A critique of Matthew Waitkus article on Alvin Plantinga's argument against naturalism

The graduate doctoral student and member of Students for Freethought at Ohio State University and the Secular Student Alliance, Mathew Waitkus, has written an online article criticizing Alvin Plantinga's argument against naturalism.

In this post I'll examine some of Waitkus' objections to Plantinga's argument.

Maitkus begins his article with this straw man: "Plantinga's contention is that the theory of evolution and metaphysical naturalism are incompatible. He tries to support this claim by arguing that since our cognitive faculties may be unreliable, we cannot assume that our beliefs are true"

This is a crude and intentional misrepresentation of Plantinga's argument. Plantinga's argument is no based upon the premise that "our cognitive faculties may be unreliable" to support the conclusion "we cannot assume that our beliefs are true".

Maitkus cannot distinguish a premise from a conclusion.

Rather, Plantinga's argument claims that since natural selection only favors adaptive behaviour, it gives us no reason to think that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Our cognitive faculties could be reliable, but we have no reason think that. Naturalism + evolution could be true, but it's irrational to believe it.

As an astonishing example of sloppy thinking, note that in Maitkus's straw man, the premise of Plantinga's argument is that "our cognitive faculties may be unreliable", but in Plantinga's own words (quoted by Maitkus), the reliability of our cognitive faculties is the CONCLUSION of the argument, not the premise: "One can't rationally accept both evolution and naturalism; one can't rationally be an evolutionary naturalist. The problem ... is that naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false" (emphasis in black added).

Waitkus simply doesn't know the difference between the conclusion of an argument and its premises. This logical incompetence explains why he doesn't and cannot understand the argument in his correct, stronger and best formulation (in fact, this lack of logical and rational thinking skills prevents him to understand correctly any complex argument at all).

Based on the above misrepresentation, Waitkus adds another straw man fallacy arguing that Plantinga's argument is based on the "imperfection" of our cognitive faculties: "According to Plantinga, the acknowledgment of an imperfect neurology precludes an individual from holding a majority of true-beliefs."

This is false. Plantinga's argument is not an argument from "imperfect neurology". Rather, it's an argument based on the conjunction of naturalism (which implies that no natural process is guided by any intelligence) and natural selection (which only favors adaptive behaviour, not true beliefs nor propositional contents, which are subjective and conceptual).

As has argued materialist philosopher Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principal chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and en-hances the organism’s chances of survival [Churchland’s emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost" (quoted in one of Plantinga's articles. Emphasis in blue added)

In another example of sloppy thinking and epistemological ignorance, Waitkus asserts this falsehood: "His argument relies on the assertion that a neurology shaped by the forces of natural selection is reliable only in terms of adaptive behavior, regardless of whether or not the beliefs causing the behavior are true."

But reliability, as used by Plantinga, is a epistemological concept that refers to the preponderance of true beliefs over false beliefs. That is, our cognitive faculties are reliable IF they produce mostly true beliefs over false beliefs. In Plantinga's own words "But then it is massively unlikely that the cognitive faculties of these creatures produce the preponderance of true beliefs over false required by reliability" (emphasis added)

Therefore, the concept of reliability implies the concepts of true and false beliefs (and the preponderance of true beliefs over false beliefs). It has nothing to do with adaptive behaviour.

As consequence, Waitkus' assertion that according to Plantinga our neurology is "reliable only in terms of adaptive behaviour" is simply inept, philosophically incompetent, epistemologically ignorant and factually false, and in fact it is evidence that Waitkus' cognitive faculties are not functioning properly.

Waitkus follows with this fallacy: "It is correct to describe our neurology as being adaptive. However, Plantinga's argument fails because it does not recognize that the function of our neurology depends on the process by which it is formed, and not the point from which it began"

Doesn't Plantinga's argument recognize the importance of the process by which the function of our neurology is formed?

My God. Plantinga's entire argument is based on the idea that the process by which neurology has been formed (naturalism + evolution) implies the unreliability of our cognitive faculties (or at least, makes irrational to believe in them)!

The "point from which it began" is irrelevant, because what's at stake is if the process that brings about our cognitive faculties gives us a reason to think they're reliable or unreliable.

Waitkus continues "In other words, both cases (theism vs. naturalism) result in adaptive evolution formed by the fidelity with which sensory neurons transduce energetic, chemical, and physical information into electrical information. This electrical information is subsequently transmitted to the central nervous system for integration and belief-formation that influences our behavior. "

Here Waitkus reveals a solid ignorance of philosophy of mind and the ontological implications of naturalism and materialism. "Belief-formation that influence our behaviour" implies that the propositional contents of our minds are causally efficacious on our behaviour, but it's at variance with materialism.

In materialism, the mental contents don't exist at all (eliminative materialism), or are epiphenomena of brain processes (and therefore, causally non-efficacious). And in the latter case, they cannot influence our behaviour in virtue of their propositional and epistemic contents.

Since that concepts are not physical, they cannot be causally efficacious according to the metaphysical naturalist principle of the causal closure of the physical world (which implies that only physical things can exerts causal influence on the physical world). If beliefs are not physical (but conceptual), how could our beliefs (in virtue of their conceptual content) be causally efficacious on our behaviour?

This is why materialists have pains dealing with phenomena that, prima facie, offer evidence for the causal efficacy of the mind and consciousness (see my post about it here).

Simply stating the presumption that God would create us in such a way that we could have knowledge is not enough. One would need to demonstrate why God's choice of an identical process to shape our neurology would result in different a priori probability of true-belief."

Here Waitkus again intentionally misrepresent Plantinga's argument. Plantinga is not saying that God "create us in such a way that we could have knowledge". In Christian theism (that the religion of Plantinga), we're created in God's and, therefore, we share with Him some of His attributes (in an imperfect and limited form), which includes the attribute of having true knowledge (but partial, limited and imperfect).

Therefore, the conjunction theism + evolution doesn't cause a defeater for our belief in the reliability of cognitive faculties because even if our cognitive faculties has evolved by natural selection, our possibility of having reliable knowledge is grounded on God having creates us. In other words, if God exists, we have at least ONE positive (and independent of evolution) metaphysical reason to think our cognitive faculties are reliable to produce true knowledge, and not simply useful to biological survival.

But this belief cannot exist if the conjunction naturalism + evolution is true, because naturalism by itself doesn't give us any positive reason to think our cognitive faculties are something more that a mere useful instrument to survival or, at worst, a pure epiphenomena of brain processes useful to survival. (Ducks, cats, monkeys, etc. have a mental equipment that allow them to recognize predators, get food or escape when it's needed, but it doesn't mean that their mental faculties are reliable to produce a preponderance of TRUE beliefs over false beliefs... in fact, what kind of beliefs, in the epistemological sense, have a elephant or a bird?)

Waikus's next assertion is revealing: "Plantinga presumes that evolution shaped by a God, and evolution by naturalistic processes, are different in some way. He offers no explanation as to how the same processes under equal conditions would produce different results"

Are evolution shaped by a God and evolution by purely naturalistic process identical? Are they produced by equal conditions? If the process is shaped by God, then (by definition), there is a DIFFERENT CONDITION (God!!!!) favoring, intervining and steering the evolutionary process, which doesn't exist in naturalism.

In other words, for Waitkus' fine intelligence, the following processes are absolutely identical and carried out under "equal" conditions:

-The evolution of human beings was shaped by God.

-The evolution of human being wasn't shaped by God nor by any other intelligent agent.

Even the most inept person would see that in the first case there is a "small" difference: the evolutionary process was shaped (which implies a intelligent intervention in some point) by God. Therefore, it's not identical to a evolutionary process that lack that "divine shaping" (and this "small" difference is key to the topic of the reliability of our neurology).

However, for Waitkus's genius, this "small" difference doesn't exist at all, because a God-shaped evolution is identical to evolution without God's intervention (or shaping).

Waitkus continues: "The implication is that if we start with God, rather than a naturalistic explanation, the probability that a belief is a true-belief is improved. By simply restating the Christian belief that we are created in God's image, Plantinga achieves nothing in terms of demonstrating the improvement of true-beliefs manifested by adaptive neurology under the God-evolved condition"

This is false. As argued above, if we're created in God's image, we don't have a defeater for our reliability of our cognitive faculties, because we have an independent outside-evolution positive reason to think we share with God the property of being able to know. This positive reason doesn't exist in naturalism.

Naturalism can only claim our neurology is reliable appealing to evolution itself, but precisely what's at stake if evolution by itself suffices to give us a reliable neurology.

Waitkus arrives to his conclusion because for him there is not difference at all in a evolution shaped by God and a evolution unshaped by God. (But if it's true, and supposing that God exists and shaped evolution, why did God choose to shape the evolutionary process, if the same result (according to Waitkus) can be attained without God's intervention? For some important reason God decided to shape the evolutionary process, some particular effect he desired to cause in the evolutionary process and that effect cannot be independent of giving us reliable cognitive faculties, otherwise we couldn't never know the existence of God and it would make Christian teachings and Jesus's activities on earth irrelevant. Do you think God is so irrational? Waitkus seems to think God is made in Maitkus' image...)

The processes that involve interactions between environment and organism are the same for the conditions of God-evolution and naturalistic evolution

How does Waitkus know that? If it's true, then what's God's effect on the process? Waitkus' assertion is based on the fallacy that God shaping evolution has not effect at all, that is, that God's intervention doesn't affect the evolutionary process at all, but this fallacious assumption is logically inconsistent with a evolution shaped by God. (Otherwise, what does "shaping" mean in this context?)

The "shaped" concept there implies that God caused some EFFECT on evolution, an effect that in naturalism would be nonexistent (otherwise, God's intervention would be superflous)

It is these processes that determine the structure and function of our neurology, and it is our neurology that determines our belief systems. Consequently, Plantinga's argument is essentially meaningless

Here Waitkus begs the question against Plantinga, because he assumes the materialistic premise that neurology determines our beliefs systems. But it's true only if naturalism is true, not if theism (and hence some form of mind-body dualism) is true. In dualism, neurology doesn't determines our beliefs; rather, our beliefs exist in our soul or consciousness (which is immaterial in dualism), and the dependence on neurology is only functional and in two-way direction.

Given that Waitkus doesn't know what dualism is, he interprets Plantinga's argument in a purely materialistc terms.

He simply asserts that if he introduces God into the naturalistic explanation then he can use naturalistic evolution to justify presupposed religious dogma.

Another straw man. Note Waitkus' consistent and persistent unability to understand the argument.

If God shaped evolution, then the concept of "naturalistic evolution" doesn't make any sense. When Plantinga introduces God into the equation, the evolutionary process is not "naturalistic" anymore.

This simple and obvious point is beyond Waitkus' cognitive faculties.

This strategy is as dishonest as it is inaccurate because it introduces an untestable and unfalsifiable alternative hypothesis into an explanation (evolution) that has been deduced by the scientific method.

This is a fine example of Waitkus' philosophical ignorance and intellectual unsophistication.

Plantinga's argument is not a scientific argument, but a philosophical one. It's not a scientific "alternative hypothesis", but a philosophical reflection about the implications of God's existence or non-existence on the epistemological problem of the reliability of our cognitive faculties.

Science cannot decide that question, because science pressupose that our cognitive faculties are reliable (otherwise, scientific research would be meaningless); the question of the reliability of our cognitive faculties and the limits of our knowledge is a philosophical problem (an old one, by the way), not a scientific one (even though the evidence from science can be used by that philosophical reflection).

Philosophical hypotheses can be defended or refuted by logic and arguments, but many of them are immune to empirical falsification. How does Waitkus falsify the ontological proposition "The external world exist"? Is that a falsifiable hypothesis?

Another fine example of Waitkus' philosophical ignorance and scientific incompetence is his assertion that "an explanation (evolution) that has been deduced by the scientific method". Any college student of philosophy (or any competent scientist) would know that scientific explanations and theories (like the theory of evolution) are not "deduced" from the scientific method, but hypothesized from observations (Waitkus conflates observation with the scientific method, and the formulation of explanatory hypothesis with deduction) and then tested and refined with more observations.

This method makes its degree of certainty commensurate with the evidence created by evaluating testable and falsifiable hypotheses.

Plantinga's argument is not a scientific hypothesis.

So, when Plantinga offers an untestable and unfalsifiable alternative to naturalistic evolution, he is not really offering any explanation at all.

Plantinga is not offering an alternative to naturalistic evolution, but arguing that if naturalistic evolution is true, the belief in it is irrational.

Instead, Plantinga only succeeds in coupling rational inquiry to religious superstition. In that way, Plantinga only takes another step in constructing an infinitely expanding tautology where even the empirical methods used to evaluate beliefs are enfeebled by cleverly obfuscating the distinction between science and superstition.

This is another crude straw man fallacy. In addition, Waitkus conflates an unfalsifiable hypothesis with a tautology. It's true that tautologies are unfalsifiable (because they're true in virtue of their form), but the reverse is false: an unfalsifiable hypothesis is not a tautology.

The hypothesis "The external world exists" is not empirically falsifiable. But it's not tautological.

Waitkus is solidly ignorant of this distinction, but what's even worst is that he's ignorant of his ignorance.

Before we examine how we can come to hold true-beliefs, let's define what we mean by the terms reality, truth (or true-belief), and neurology. When we talk about reality we are referring to ourselves and the energy, space, and matter exterior to our minds. Truth, or a true-belief, is a belief that is consistent with reality as it exists independently of our cognitive faculties. Our neurology is our cognitive faculties—the tool with which we experience the reality exterior to it.

Waitkus begs the question when he asserts "When we talk about reality we are referring to ourselves and the energy, space, and matter exterior to our minds", because his definition of reality is purely naturalistic and hence excludes the existence of God (which is key for Plantinga's argument when defending the reliability of our neurology if God exists).

Nota that the definition of "truth" offered by Waitkus is a realist conception of truth (that is, it's a definition what assume the existence of an external reality regarding to which our beliefs are tested. But Waitkus doesn't accept unfalsifiable hypotheses, so why does he accept the unfalsifiable hypothesis that an external world exist with independence of our minds?).

Since survival and reproduction depend on our interaction with matter and energy that exists beyond our neurology, it is safe to conclude that our neurology has evolved in such a way that it provides an accurate representation of this exterior reality.

This is false. The neurology of dolphis, cats, birds, jaws and other animals was also shaped by the interaction with matter and energy that exists beyond their neurology. But it doesn't imply that their neurology provide accurate representation of the exterior reality. At most, what we can conclude is that their neurology is USEFUL to survival and reproduction, that is, their neurology has an adaptive value.

But we're not entitled to think the neurology of a bird or a monkey is a accurate representation of reality. As Charles Darwin himself confessed: "With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been devel-oped from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"(Letter to William Graham, July 3, 1881)

In fact, it can be argued from the premises of naturalism that consciousness (and mental representations) are actually illusory and, therefore, cannot be actual representations of the external reality. How could an illusion consistently and accurately represent an external reality? What's the difference between an illusion and an actual belief?

Naturalist philosopher Alex Rosemberg argues: "The process of natural selection is not in general good at filtering for true beliefs, only for ones hitherto convenient for our lines of descent. Think of folk physics, folk biology, and most of all folk psychology"

And: "The interior monologue that introspection carries on is a sub-vocal version of the play (the tokening) of noise, ink-marks and pixels that passes for public communication. Like public speech and writing, our introspective stream of consciousness doesn’t record or report what the brain is actually doing, because the brain can’t store or manipulate information in words and sentences of any language, including mentalese. Conscious introspection is not just wrong about sensory experience, it’s no guide to cognition either. Whatever the brain does, it doesn’t operate on beliefs and wants, thoughts and hopes, fears and expectations, insofar as these are supposed to be states that “contain” sentences, and are “about” things, facts, events that are outside of the mind. That the brain no more has original intentionality than anything else does is the hardest illusion to give up, and we probably won’t be able completely to do so till neuroscience really understands the brain. Meanwhile, knowing what is not on the cards, is still enough to put in proper perspective the humanities’ endless absorption with meaning, and the persistent demands for interpretative understanding made in the human sciences.

If linguistic meaning is anything at all it has got to be something like what the philosopher of language Paul Grice discovered about it: at bottom it’s a nested set of beliefs and desires that speakers have about their listeners and themselves. Grice’s own set of conditions necessary and sufficient for linguistic meaning might need to be fine- tuned. But he showed at least to a first approximation what linguistic meaning consists in. Scientism must treat this conclusion as devastating to any attempt to take semantic meaning seriously as a fact about reality. If there literally are no beliefs and desires, because the brain can’t encode information in the form of sentences, then there literally is no such thing as linguistic meaning either. It’s just a useful heuristic device, one with only a highly imperfect grip on what is going on in thought. Consequently, there is no point asking for the real, the true, the actual meaning of a work of art, or the meaning of an agent’s act, still less the meaning of a historical event or epoch. The demand of the interpretive disciplines, that we account for ideas and artifacts, actions and events, in terms of their meanings, is part of the insatiable hunger for stories with plots, narratives, and whodunits that human kind have insisted on since natural selection made us into conspiracy-theorists a half a million years ago or so. That is a taste it will be too hard to shake in everyday life. The fiction best-seller list will always be with us.

Nevertheless, if the mind is the brain (and scientism can’t allow that it is anything else), we have to stop taking consciousness seriously as a source of knowledge or understanding about the mind, or the behavior the brain produces. And we have to stop taking our selves seriously too. We have to realize that there is no self, soul or enduring agent, no subject of the first-person pronoun, tracking its interior life while it also tracks much of what is going on around us. This self cannot be the whole body, or its brain, and there is no part of either that qualifies for being the self by way of numerical-identity over time."

Due to Waitkus' extreme superficiality, ignorance of philosophy and science, and uncritical faith in naturalism, he bypasses and ignores all of these serious philosophical problems of naturalism, because he doesn't want to cope with the self-defeating implications of his worldview. He prefers to do uncritical assertions, dogmatic assumptions, misrepresent Plantinga's argument and add some fallacies (ad hominem, straw man, misdirection) to make convince and delude himself that his position is rational.

It's sheer self-delusion and wishful thinking.

Furthermore, since the truthfulness of our beliefs can only be evaluated in terms of comparing it to our external environment, what other process of development would produce a more reliable method of picturing true reality than an evolutionary process that directly interacts with this external reality (think photons on retinal G-protein coupled receptors, or olfactory sensory neurons)?

Actually, we never compare our beliefs with the external enviroment itself, but with our representations and sensory experience of it. (This is why the problem of skepticism about the external world is so important to philosophy; and this is why, as naturalist philosopher David MacArthur has argued, naturalism is particularly vulnerable to the skeptical objections).

Waitkus' credulity, naivite, ignorance and superficiality is amazing. He shows no awareness of or interest in the serious epistemological problems of his own naturalist position.

He's a true believer in naturalism.

The confusion created by Plantinga relies on the assertion of a proposition without subsequently testing that proposition for its truth value. Humans constantly evaluate their beliefs in terms of the evidence supporting them (i.e., is it safe to cross the street, is the pan hot, is this food spoiled, etc?). In Plantinga's example of frogs eating flies, he states that they could eat flies because flies are good to eat (true belief—defined by Plantinga), or because the right fly might turn them into a prince (adaptive/false belief). Now, according to Plantinga both of these situations have an equal likelihood of occurring in the context of evolutionary naturalism. Even if that were true, humans still have the capability of evaluating and testing beliefs so that our degree of certainty of their truth is appropriate for the amount of evidence to support it (Emphasis added)

This begs the question against Plantinga's argument. What's at stake is if our cognitive faculties are reliable or not, not if the methods to test our beliefs are reliable or not.

Testing our beliefs is irrelevant, because the testing procedure is itself a product of our cognitive faculties too. Therefore, if our cognitive faculties are unreliable, both our beliefs as the methods to test them (methods that we BELIEVE are correct) are subject to doubt.

Waitkus, who doesn't understand Plantinga's argument at all, believes that the problem posed by Plantinga is how human beings test their beliefs. But it is not the point of Plantinga.

Plantinga's point is that once we have a defeater to the belief that our cognitive faculties are unreliable, then any belief produced by these faculties (including the beliefs about the best methods to test beliefs) are subject to doubt and skepticism.

Therefore, even if belief propositions had an a priori truth probability of 1:1, empirical evidence could still allow us to rationally hold belief sets by refining a posteriori truth probabilities. Such evidence can be created by controlled, scientific experiments in which researchers test a single variable while making only the minimum number of assumptions necessary to conduct the inquiry.

But why should we believe in the empirical evidence, if our cognitie faculties that produces and interpret that evidence is unreliable? If my cognitive faculties are unreliable, then any procedure employed by these faculties (including scientific procedures) will be unreliable too.

It doesn't mean the evidence is incorrect; what it means is that even if it's correct, we cannot know it, because our cognitive faculties are subject to doubt and question.

Does Plantinga think our neurology is reliable? From Plantinga's statement that "if God created man in his image then God would create us in such a way that we could know things," we can assume that he thinks our neurology is reliable. It is troubling to note, however, that Plantinga's examples all deal with individual impressions. Are we to assume that Plantinga feels individual impressions are reliable and to be trusted? This view would be completely antithetical to the position of modern science.

This argument is amazing, because it shows Maitkus unability to think logically.

Maitkus assumes the reliability of modern science to argue against Plantinga's supposed admission of the reliability of "individual impressions".

But Plantinga uses examples of individual impressions, because human beings' neurology evolved before the creation of modern science; therefore, given that what's at stake is if the cognitive faculties of human beings are reliable (and answering this question is LOGICALLY PREVIOUS to considerations of the epistemic value of modern science), we have to examine if the individual impressions formed during our evolution are reliable or not to test the argument of Plantinga.

In other words, if science is reliable, it's because human's cognitive faculties are reliable. But this reliability had to exist BEFORE modern science, and for this reason Plantinga uses examples of "individual and nonscientific impressions" that our ancestors, during evolution, experienced and interpreted as correct.

Waitkus has not understood Plantinga's argument at all.

In science, we assume that even though our neurology is useful and able to experience an external reality, individual impressions are inherently unreliable. Therefore, our certainty should be based on repeatable, testable, and falsifiable experiments.

If our cognitive faculties are unreliable, then even repetead experiments won't produce true belief, because we have not independent method to rely in the results of such experiments.

By the way, and just as a technical precision, what is testable and falsifiable are the HYPOTHESES, not the experiments. Expertiments are designed to test hypotheses, and falsiability is a methodological and epistemological requirement of scientific hypotheses, not of experiments. According to wikipedia: "Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment."

Note that what's subject to falsifiability is an assertion, not an experiment. So falsiability is a logical property of assertions, claims and hypotheses, not of experiments.

Testability is also a property of empirical hypotheses, not of experiments. According to wikipedia: "Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: (1) the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and (2) the practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist. In short, a hypothesis is testable if there is some real hope of deciding whether it is true or false of real experience"

So, when Maitkus talks about "testable, and falsifiable experiments" he is revealing to the entire world his solid, consistent and refined ignorance of the scientific method and epistemology.

Maitkus' fine intellect tell us: "Plantinga, on the other hand, says that individual impressions are reliable because they are held by people made in the image of God. His view is not surprising since many religious phenomena rely very heavily on individual impressions (miracles, relationships with God, emotional significance of religious ceremonies, answered prayers, etc). Would Plantinga really want to see a world in which his view on the reliability of individual beliefs is universally accepted? I doubt it."

I think the reader of this post is already prepared to see all the fallacies used by Waitkus here, so I leave the task to each reader.

The important point is that we can arrange our certainty to be commensurate with the amount of supporting experimental evidence. The relationship between truth-certainty and available evidence is what allows us to hold rational beliefs in spite of an imperfect neurology and individual impressions.

Again, what's at stake is the reliability of our cognitive faculties in general, not the procedures to test our beliefs. The reliability of our mental faculties is a pre-condition of the testing of claims.

Plantinga's answer to the problem of an imperfect neurology is not a method of evaluating the truthfulness of neurologically based propositions. Instead, Plantinga only succeeds in introducing an untestable and unfalsifiable alternative. Such an introduction does not offer progress towards truth. Instead, it precludes further progress towards truth by creating an unnecessary and immovable obstacle when we already have tools for truth-seeking at our disposal.

In this point, the reader is prepared to see the fallacies of Waltkius' argument.

We have seen that the reliability of neurology is dependent on the process of evolution

No, we are not seen that. Ask Rosemberg, Churchland and many other naturalists if they have seen such thing. Or read Darwin's writings.

If this process is naturalistic, or if a God exists, the process still relies on direct interaction between the neurology of the organism harboring the genetic material and the external environment

With a "small" difference. If God exists, he shaped the evolution to make us with a reliable mental equipament, otherwise, his intervention would be meaningless and superfluos.

The dynamic relationship between environment and organism, as well as this relationship's role in adaptive fitness of the organism, suggests that our neurology exists in such a way that it accurately represents the reality exterior to it.

False. It only suggests that our neurology is adaptive, not that it produces a preponderance of true belief. See Rosemberg's comments.

Additionally, insofar as our neurology is capable of holding false beliefs, it is also capable of creating and understanding empirical methods to evaluate the truthfulness of beliefs manifested by our neurology.

It assumes that our understanding of empirical methods is a correct true belief. But if our neurology is not reliable, our trust in empirical methods is subject to doubt too.

Since that Waitkus misrepresents Plantinga's argument, and bypasses the epistemological problems of naturalism (mentioned by Rosemberg, MacArthur and other naturalists), I think there is not much more that we can add here.

Waitkus' article is a mere uncritical and unreflective repetition of naturalistic dogmas and assumptions, mixed up with logical fallacies, ignorant assertions about the nature of the scientific method, and crude misrepresentations of Plantinga' argument.

Even though I think Plantinga's argument makes the belief in naturalism irrational (and Rosemberg and MacArthur's papers tighten up the argument on different grounds), even if Plantinga's argument is wrong, absolutely nothing in Waitkus' article gives us a reason to think it's the case.

Links of Interest:

-Naturalist Alex Rosemberg's article on the actual implications of naturalism.

-Naturalist David MacArthur's paper "Naturalism and Skepticism"

-Plantinga's paper on naturalism.

-My post on the causal efficacy of consciousness.

Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry

I'm currently reading the book "The science of near-death experiences" by oncologist Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry.

I think this book is an important contribution to the NDEs literature.

In the website of Time magazine, you can read an interesting interview with Dr.Long.

Some excerpts of the interview with Dr.Long:

How do you respond to skeptics who say there must be some biological or physiological basis for that kind of experience, which you say in the book is medically inexplicable?

There have been over 20 alternative, skeptical "explanations" for near-death experience. The reason is very clear: no one or several skeptical explanations make sense, even to the skeptics themselves. Or [else ]there wouldn't be so many.

You say this research has affected you a lot on a personal level. How?

I'm a physician who fights cancer. In spite of our best efforts, not everybody is going to be cured. My absolute understanding that there is an afterlife for all of us — and a wonderful afterlife — helps me face cancer, this terribly frightening and threatening disease, with more courage than I've ever faced it with before. I can be a better physician for my patients.

Read more here.

Visit Dr.Long's website.

Richard Carrier on Alex Rosemberg article The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality (Part 1)

Metaphysical naturalist Alex Rosemberg has exposed some of the actual implications of a consistently assumed metaphysical naturalism in his article The Disenchanted Naturalist' Guide to Reality.

As I've mentioned on other posts, metaphysical naturalists are very strange guys. What they have in common is atheism (the belief that God doesn't exist and strong hostility to everything related to spirituality, religion, etc.), intellectual submission to mainstream (orthodox) science; extreme credulity in the (transitory) scientific consensus; pseudo-skepticism (pathological disbelief in and urge to debunk any kind of unconventional scientific ideas or research program, specially of the ones that investigate phenomena incompatible with naturalism and materialism, like parapsychology and afterlife research). These traits are absolutely ESSENTIAL in every naturalist and pseudo-skeptic, and hence are definitory of them.

But, once agreed about these core aspects (no actual naturalist or pseudo-skeptic is intellectually free to disagree with them), naturalists will disagree about many things, and the comments on Rosemberg's article by fellows naturalists is a fine example of this.

In this post, I'll comment on Richard Carrier's objections to Rosemberg's arguments and conclusions. Given that Carrier has mentioned 8 objections, and each of them deserves a deep critical analysis, this post is only the first of a series of posts dealing with them.

Carrier's objections:

1-(Objection 1) I disagree that there are no meanings or purposes. Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators. And as a result, we have generated many significant meanings and purposes, even a meaning of life and a purpose for living. These just aren’t “cosmic” meanings and purposes. They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want. But we still want them, and enjoy fulfilling them. It doesn’t matter how we came to be that way. And when we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy, preferably in better shape than you found it. Alex concludes his essay by claiming “purposes are ruled out of nature–biological, social, psychological,” but he never proves the latter, nor can he appeal to any science that has done so. Social purposes are simply a collection of psychological purposes. And psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires, which science has actually confirmed are real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do. More on that to come. But in short, to claim I have no motive for taking time out to write this, no purpose in mind in doing it, is simply retarded.

Carrier makes a distinction between human-generated purposes and meaning, and "cosmic" purposes and meaning. His point is that the latter don't exist, but the former do.

He defends, therefore, the existence of actual purposes and meaning in a limited sense. And he supports this contention with the following arguments:

1-Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators

2-They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want

3-When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy

Objections to Carrier's objection 1:

1-Carrier doesn't explain why the human brain evolved to be ACTUAL meaning and purpose generators, instead of purely ILLUSORY meaning and purpose generators. How does Carrier know the meaning and purposes generated by our brains are actually (ontologically) existing instead of merely fictional or illusory?

This is the key point of Rosemberg's paper: if naturalism is true, ACTUAL meaning and purposes don't exist, even in the limited sense defended by Carrier.

So, Carrier misunderstands Rosemberg's point and, additionally, begs the question against him.

In Rosemberg's words: "It’s all just the foresightless play of fermions and bosons producing, in us conspiracy-theorists, the illusion of purpose"

Rosemberg doesn't deny that we have or believe in purposes. His point is that such purposes are illusory, without any actual ontologically foundation, if naturalism is true.

2-Carrier claims that science has proved that psychological purposes are "real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do" but he doesn't prove such assertion. And this assertion is argueably false if naturalism is true.

Naturalist Tom Clark (who also commented Rosemberg's paper) writes: "Science arguably provides the best answers to factual questions about what exists, but doesn’t itself have the resources or competence to answer (in the negative, as Rosenberg would have it) the “persistent questions” of human meaning, purpose and morality. To suppose science alone can answer such questions is indeed to be scientistic in the original and rightly pejorative sense" (emphasis in bold added)

Note that Clark doesn't include the human meaning, purpose and morality in the category of "factual questions" that science is competent to answer. In fact, Clark is explicit in that science doesn't itself have the resources or competence to answer these "persistent questions", and to think otherwise is to be scientistic in the pejorative sense of the word.

If it's true, then Carrier's claim is false and his position "scientistic".

Carrier's arguments for the actual (instead of merely illusory) existence of purposes and meaning in a naturalist worldview are so weak that they fail to convince even his fellows naturalists.

If Carrier's argument were "science-based" and meaning and purposes were proved to exist by science, then we would expect that naturalists (who are intellectually submitted to whatever idea is accepted by the authority of mainstream science) would agree with Carrier. And many of them DON'T.

3-Carrier's idea that "They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want" implies that we're not free to choose to want whatever purposes and meanings but only the ones determined by evolution.

So, our entire purpose-meaning generator is only a by-product of (largely by accident) evolution.

This belief forces Carrier to make a purely trivial, simplistic and crude justification of the "meaning" of life: "When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy"(emphasis in black added)

Note that Carrier asserts that the "meaning" of life is to live it. But if it's true, then dogs, birds and bacteria satisfies a similar Carrier's criteria for "meaning", because all of these living organisms (specially complex organisms like mammals) try to "live" their lives (and "live them" well, getting pleasure, avoiding predators, dangers, etc.). And "reason" is not needed to do that.

Obviously it's an extremely simplistic and crude view of the meaning of life.

But Carrier even goes beyond, claiming that "psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires"

Let's to make a diagram of this:

Desires---> motives ----> psychological purposes (aims and goals)

Desires cause motives, which in turns cause purposes. The ultimate cause are not the purposes themselves, but the desires (in Carrier's book, he adds that desires are caused by "emotions", so the ultimate cause of all this process is emotional)

Given that desires (and emotions) are subjective, and purposes depend on desires, then the conclusion follows: purposes are determined by purely subjective factors. And if it's true, what criteria are we going to apply to justify our and other people purposes?

From the point of view of the cause of the purposes, all of them are equal (that is, caused by emotions and desires). Why are your emotions and desires superior or inferior to mine?

Carrier might reply that emotions and desires that produces purposes consistent with biological survival are superior. And he's right, if by "superior" we understand "favourable to biological survival". But why are these purposes superior from an ontological, ethical and moral sense?

I think Carrier's position is very weak.

In other posts, I'll examine other of the Carrier's objections against Rosemberg's article.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Link of interest:

-My post on Richard Carrier's Blue Monkeys Flying Out of My Butt argument against God's existence.

Dan Brown, author of The Lost Symbol talks about Noetic Science

Criss Angel Mindfreak, Jim Callahan, Uri Geller and lapses into pseudoskeptical bigotry in the NBC's TV show Phenomenon

Criss Angel

Jim Callahan

I've been a great fan of Criss Angel since his beginning as a professional magician in TV. I consider him a first rate magician/illusionist and, probably, the most creative and original of the current professional stage magicians/illusionists. Perhaps he's the best of all the time.

You can imagine my surprise and disapointment when in 2007, in the TV program Phenomenon aired on NBC, Angel showed a raving pseudoskeptical side when attempted to debunk the work of one of his fellows magicians, the illusionist Jim Callahan, who made a trick where he supposedly communicated with dead persons.

This caused an altercation between both of them.

Wikipedia provides a summary of the event: "Starting in October 2007 he appeared as a judge on Phenomenon, with Uri Geller and in a CNN interview about the show he told Larry King "no one has the ability, that I'm aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead. And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust [him] live and on television."

On the October 31, 2007 episode of the reality show Phenomenon, Paranormalist Jim Callahan performed a summoning, purportedly of author Raymond Hill, to help discover the contents of a locked box.^[18] Although fellow judge Uri Geller praised the performance, Angel called it "comical" and subsequently challenged both Callahan and Geller to guess the contents of two envelopes he pulled out of his pocket, offering a million dollars of his own money to whoever could do so. This led to an argument between Callahan and Angel, during which Callahan walked toward Angel and called him an "ideological bigot", with the two pulled apart as the show promptly went to a commercial break. Angel has since revealed the contents of one envelope and at the unveiling he challenged Geller one more time. Geller was unsuccessful, and the envelope was revealed to contain an index card with the numbers "911" printed on it for September 11, 2001. Criss' explanation was this: "If on 9-10 somebody could have predicted that 9-11 was going to happen, they could have saved thousands of lives". The other envelope's contents was scheduled to be revealed on the first episode of Season 4 of Criss Angel: Mindfreak. However, the contents of the other envelope were never revealed and remain a mystery to this day"

You can watch by yourself what happened in that altercation in this video:

Let's to make some comments and reflections:

1-In the wikipedia's link mentioned above, Angel says that: "no one has the ability, that I'm aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead."

Angel, like any other person, is free to have whatever beliefs he wants. This is not the point that I want to criticize here.

What I want to criticize is Angel's logical inconsistency. Angel says that he is not aware of someone having supernatural powers. From this premise, he deduces that such powers don't exist (this is obviously a non-sequitur. Ignorance of X is not evidence against the existence of X).

This fallacious inference explains Angel' next comment: "And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust [him] live and on television"

Note that Angel has not interest at all in discover whether supernatural powers exist or not. He doesn't want to research the truth about the supernatural, because he doesn't believe in it (or more exactly, because he BELIEVES that such powers don't exist).

He assumes IN ADVANCE that such powers don't exist (because he's not aware of anybody having them) and, as consequence, if someone claims having them, such person is a liar and a fraud and deserves proper and public debunking (or "busting").

But Angel's assumption is true only if metaphysical naturalism (which excludes the supernatural) is true. However, according to his interview with Larry King before Halloween in 2007 said he still believes stronglyn God.

Note that, according to his own concession, HE IS A BELIEVER IN GOD (and therefore, he believes that a supernatural entity like God exists).

In other words, being a supernaturalist, Angel cannot exclude, in advance, the existence of supernatural powers existing on some human beings. Such powers could or not to exist, but the point is that if God exists, the supernatural exists, and therefore you cannot pose a priori arbitrary limits on where or who will possess such powers (after all, God could give to some particular person the power of being psychic or talking with the dead. Is not part of God's supernatural power the possibility to do that?)

2-But even if the supernatural doesn't exist and metaphysical naturalism is true, does it justify Angel's aggression, in TV, against a fellow illusionist/magician?

It's well known that many illusionists use ambiguous language when refering to their "powers". They try to appear like real psychics while saying or hinting that they're magicians only. This is part of the misdirection that is essential to the working of many illusions (magicians need to use psychological tricks to predispose the public in their favor).

As comments George Hansen in his paper "Magicians who endorsed psychic phenomena" : "Some magicians’ positive statements regarding psychic phenomena might be looked upon with some skepticism. In the mentalist literature, performers are frequently urged to claim genuine abilities even if they don’t believe in them. In other instances, magicians might make positive statements for publicity purposes. Such practices have led some to doubt any positive opinions magicians claim on the matter" (Emphasis added)

So, charitably, we have to understand Callahan's claims (in the context of his presentation) as part of his magic show. It's part of the misdirection and psychological methods common in magicians, mentalists and illusionists.

Why did Angel try to cause damage to Callahan's presentation and professional image with his silly and irrelevant "closed envelope" test? Professional jelousy? A need to discrediting the tricks of competing magicians?

3-Angel's attempt of debunking consisted in asking Callahan (and Geller) to "guess the contents of two envelopes he pulled out of his pocket, offering a million dollars of his own money to whoever could do so"

Leaving aside the ridiculous Randi-like million dollars challenge, the point is that such test doesn't disproves supernatural powers in general. The fallacious assumption is that if supernatural powers exist, then you can know by supernatural means the contents of Angel's envelopes. And given that (according to Angel) no one can do that, then supernatural powers don't exist.

You don't need to be a philosopher to see the simplistic and extreme fallacious nature of Angel's assumption.

For example, talking with the dead doesn't imply having the ability of being able to read a close envelope. Therefore, failing to see Angel's envelope is not evidence against the proposition that someone can talk with the dead. (Failing to pass Angel's test is evidence only against the specific proposition that the individual claimant is able to read or see the contents of a close envelope)

So, failing to pass Angel's test doesn't count as evidence against the existence of supernatural powers in general, or specific paranormal powers like psychokinesis or telepathy.

4-Even being able to see or read, or get an approximate to the contents of the envelope wouldn't convince a person like Angel that something "supernatural" is working. In the following video, what seems to be a Geller's fan, defends that Geller could actually discover the contents of Angel's envelope in that show:

For the record, in my opinion, the above video has not evidential value. And I think that Geller doesn't have paranormal faculties (he's a good illusionist).

But I also think that Angel's "closed envelope" test to Callahan and Geller is ridiculous and worthless and out of place.

5-Jim Callahan called Angel an "ideological bigot". I don't know if Angel is an actual bigot or not, but their behaviour in that show supports that hypothesis. He seems so biased against the existence of paranormal (or supernatural, in Angel's jargon) powers that he's emotionally intolerant of everything related to psychic faculties.

See Angel, Geller and Callahan's comments after their altercation, in this video:

Instead of worrying about magicians claiming supernatural powers, Angel should be worried by magicians who'd exposed his own tricks. For example, Val Valentino, known as the Masked Magician, has exposed the tricks of Angel (and other magicians) in a TV series called Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed.

For example, Angel is famous by his trick of walking on water:



The Masked Magician has exposed his trick here:



So with many other tricks. Angel should be worried about it, rather than engaging himself in pseudoskeptical and biased attempts of debunking of supposed parapsychological phenomena by magicians.

If Angel has a real interest in scientific evidence for psychic phenomena, he should read Dean Radin's books, Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics book, or in Charles Tart's The End of Materialism book.

Links of interest:

-George Hansen's paper "Magicians and the Paranormal"

-George Hansen's paper "Magicians who endorsed psychic phenomena"

-Jim Callahan's website.

-Chris Angel Mindfreak's website.

Additional comment:

Callahan has offered $5,000 to James Randi if he fails Randi's test. Read the full story here.

So it seems that Callahan actually believes he has some psychic powers that he can prove under controlled conditions. But it seems Randi doesn't want to test him. (Perhaps Angel's attempted debunking in Phenomenon was a kind of trap to discredit Callahan, so Randi can dismiss him too).

In any case, regardless of whether Callahan has paranormal powers or not, in my opinion Angel's behaviour was incorrect.

In spite of all of this, I'm still a great fan of Angel's first class illusionism.

Victor Zammit interviews spiritual medium Christine Morgan

Links of interest:

-Christine Morgan's website.

A brief comment on Frank Visser essay New Light on the Near-Death Experience

A reader brought to my attention an article on near-death experiences written by Frank Visser, founder of the website integralworld.net, a site dedicated to exploring philosopher Ken Wilber's theories and ideas.

I'll limit my post to Visser's comment on parapsychology, because I think Visser' opinion is misleading:

"Parapsychology exists for over a century, but unfortunately after all these decades it cannot supply any well-established results. What is more, among those who study this field there are - in military terms - two groups: the hawks and the doves, or the sceptics and the believers. The believers state that the evidence for the paranormal is "overwhelming", and that those who after all these years still doubt it are members of the dogmatic Church of Science, are afraid of a paradigm shift, etc. On the other hand, sceptics state that the so-called evidence is shaky, often has a strong anecdotal flavor and does not hold up to scrutiny.

Sometimes, I have the idea that this could in large part be a matter of temperament. Some people are completely at home with the idea that ultimately everything can be reduced to matter (the materialist is philosophically an extravert); others attribute reality to their subjective feelings and thoughts (they are the philosophical introverts). May be there is a psychological for this fruitless battle between sceptics and believers, which frustrates the progress of this discussion. Both rationalize their emotional choice with ad hoc arguments, which make them feel comfortable. I myself am a dove who is very much interested in what hawks come up with... "

Some comments:

1-It's simply false that parapsychology cannot supply any well established results.

Whoever has read the best literature on parapsychology, in particular Dean Radin's books (The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds) or Chris Carter's book Parapsychology and the Skeptics, will know that some of the result of parapsychology (like experiments in remote viewing) are well established according to the accepted criteria of science.

And this fact is agreed even by professional skeptics and debunkers. For example, professional debunker of parapsychology Richard Wiseman has recently conceded: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.

"If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me.

"But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence.

"Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence."

As I argued at long in this post, Wiseman is not questioning the scientific quality and results of the research on remote viewing, but rejecting the evidence on purely philosophical grounds. Noetic scientist Dean Radin has commented Wiseman's position: "Thus, a prominent skeptic agrees that (1) the study of remote viewing is an area of science, which should thoroughly obviate the skeptical epithet of "pseudoscience" once and for all. And (2) that when judged against prevailing scientific standards for evaluating evidence, he agrees that remote viewing is proven. The follow-on argument that this phenomenon is so unusual that it requires more evidence refers not to evidence per se, or even to scientific methods or practice, but to assumptions about the fabric of reality" (emphasis in blue added)

Professional writer Michael Prescott has a similar opinion about Wiseman's view: "But why exactly is remote viewing an "outlandish claim"? I think this is what begs the question, to use Wiseman's phrase.

His argument is a variation on the old saw that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." There is some truth to this, but the trouble is, who can agree on what constitutes an extraordinary claim?

In a world where consciousness is restricted to the brain, remote viewing would indeed be extraordinary and outlandish. But in a world where consciousness can operate independent of the brain, remote viewing is exactly the kind of thing we would expect to see. We would also expect to see reports of out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, telepathy, precognition, apparitions, and after-death communication. And we do! In fact, such things have been reported for thousands of years all over the world and are taken for granted by billions of people today, just as they were by most of our ancestors.

So there may be nothing extraordinary or outlandish at all about any of these phenomena. They only appear that way to those who start with the assumption that such things just don't happen" (emphasis in blue added)

And Wiseman is not the only prominent skeptic/debunker who concedes that some of the findings of parapsychology are technically correct from a scientific point of view while simultaneously tries to reject or undermine the evidence on philosophical grounds. Some years before Wiseman's concession, professional skeptic and debunker Ray Hyman conceded too that a particular research program on remote viewing had not flaws. In this technical paper, Hyman wrote: "The SAIC experiments are well-designed and the investigators have taken pains to eliminate the known weaknesses in previous parapsychological research. In addition, I cannot provide suitable candidates for what flaws, if any, might be present." (emphasis added).

If you respect the rule that you have to follow the argument and evidence where it leads, you're rationally forced to accept that the available scientific evidence of SAIC experiments in favor of remote viewing is good enough to support the existence of this phenomenon.

But as a professional debunker and member of CSICOP, Hyman is not allowed to do that. He needs to find any excuses to cast doubts on the results, even if the excuses are empirically unjustified and unproven. And Hyman found that clever excuse: "Just the same, it is impossible in principle to say that any particular experiment or experimental series is completely free from possible flaws. An experimenter cannot control for every possibility--especially for potential flaws that have not yet been discovered." (emphasis added)

How could you refute Hyman's skepticism based upon "potential flaws that have not yet been discoveried"? This kind of "skeptical" argument would apply to virtually any kind of scientific claim supported by evidence, provided you want to disbelieve it.

Perhaps Visser needs to have a better familiarity with the best evidence provided by parapsychology and how this evidence has made that prominent professional skeptics like Wiseman and Hyman concede the scientific quality of the research and the evidence, so they can reject them only on purely rhetorical and philosophical grounds.

I'd suggest to Visser to watch carefully these videos by Dean Radin:





2-In his essay, Visser points out: "Sometimes, I have the idea that this could in large part be a matter of temperament. Some people are completely at home with the idea that ultimately everything can be reduced to matter (the materialist is philosophically an extravert); others attribute reality to their subjective feelings and thoughts (they are the philosophical introverts). May be there is a psychological for this fruitless battle between sceptics and believers, which frustrates the progress of this discussion. Both rationalize their emotional choice with ad hoc arguments, which make them feel comfortable. I myself am a dove who is very much interested in what hawks come up with..."

Even though I think Visser is largely right about the psychological foundation of the controversy on parapsychology (I've discussed this aspects, as manifested in materialistic pseudo-skeptics in this post, although something similar could exist in some believers in psi too), Visser fails to stress the function that ideology by itself plays in this controversy.

The key to understand systematic and organized opposition to and debunking of psi research is IDEOLOGICAL. The ideology in question is ontological materialism, or more specifically, metaphysical naturalism.

This worldview IMPLIES that something like psi (and a fortiori, survival of consciousness like suggested by some cases of NDEs, mediumship and other lines of evidence) doesn't and cannot possibly exist. It's a matter of logical entailment. The premises of metaphysical naturalism imply the non-existence of certain phenomena and entities (like "souls" and, as consequence, such nonexistent souls cannot affect matter like in psychokinesis, or survive after death, like suggested by mediumship and some cases of NDEs).

Many people fails to understand this simple point, and thereby they're impressed or surprised by the existence of organized pseudoskepticism or militant debunking. Astute observers, however, if they understand the nature of metaphysical naturalism, would easily predict the existence of organized debunking, because the latter is the consequence of the former (more specifically, the public and theoretical defense of the metaphysical naturalistic worldview IMPLIES the attack, refutation, discreditation, invalidation and debunking of the evidence for psi and survival, because this evidence destroys, demolishes, refutes the naturalist worldview. Therefore, committed and self-proclaimed defenders of naturalism will be, NECESSARILY, debunkers and disbelievers of psi phenomena or any other claim inconsistent with naturalism).

A coherent metaphysical naturalist is not intellectually free to accept psi or survival evidence while being naturalist. If he's a believer in naturalist, he MUST be a disbeliever in psi and survival. (and the intensity or force of the belief in the truth of naturalism is proportional to the force and intensity of the disbelief in psi and survival)

As I said, Visser seems to be aware of this, but his essay doesn't stress the key importance of this philosophical factor. Psychology is important to understand why certain people are metaphysical naturalists; but by itself, psychology give us no philosophical and theortical tools to understand the implicit philosophical assumption that forces the use of the arguments and rhetoric of people like Hyman or Wiseman to reject valid evidence for psi.

If you want to objectively and philosophically confront the arguments of pseudo-skeptics, appealing to their psychology will be insufficient (it only explains their irrationality, their arrogance and delusions of feeling themselves as "brights", and their weird obsessions with creationism and God). You need theoretical, conceptual and philosophical tools to fully know and understand the kind of philosophical and ideological assumptions that colors these people's perspectives and arguments. Only philosophy can provide these tools.

3-Visser's comment on the emotional factor determining and influencing the positions about parapsychology is like a red herring that distracts us from the best evidence for psi.

When Visser asserts that psi research cannot suply us with well-established results, he's falling to the rhetoric and propaganda of mainstream pseudo-skeptics.

As shows the examples of Wiseman and Hyman mentioned above, informed professional skeptics have not refuted the best evidence for psi. Their skepticism is entirely based on a priori philosophical reasons and assumptions, not in scientific evidence as such.

Any neutral observer would understand that the opposition to some of the best psi results is not evidence based, but worldview-based.

This is why I consider Vesser's essay misleading regarding the specific point of the current status of parasychology and the actual nature of the controversy about it. However, his essay is very interesting and worth reading.

Another good essay by Visser is this entitled "Three models of Immortality", which I hope to comment in another moment.