Suggestions on effective strategies for criticizing organized skepticism and materialistic atheism

 

Any project, if it pretends to be succesful, has to be grounded on clarity regarding its purposes. Having clear, concrete and specific purposes regarding whatever course of action you want to take is a necessary (even though not sufficient) condition for attaining success. You have to know exactly what is the objective of your action and use this as the criterion to know if your action is being effective or not.

Critics of pseudoskepticism/organized skepticism (like me) attack "skeptics" and "debunkers" for a number of reasons (ethical, intellectual, scientific, spiritual or a combination thereof). In the parapsychological community, for example, the critics against organized skepticism are motivated by scientific reasons, i.e. parapsychologists consider that the scientific evidence for ESP is good and debunkers are misrepresenting the evidence and therefore damaging the progress of science in this area.

In my own case, I strongly disagree with organized skepticism/debunking by a combination of scientific, philosophical, ethical and spiritual reasons, all of which are (by itself) suffcient to critique it. Other critics could, perhaps, have other reasons too.

Here are some of my suggestions for criticizing organized skepticism:

1-Know in detail the public you're addressing. Each public has different assumptions, presuppositions, ideologies, core beliefs and so forth, and the arguments which work for a public won't necessarily work for another. Arguments don't work in a vacuum; they're evaluated for their plausibility against a explicit or implicit background framework.

For example, if your public is mainly composed of "spiritualists", you can speak freely of "spirits" or the afterlife, and use the best evidence from mediumship to debunk pseudoskeptics. But this argument won't work if your public is composed of Christian fundamentalists, mainstream scientists, or infidels-like atheistic fundamentalists. In fact, in the latter case, your "argument from mediumship" will backfire, and you will loss any credibility before them.

If your public is composed of open-minded agnostics or atheists (sympathetic to secularism, empirical science and anti-spirituality), don't appeal to spiritualistic evidence or complex metaphysical speculations, but to the best evidence from experimental parapsychology, and shows clearly and exactly how and when specific professional skeptics have misrepresented the evidence, or even worst, have dismissed them on philosophical or ideological grounds (for example, as I've done here).

If your public is very heterogeneous (i.e. composed of a wide range of people, like atheists, agnostics, skeptics, Christians, spiritualists, etc), this strategy will be more difficult. However, you can apply it for a certain extent arguing from the common basic assumptions among them (e.g. standards of logic and rationality, common sense, principles and facts of science and history widely accepted, etc.) in the framing of your arguments. Otherwise, your arguments will sound plausible for a group but implausible to the other.

This first step is absolutely CRUCIAL, because it will determine the chances of success of your strategy.

2-Use evidence (factual data) and logical argumentation in your attack of skeptics. Don't rest your case simply in "slogans" or labels, but in factual information. Provide specific references (links, citations, bibliography, youtube videos, etc.), so your readers or hearers will can check for themselves the accuracy and veracitiy of your information.

This not only will increase your credibility, but moreover will crush the credibility of skeptics on the face of evidence which refutes them.

3-Use the best technology to present your case. Specially, you can use youtube with great effectiveness, since youtube is one of the most visited websites in the world. Most people (specially young people) don't like to read or study too much (it is too boring for them), but they like to watch videos on youtube. Hence, you can use this fact to create high-quality videos explaining exactly where "skeptics" have gone wrong, and why the evidence (for psi, afterlife, consciousness, UFO or whatever) points out.

Also, the use of "podcast"and audios is very useful: you will reach an amazing number of people with these methods.

4-Familiarize yourself with the best published anti-debunkers online literature, for example, with the well known critique of Vinstonas Wu, and others of great quality (like this). So, you can refer to these links when presenting your case.

But use these sources wisely not blindly, because it is possible that these sources are relying on violations of the principles mentioned above. For example, in the excellent critique of Wu, he makes references to ghosts or the controversial work of Gary Schwartz or UFOs, which even some spiritual-minded people may be skeptical of. Some parapsychologists don't accept Schwartz's evidence (nor the existence of ghosts or the afterlife or UFOs), and this may produce skepticism regarding Wu's mostly excellent critique of debunkers.

5-Exposed the fallacies of the materialistic and metaphysical naturalistic worldview. In my opinion, this is the key factor missing in the anti-pseudoskeptical literature. For example, most psychic researchers pose the debate with skeptics only in terms of "scientific evidence", not realizing that the evidence is interpreted against a background knowledge (which in the case of most scientists, includes materialism) that the debaters don't share. 

Therefore, a piece of evidence which will support NDEs (e.g. having accurate information of the enviroment and reported enhanced mentation during near-death experience in a hospital) will fit easily with the background information of theists, Christians, spiritualists, idealists, etc. but NOT with the background information of naturalists, who will feel pressure to explain away the evidence as "anecdotal", "non-replied", "non-well controlled", "cerebral anoxia plus receiving information from the enviroment through normal perceptual means", "fraud", "deception", "wishful thinking of NDEs researchers who are believers in the afterlife", "the unreliability of memory", etc.

If the background knowledge of skeptics (materialism, naturalism) is not made explicit, exposed in detail and rigurously criticized, your evidence only will convince the people who already agree with you (e.g. people with your same or similar background knowledge which fits well with the NDEs). You will be preaching for the chorus.

So, your case for NDEs (for example) will have to be compained of a serious, honest, rational and well-supported critique of mind-body materialism (and, in my opinion, of the broad metaphysical naturalist picture too). More or less this is the approach of Chris Carter in his trilogy of excellent books dealing with parapsychology and the afterlife.

You have to be familiar with some of the best and most sophisticated and informed philosophical criticisms of naturalism, like John Lennox's book "God's Undertaker"; Alvin Plantinga's book Where the Conflict really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism, and John Haught's Is Nature Enough?, to know the weaknesses of naturalism and exploit them.

Think hard about these suggestions,

In defense of philosopher of science and biology Alex Rosenberg and a honest and serious reflection about naturalism vs theism

My blog is highly critical of contemporary atheism and its ideological-philosophical roots: scientific materialism and metaphysical naturalism. However, as an exception, I think atheist writer and leading philosopher of biology Alex Rosenberg deserves a defense in this blog.

As I've discussed in several posts, naturalist philosopher of biology Alexander Rosenberg has written what, in my opinion, is the most philosophically coherent and scientifically informed defense of metaphysical naturalism and atheism published so far. I strongly urge my readers, whatever their theological persuasion (atheists, agnostics, theists, spiritualists, etc.) to get a copy of Rosenberg's book and read it carefully. (Moreover, Rosenberg's book is NOT technical, and it is very easy to read and understand). You won't get a more consistent and easy-to-understand defense of naturalism.

Rosenberg's book has been widely misunderstood by some naturalists. His basic premise is that "scientism" (the worldview revealed by the best and most reliable findings of natural science) implies a series of naturalistic beliefs which, if taken seriously and consistently, provide us with clear scientific answers to philosophical topics like "Is there a purpose in the universe?" or "Do objective moral values exist?" or "Do Free Will exist?".

Naturalists who have misunderstood Rosenberg tend to be wishful thinkers who are unable to see, clearly, the implications of their own naturalism. They accept a bunch of naturalistic pressupositions (e.g. mind-body materialism, physical determinism, the causal closure of the physical world, non-teleology, blind natural selection, purely mechanistic explanations, etc.), but avoid their logical implications for topics like consciousness, free will, morality, purposes in the universe, human behaviour, etc. because they find them unpalatable (this is not surprising given Jime's Iron Law). But Rosenberg has guts: He explicilty accepts the full implications of the premises of naturalism and has the courage to live according to them. 

Let's to mention a devastating example:

According to Rosenberg "No chunk of matter... can just by itself be about another chunk of matter... without a mind to interpret the first chunk of matter as being about the second chunk" (p.43. Emphasis in the original).

Note that such view is not an arbitrary opinion by Rosenberg. It is in fact what every serious scientific naturalist think, since naturalism interprets matter in a non-teleological way (i.e. as something not aimed to a particular end or purpose). In other words, matter (as discoveried by physical science) doesn't have any teleological or "purpose-oriented" properties. All properties of physical matter are mechanical, blind, non-teleological ones determined ENTIRELY by the corresponding physical laws. Period.

Now, if you are thoughful and deep enough like Rosenberg about the implications of such premise, you're in position to see why Rosenberg is right about his conclusions and their critics are demostrably wrong:

1-The mechanical view of matter implies that, in principle, it is impossible that any kind of purpose, end or design can exist in the material world. Physical matter simply doesn't work like that. Science shows that a chunk of matter can never (by physical reasons) be "about" any other chunk of matter. Both chunks of matter are connected exclusively by brute, blind mechanical-physical laws, with not "purpose" or "intention" about anything at all.

No scientific naturalist can sensibly to reject that view, because it is what natural science tells us about matter: there is not teleology nor purposes in matter.

But what does it imply? This view implies that, if our consciousness is reduced (or somehow caused) by the brain, then the common belief that our thoughts are "about" something is impossible and literally false. They're metaphors and illusions (perhaps useful fictions for certain purposes), not factual realities.

2-That view also rules out free will in a libertarian sense. The mind being totally dependent on the physical brain (a brain which functions entirely by mechanical, blind laws of physics, chemistry and neurophysiology) rules out (as a matter of necessity, not merely of accident) any autonomous "will" which can choose something for independent reasons or purposes. Such a thing doesn't exist. What any "will" chooses is, ultimately, determined by the brain (which in turns is determined by non-personalistic and deterministic physical laws). Hence, the "will" far from being "free" is actually determined as any other piece of material thing.

Any serious scientific naturalist cannot reject this, because it would imply that "the will" is a nonphysical entity which escapes the determination of physical laws, which is impossible and absurd if naturalism is true.

3-Point 2 discards actual moral responsability. This implication is unpalatable for many naturalists, but this is what their position actually implies (just think about it objectively).

Since what you do is what the physical laws determine that you will do, you are not free to do otherwise. (If you were free from such laws, then it would imply that your "will" is independent of the physical laws controlling the brain, which is impossible if naturalism is true).

4-Since physics fix all the facts about the universe, and physics shows that matter has not moral properties, it follows that the belief in objective moral values is literally false. At most we have a bunch of subjective beliefs about morality, but such beliefs are factually and objectively false (moreover, at the bottom, there is not such beliefs either, because in point 1 we saw that no piece of matter is "about" anything, hence not brain process connected with belief is actually about anything either). 

Note that it is not a refutation to Rosenberg to reply that we are strongly convinced that moral values exist in the same way that 2+2=4 is true or that a married bachelor is a contradiction. Rosenberg would reply that your personal psychological convictions are irrelevant to science: Hard physics (which is not based on subjective convictions or self-evident beliefs, but in objective physical facts, some of which are counterintuitive) shows that physical matter has not room for moral properties at all. Not only such values have never been scientifically observed by the rigurous methods of natural science, but that the known and proven physical laws positively rules out such moral entities and properties in our physical universe. (Moreover, while mathematics, including formal truths like 2+2=4 are part of the theoretical structure of science, moral values are not part of theoretical science nor of matter nor of physical laws).

So far, we have seen that some of Rosenberg's conclusions DO follow logically and inescapably from his uncontroversial premise about physics. Natualists simply cannot accept the physicalist premise, and then fight hard trying to avoid the conclusions because they don't like it. If you're an intellectually serious and rational naturalist who accept that natural science actually reveals, or will reveal, everything that exists, you have to follow the above current evidence (contained in the physicalist premises) to wherever it leads. And the premise that matter is non-teleological, non-designed, non-mental, non-intentional and has not person-relative moral properties is firmly rooted in the current scientific understanding of the physical world.

Now, here is where my argument about "personalistic" vs "impersonalistic" worldviews becomes relevant.

Rosenberg's naturalism is what we would expect given a worldview based on impersonalistic premises. In the case of naturalism, such premises are matter and the physical laws controlling it. In principle, such things (matter and physical laws) don't include any "personalistic" entities nor properties like persons, intentionality, rationality, spiritual beings, consciousness, free will, objective moral values, etc. The latter entities simply don' fit well nor comfortably in an impersonalistic worldview (it applies too to many Eastern worldviews which, while claiming to be spiritualistic and non-materialistic, are based on impersonal principles too. Such impersonalistic principles simply cannot ground personalistic entities or properties, except as illusions, metaphors or lucky accidents... note the coincidence with naturalism!).

Now, in the case of personalistic worldviews (e.g. theism), the existence of persons (and their properties) are senior, basic, essential and intrinsic part of reality. The reality is, at a very fundamental level, PERSONAL (i.e. grounded ultimately in a Person = God). Therefore, such personalistic worldviews not only countenance such things like consciousness, the afterlife or moral values, but that IMPLY them.

This is why you have an argument for God's existence based on all of these entities or properties, but not a comparable argument for naturalism based on them, because naturalism doesn't require the existence of such strange things or phenomena nor can ground them comfortably. (Failing to understand this insight underlies the typical and simplistic atheist objections to the moral argument, like the objection "Are you saying that only believers in God are good?" or "Moral laws don't require God in the same way that mathematical laws or scientific laws don't require him" or the most common so-called Euthyphro Dilemma "Is the good good because God wills it, or God wills it because it is good?". All of these objections misconstrue the metaphysical nature underlying the moral argument, and such misconstruction is rooted in the atheists' unability to understand the deep metaphysical relevant differences of theism, as a personalistic worldview capable of comfortably grounding person-relative properties, versus naturalism, as a impersonalistic one, incapable of making such foundation, at least not easily, predictably and comfortably).

Let's put this in a more formal way (but not one hard to understand):

Let's to call "T" is the hypothesis that theism is true. And "N" the hypothesis that naturalism is true.

If T is true, then persons (and their properties) are essential, because it is a personalistic worldview. This worldview implies:

-The existence of consciousness, since persons are conscious agents.

-The existence of intentionality, since persons are intentional agents (i.e. they act with ends or purposes in mind, for example "I'm going to read Jime's blog" is a purpose in the mind of people who intentionally want to read my blog).

-The existence of free will, since persons (having an inmaterial or spiritual souls) are not determined by physical causes. They're self-determined, at least for a large extent.

-The existence of moral values, since some kind of normativity, standard and moral order has to exist objectively and be followed if any positive spiritual progress (or regress) is to be made (not surprinsingly, from Jesus to many other spiritual teachers, a large part of their teachings concern moral content and information linked to spiritual evolution or even salvation. Obviously, this makes sense if reality is constituted in such a way that certain objective norms and the moral order entailed by them is an objective part of reality grounded in the person ultimately responsible of such reality, namely God in the case of theism).

Note that the hypothesis T  implies all the above features (and many others no mentioned here):

T ------ > P (where "P" stand for "person-relative properties" and "----->" stands for "implies").

This is why any evidence for a"P" is evidence for T.

Consider N, the hypothesis that naturalism is true. This implies:

-The existence of matter

-The existence of physical laws controlling that matter

-The non-existence of teleology, design or purpose in the universe.

-The existence of evolution of matter by random chance and necessity of physical laws.

-The causal closure of the physical world according to which every physical event which is caused is caused by a physical cause (i.e. nonphysical causation is impossible).

Keep in mind that the above features are essential features of naturalism, not merely accidental ones. They have to exist IF naturalism is true. Whatever evidence for these features is evidence for naturalism.

N--------> Np (where "Np" stand for "natural and mechanical impersonalistic properties"). 

Note that P (personal properties) are not predicted not implied by naturalism. Perhaps naturalism is compatible with them, but they are not implied by naturalism in the same way that they are implied and necessitated by theism. This is why the existence of person-relative properties is clear evidence for theism, but not for naturalism (even if, for the argument's sake, we can concede that such properties are compatible with naturalism)

Consider this example: the existence of evolution is evidence for naturalism (because naturalism implies it), but not by theism. Theism, as such, can be compatible with evolution but it doesn't imply it in the same way in which naturalism does. So, if all what we have is the evidence for evolution (and no other feature of reality like consciousness for example), naturalism would be superior to theism, because evolution is necessary in naturalism but only accidental on theism (God could prescind of evolution and create everything without such mechanism).

Now you're in position to see why naturalists fight to dismiss or misrepresent ANY evidence of person-relative properties (consciousness, putative paranormal phenomena, the objectivity of normativity, intelligent design, and so forth). They intuitively realize that if you accept these person-relative phenomena, the evidence for theism will overcome the evidence for naturalism. Their purpose is trying to reduce everything to impersonalistic and mechanistic explanations (e.g. consciousness to blind brain processes; putative paranormal events to frauds and psychological delusions; intelligent design to Darwinian processes, etc.)

Also, you're in position to see why the existence of extraterrestial life (specially of intelligent aliens), if such evidence were available, supports theism over naturalism (because in theism, you would expect an universe with persons and spiritual beings, but in naturalism such thing is extremely unlikely). So, it is not surprising to see "skeptics" (i.e. naturalistic debunkers of the paranormal) to attack ufology as a "pseudoscience".

You need to understand the underlying metaphysical beliefs of naturalism in order to fully understand their behaviour and debunking actions.

Rosenberg's book is the best book explaining the actual, consistent metaphysical implications of naturalism.

Jime's Iron Law, the debate about evolutionary theory, intelligent design and scholarly skepticism about the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution

For a long-time, I've been sympathetic to the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. The theory is simple (at least in its basic, overall concepts) and apparently plausible (even though the concept of random mutations as the source of variation always had an air of implausibility to me). However, in recent years, I've becamed increasingly skeptical of this theory due to scientific and philosophical reasons. In fact, currently I consider it to be a pseudo-science, and this for several reasons:

1-The scientific debate about evolutionary theory is, almost always, infected with speculations about "creationism", which in principle seems to be irrelevant. Why do Darwinists insist too much to knocking down creationism each time a scientific critique against Darwinisim is formulated? It suggested to me that the motivation of Darwinists was ideological (specifically, atheism-driven), not scientific: You don't refute scientific criticisms appealing to ideology.

2-My discovery of Jime's Iron Law has made extremely skeptical of whatever doctrine, theory or idea is defended and articulated by hard-core atheists and "skeptics". I take whatever they say or argue for with a grain of salt. The reason is that Jime's Iron Law, if true, implies that these atheistic individuals are intellectually defective, i.e. positively irrational (e.g. cannot understand obvious arguments or concepts, suffer of chronic misrepresentation of other people's views, and also suffer of chronic and uncritical wishful thinking in favour of atheism) and are obviously spiritually impaired (i.e. blind regarding spiritual matters... see for example this recent Amazon review of Chris Carter's lastest book of the afterlife and tell me honestly if Jime's Iron Law is not clearly operative in that reviewer. The obvious blindess and clear intellectual deficience of such reviewer regarding a book about spiritual matters is precisely and exactly what Jime's Iron Law says you have to expect from these people). 

Obviously, the fact that hard-core atheists are irrational doesn't imply what whatever they say is false or mistaken.Therefore, we have to examine carefully and objectively their arguments. But I think an a priori presumption of mistake is justified in regards to them, specially when they says something about spiritual matters (including and specially religious matters) since Jime's Iron Law is true about them.

Hence, having discoveried Jime's Iron Law, I inmediately became skeptical of the arguments by atheists in favour of neo-Darwinian theory. My skepticism was confirmed by the evidence against such theory.

3-The increasing number of sophisticated criticisms against the Neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection by first-rate scholars, including atheists and agnostics. Examples are these couple of books by (atheistic materialist philosopher) Jerry Fodor and agnostic journalist Richard Milton:

These books were instrumental in my skepticism about neo-Darwinism.

4-The sophisticated defenses of intelligent design, even by agnostic or atheist writers, like the book by atheist philosopher of science Bradley Monton:

It seems to me that intelligent design is a viable alternative in biology, specially if one has independent reasons to think that God exists. In other words, if theism is true, you would expect that human persons (and other rational, spiritual beings) were to exist, and that the world is directed (by an intelligent mind) to the creation of such persons. Pure blind natural selection operating over random mutations seem to be insufficient to do the work and unlikely, specially in a theistic worldview. 

In any case, the criticisms against the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution are independent of theism. The evidence for it, when examined critically, seems to be too weak. I think philosopher William Lane Craig (who is a theist but an agnostic regarding intelligent design in biology) has summarized very well the problems of the contemporary neo-Darwinian theory of evolution in this way (the following comments by Craig comes from a response to an atheistic darwinist who asked Craig about Darwinism):

The neo-Darwinian paradigm is a synthesis of two overarching theses: the Thesis of Common Ancestry and the Thesis of Random Mutation and Natural Selection as the means of evolutionary development. The evidence for these two theses is anything but compelling; indeed, the theory involves a enormous extrapolation from evidence of very limited ranges to conclusions far beyond the evidence. We know that in science such extrapolations often fail (take, for example, Albert Einstein’s failed attempt to extrapolate a general principle of relativity that would relativize acceleration and rotational motion just as his special principle had successfully relativized uniform motion). Such failures make very pressing the question: how do we know that the extrapolation from local instances of evolutionary development to the grand story of evolution is a valid one?

Let’s first get our terminology clear. You misconstrue the notion of microevolution when you equate it with the claim of the fixity of species. Steve, not even six day creationists, not to speak of progressive creationists, limit microevolutionary change to variation within species! Certainly that’s not the way I was using the term, as should have been clear from the examples of evolutionary change which I considered. Microevolutionary change is simply change within certain vague limits, limits which fall far short of the wholesale development envisioned by the Thesis of Common Ancestry.

To give you a feel for the sort of extrapolation from evidence of microevolutionary change to macroevolutionary conclusions, consider the following chart, which displays some of the major phyla within the Animal Kingdom:

Notice that just the single phylum of the vertebrates (Chordata) includes all fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. Seen in the context of the wider picture, typical examples of evolutionary change are seen to be microevolutionary changes. The evolutionary development of whales, horses, and elephants you mention are trivialities compared to the grand scenario envisioned by the theory. The transition from lower primates to humans is nothing compared to what the theory postulates on the grand scale. 

You’ll remember my quoting Michael Denton to the effect that for a bat and a whale to have a common ancestor there should be literally millions of transitional forms, which are not there in the fossil record. But even that illustration obscures the fact of how trivial in the grand scheme of things such a development would be, for it would have taken place entirely within the class of Mammalia (mammals) in the phylum of Chordata. Even the evolution of amphibians from fish or birds from reptiles is miniscule compared to whole tree of life postulated by the theory, for it still only involves evolutionary development within a single phylum.

By contrast, what is the evidence that a bat and a sponge are descended via mutation and natural selection from a common ancestor? And now reflect that the above chart shows only some of the phyla within the Animal Kingdom, which is only a part of the domain of the Eukarya, which also includes the whole of the Plant Kingdom, and that in addition to the domain of the Eukarya we’ve also got the domains of the Bacteria and the Archaea to account for! Clearly we’re dealing with a mind-boggling extrapolation from limited instances of microevolutionary change to conclusions that far outstrip the evidence. Caution certainly seems appropriate here.

So consider now your objections to my presentation. Take first the Thesis of Common Descent. In my podcast, I shared some reasons to be cautious concerning this claim, while acknowledging the biomolecular evidence in its favor. You complain that I mentioned only Archaeopteryx as a transitional fossil. But my purpose here was to provide an example from the fossil record for the most significant sort of transition afforded by the evidence. Most of the examples you cite are trivialities by comparison, for they don’t involve change across large categories. To mention them would only have weakened the case for macroevolution from the fossil record, which is what I was trying sympathetically to present. Michael Denton’s point that we ought to see millions of transitional forms if the neo-Darwinian paradigm were true is hardly out of date and remains a pressing problem. (Your cheap shot against Denton, who is, by the way, a fine scientist, is all too typical of those who turn to ad hominem attacks when they can’t refute the evidence.) So I don’t see that you said a whole lot beyond what I shared to greatly strengthen the case for the Thesis of Common Ancestry.

In any event, as I emphasized, the Thesis of Common Ancestry is really the less important of the two claims of the neo-Darwinian paradigm: far more important is the Thesis of Random Mutation and Natural Selection. As you note, theorists like Michael Behe embrace the Thesis of Common Ancestry. Their bone to pick (no pun intended) is with the postulated explanatory mechanisms of the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Here you had nothing to say to show that the staggering biological complexity which our world exhibits could have been created by such mechanisms in the span of four billion years. Recall Barrow and Tipler’s claim that there are at least ten steps in the evolution of homo sapiens, each of which is so improbable that before it would have occurred the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and incinerated the Earth! Here is where my greatest hesitation about the neo-Darwinian paradigm lodges. I haven’t seen any evidence that the hypothesis of random mutation and natural selection has the sort of explanatory power which the neo-Darwinian paradigm attributes to it. It seems to me that even given the Thesis of Common Ancestry, a theory of progressive creationism fits all the facts and could well be true.

All this occasions the question: how could a theory which is so speculative and so weakly confirmed as neo-Darwinism be held with such confidence and tenacity by the scientific community? Here’s where Philip Johnson’s insight is relevant to the discussion. (Of course, he’s not a scientist, as you note, but his contribution is philosophical, not scientific.) As I explain in my article “Naturalism and Intelligent Design,” in Intelligent Design, ed. R. Stewart (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), pp. 58-71, Johnson’s insight is that the neo-Darwinian theory’s status as the best explanation of biological complexity depends crucially on excluding from the pool of live explanatory options non-naturalistic hypotheses. Johnson has often said that he would have no objection to evolutionary theorists’ claiming that evolution is the best naturalistic hypothesis available for explaining biological complexity. What he protests is the claim that evolutionary theory is the best explanation simpliciter. Were we to admit into the pool of live explanatory options non-naturalistic hypotheses, then it would no longer be evident that evolutionary theory is the best explanation of the data. It is in that sense that the theory presupposes naturalism. The theory itself doesn’t imply naturalism; rather it is the theory’s current exalted position as the reigning paradigm which depends crucially on excluding from consideration non-naturalist alternatives. For if naturalism is true, then as Alvin Plantinga likes to say, evolution is the only game in town. No matter how improbable, no matter how weak the evidence, evolution’s got to be true because there just isn’t anything non-natural to account for biological complexity. Hence, the confidence.

Ironically, Steve, your own letter illustrates precisely the point I am making. It is evident that you object to non-naturalistic theories on theological grounds. You don’t like the image of the tinkerer God meddling in the evolutionary development of things like the bacterial flagellum. You think it makes God into a meddler and a bungler, and you don’t want to worship a God like that. Don’t you see that you have abandoned an objective assessment of the evidence, following it where it leads, in favor of following your theological predilections? Frankly, I find this over and over again in discussions of this sort: it is philosophical and theological presuppositions that determine where people end up, not the evidence itself.

As for your personal theological preferences, I caution you not to presume that God has to conform to your preferred theological outlook. It is enormously presumptuous to think that we can say with confidence what God would or would not do when it comes to His creating life on this planet. Better to keep an open mind and look at the evidence to see what He did, in fact, do!

Moreover, maybe your model of God is all wrong. Maybe God is not like the engineer who can be faulted if his machine doesn’t function perfectly without his meddling. Maybe God is instead more like the artist who enjoys getting His hands dirty in the paint or the clay to fashion a spectacular world. Why not?

In any case Intelligent Design of the world needn’t involve God’s intervening in the series of secondary causes in the way you imagine. If God has middle knowledge, then He can create a world in which the appropriate counterfactuals are true such that from certain chosen initial conditions a designed world will issue naturally (see again my article referenced above). Such a view doesn’t commit you to interventions at all.

Evolutionary theory, intelligent design and the Thomistic-Aristotelian metaphysics

Thomistic-Aristotelian (T-A for short) metaphysics (the metaphysics which underlies classical theism) defends the existence on immanent teleology (i.e. inherent purpose or finality in material objects) which pervades the physical world (both animate and inanimate matter). A defense of this position can be read in this paper by philosopher David Oderberg (see also Oderberg's book "Real Essentialism" and Edward Feser's book "The Last Superstition"). This teleological metaphysics underlies Thomas Aquinas' fifth way to prove God's existence.

After the rise of modern philosophy, Aristotelianism was considered false and outdated, and substituted by the so-called "mechanical" philosophy, according to which "purposes" or teleology is NOT inherent in matter. Matter is a pure mechanical, non-teleological, blind substance which operates by deterministic laws of nature which have no purposes at all. The mechanical philosophy is essential in contemporary naturalism and materialism (which are metaphysics hostile to any view of objective "purposes", ends, finalities and so forth. Any purpose, if exists, is purely subjective, i.e. an illusion of consciousness).

According to T-A, the theory of intelligent design is basically wrong, for several metaphysical and theological reasons:

1-ID theory assumes a mechanistic understanding of nature, which is wrong.

2-Given 1, ID concedes too much to naturalism and hence is vulnerable to purely mechanistic-naturalistic alternatives of life (e.g. Darwinism).

3-ID postulates design from "outside" (as a designer who imposes design to a matter which essentially mechanical and non-teleological). But AT postulates teleology "inside" matter itself, not from outside.

4-Given point 3, ID theory, when employed as an argument for God' existence, is wrong-headed, because the kind of designer which such theory postulates is at variance with the God of classical theism. The God of classical theism has constructed a world which is teleological, not a blind and mechanical world which needs divine interventions of specific design in order to produce God's purposes.

After some time having some sympathies with the above argumentation, I currently disagree with the above 4 objections, but I only will discuss some of them.

First, I don't think it is essential to ID theory to assume a mechanistic metaphysics. It is true that the main defenders of ID (from Paley to Demski) seems to assume such metaphysics, but this fact alone doesn't imply that ID itself is essentially committed to that view. This fact could be understood as a strategy: it is strategically useful to ID theists to take for granted (for the argument's sake) the mechanistic understanding of the world, because such view is the dominant one in contemporary thinking. Hence, if you can show that ID applies, even if the mechanistic view is taken for granted, then theists will have defeat the naturalist under his own metaphysical assumptions. 

Therefore, at least for debating purposes, ID theorists can concede mechanism to their naturalistic opponents, and argue from this that ID applies and support theism.

Secondly, even if we assume A-T metaphysics, it is not clear that point 4 above follows. Even if the world is intrinsically teleological, it doesn't exclude God's particular interventions or specific designs for specific purposes (e.g. consider Jesus' resurrection. If God caused it, then clearly it is an intervention from God who imposed design on Jesus' earthly body in order to transform it into a new, powerful, spiritual, immortal body, presumibly to vindicate Jesus' authoritative and exclusivistic teachings about God's Kingdom and his self-perception of being the Son of God, which caused the Jewish accusations of blasphemy and his eventual crucifixion. If it is the case, then this which clearly satisfies any sensible definition of "intelligent design". Or consider God's creation of an universe fine-tuned for life. Is it not an example of "intelligent design" of the universe in which intrinsic teleology cannot apply because no physical matter/energy at all existed before the universe' s creation?)

Thus, intrinsic teleology doesn't preclude God's particular interventions on specific moments. Hence, point 4 doesn't follow.

But my interest here is another: Is the Darwinian evolutionary theory compatible with A-T? I think it is compatible, but I'm not sure that a purely teleological understanding of the world will suffice to make Darwinism plausible under T-A metaphysics alone (without external design).

Philosopher H.O. Mounce (after explaining the concepts of "form" in Aristotelianism) comments: "the change from one species to another involves a change in form, which requires a series of so-called co-ordinated changes, not an accumulation of small changes occurring at ramdom. In short, the forms are fixed" ("Morality and Religion", in Philosophy of Religion: a Guide to the Subject, ed. Brian Davies, p. 268)

By "form", Mounce understands the Aristotelian concept as something which defines what a thing IS. Now, if as Mounce says, the "forms" are FIXED (in God's mind), then it is hard to see how the purely Darwinian process, which is largely produced by chance (e.g. random mutations) is plausible under T-A metaphysics without external design, because even if the physical world is teleological, it doesn't look clear that such teleology will produce precisely the kind of entities corresponding to the forms fixed in God's mind. It seems that the actualization of such forms (specially theistic-relevant ones like the actualization of human beings, which is central at least in Christian theism) requires some kind of external intervention from God in order to actualize the previously fixed form in God's mind.

I'm not arguing that such a thing is impossible. I'm simply saying that it is not easy to see, at least not for me.

In other words, if A-T and Darwinism are both true, then this conjunction is more likely given ID than in abscence of it, because the chance aspect posed by Darwinism seems to make unlikely the actualization of the (previously fixed form in God's mind) human beings, which is essential to classical theism. (Note that Darwinism poses a conjuntion of chance plus neccesity, not chance alone... but the chance aspect is extremely important and even primary, since the source of variation, namely, random mutations are created by chance. Natural selection only operates AFTER such mutations, and the organisms generated by them, have occured, in order to discard the ones not fit to survival and reproduction. So, properly speaking natural selection is not a creative mechanism, but a discarding mechanism).

But perhaps we have misunderstood what "chance" means in evolutionary theory. According to philosopher William Lane Craig (who is not an A-T metaphysician) "According to [biologist Francisco] Ayala, when the evolutionary biologist says that the mutations that lead to evolutionary development are random, the meaning of the word “random” is not “occurring by chance.” Rather it means “irrespective of their usefulness to the organism.” Now this is hugely significant! The scientist is not, despite the impression given by popularizers on both sides of the divide, making the presumptuous philosophical claim that biological mutations occur by chance and, hence, that the evolutionary process is undirected or purposeless. Rather he means that mutations do not occur for the benefit of the host organism. If we take “random” to mean “irrespective of usefulness to the organism,” then randomness is not incompatible with direction or purpose. For example, suppose that God in His providence causes a mutation to occur in an organism, not for the benefit of the organism, but for some other reason (say, because it will produce easy prey for other organisms that He wants to flourish or even because it will eventually produce a fossil that I will someday find, which stimulates my interest in palaeontology, so that I embark upon the career God had in mind for me). In such a case, the mutation is both purposeful and random."

If Craig is correct, then there is a wide misunderstanding of the concept of "chance" as properly used in evolutionary biology, and part of my above argument will need modifications. However, even in this case, God's particular (intelligent) interventions and designs are not excluded, and the T-A metaphysician cannot appeal to Darwinism as an argument which tends to undermine ID theory.

ID is not undermined neither by intrinsic teleology nor by evolutionary theory (the latter understood under the principles of mechanical philosophy).

In conclusion, the hostility that some T-A philosophers show against ID theory seems to me to be unjustified and misguided.

Finally, watch this debate between Francisco Ayala, one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists, and philosopher William Lane Craig about the viability of ID theory in biology:

Eastwooding Richard Dawkins: William Lane Craig uses Clint Eastwood's strategy as the last resource to debate world leading atheist Richard Dawkins regarding God's existence

It is well known that famous Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood went to TV and spoke to a empty chair, in what is currently being known as "Eastwooding". 

Inspired by Eastwood, the world-leading philosophical defender of God's existence, philosopher William Lane Craig, spoke to a empty chair (the one in which Dawkins should be sitting for the debate), imagining that his opponent was world's most well known defender of atheism, Richard Dawkins. Craig developed his standards arguments for God's existence and, based on Dawkins' writtings, imagined the objections that Dawkins could pose against these arguments.

It is well known that Dawkins, the world-leading defender of atheism, refused to debate Craig about God's existence in Oxford (Dawkins' own home) some time ago. This fact strongly affected Dawkins' reputation among atheists and theists alike, making him look straigthforwardly as a coward. (Even Daniel Came,  an Oxford atheist philosopher, suggested that Dawkins' refusal was cynical, anti-intellectualist and suggestive of cowardice).

Since Dawkins is the leading defender of scientific atheism (at least in the public's mind), one would expect him to be eager to  take and openly refute whatever theistic arguments are posed by theists in a public debate, and show to the world that theists are a bunch of credulous, ignorant and pseudo-scientific thinkers whose only reason to believe in God is "blind faith" and religious indoctrination. But instead, we see Dawkins chicken away consistently from the debate against a sophisticated philosophical theist.

Althought I enjoyed Craig's lecture, I think Craig should forget Dawkins and the possibility of debating him. Dawkins simply WON'T debate Craig (Dawkins prefers to debate popular pastors, tele-evangelists and other unsophisticated theists... but not the best trained and most sophisticated defenders of theism). In fact, Dawkins also refused to debate another sophisticated philosophical theist, Thomistic philosopher Edward Feser.

The only sophisticated theist to whom Dawkins has debated is Oxford mathematician and philosopher John Lennox (a couple of debates in which Lennox clearly destroyed him).

For careful readers and thinkers, it is pretty obvious that Dawkins is intellectually unsophisticated, positively illogical and unable to understand hard, subtle and complex philosophical questions (see an example here of Dawkins' powerful intelligence).So, there is not much point in trying to debate a person like that. He simply is too crude and unable to understand complex arguments (which is a typical trait of some atheists affected by Jime Iron Law).

For more posts on Dawkins in my blog, see this section.

Do you think you have good reflexes, don't you? Look at this and think again: Evan Longoria saves a journalist

Just for the record: I'm inclined to think that video is fake...