On "Where the Conflict Really Lies" (Pt. 3)

[Series explanation and index here.]

Chapter One - Continued

Dawkins' Subtitle

Famous science writer (and infamous atheist) Richard Dawkins gave his book The Blind Watchmaker a provocative subtitle: "Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design." Plantinga points out — rightly — that the naturalistic evolution of living beings would not imply a naturalistic universe overall. It's a bad subtitle, except for marketing purposes.

(As an aside, I was frustrated with The God Delusion for much the same reason. Dawkins treats biological evolution as a fatal blow to theism, or at least he comes off that way.)

Plantinga is much more concerned with the implication that "the evidence of evolution" reveals a lack of design in human beings. If biological evolution only happened to produce God-like creatures (us), then the all-important theological claim that God intentionally created us in his image is false. But does evolutionary science really show that humanity arose by happenstance?

Notice how low the bar is set. Dawkins must prove there is no room for a divine hand in human development, or Plantinga succeeds.

...and I think he does succeed. After all, the bar for Dawkins is set very high:

"Nor does [Dawkins] try to show either that there is no such person as God, or that, if there is, it is not possible that he should have somehow set up and directed the whole process. And why should he? After all, he’s a biologist and not a philosopher."¹

Plantinga further points out that Dawkins hasn't shown how the mental can arise from unthinking material. (How lazy!)

After all, he's a philosopher and not a biologist

Not content with an easy defensive victory, Plantinga decides to attack Dawkins on his home turf.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Atheists can't appeal to God to explain the diversity of life, but they can appeal to natural evolution! This — and not the strength of the evidence — is why atheists are so passionate about claiming life evolved naturally. Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, has challenged Darwinist orthodoxy and has yet to be adequately answered. Atheistic scientists like Dawkins are only going by their feelings and guesswork that natural evolution can explain it all. Plantinga writes:

"There is no attempt at the sort of serious calculation that would surely be required for a genuine answer. No doubt such a calculation and hence an answer to those questions is at present far beyond our knowledge and powers; no doubt it would be unreasonable to require such a calculation; still, the fact remains we don’t have a serious answer."²

Silly scientists, only addressing Behe's specific challenges and not proving him wrong in principle!

I used to believe evolution was motivated by atheism, but only because I was kept in ignorance by my family, my church, and my private school. This isn't good advertising for the harmony of science and (certain kinds of) religion! Now I read Plantinga's claim that biologists aren't doing the serious work to give serious answers to objections and it just blows my mind.

Biologists are the ones doing real work. No wonder they sometimes get testy; they have to put up with lazy, ill-informed, or irrelevant criticisms from a society that demands biologists admit God might guide genomes, but doesn't demand that meteorologists admit God might guide cold fronts. Can the weather man prove cloud formation is entirely made plausible by natural processes alone? Maybe if we had school boards demanding recognition of "Divine Wrath Stormology" we would have the equivalent of Dawkins making naturalistic claims and the equivalent of Plantinga writing:

"For the nontheist, undirected [weather] is the only game in town, and [the exchange of heat energy] seems to be the most plausible mechanism to drive that process. Here is this stunningly intricate [atmosphere] with its enormous diversity and apparent design; from the perspective of naturalism or nontheism, the only way it could have happened is by way of [an] unguided [hydrological cycle]; hence it must have happened that way; hence there must be such a[n Aristotelian] series for each current [rain storm]. The theist, on the other hand, has a little more freedom here: maybe there is such a series and maybe there isn’t; God has created the [meteorological] world and could have done it in any number of different ways; there doesn’t have to be any such series. In this way the theist is freer to follow the evidence where it leads."³ (substitutions for the sake of parody)

Assembling a Modern Eye, One Cell at a Time

Maybe you think I'm being too harsh on Plantinga's science. Please watch this short clip of Dawkins explaining how eyes could plausibly have evolved in a gradual manner:

Dawkins - Eye Evolution

Make sense? Starting from light sensitive cells on the skin, small changes would have been progressively more helpful. We see other animals with eyes all along this range, so it's not even much of a hypothetical. Yet somehow Plantinga picked eye evolution as a good place to question the plausibility of natural selection:

"We can see this as follows: consider a particular human eye—one of Dawkins’s, for example; assign a number to each cell contained in that eye (as with certain kinds of build-it-yourself toy kits); let the first member of the series be a creature that has cell number 1, the second be one that contains cells number 2 and number 1; the third contain cell number 3 plus cells number 1 and 2, and so on. This won’t quite work; for this eye to function, there will also have to be an appropriate brain or part of a brain to which it is connected by an optic nerve. But you get the idea: clearly there is such a series. Of course that by itself doesn’t show much; if it’s to be relevant, the length of the series will have to be constrained by the time available, and each step in the series will have to be such that it can arise by way of genetic mutation from a previous step. Furthermore (and crucially), each mutation will have to be fitness-conferring (or at least not unduly costly in terms of fitness), so that it’s not too improbable that they be preserved by natural selection."⁴

Did you catch what he did there? Plantinga thinks eye evolution is about starting with one cell present in a modern eye and progressively adding single cells in their modern places. This is like enumerating each building in, say Chicago, then thinking Chicago started with one of those modern buildings and progressively added every other modern building on the list until filling out the whole thing. That's not how Chicago came to be the way it is and it's not how biologists think living systems came to be the way they are. The "toy kit" view leaves out all the intermediate history of what worked at the time and what shaped what came after, but isn't a subset of what we have now.

I wouldn't fault a person for initially misunderstanding evolution as a straightforward cell-by-cell buildup toward current lifeforms. But I do expect more from a published book that's largely about evolution.


Note: The Kindle Edition does not use traditional page numbers. I'm using "k. 93" to indicate Kindle location 93. This book is 6,220 locations long.

1. Plantinga, A. (2011). Where the conflict really lies: Science, religion, and naturalism [Kindle Edition]. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. k. 393.
2. ibid. k. 465.
3. ibid. k. 485.
4. ibid. k. 441.   

On "Where the Conflict Really Lies" (Pt. 2)

[Series explanation and index here.]

Chapter One

Narrowing

Is there a conflict between science and theism? It's useful to draw a distinction between (1) science as a method and (2) science as the body of knowledge we've gained through this method. Plantinga begins with the alleged conflict between biological evolution (a major result of scientific method) and certain kinds of theistic belief.

"I’ll be concerned in particular with Christian belief and science; most of the alleged conflicts, however, have to do with theism, belief that there is such a person as God, rather than with doctrines that separate specifically Christian belief from other theistic religions such as Islam and Judaism. Most of what I say, therefore, will apply to other theistic religions as well as to Christianity."¹

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are popular forms of theism, but what applies to them does not necessarily apply to other theistic religions.

Reasoning from the doctrine that humans — and not other species — were created in the image of God, Plantinga declares it essential to Christian faith that God specially "guided, directed, orchestrated, or shaped"² the biological origin of humankind. This further narrows the scope of the theism under examination, since not all Christians draw the line at this point. A few do not require the special creation of humans.³ Many others draw the line at a more-or-less historical understanding of Genesis.⁴

So Long, Young Earth Creationists!

"Many Christian evangelicals or fundamentalists accept a literal interpretation of the creation account in the first two chapters of Genesis (as well as the genealogies in the next few chapters); they are inclined therefore to think the earth and indeed the universe vastly younger than the billions of years of age attributed to them by current science. [...] Of course Christian belief just as such doesn’t include the thought that the universe is young; and in fact as far back as Augustine (354–430) serious Christians have doubted that the scriptural days of creation correspond to 24-hour periods of time."⁵

Sorry, all the Christians I knew growing up, Plantinga doesn't intend to defend your faith as compatible with science. Plantinga defines Christian belief as what's included in a list of nine creeds.⁶ Genesis isn't affirmed as history in those creeds, so you're on your own. (I didn't check the creeds to see if they include his interpretation of "God created man in his own image" from the same creation stories.)

What about Augustine? Plantinga gives the impression that "serious Christians" from Augustine onward have left room for an old earth, but Augustine's main deviation from Young Earth Creationism was in thinking creation was instantaneous! If anything, he was a Young-er Earth Creationist (by a few days). He came to this idea because of a popular theology in his day that made it hard to picture God working on something over time, and because he struggled to make sense of how the days could be separated by an evening and morning on a global scale (since it's always evening and morning somewhere on Earth).⁷

The seven days themselves are a red herring if humankind started about six thousand years ago, were almost wiped out in a flood, then started to grow again before having their languages divided. Personally, I don't see any point between Adam and Jesus where the Bible signals a change from myth to history. Jesus' genealogy in Luke 3 implies a historical interpretation throughout; other New Testament references support or are consistent with Genesis-as-history. If Plantinga wants the Abrahamic religions to represent theism as a whole, then he needs to do a much better job of removing recent creation from the discussion.

Oh well, there's still a lot of material here about science being compatible with God intervening in the development of humankind. Let's see how Plantinga plans to ease that particular tension for the subset of theists troubled by the notion of unguided evolution for humans, but not otherwise troubled by modern evolutionary theory.

Defining Evolution

Plantinga lists four theses of "evolution strictly so called" plus a fifth thesis he calls "Darwinism" and a sixth thesis he calls the "naturalistic origins thesis." He argues that the doctrine of God creating humankind in his image is clearly consistent with the first four theses, less obviously consistent with Darwinism, but absolutely not consistent with the naturalistic origins thesis.

Evolution Proper

1. Ancient Earth thesis. The Earth is billions of years old.
2. Progress thesis. Life started out simple and has progressed to complex forms. Humans are the culmination of this process.
3. Descent with modification thesis. Biodiversity comes about from changes in offspring.
4. Common ancestry thesis. Life on Earth originated once, so we're all related.

Darwinism

5. A natural mechanism is responsible for descent with modification. Natural selection and other natural processes are included here.

Naturalistic Origins

6. Life evolved without divine intervention.


This would be better if Plantinga left out everything but (3) and (5).⁸ Evolution concerns inheritable changes across generations. Darwin proposed natural selection as a major mechanism of these changes. His contemporary, Mendel, discovered genetic inheritance. In the late 1920's, Wright pointed out genetic drift as another mechanism of evolution. It wasn't until the early 1940's that several researchers were able to identify DNA as the physical carrier of genetic information. These are the elements of evolutionary theory. So you see, it's primarily about a process that's going on right now. Like gravitational theory, we can apply this knowledge to understand what happened in the distant past, but those findings are secondary.

Is the Earth billions of years old? Yes, but we know that without any reliance on biological science. Did complex forms of life arise from simpler forms of life? It sure looks like it from the fossil record. Do we share ancestry with other life on Earth? Both the fossil record and genetic analysis suggest so. Is evolution a natural process? It appears to be.

Plantinga is happy to accept (1) through (5), saying that "God could have caused the right mutations to arise at the right time; he could have preserved populations from perils of various sorts, and so on; and in this way he could have seen to it that there come to be creatures of the kind he intends."⁹ In essence, it could look to the world that natural gene variation and natural selection explain evolution...but God was behind the scenes manipulating these processes to produce the human species.

I like to compare this to the view that rain is a natural process, but God can tweak the natural world just enough to send rain for the crops of praying farmers. Since scientists can't rule out this possibility, it would be a philosophical addition to meteorology to say that rain falls without divine intervention.

I don't have a problem with this, so long as people understand how modest such claims really are. It usually turns into a foot-in-the-door tactic, however, where God becomes possibly involved and suddenly it can't rain without a miracle. That will be the pattern of this book.


Note: The Kindle Edition does not use traditional page numbers. I'm using "k. 93" to indicate Kindle location 93. This book is 6,220 locations long.

1. Plantinga, A. (2011). Where the conflict really lies: Science, religion, and naturalism [Kindle Edition]. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. k. 202.  
2. ibid. k. 264.
3. Howard J. Van Till, for example.
4. See http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/10/19/where-do-we-draw-the-line
5. Plantinga (2011). k. 294.
6. ibid. k. 266.
7. Discussed at length in Augustine's book The Literal Meaning of Genesis.
8. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
9. Plantinga (2011). k. 319.

On "Where the Conflict Really Lies" (Pt. 1)

Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism is Alvin Plantinga's popular-level challenge to the idea that science and religion are in conflict. At least, that's the defensive portion of the book. He goes on to argue that the real conflict is between science and an irreligious worldview.

I'm concerned that people eager for this conclusion will cite Plantinga as an intellectual authority without understanding which parts of his overall argument are strong vs. which parts are weak, overly specialized, or overly generalized. My plan is to cover select portions of his book, supporting or criticizing Plantinga as appropriate.

For new readers of this blog, let me say up front that I'm a naturalist, i.e. I believe the natural world is all there is. On the other hand, I don't think everyone who disagrees is making an intellectual blunder. I'm especially sympathetic with Deists, but also with other Theists who are drawing the best conclusion they can from their own experiences. Mistaken conclusions don't necessarily imply bad methods.

Series Index

1. Series Index; Preface
2. Chapter One — Evolution and the Image of God
3. Chapter One — Dawkins
4. Chapter Two — Dennett; Necessity; Rationalism
5. Chapter Two — Draper; Science Education; Natural Evil
6. Chapter Three & Chapter Four — Divine Action
7. Chapter Five — Evolved Ethics and Religion
8. Chapter Five — Historical Biblical Criticism
9. Chapter Six — Defeaters
10. Chapter Seven & Chapter Eight — Fine Tuning; Design
11. Chapter Nine — Deep Concord
12. Chapter Ten — Deep Conflict

Other Plantinga Posts

On "Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience"

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 1)
The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 2)

Preface

Worldview Terminology

Plantinga's use of terminology is a bit quirky. From the first page:

"I take naturalism to be the thought that there is no such person as God, or anything like God. Naturalism is stronger than atheism: you can be an atheist without rising to the full heights (sinking to the lowest depths?) of naturalism; but you can’t be a naturalist without being an atheist."¹

Atheism is the most straightforward term for the thought that there is no such person as God. Why didn't he say that instead? I suspect he is using naturalism as a practical synonym for what is sometimes called explicit (or strong) atheism, as opposed to implicit (or weak) atheism.² In other words, a committed naturalist holds a positive belief which rules out a God who exists beyond nature, but not everyone lacking a belief in God has given the issue much thought.

Readers can usually substitute 'atheism' for 'naturalism' in Plantinga's books and papers. This has the bonus of keeping things simpler for readers aware of the controversies surrounding the word 'naturalism.'

A Drop of Poison

Suppose I start this series by putting Plantinga in a list of famous contemporary apologists, then characterizing these apologists as immature, out of their element, and not nearly as respectable as old-school apologists like Augustine or Chesterton. I could color your entire perception of Plantinga's ideas and motivations in a way that puts him at a disadvantage.

This is a rhetorical technique called poisoning the well. I'm bringing this up only because Plantinga puts a drop or two into atheism's well. Nothing outrageous; maybe just enough to give the water a bitter tang.

"Why [Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens] choose this route is not wholly clear. One possibility, of course, is that their atheism is adolescent rebellion carried on by other means. Another (consistent with the first) is that they know of no good reasons or arguments for their views, and hence resort to schoolyard tactics. In terms of intellectual competence, the new atheists are certainly inferior to the “old atheists”—Bertrand Russell and John Mackie come to mind. They are also inferior to many other contemporary but less strident atheists—Thomas Nagel, Michael Tooley, and William Rowe, for example. We may perhaps hope that the new atheists are but a temporary blemish on the face of serious conversation in this crucial area."³

I have no objection to Plantinga addressing less developed but popular atheistic arguments. I just wish he would hold off on negative characterizations until after discussing the arguments.

Yes, I realize it might be hypocritical of me to bring this up. I thought about waiting for the last post in the series, but decided it's something readers should notice then look past to give both Plantinga and his opponents a fair hearing.

The Greatness and Limitations of Science

Why is it so important for worldviews to be compatible with science? Plantinga calls science "the most striking and impressive intellectual phenomenon of the last half millennium," since it is a "cooperative venture" among many brilliant people which progressively builds on previous questions.

"If there were serious conflicts between religion and current science, that would be very significant; initially, at least, it would cast doubt on those religious beliefs inconsistent with current science."⁴

I couldn't help but notice that these virtues of science are on par with theology in its heyday. Theology also had a lot of smart people coming up with ideas, then more ideas building on earlier ideas. Outside claims were resisted if they seemed out of line with established theology. So I don't think Plantinga has captured the reasons why science is such a big deal across worldviews, while orthodox theologies are not.

Is science like a religion, but less so? I get this impression from passages like:

"Some treat science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation—or if not infallible (since it seems so regularly to change its mind), at any rate such that when it comes to fixing belief, science is the court of last appeal. But this can’t be right. First, science doesn’t address some of the topics where we most need enlightenment: religion, politics, and morals, for example. […] Second, science contradicts itself, both over time and at the same time. Two of the most important and overarching contemporary scientific theories are general relativity and quantum mechanics. Both are highly confirmed and enormously impressive; unfortunately, they can’t both be correct."⁵

Maybe I'm overreacting, but it seems like Plantinga is highlighting the limitations of science without highlighting its strengths (besides current popularity). Scientific inquiry does not give infallible answers sufficient for all time; it gives answers at varying levels of confidence based on the evidence currently available to many people across different cultures and worldviews.

It's also odd for Plantinga to say that science doesn't address religion in a book devoted to what science tells us about religion. Does science have any bearing on politics or morality? That will depend on some preliminary moral and political philosophy. I think both topics are a combination of ends and means; and science has a lot to say about means.


Note: The Kindle Edition does not use traditional page numbers. I'm using "k. 93" to indicate Kindle location 93. This book is 6,220 locations long.

1. Plantinga, A. (2011). Where the conflict really lies: Science, religion, and naturalism [Kindle Edition]. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. k. 93.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism
3. Plantinga (2011). k. 114.
4. ibid. k. 136.
5. ibid. k. 128.

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 2)

[...continued from here.]

Last time, I introduced Alvin Plantinga's argument that believing in both evolution and naturalism results in a general belief-reliability crisis. Since I do hold both of these beliefs, I'm motivated to reflect on his argument and figure out whether I need to make an adjustment.

Bold vs. Cautious

I would characterize Plantinga's argument as bold because he reaches for the conclusion that actual, human believers in both evolution and naturalism have a general defeater for their beliefs. At least, they do after grasping his argument.

He is suggesting that I, Garren, have better reason to believe my beliefs are mostly false than to believe my beliefs are mostly true. I can't take this seriously. It's like telling Philosophy freshmen about Descartes' demon that systematically deceives one's senses, and expecting the students to really doubt everything.

But to have a defeater for [the belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable] it isn't necessary that I believe that in fact I have been created by a Cartesian demon or been captured by those Alpha-Centaurian superscientists. It suffices for me to have such a defeater if I have considered those scenarios, and the probability that one of those scenarios is true, is inscrutable for me. It suffices if I have considered those scenarios, and for all I know or believe one of them is true. In these cases too I have a reason for doubting, a reason for withholding my natural belief that my cognitive faculties are in fact reliable.¹

Plantinga's alternative is to accept another story that an external Agent wanted me to mostly believe true things, so He tinkered with evolution to give me reliable belief-forming mechanisms...except when it comes to the stunningly important belief that He exists.

At this point, I must admit that naturalistic evolution does have a major disadvantage: there is less room to simply make up convenient stories about it.

I propose a toned down, cautious version of the argument which doesn't deal with skeptical scenarios. There's no need to claim actual, human believers in evolution and naturalism are involved in a belief-destroying vortex. Instead, Plantinga could argue that theistic evolution provides a better explanation than naturalistic evolution when it comes to the unquestioned premise that we do have (more or less) reliable belief-forming mechanisms, i.e:

If true, theistic evolution would neatly explain why we have reliable belief-forming mechanisms.

If true, naturalistic evolution would provide a very poor explanation of why we have reliable belief-forming mechanisms.

By inference to the better explanation, theism beats out naturalism.

Can Naturalistic Evolution Offer A Decent Explanation?

Suppose evolution is true and naturalism provably can't ever provide a decent explanation for our (more or less) reliable beliefs. Naturalists might still resist the notion of divine intervention because of other considerations that count against theism or for naturalism, but I grant that the consideration we're considering would be a strong point against naturalism.

Now, the important question is whether Plantinga is offering a reason to think naturalism can't ever provide an explanation, or is he merely pointing out the current lack of such an explanation? It would be easy to dismiss him, if his argument were another "How could evolution design an eye?" or some similar structural mystery. These questions keep turning up reasonable answers.² But it's clear that the kind of "beliefs" he is concerned about are not just a matter of physical structure.

To paraphrase:

Naturalists these days all seem to be materialists. What sorts of things are beliefs under materialism? Neural events or states hooked into the overall operation of the brain. "So considered, beliefs will of course be able to enter the causal process that leads to behavior."³

But, any properly-so-called belief must also have the property of being associated with a proposition, e.g: that Frank Herbert wrote Dune. Otherwise, the neurophysiological event wouldn't really be about anything. "How does a neural event somehow get assigned a certain proposition as its content? It is hard to think of any scenarios that are as much as decently plausible."³ And, once assigned, the propositional content itself would be an irrelevant bystander to the physical operation of the brain.

So you see, the core of Plantinga's argument has to do with the nature of propositions. The naturalistic evolution of neurophysiological states (or events) which are generated in response to sensory input and which inform behavioral output goes completely unchallenged.

This makes the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism a fairly niche philosophical concern, perhaps one that is only conceivable for those who take proposition or property talk too seriously. Consider a maze-learning robot that adds information to its internal state, engages in some reasoning to infer when it has probably been dropped into a different point of a past maze, and makes goal-oriented choices based on its internal map. If the robot has reasoned that the goal is probably three feet forward, ninety degrees to the right and six inches forward again, then I would say the robot believes the goal is located there.

We could say the relevant bits of computer memory are "associated" with the propositional content that the goal is three feet forward and six inches to the right. Then we could worry how this separate content-bearing property can reach back into the robot's cybernetic brain and causally influence the bits and volts. Or, just maybe, we could question the philosopher's analysis that took the propositional content out of the realm of causally informed (and informing) bits and volts in the first place.

I admit unfamiliarity with the philosophy of propositions, but it seems plausible that they are just linguistic descriptions of possible world states. A belief may be associated with a world state without involving a linguistic description of that state (though some Postmodernists may disagree). The robot internally represents a possible state of the maze, then we use language to describe that state, and feel the description is both integral and external to the robot's electronic belief. I suspect something like this underlies Plantinga's dualistic intuition.

At any rate, his argument doesn't cause me a lot of concern about the rationality of believing in both evolution and naturalism. I'm much more inclined to think analytic philosophers sometimes generate their own problems, and this is one of those times.


1. Plantinga, A. (2002). Introduction. In Beilby, J. (Ed.), Naturalism defeated? (1-12). Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press. p 11.
2. Dawkins did a fun visual demonstration of eye evolution in Growing Up in the Universe.
3. Plantinga, A. (2002). Reply to Beilby's Cohorts. In Beilby, J. (Ed.), Naturalism defeated? (204-275). Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 212-213.

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 1)

Since Alvin Plantinga has been in the news lately promoting his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism, I thought it would be a good time to review his famous argument against naturalism from the early 90s.¹

(Note: For his more recent moral argument against naturalism, see this post.)

Taking Evolution Away From Atheists and Beating Them With It

...that's the plan, anyway! Plantinga argues that — contrary to expectations — evolutionary theory is friendly to the belief that humanity was intentionally created by God in His image, and fatally undermines the belief that humanity evolved without divine assistance.

Basically:

• Natural selection only cares (so to speak) about survival.
• Survival is not significantly affected by the truth of beliefs.
• It's unlikely, therefore, that purely natural design would produce minds adept at forming true beliefs.

Our ability to form mostly true beliefs makes sense if God intervened in our development; but if anyone believes evolution occurred without such intervention, she is left with a story of how she probably does not have a mind adept at forming true beliefs. Evolution + Naturalism = Self Defeating Belief.

Natural selection only cares (so to speak) about survival.

Pretty much, yeah.

Survival is not significantly affected by the truth of beliefs.

Here's where things get interesting. You might think it's better — in terms of survival — to have mostly true beliefs than mostly false beliefs. Plantinga questions this assumption by examining five possibilities of how beliefs and behavior relate to each other.

(Note: Early on, he focused on Possibility #5; over time, his focus has shifted to Possibility #1 as the core challenge to naturalistic evolution.)

Possibility #1 — Epiphenomenal Beliefs

He starts by drawing a distinction between beliefs as the neural structures that combine with desires to produce behavior and beliefs as carriers-of-propositional-content. The latter definition of belief is the sort that is true or false and it "can't be a matter of definition that there are neural structures or processes displaying both propositional content and causal efficacy with respect to behavior".²

Neural structures which guide behavior.
vs.
Mental stances which are true or false.

Natural selection could have designed neural structures to work in ways that produce survival-enhancing behavior, but mental stances are just extra. "[Mental stances] are not causally connected with behavior, then they would be, so to speak, invisible to evolution; and then the fact that they arose during the evolutionary history of these beings would confer no probability on the idea that they are mostly true, or mostly nearly true, rather than wildly false."²

To put it simply: true/false mental stances run free from the neural structures which affect behavior.

Possibility #2 — Same Thing

...except here Plantinga highlights the possibility that mental stances are caused by behavior or that both mental-stances and behavior are caused by a third thing. So there is a connection, but it's still invisible to natural selection.

Possibility #3 — The Form (Not Content) Affects Behavior

I read a poem very loudly, so loudly as to break a glass; the sounds I utter have meaning, but their meaning is causally irrelevant to the breaking of the glass. In the same way it might be that these creatures' beliefs have causal efficacy, but not by way of the content of those beliefs.³

Is this a real party trick he does?

Possibility #4 — Belief Content Affects Behavior, Negatively

Behavior-affecting belief content might be like sickle-cell anemia: not helpful, but genetically attached to other traits which are helpful.

Possibility #5 — Belief Content Positively Affects Behavior

The true/false mental stances we take actually do help us survive. But...true beliefs don't necessarily help more than false beliefs!

You see, beliefs have to be combined with desires to produce behavior. As Plantinga points out, "there will be any number of different patterns of belief and desire that would issue in the same action; and among those there will be many in which the beliefs are wildly false."⁴

True Belief + Desire A -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 1 + Desire B -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 2 + Desire C -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 3 + Desire D -> The Helpful Action
[...and so on]

Since natural selection only cares about the helpful action, it's more likely that one of the many possible false beliefs will be paired up with a matching desire, than that the single true belief will be paired up with its matching desire. Plantinga gives the example of a pre-historic man, Paul, who has the adaptive behavior of running away from tigers, but not because of the belief you might expect:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but whenever he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief.

[...] Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it."⁴

He goes on to give other possibilities of false beliefs being matched up with desires that result in Paul running away from tigers. The point is: natural selection has no reason (so to speak) to favor one scenario over another, so long as Paul's body survives to reproduce.

It's unlikely, therefore, that purely natural design would produce minds adept at forming true beliefs.

If this conclusion is successful, then a person who believes in naturalism + evolution has a defeater for the belief that her belief-forming faculties are reliable. This, in turn, constitutes a defeater for all of her beliefs...including the belief that naturalism is true.

Meanwhile, a person who believes in a creator God + evolution isn't stuck with an across-the-board defeater for his beliefs. In other words, evolution mixed with this kind of theism is stable, but evolution mixed with naturalism catastrophically destructs.

[continued here...]



1. See Chapter 12 of his book Warrant and Proper Function. For a shorter and more recent restatement, see the Introduction of Naturalism Defeated? which is a collection of essays on this very topic, edited by James Beilby.
2. Plantinga, P. (1993). Warrant and proper function. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 223. 
3. Ibid. p. 224. 
4. Ibid. p. 225.

Lingo: Poisoning the Well

I am at war with him; but there is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done. I say it with shame and with stern sorrow;—he has attempted a great transgression; he has attempted (as I may call it) to poison the wells.¹

To poison the well (or wells) is to use some preliminary tactic which has the effect of greatly impeding any fair and reasonable discussion. As you can see above, the term comes from an analogy to poisoning a city before attempting to take it by force. Poison may succeed where force of argument would otherwise fail.

In Federalist No. 83, Alexander Hamilton argued against making trial by jury a Constitutional requirement in civil cases. In addition to his actual arguments, he wrote: "It is conceded by all reasonable men, that it ought not to obtain in all cases." This is poisoning the well since anyone who tries to argue for trial by jury for all civil cases has already been labeled "unreasonable."

I was inspired to write this post because I ran into a rather extreme case of well poisoning in Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl's book Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air which reminded me of William Lane Craig's approach in Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Early on, both books tell horror stories about what life would be like if the positions they defend were rejected. This strongly influences readers to accept the authors' arguments uncritically and reject opposing arguments offhandedly.

Craig on the Horrors of Non-Christianity

Before examining "the question of God's existence," Craig explores "the disastrous consequences for human existence, society, and culture if Christianity should be false."² He spends page after depressing page claiming that our lives are totally without significance unless we will live forever and there is a God. Then Craig tells a story of Nazi doctors performing vivisection on pregnant women, saying this is consistent with atheism and a story about a man giving his life to save others is inconsistent with atheism.³

The choice is clear: cruel, pointless existence if there is no God vs. fulfilling, meaningful life if "biblical Christianity" is true.

(Yes, I did happen to notice that he left out many alternatives besides atheism and his brand of Christianity.)

Beckwith and Koukl on the Horrors of Moral Relativism

Chapter Two of their book is titled "What Is Moral Relativism?" But before trying to define the position they're attacking, the authors explain in Chapter One that moral relativism is about living for personal pleasure without any concern for how others are affected. To make their point, they tell a story about a group of nurses lounging in their break room, "smoking and drinking coffee," while coldly choosing to let a premature child die on the metal counter rather than try to save it or comfort it. When one nurse arrived and tried to hold it, another snatched it away and put it live into a jar of formaldehyde.⁴

This, they claim, is what moral relativism looks like. In fact, it's hardly necessary to argue against it at all!

...

I try not to use such tactics even if it would help me win rhetorically. But sometimes I wonder if choosing not to poison wells in debates is as quaint and self-restricting as many might view the choice to not poison the wells of a city before sending soldiers out to die on its walls. Am I more willing to loose respectably than win underhandedly? Maybe so.


1. From John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
2. Craig, W.L. (2008). Reasonable faith: Christian truth and apologetics (3rd ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. p. 65
3. Ibid. p. 80-82
4. Beckwith, F.J. and Koukl, G. (1998). Relativism: Feet firmly planted in mid-air. Grand rapids, MI: Baker Books. p. 21

Reading the ACLU Policy Guide (Pt. 8)

Series explanation and overview here.

Note: These are my summaries of the 1995 version of the guide, not the policies themselves.

Loyalty and Security

Policy 103 — Clear and Present Danger Test

Personal opinions are constitutionally protected unless they qualify as creating a “clear and present danger” by either being “an integral part of conduct violating a valid law” or “a direct incitement to specific and immediate violation of law” or they “threaten a danger of unlawful acts so great and so immediate that time is lacking for answer, or if need be, for other protective measures against the threats and acts.”

Protected speech includes speech against democracy, so long as it does not constitute a clear and present danger. I take this to mean that speech against free speech rights is still protected by free speech rights.

Policy 104 — ACLU and Totalitarianism

The ACLU is opposed to “any governmental or economic system which denies fundamental civil liberties and human rights.” (This is consistent with the ACLU supporting the right of other groups and individuals to express support for totalitarian systems.)

Policy 105 — Smith Act and Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950

This policy actually concerns three federal acts:

• The Alien Registration Act of 1940 (aka the Smith Act)
• The Internal Security Act of 1950 (aka the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act)
• The Communist Control Act of 1954

Besides requiring legal, adult aliens to register with the government, the Smith Act made it a crime to advocate for the violent overthrow of the US government. At first glance, this might not sound like such a bad thing to criminalize, but citizens who don't have the slightest chance of putting such ideas into action could have been imprisoned for twenty years for expressing the opinion. Furthermore, entire organizations could have been deemed in violation and all members and tangential supporters would be made criminals, without even expressing the condemned opinion personally.

Further acts specifically hounded anyone with communist associations, or who supported broadly communist ideas whether those ideas were related to violent political change or not.

The ACLU's position is that "there should be no governmental restriction on advocacy of any sort, unless the adovcacy [sic] shall cause, in the existing circumstances of its utterances, a clear and present danger of illegal action." Merely increasing the probability that listeners may choose to commit a crime later is insufficient. Regarding organizational guilt: "Guilt is personal; it may not be attributed by association." The ACLU also opposed the McCarran Act because it required members of communist organizations to report themselves, a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Policy 106 —Wartime Sedition Act

I'm a little confused about this policy. It references the "Wartime Sedition Act of 1917", but I'm finding information on the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 (a set of amendments to the first). I agree that the Sedition Act could have been "used against anyone, at virtually any time, to suppress criticism of the government in the name of national security," but I'm seeing multiple sources claiming those parts were repealed a long time ago. Recent ACLU concerns appear to be about last year's WikiLeaks fiasco, as it relates to the original espionage sections.

Policy 107 — Emergency Measures in Peacetime

The ACLU is opposed to indefinitely continuing civil rights-related measures put into play during "genuine war emergencies." This is applied to the Cold War and — I suspect — would apply to our perpetual War on Terror.

Policy 108 — House Internal Security Committee

This policy explains the ACLU's opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee (later renamed to Internal Security Committee). Instead of doing much in the way of starting legislation for the House, this Committee made a big public show of investigating citizens for expressing "un-American" ideas by a standard "so vague that a citizen cannot know whether the citizen's political activity runs afoul of the Committee's private definition of Americanism." These non-trial trials took away due process rights and chilled free speech. The Committee was dissolved by the mid 70s.

Policy 109 — State and Local Legislation

The ACLU opposes non-federal laws "dealing with advocacy of political doctrine" because there is (or was) already federal legislation in the area, and adding further restrictions just makes the civil liberties situation worse.

Policy 110 — Federal Employee Security

While the ACLU recognizes that some federal jobs directly related to national security warrant security screening, they oppose extending such screening to the many federal "non-sensitive" jobs which only require candidate fitness for the work.

The ACLU specifically opposes investigation into candidates' sexual orientation as a security matter. Apparently, it was claimed that homosexuals were a security risk because they could be blackmailed into betraying their country out of fear of expose. (Notice anything self-fulfilling here? Such investigations create or greatly increase the very motive they seek to exclude.)

Due process must be given to candidates denied positions for security concerns.

Policy 111 — Private Employment Security

The ACLU opposes the practice of any private employers investigating the national security risk of employees or requiring loyalty oaths. If a private employer is contracting with the government in a sensitive area, then the government itself should be the party to conduct security investigations of employees involved in such work.

Policy 112— Professional Associations' Membership Qualifications

Mere association with other organizations should not be grounds for removing a member from a professional association (particularly bar associations). It must be shown that a lawyer, for example, is actually not doing his or her duty as a legal professional because of "external obedience" to another organization.

However, the ACLU does recognize some latitude for not admitting a new member to a professional organization if there is thought to be a high probability he or she will not be able to conform to professional duties. This risk still needs to be evaluated on a person by person basis, not as a sweeping prejudice against the membership of other organizations.

Policy 113 — Federal Benefits and Loyalty Tests

"Loyalty oaths or disclaimers of membership in certain organizations violate the First Amendment rights of freedom of belief and association, and may never be required for participation in government-funded programs such as public housing or subsidies, welfare benefits, veteran's benefits, Social Security or Medicate."

Yes, that's the whole policy.

Policy 114 — Military Discharges

Members of the military should be treated as other federal employees, i.e. screening for security should only be done if that individual's job directly relates to national security.

Discharges must be based on job performance, not merely for exercising constitutional rights before or during service.

Policy 115 — Loyalty Oaths

Swearing non-membership in certain organizations has been required "for employment of government workers and teachers, for students seeking government aid, and for Social Security and Medicare recipients and the like." The ACLU opposes such oaths because they suppress free speech and association rights. Plus, they penalize any citizens with a conscientious objection to swearing these kind of oaths, whether they have had the associations in question or not.

Policy 116 — Governmental Surveillance

Police infiltration of organizations is contrary to the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures," i.e. those not carried out through the use of a targeted warrant issued on probable cause. Otherwise, "[e]verything that is said and everything that is done over an unlimited period of time comes into the hands of the government, no matter how private, how unconnected with a legitimate state interest."

Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there weren't a history of the government collecting files on individuals, and this to their detriment either by denying them government employment or by publicly condemning them without due process in Congressional hearings.

The ACLU does recognize the proper use of "informers" placed or recruited from organizations, if there is probable cause shown that the organization is involved — or is planning to be involved — in "serious criminal acts." A judge must issue a warrant specifying which part of the organization is to be surveilled and for how long. Warrants should be renewed by the original judge and a limit should be set on the number of renewals.

This policy also speaks against using the military to spy on citizens, against building files on citizens merely for protesting government actions, and against keeping attendance lists of lawful gatherings.

Policy 117 — Controlling the Intelligence Agencies

Bill of Rights violations on the excuse of "national security" need to end. The ACLU has a list of specific measures to remedy the situation. Some highlights:

• Implement only three categories of classified information. (1) Details of defense tech which would help other nations. (2) Tactical military details during declared war. (3) Defensive contingency plans.
• Explicitly state that any information about the US government engaging in illegal behavior is ipso facto declassified.
• Allow Congress to "unilaterally" release Executive branch information.
• Make intelligence agency budgets public.
• Create detailed charters for government agencies, and prohibit any agency activity beyond these limits.
• Rename the CIA to the FIA: Foreign Intelligence Agency. Keep it out of the domestic intelligence business entirely.
• Prohibit all CIA operations intended to secretly manipulate (or just plain overthrow) foreign governments.
• Prohibit the NSA from monitoring US-to-foreign communications.
• Destroy all current files kept on citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Policy 118 — Secret Government Aid to Private Agencies

I'm curious what circumstances prompted this 1967 policy. Apparently a government agency was secretly funding a citizen advocacy group...or something like that.  This endangers free discussion "by the clandestine introduction of ulterior motives of government policy into a supposedly open debate."

Policy 119 — Prior Restraint in National Security Situations

"The true test of our devotion to that principle [i.e. freedom of thought and expression] comes in times of stress or alarm, when those who would suppress the interchange of ideas can appeal for supposed justification to some imminent menace threatening the public welfare."

Citing United States v. The Progressive and the Pentagon Papers as instances when prior restraint "safeguarded nothing more than governmental overreaction, embarrassment, and the desire for secrecy," the ACLU believes prior restraint cannot be tolerated at the very times it is most critical that citizens have access to information.