Plantinga Changed His Mind

[seer]

Looks like this is Plantinga's response to Ruse. The quote below relevant to this discussion is taken from the full article, found here:
http://chronicle.com/article/Evoluti...ths-and/64990/

Plantinga writes:
----------------------
I do think that evolution has become a modern idol of the tribe. But of course it doesn't even begin to follow that I think the scientific theory of evolution is false. And I don't.

Ruse claims I am an "open enthusiast of intelligent design." ("Open" enthusiast? Is enthusiasm for intelligent design supposed to be something you should shamefacedly conceal, like addiction to watching soap operas?) Another missed distinction. Like any Christian (and indeed any theist), I believe that the world has been created by God, and hence "intelligently designed." The hallmark of intelligent design, however, is the claim that this can be shown scientifically; I'm dubious about that.

"Why," asks Ruse, "does Plantinga feel this way?" Because, he says, "In his view, Darwinism implies that there is and can be no direction in life's history." Still another missed distinction. As far as I can see, God certainly could have used Darwinian processes to create the living world and direct it as he wanted to go; hence evolution as such does not imply that there is no direction in the history of life. What does have that implication is not evolutionary theory itself, but unguided evolution, the idea that neither God nor any other person has taken a hand in guiding, directing or orchestrating the course of evolution. But the scientific theory of evolution, sensibly enough, says nothing one way or the other about divine guidance. It doesn't say that evolution is divinely guided; it also doesn't say that it isn't. Like almost any theist, I reject unguided evolution; but the contemporary scientific theory of evolution just as such—apart from philosophical or theological add-ons—doesn't say that evolution is unguided. Like science in general, it makes no pronouncements on the existence or activity of God.

Thanks for that GakuseiDon. It clears up a number of misconceptions about Plantinga suggested in this thread.

[whag]

Thanks for that GakuseiDon. It clears up a number of misconceptions about Plantinga suggested in this thread.

Which misconceptions?

I do think that evolution has become a modern idol of the tribe. But of course it doesn't even begin to follow that I think the scientific theory of evolution is false. And I don't.

The issue at hand hasn't been clarified. Plantinga still hasn't explained why in 1991 he grumbled about a lack of ID courses at Oxford. He's claimed that's the result of secular academics refusing to examine ID, rather than ID bringing nothing to the table to teach.
In his response to Judge Jones, he addressed none of the key facts of the trial, but instead focused on the Judge's overreach in declaring ID unscientific. He believes philosophers should be making those decisions, not scientists and judges.

Then there's the matter of him accepting evolution. Yes, he does...in the same manner that Behe and Dembski do. In other words, structures such as bacterial flaggela and other molecular machines--even the really nasty ones--can only have been assembled by divine command. Do you see the problem with that? Ruse and others do, which is why Plantings has earned this harsh analysis.

[OingoBoingo]

Thanks for that GakuseiDon. It clears up a number of misconceptions about Plantinga suggested in this thread.

Plantinga strikes me as the kind of guy who finds merit in the investigations of the ID movement while acknowledging that as a philosopher and not a scientist, he has to be careful about saying what those investigations will prove scientifically. As a philosopher and a thinker, he can make philosophical arguments, like... does methodological naturalism limit what the sciences can investigate? Is intelligent design something that ought to be investigated scientifically? Is the theory of evolution (no matter one's views on it) an untouchable and unquestionable idol within academia? Should it be?

Also, Plantinga defines intelligent design in different ways depending on context, and I think that confuses people. Broadly, ID refers to the classical idea that God created the universe and everything in it. Something that all theists believe. This may or may not include the theory of evolution. In a narrower context is the belief God has a direct helping hand in guiding evolution. Guidance may have been done by teasing out the biology on a microscopic level, and/or by creating the conditions on a more macroscopic level that would eventually effect the microscopic level (comet hits the earth causing the conditions for mammals to inherit the earth, or something of that nature). Then there's also the contemporary ID movement, the Discovery Institute and all that jazz, and when people talk about ID they're often talking specifically about what that movement teaches, and that Plantinga at times has thrown his support behind.

Plantinga thinks that Ruse and others are trying to pigeonhole his views on the subject, while he thinks his views are far more nuanced than he's given credit for. I think Plantinga is happy that the contemporary ID movement is thinking outside the box, while being careful to say whether the conclusions they reach are necessarily true.

All of the above is said to clarify my understanding of Plantinga's position on the matter, and not to side with either side. I will say that I think both sides make some valid points.

[seer]

Plantinga strikes me as the kind of guy who finds merit in the investigations of the ID movement while acknowledging that as a philosopher and not a scientist, he has to be careful about saying what those investigations will prove scientifically. As a philosopher and a thinker, he can make philosophical arguments, like... does methodological naturalism limit what the sciences can investigate? Is intelligent design something that ought to be investigated scientifically? Is the theory of evolution (no matter one's views on it) an untouchable and unquestionable idol within academia? Should it be?

Also, Plantinga defines intelligent design in different ways depending on context, and I think that confuses people. Broadly, ID refers to the classical idea that God created the universe and everything in it. Something that all theists believe. This may or may not include the theory of evolution. In a narrower context is the belief God has a direct helping hand in guiding evolution. Guidance may have been done by teasing out the biology on a microscopic level, and/or by creating the conditions on a more macroscopic level that would eventually effect the microscopic level (comet hits the earth causing the conditions for mammals to inherit the earth, or something of that nature). Then there's also the contemporary ID movement, the Discovery Institute and all that jazz, and when people talk about ID they're often talking specifically about what that movement teaches, and that Plantinga at times has thrown his support behind.

Plantinga thinks that Ruse and others are trying to pigeonhole his views on the subject, while he thinks his views are far more nuanced than he's given credit for. I think Plantinga is happy that the contemporary ID movement is thinking outside the box, while being careful to say whether the conclusions they reach are necessarily true.

All of the above is said to clarify my understanding of Plantinga's position on the matter, and not to side with either side. I will say that I think both sides make some valid points.

I suspect OingoBoingo that the above is correct - the problem is that this thread had one purpose - to slander Plantinga or discredit him in some fashion.

[OingoBoingo]

I suspect OingoBoingo that the above is correct - the problem is that this thread had one purpose - to slander Plantinga or discredit him in some fashion.

Well, yeah... :)

[shunyadragon]

Plantinga strikes me as the kind of guy who finds merit in the investigations of the ID movement while acknowledging that as a philosopher and not a scientist, he has to be careful about saying what those investigations will prove scientifically. As a philosopher and a thinker, he can make philosophical arguments, like... does methodological naturalism limit what the sciences can investigate? Is intelligent design something that ought to be investigated scientifically? Is the theory of evolution (no matter one's views on it) an untouchable and unquestionable idol within academia? Should it be?

First Plantinga makes too many assaults on Methodological Naturalism and the Scientific Evolution to consider his views only philosophical. Plantinga (and ingoBoingo) apparently are not wiling to acknowledge that Methodological Naturalism can only investigate that which can be falsified by hypothesis and theories of our Physical existence. Evolution and other scientific hypothesis have never been untouchable and unquestionable idols within Scientific academia. When you journey outside the objective world to the subjective theology and philosophy (not the Philosophy of science) the fog index is too high for science to operate.

The following summarizes Plantinga's view on the scientific Evolution which he describes as (GEM)

The Grand Evolutionary Myth

Since I have dealt with this example elsewhere (in the essays referred to in footnote 3) I can be brief here. Consider the Grand Evolutionary Myth (GEM). According to this story, organic life somehow arose from non-living matter by way of purely natural means and by virtue of the workings of the fundamental regularities of physics and chemistry. Once life began, all the vast profusion of contemporary flora and fauna arose from those early ancestors by way of common descent. The enormous contemporary variety of life arose, basically, through natural selection operating on such sources of genetic variability as random genetic mutation, genetic drift and the like. I call this story a myth not because I do not believe it (although I do not believe it) but because it plays a certain kind of quasi-religious role in contemporary culture. It is a shared way of understanding ourselves at the deep level of religion, a deep interpretation of ourselves to ourselves, a way of telling us why we are here, where we come from, and where we are going.

Now it is certainly possible--epistemically possible,7 anyway--that GEM is true; it certainly seems that God could have done things in this way. Certain parts of this story, however, are, to say the least, epistemically shaky. For example, we hardly have so much as decent hints as to how life could have arisen from inorganic matter just by way of the regularities known to physics and chemistry.8 (Darwin found this question deeply troubling;9 at present the problem is enormously more difficult than it was in Darwin's day, now that some of the stunning complexity of even the simplest forms of life has been revealed).10 No doubt God could have done things that way if he had chosen to; but at present it looks as if he didn't choose to.

So suppose we separate off this thesis about the origin of life. Suppose we use the term 'evolution' to denote the much weaker claim that all contemporary forms of life are genealogically related. According to this claim, you and the flowers in your garden share common ancestors, though we may have to go back quite a ways to find them. Many contemporary experts and spokespersons--Francisco Ayala, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Gould, William Provine, and Philip Spieth, for example--unite in declaring that evolution is no mere theory, but established fact. According to them, this story is not just a virtual certainty, but a real certainty.11 Now why do they think so? Given the spotty character of the evidence--for example, a fossil record displaying sudden appearance and subsequent stasis and few if any genuine examples of macroevolution, no satisfactory account of a mechanism by which the whole process could have happened, and the like12--these claims of certainty seem at best wildly excessive. The answer can be seen, I think, when we realize that what you properly think about these claims of certainty depends in part on how you think about theism. If you reject theism in favor of naturalism, this evolutionary story is the only game in town, the only visible answer to the question: Where did all this enormous variety of flora and fauna come from? How did it all get here? Even if the fossil record is at best spotty and at worst disconfirming, this story is the only answer on offer (from a naturalistic perspective) to these questions.

From a theistic or Christian perspective, however, things are much less frantic. The theist knows that God created the heavens and the earth and all that they contain; she knows, therefore, that in one way or another God has created all the vast diversity of contemporary plant and animal life. But of course she isn't thereby committed to any particular way in which God did this. He could have done it by broadly evolutionary means; but on the other hand he could have done it in some totally different way. For example, he could have done it by directly creating certain kinds of creatures--human beings, or bacteria, or for that matter sparrows13 and houseflies--as many Christians over the centuries have thought. Alternatively, he could have done it the way Augustine suggests: by implanting seeds, potentialities of various kinds in the world, so that the various kinds of creatures would later arise, although not by way of genealogical interrelatedness. Both of these suggestions are incompatible with the evolutionary story.

A Christian therefore has a certain freedom denied her naturalist counterpart: she can follow the evidence14 where it leads. If it seems to suggest that God did something special in creating human beings (in such a way that they are not genealogically related to the rest of creation)15 or reptiles or whatever, then there is nothing to prevent her from believing that God did just that. Perhaps the point here can be put like this: The epistemic probability of the whole grand evolutionary story is quite different for the theist and for the naturalist. The probability of this story with respect to the evidence together with the views a theist typically holds, is much lower than its probability with respect to evidence together with the views the naturalist typically holds. So the way in which the theory of evolution is not religiously neutral is not, as with Simon's explanation of Mother Teresa, that it is straightforwardly incompatible with Christian teaching; it is rather that the view in question is much more probable with respect to naturalism and the evidence than it is with respect to theism and that evidence.

[Paprika]

Evolution and other scientific hypothesis have never been untouchable and unquestionable idol within Scientific academia.

[whag]

I suspect OingoBoingo that the above is correct - the problem is that this thread had one purpose - to slander Plantinga or discredit him in some fashion.

Discredit being the operative word, here. I haven't accused him of molesting children but for putting too much stake in the potential of ID and then blaming ID's lack of progress on haughty secularism.

He hasn't earned any credit on this issue if he sees secular education as ID's stumbling block, rather than the clear distinction between science and theology:

His words (bold mine):

We must admit, however, that it is our lack of real progress that is striking. Of course there are good reasons for this. To carry out this task with the depth, the course of competence it requires is, first of all, enormously difficult. However, it is not just the difficulty of this enterprise that accounts for our lackluster performance. Just as important is a whole set of historical or sociological conditions. You may have noticed that at present the Western Christian community isolated in the twentieth-century Western world. We Christians who go on to become professional scientists and scholars attend twentieth-century graduate schools and universities. And questions about the bearing of Christianity on these disciplines and the questions within them do not enjoy much by way of prestige and esteem in these universities. There are no courses at Harvard entitled "Molecular Biology and the Christian View of Man." At Oxford they don't teach a course called "Origins of Life from a Christian Perspective." One can't write his Ph.D. thesis on these subjects. The National Science Foundation won't look favorably on them. Working on these questions is not a good way to get tenure at a typical university; and if you are job hunting you would be ill-advised to advertise yourself as proposing to specialize in them. The entire structure of contemporary university life is such as to discourage serious work on these questions.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/dialogues/Fa...lantinga1.html

A much better case can be made that universities don't offer ID courses because a foundation of knowledge doesn't exist from which to teach the concepts. ID is clearly an evolutionary step above creationism, to be sure. Unfortunately, it has retained the trait of blaming secular institutions for erecting obstacles, rather than itself for jumping the gun.

Christian universities are well funded and have the resources to conduct ID research and run their ideas through the appropriate channels.

[shunyadragon]

Please respond intelligently, and the 'three Stooges 'Duck. Bob and Weave illustrated amusingly above.

The current challenges in this thread and others are theological and philosophical and not within scientific academia. If you feel there are challenges to evolution 'within scientific academia' please cite them.

[Paprika]

Please respond intelligently

Laughter is the intelligent response to that statement you made.

[OingoBoingo]

First Plantinga makes too many assaults on Methodological Naturalism and the Scientific Evolution to consider to consider his views only philosophical. Plantinga(and ingoBoingo) apparently are not wiling to acknowledge that Methodological Naturalism can only investigate that which can be falsified by hypothesis and theories of our Physical existence.

As usual, your post doesn't make any sense. Plantinga knows perfectly well the limitations of Methodological Naturalism. He's not attempting to redefine MN or make it do something it can't. Its the very fact that MN is limiting that he has issues with. He thinks that science should not be limited by the limitations inherit in Methodological Naturalism. Plantinga also thinks that the supernatural can be falsified, so falsifiability is not really an issue for him, but if Plantinga had issues with falsifiability, then he's not the only one. Both philosophers and scientists have had issues with it on a philosophical level for years. Recently, the outspoken atheist and cosmologist Sean Carroll has voiced issues with it here: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/...or-retirement/

Oh, and I'm not sure why you put my name in parenthesis, since I've already stated that I'm not taking a side in the debate.

Evolution and other scientific hypothesis have never been untouchable and unquestionable idols within Scientific academia.

I don't think Plantinga was limiting the issue to only scientific academia, maybe I'm wrong about that though.

[OingoBoingo]

If you feel there are challenges to evolution 'within scientific academia' please cite them.

That's precisely Plantinga's issue with it, there are no challenges to evolution within academia. Anyone who dares question the theory of evolution is met with scorn. Plantinga finds this idol-like revere problematic.

[whag]

That's precisely Plantinga's issue with it, there are no challenges to evolution within academia.

Testing evolution is a form of questioning it. Hypothesis is usually followed by action.

I'm not sure what hypotheses you and Plantinga are referring to that have received scorn and prevented further illuminating research. Can you give an example?

Anyone who dares question the theory of evolution is met with scorn.

Nope. Anyone who questions evolution without proposing a testable alternative is met with scorn. That would be DI.

Plantinga finds this idol-like revere problematic.

I find his jumping the gun problematic. First, ID must bring the data, then complaints of being treated unfairly will have merit. See bacterial flagellum.

[shunyadragon]

That's precisely Plantinga's issue with it, there are no challenges to evolution within academia. Anyone who dares question the theory of evolution is met with scorn. Plantinga finds this idol-like revere problematic.

Since the ToE only applies to the nature of the physical existence through Methodological Naturalism. How could a challenge outside science be relevant to the science of evolution?

[shunyadragon]

Testing evolution is a form of questioning it. Hypothesis is usually followed by action.

I'm not sure what hypotheses you and Plantinga are referring to that have received scorn and prevented further illuminating research. Can you give an example?

I believe he was waiting for Behe to propose hypothesis and theories for further illuminating research. I hope he was not holding his breath.