direction: the attack on Darwinism mounted in recent years from a religious perspective by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.

Those who have seriously criticized these arguments have certainly shown that there are ways to resist the design conclusion; but the general force of the negative part of the intelligent design position—skepticism about the likelihood of the orthodox reductive view, given the available evidence—does not appear to me to have been destroyed in these exchanges. At least, the question should be regarded as open. — Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (pp. 10-11

In that, I agree with him (and you!)

There are many alternatives to the Discovery Institute. One is Biologos, which is mainly staffed by scientists with Christian convictions - generally described as advocating 'theistic evolution'. Theistic evolution is the belief that God manifests the process of evolution. It integrates mainstream evolutionary science with a theistic worldview, maintaining that natural processes (e.g., natural selection, mutation) are not in conflict with God's creative plan. Theistic evolutionists typically do not seek to identify direct divine interventions in biological processes.

Classical theists including D B Hart and Edward Feser are generally critical (sometimes extremely so) of ID theory on the basis that it is reductionist in its own way. Hart argues that the ID movement tends to depict God as a kind of cosmic engineer—a being within the system of causation who intervenes to design complex systems or solve problems that natural processes cannot (J B Haldane's 'the Lord has an inordinate fondness for beetles'). This, he believes, reduces God to a finite agent within the created order, akin to a super-engineer or craftsman. Such a view is incompatible with classical theism, which understands God as the ground of being itself (ipsum esse subsistens), beyond the dichotomy of natural and supernatural. Likewise see Aquinas v Intelligent Design for a critique from a Catholic perspective.

I've often thought that the fundamentalist believers and new atheists kind of mirror each other in a way - Richard Dawkins was called a 'secular fundamentalist' by Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame).

Finally, there's The Third Way, a group of dissident, but mainstream, biological theorists and academics, who reject both neo-darwinian materialism and fundamentalist creationism:

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process.

They have an impressive list of contributors and a diversity of views. I'm particularly drawn to Steve Talbott's essays on philosophy of biology, as published on The New Atlantis.

But it's all food for thought and grist for the mill, to mix metaphors. I do think the argument from biological information is quite persuasive, and that the proposal that DNA kind of just spontaneously ravelled itself into existence, which a lot of people seem to take for granted, is far-fetched.

Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmatic that I don't waste my time dialoging with them.
— Gnomon

Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.

It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence. — wonderer1

:100:

@Gnomon spews that as if 'methodological Supernaturalists' like him are not "dogmatic" and do not spectacularly fail in every instance to produce testable, explanatory models of natural phenomena.

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning. — Clearbury

:up:

Also, given that a vanishingly insignificsnt fraction of the volumn of the observable universe is hospitable to any form of life that we can recognize as such, "the fine-tuning argument" is not sound. Like "the cosmological argument" which is unsound as well insofar as the universe (i.e. spacetime) had developed from a planck radius of (eternal) a-causal, or random, activity. Such medieval dogmas, in fact, amount to nothing but 'god-of-the-gaps' appeals to ignorance, of which the OP is a contemporary pseudo-scientific, "creationist" specimen. :sparkle: :eyes: :pray:

To wit:

Thomas Nagel had this to say ... — Wayfarer

:roll: And 'mysterian¹ apologetics' gets us where?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_closure_(philosophy) [1]

(vide CS Peirce re: abductive reasoning²)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning [2]

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning. — Clearbury

We only have evidence for one Big Bang and a single Singularity. So, are you placing your Faith in an imaginary chance-driven infinite series of bangs (Multiverse) to try-out all those alternative settings? Sounds like a new twist on a medieval Scholastic theory for the same old eternal creator deity, except presumed to be blind, deaf & dumb (e.g. Tychism) instead of cosmically intelligent.

Another enthusiastically postulated alternative explanation to avoid the implications of deliberate (non-chance) tuning of Big Bang settings was the 26 dimensional String Theory, which blossomed into dozens of weird variations, none with any supporting physical evidence. Would you believe that String Theory was motivated, not by scientific inquiry, but by the discomfort of scientists with the design implications of Big Bang fine-tuning? ST was supposed to fix the "flatness problem". Yet, as Meyer said in the book : "both the homogeneity and the flatness problems are only considered problems by those who regarded the existence of fine tuning a problem".

Today, String Theory has been abandoned by most physicists because it was leading them down the rabbit hole. Beside, some of its essential predictions (supersymmetry) have failed to materialize over 20 years. So, the fine-tuning evidence remains a problem for those who prefer an accidental universe. Has your alternative produced any plausible evidence, besides elaborate estimates of cosmic odds? :smile:

The Greek goddess Tyche is the goddess of chance, fortune, and fate. ___Google AI overview

The "flatness problem" in the Big Bang theory refers to the observation that our universe appears to be very close to perfectly flat, which would require incredibly precise initial conditions in the early universe, making it seem like a strange coincidence that the density of matter was just right to achieve this flatness; essentially, if the density had been slightly higher or lower, the universe would be significantly curved instead of flat today. ___Google AI overview

String theory is a complex theory that has been the subject of much debate and skepticism. While it has passed many mathematical and theoretical tests, it has not yet been proven to be the fundamental theory of nature. Some say that string theory has been superseded by other theories, while others say that the theory has been extended but not progressed much in understanding the physical world. ___Google AI overview

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agree with ID proponents about the philosophical shortcomings of naturalism and I do look at that site from time to time. I've read the reviews of Signature in the Cell and I don't think it's all bullshit. It's more that I find their reading of the Bible more problematic than the science. — Wayfarer

Oh, yes, scathing scorn is the default philosophical argument for faithful Naturalist/Materialists. And they don't seem to be aware of the deficiencies of their own alternative explanations. You seem to be unafraid to go against the grain of this forum. Why do you even bother? As long as their slings & arrows are made of information & ideas instead of mass & matter, I will survive.

I knew going in that I would get knee-jerk responses to Intelligent Design arguments. But the Discovery Institute is careful to present arguments that could make sense, not just to true-believers, but also to those with some extensive knowledge of modern science. And Meyer's book is exemplary in its appeal to reason instead of faith. There is no "reading of the Bible" in the book. And there is no "come to Jesus" chapter. It's just a thorough presentation of atheist arguments in favor of a random Chance world, along with counter-arguments to refute them.

Atheist Physicist Leonard Susskind --- A Chorus of Big Bangs ---is quoted saying "without any explanation of nature's fine tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the the ID (intelligent design) critics." So, Stephen Meyer has provided a comprehensive summary of the questions to be answered. He also gives several scientists an opportunity to respond, so you can see both sides of the design controversy, presented rationally and without rancor.

I have never bothered to read the various Intelligent Design books, in part because I was raised to believe in the designer they are defending. Now I'm looking for evidence of a different kind of designer : one who designs with intelligent Information instead of thus-saith-the-lord. Causal Information (e.g. physical energy) is the kind of creative Intelligence that my non-religious science-based worldview is grounded upon. So, on that point, I am in agreement with Susskind*1. :smile:



*1. Leonard Susskind said Information is indestructible. What kind of information does he mean?
Information is key in the universe. The universe needs to constantly "compute what the present must be like".
https://www.quora.com/Leonard-Susskind-said-Information-is-indestructible-What-kind-of-information-does-he-mean

Oh, yes, scathing scorn is the default philosophical argument for faithful Naturalist/Materialists. — Gnomon

There are dogmatists on both sides, although I think the overall atmosphere has changed since the early 2000's and the heyday of New Atheism.

As for Meyer - I think his negative arguments against reductionism are OK, but I'm sceptical of the personalist God that American Protestants advocate. If they interrogated me, they'd probably decide I was atheist, even though I'm not. Here's a critical review of his Signature in the Cell by a believing Christian, but one who doesn't buy into Intelligent Design arguments.

By the way, my take on the so-called fine tuning is simply this: that the process which gave rise to intelligent sentient beings didn't begin on Earth, but with stellar reactions billions of years prior. And even those reactions were dependent upon very specific characteristics of the way the Universe emerged from the singularity in the first place (per Martin Rees and Paul Davies' books). Nobody will ever have an explanation for that, in my view, but I wouldn't make it grounds for a polemical argument, either.

It remains entirely possible that we are merely the recipients of extraordinary luck.

But if what it take for us to be here is extraordinary luck, then that we are here shows how we were lucky. While it is unlikely that some particular person won last week's the lottery, it is certain that someone did. Whoever that winner is, they can justifiably think themselves lucky, but they can not justifiably think it lucky that someone one.

It happened to be us. So what?