The Hump of the Camel

Last time I tried to represent simply what made Jerry Fodor’s 2007 article and the later book with Massimo Piattelli Palmarini so controversial in both the biology and philosphy communities. The reaction to them, in my view, either shows the subtlety and difficulty of the case they were making, or (as Fodor suggested in a discussion with Massimo Pigliucci) that those committed to natural selection are circling the wagons to defend their paradigm. There seems to be evidence of both, which makes it that much harder to draw conclusions about the strength of weakness of the argument.  Continue reading →

A link from a recent blog by The OFloinn led me to this old article by Jerry Fodor. Only on following it up did I realise the link (authorial and thematic) with the somewhat notorious book that followed it, What Darwin Got Wrong. I shan’t be reading the book, partly because it is written in analytical philosophy-speak, but the core ideas are clear enough in the article. I’ll look at them a bit today in “idiot’s guide” manner, and at the equally instructive reaction to them in another post. Continue reading →

I stumbled across this 2011 essay by Aristotelian-Thomist essayist The OFloinn today. A brilliant must-read that integrates so many of the scientific, historical, philosophical, metaphysical and theological issues that the all culture-war websites leave un-examined. Penman, you’ll like the reference to Shapiro in a bigger context.

My brother and I were laughing about NASA’s weekly announcements from Mars that we’re getting ever closer to finding life there. If there isn’t any, of course, we’re not close at all. But they keep telling us they’ve found the “building blocks”, and we conjectured that the next press release will say life is more likely than ever because they’ve found its absolutely most completely fundamental building blocks on Mars – ie protons, neutrons and electrons. Continue reading →

“Socrates, I have heard men say that God was able to bring mankind purposefully into being without taking any action to make it so. I would very much like to hear your opinion.”
“That is an interesting question, Cephalus. If I were to tell you that I wished to acquire exactly two billion pounds would you consider it a rational purpose?”
“I should be surprised to hear such an unphilosophical desire from your lips, Socrates. But I suppose the purpose itself to be perfectly rational, though hard to fulfil.” Continue reading →

One of the best chapters in Debating Design is that by Michael Roberts. That is because he’s capable of seeing the weaknesses both of those to whom he is sympathetic and those he opposes.

It’s a little difficult to parse where he stands in the “culture wars”, and that’s probably a good thing: he opposes both ID and Creationism, but hints at the weaknesses he finds in unguided evolution, whether materialist of theist. In fact the introductory chapter says he refuses to be identified with any strand of theistic evolution, though he clearly wishes his science to be rigorous. So I think he’d make for an interesting discussion partner, even though I’m sure I’d disagree on a lot, not least his rather censorious attitude (outside the chapter) towards allowing Creationists to speak in schools. This, quite incidentally, reminds me of the 16th and 17th century bishops, many of whom I admire, who had a tendency to turn conformity (over square hats, for example) into persecution. Surely it’s better, in the public arena, to argue “You’ve heard what this man has to say, and this is why it’s mistaken,” rather than, “We don’t let that sort in here, because this is kind of nonsense they’d say…”  Followers of the evolution culture wars will be familiar with the latter approach, and my one beef with Roberts in this chapter is that he misrepresents the actual position of ID, as I’ll briefly mention later. Continue reading →

The book Debating Design, though now nearly a decade old, is useful for understanding some of the main inputs to the current science-faith situation. Paradoxically I’m learning more about Theistic Evolutionists than Intelligent Design proponents from it, although it predates the foundation of BioLogos by several years. One of the most widely respected of the “serious” TE theorists is John Polkinghorne, probably because of his combination of mainstream scientific and theological credentials and his ability to write to a popular audience. His chapter supplements what I have learned from his Belief in God in an Age of Science and elsewhere, but leaves unresolved the problems I have with his ideas.  Continue reading →

When John Haught presents his own response to the “challenges of evolution” in Debating Design  it turns out to be essentially the same as Howard van Till’s, only a little better argued. He begins:

Once we accept evolutionary science in an intellectually serious way, we cannot have exactly the same thoughts about Providence as we had before Darwin.

That, of course, has the effect of dismissing those who follow his first alternative (see the last post) as not intellectually serious. It reminds me of those who used to say that the Enlightenment changed forever the way modern man must view religion … before Postmodernism came along and showed that nothing human is forever, and least of all in philosophy. Continue reading →