Matter, truth, and C. S. Lewis

We are compelled to admit between the thoughts of a terrestrial astronomer and the behaviour of matter several light-years away that particular relation which we call truth. But this relation has no meaning at all if we try to make it exist between the matter of the star and the astronomer’s brain, considered as a lump of matter. The brain may be in all sorts of relations to the star no doubt: it is in a spatial relation, and a time relation, and a quantitative relation. But to talk of one bit of matter as being true about another bit of matter seems to me to be nonsense.{18}

C. S. Lewis "De Futilitate" 

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

This book revolutionized how we look at science. Here is an account of it.

Dawkins fails the defeasability test

Here.  Matt McCormick's Defeasibility test is here.

Motivated reasoning isn't science, so long as we don't like your motives?

I'm Skeptical wrote:

"So is the denial of design (or perhaps the failure to mention design) a necessary condition for doing science?"

No. What's necessary for doing science is to follow scientific method. Victor, you don't seem to understand why ID is shunned by the scientific community. It isn't because it is based on religious beliefs. It is because of the fact that it isn't science. 

In science, you have to be driven by the evidence. The folks from DI are driven by their beliefs. They search for evidence to support what they already believe. That's not scientific method, because it leads them to ignore evidence that doesn't fit their objective. If you ignore evidence, you can't hope to move scientific understanding forward.

OK, let me see. I think most of us would say that Richard Lewontin is a scientist, right? Here's what he wrote. Now you may agree with it or not, that's not the point. The point is, that if you are driven by your beliefs, you'll ignore evidence that doesn't fit your objective, right? You've seen the quote, surely. 

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen.

Now,  based on this, how can anyone use the reasons you provided for denying that ID is science, and also say that Lewontin is also doing science. Or is it that you can't reason from pre-established beliefs so long as they are materialist pre-established beliefs? 

Interview with Mario Beauregard

Here. 

Death Panels in Oregon: Some issues for assisted suicide

Here. 

Arguments that Don't Mix One More Time

So is the denial of design (or perhaps the failure to mention design) a necessary condition for doing science? Fine, we can go that way. But if you do, it then becomes trivially true that scientists haven't discovered any design. The minute they claim to have discovered it, you can then say they've stopped doing science. Heads, I win, tails you lose. If science answers the question of whether or not there is design, then there has to be a mechanism within science to identify it it is (or had been) there. Otherwise, it's like saying "I took a metal detector all of the beach and didn't find that $100 bill that I lost. I guess someone must have taken it."

A peer reviewed paper that supports ID

Here.  Oh, but there are no such papers.

A Reply of mine on Debunking Christianity

The discussion is here. 

You say we need evidence of design. On your view, is such evidence of design by non-humans even conceivable, or do you accept in-principle arguments that rule it out? A lot of times people say "Show me the evidence, and then, come to find out, they buy in on in-principle arguments that rule out those kinds of design inferences across the board. For example, if the galaxies in the Virgo Cluster were to spell out the words "Turn or burn, SmilidonsRetreat This Means You", there are arguments that lead to the conclusion that even if such a case, attributing that to God would be to commit the God of the Gaps fallacy. So, when you say "Show me the evidence," I would like to know if there is some possible evidence you might accept. See Lydia McGrew's discussion here.

http://www.christendomreview.c...

Finally, you say, To consider design as an option, we need to know who did the designing? How? When? On what things?

No, I am afraid I don't buy that principle. Consider McGrew again.

It would be a very different matter if, far in the future, we managed to take pictures of the region around Alpha Centauri (where no humans had ever gone) and found incontrovertible evidence that a Volkswagen Beetle was orbiting a planet there. We might indeed wonder why anyone, particularly any non-human, would want to make that object just there. Nonetheless, the fact that the object would be virtually type identical to objects known to be made by agents, and the vanishingly small probability of its arising in any non-intentional fashion, would make it only reasonable to conclude that the car was designed by someone or other. The design claim in biology is best construed as saying something much like this: We have found complex biological machines. These machines, being in some cases part of the human body, or predating human life on earth, could not have been made by humans. But even if we do not know who designed such machines or why, it does not follow that we are incapable of telling that they were designed.

http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Phi...

Utilitarianism and racial justice

Suppose a utilitarian were visiting an area in which there was racial strife, and that, during his visit, a Negro rapes a white woman, and that race riots occur as a result of the crime, white mobs, with the connivance of the police, bashing and killing Negroes, etc. Suppose too that our utilitarian is in the area of the crime when it is committed such that his testimony would bring about the conviction of a particular Negro. If he knows that a quick arrest will stop the riots and lynchings, surely, as a utilitarian, he must conclude that he has a duty to bear false witness in order to bring about the punishment of an innocent person (127).

H. J. McCloskey

Dostoyevsky was right!

If there is no God, then everything is permitted. According to this atheist. HT: Triablogue.

A redated post.

"I don't want to discuss evidence"--Richard Dawkins

Richard seemed uneasy and said, “I’m don’t want to discuss evidence”. “Why not?” I asked. “There isn’t time. It’s too complicated. And that’s not what this programme is about.” The camera stopped.


Here. 

Feser on the Courtier's Reply

Here.  It reminds me of the comments of Representative Earl Landgrebe, who, confronted with the evidence for Nixon's guilt during Watergate, said “Don't confuse me with the facts. I've got a closed mind.” 

Lowder on the Pastafarian analogy

Nothing gnu here from Lowder, and believe me that's a compliment.

Lydia McGrew on In-Principle Arguments against Miracles

I think this would be a good occasion to bring up a suspicion of mine, and a source of frustration for me. On the one hand, the atheist seems to be complaining about lack of evidence, or claiming that the evidence supports his own atheistic view. That seems to suggest that the world happens to be one that lacks evidence for a deity, and even empirical evidence for a deity.

However, there also seem to be in-principle arguments designed to show that saying Godidit is wrong on principle. It seems to me that if a skeptic says we don't have any evidence, or any empirical evidence for God, the soul, or whatever, we need to first ask them what they think of attempts to show that that sort of evidence is impossible in principle. If the skeptic claims to reject such arguments, then we have to insist that the skeptic be consistent in rejecting them, and that they not bring them in through the back door as the discussion proceeds.

As Lydia McGrew writes:

Among in-principle objections, a set frequently encountered involves the claim that it is always illicit to use the action of God (characterized dismissively by the atheist as the claim “God did it!”) as an hypothesized cause for any event in the real world. When we consider that atheists also think Christians irrational for believing on the basis of insufficient evidence, the “heads I win; tails you lose” nature of this objection should be self-evident. How is it at all reasonable to tell Christians that they do not have enough evidence for their belief and then to tell them, in the next breath, that any evidence they do bring to the bar must be ruled out of court? Yet the claim that Divine action can never be rationally hypothesized can be surprisingly slippery and hence can seem surprisingly difficult to answer.

McGrew's paper is here. 

Oderberg on the first two ways

Here.  You can go in through Oderberg's index here.  It's number 37.

Let's try this.

Feser reviews A Universe From Nothing

Here.  HT: Mark Shea.

Can faith be rational?

A decision theorist thinks that the answer is yes.

An interview with Alvin Plantinga

Here. 

God, Authority, and Electrons

Atheists often make the claim that the burden of proof lies with the believer, not the unbeliever. They would ask whether you can prove that the nonexistence of anything. Rather, it should be up to the person who makes the positive claim to provide proof, not the people trying to prove a negative. 

However, there are many things that are invisible that I might have trouble proving. Let's take electrons,  for example. I've never seen one myself. Many people believe in them simply on the authority of scientists. People also believe in God, even though they can't see God, because they take his existence on the basis of authorities. What's the difference?