Design Arguments for Theism

The design argument for the existence of God appears most often in two forms. One is the analogical design argument , the argument that the natural world is the product of design, because it resembles the products of human design. The other commonly identified version is the confirmation of hypothesis argument for an intelligent designer, in which the design hypothesis is argued to be more highly confirmed by the order and complexity in the natural world than is the complement hypothesis (...) of no design. ;Opinion among philosophers differs widely regarding the logical status and inductive value of these DA forms. I show that these forms are logically distinct by developing a theory of binary analogical argument . Binary analogical arguments can be represented in a model which obeys the probability calculus, and in which the probability values are supplied by intuitive personal probability estimations. ;An outcome of this analysis is that any such arguments possessing inductive strength logically cannot have as their conclusion the entire domain of discourse contemplated within a given argument, but rather only a proper subset of that domain. Since the conclusion of a religiously acceptable ADA must always concern the entire domain of discourse, it follows that no religiously acceptable ADA can possess any inductive strength. Then, since this consideration does not apply to the CHDA, it follows that it is logically distinct from the ADA. ;This logical distinction is a necessary preliminary to any clear evaluation of DAs, for it shows that the ADA cannot be inductively successful, but that this failure holds no logical implications for the CHDA. Further, the sufficient reason for the failure of the ADA does not concern the quality or quantity of the evidence appealed to in different ADAs, but rather the unsuitability of analogical argument as a vehicle for this sort of theistic reasoning. (shrink)

This paper continues a dialogue that began with an article by Jeffrey Koperski entitled “Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones,” published in the June 2008 issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. In a response article, Christopher Pynes argues that ad hominem arguments are sometimes legitimate, especially when critiquing Intelligent Design . We show that Pynes's examples only apply to matters of testimony, not the kinds of arguments found in the best defenses of ID.

. Because of similarities between some implications of Michael Polanyi's theory of personal knowledge and intelligent design, claims have been made that his theory provides support to the project of intelligent design. This essay contends that, when Polanyi's reflections on a Ideological framework for contextualizing evolutionary biology are properly understood as a heuristic vision, his position contrasts sharply with the empirical claims made on behalf of intelligent design.

Science, then, may never replace religion in the lives of most people and in any society that hopes to survive for very long. But neither can religion replace science if humankind hopes to unlock nature's material secrets. And parodies of science, like the so-called "theory" of intelligent design, only cripple science education.

The thesis examines the natural theological enterprise of combining the separate evidence for theism into one cumulative case. I find that the cumulative approach represents the best available strategy for the natural theologian, but that the explanatory/interpretive form of cumulative argument cannot accomplish what some defenders of the argument have assumed. ;I begin with a short history of the cumulative approach, in which the emphasis is on giving the reader an idea of the great diversity among those cumulative arguments that (...) have already been given. ;In Chapter 2, I discuss what I take to be some of the central logical aspects of the cumulative approach, such as the division of labor between the arguments in establishing distinct theistic claims. ;In Chapter 3, I consider two broad cumulative methods: the formalist approach, which involves applying a formal calculus of confirmation to the theistic evidence; and the informalist approach, according to which a formal apparatus is inadequate to capture the evidential force of various evidence. I find that particular reasons given to justify abandoning inverse-probability as a natural theological form of argument are uncompelling. ;In Chapter 4, I consider the prospects of using inverse-probability arguments to show that, on the total evidence, theism has higher epistemic probability than a naturalistic alternative, which I refer to as N. Given the difficulty in making assignments of prior probability based on the sole criterion of simplicity, and given the possibility of making the debate between the two views turn primarily on priors, the prospects for showing that N is untenable are dim. ;In the fifth Chapter I consider what I take to be a more fundamental problem with using natural theology in an offensive, as opposed to a merely defensive fashion. God's hiddenness is a fact typically explained by theists in ways that undermine natural theology used offensively. ;In the final chapter, I consider some issues connected with the philosophical defense of atheism, and the implications of my findings in Chapter 5 for how such a defense may be executed. (shrink)

Dene Bebbbington explains, and criticises, the intelligent design creationism of William Dembski.

In Darwin's Black Box: The BiochemicalChallenge to Evolution I argued thatpurposeful intelligent design, rather thanDarwinian natural selection, better explainssome aspects of the complexity that modernscience has discovered at the molecularfoundation of life. In the five years since itspublication the book has been widely discussedand has received considerable criticism. Here Irespond to what I deem to be the mostfundamental objections. In the first part ofthe article I address empirical criticismsbased on experimental studies alleging eitherthat biochemical systems I discussed are notirreducibly complex (...) or that similar systemshave been demonstrated to be able to evolve byDarwinian processes. In the remainder of thearticle I address methodological concerns,including whether a claim of intelligent designis falsifiable and whether intelligent designis a permissible scientific conclusion. (shrink)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 13401 "Automatic Application Tuning for HPC Architectures". This workshop featured a series of talks and four breakout sessions on hot topics in the are of autotuning. The field of autotuning for HPC applications is of growing interest and many research groups around the world are currently involved. However, the field is still rapidly evolving with many different approaching being taken to autotuning. This workshop provided an opportunity to discuss these (...) many approaches, and help to unify the terminology used by different groups. (shrink)

Matthew D. Eddy and David Knight’s new edition of William Paley’s Natural Theology deserves to become the standard scholarly edition of what is a historically, theologically, and philosophically important work, despite a certain neglect of philosophical issues on the part of the editors.

Philosophical naturalism, according to which philosophy is continuous with the natural sciences, has dominated the Western academy for well over a century; but Michael Rea claims that it is without rational foundation, and that the costs of embracing it are surprisingly high. Rea argues compellingly to the surprising conclusion that naturalists are committed to rejecting realism about material objects, materialism, and perhaps realism about other minds. That is surely a price that naturalists are unwilling to pay: this philosophical orthodoxy should (...) be rejected. (shrink)

Philosophical naturalism, according to which philosophy is continuous with the natural sciences, has dominated the Western academy for well over a century; but Michael Rea claims that it is without rational foundation, and that the costs of embracing it are surprisingly high. The first part of World Without Design aims to provide a fair and historically informed characterization of naturalism. Rea then argues compellingly to the surprising conclusion that naturalists are committed to rejecting realism about material objects, materialism, and perhaps (...) realism about other minds. This conclusion is striking, largely because naturalism is often simply identified with materialism, and the remaining two theses are ones that naturalists very typically want to endorse. Rea goes on to examine two alternative research programs: intuitionism and supernaturalism, and argues for the conclusion that intuitionism, under certain circumstances, is self-defeating.World Without Design offers a provocative challenge to philosophical orthodoxy. It will make uncomfortable reading for many philosophers. (shrink)

The design inference uncovers intelligent causes by isolating the key trademark of intelligent causes: specified events of small probability. Just about anything that happens is highly improbable, but when a highly improbable event is also specified (i.e., conforms to an independently given pattern) undirected natural causes lose their explanatory power. Design inferences can be found in a range of scientific pursuits from forensic science to research into the origins of life to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.