Sober on Naturalism

[perplexedseeker]

Some of you here may be familiar with Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism", in which he claims that it's not rationally possible to hold to both metaphysical naturalism and natural selection at once. Understandably, this is a bold claim which many have rejected (I don't think much of it myself). One of the people to critique it is Eliot Sober (you may have heard of him as Fodor's nemesis vis. his arguments against natural selection). What you may not know is that Sober has his own reasons for thinking that evolutionary theory suggests that naturalism is false, even though he thinks Plantinga's argument fails.

philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/Evolution%20without%20naturalism%20dec%202008.pdf

Read and enjoy. I believe that Sober is an agnostic heading towards atheist in his personal convictions, but this is an interesting and readable reminder that an atheism and naturalism are separate propositions that we shouldn't mix together.

[unkleE]

I've not come across Sober before, but that was an impressive paper (to me at least) - he seemed to show a great grasp of a wide range of disciplines, and he seemed to be impartially rigorous.

It is interesting, I am currently reading WL Craig's "Reasonable Faith", and he briefly alludes (p187, third edition) to a "Conceptualist argument" for the existence of God, which is based on the non-material existence of numbers and propositions. It's not all that far from some of Sober's ideas.

[perplexedseeker]

Glad you found it worthwhile. I found a lot of his other stuff on his web page quite interesting and evenhanded as well. He has also put up several critiques of the "gene-centred" models of evolution in which he argues they don't prove what their supporters want them to about group selection. There's even one where he suggests that Occam's Razor does not apply to biology, even though it is useful in physics.

[unkleE]

Dec 3, 2010 14:25:36 GMT perplexedseeker said:

He has also put up several critiques of the "gene-centred" models of evolution in which he argues they don't prove what their supporters want them to about group selection. There's even one where he suggests that Occam's Razor does not apply to biology, even though it is useful in physics.

I don't take much of an interest in evolution (I have simply decided that I'll trust the scientific conclusions of the consensus of scientists, and allow peer review to weed out the wrong ideas), but my impression is that there's a faith element to some conclusions (e.g. everything has a natural selection explanation), and a rather shrill persecution of those who challenge orthodoxy. It is good that Sober is challenging things. Do you know if many people are listening?

[Deleted]

Dec 2, 2010 19:06:49 GMT perplexedseeker said:

Some of you here may be familiar with Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism", in which he claims that it's not rationally possible to hold to both metaphysical naturalism and natural selection at once. Understandably, this is a bold claim which many have rejected (I don't think much of it myself).

What literature on the EAAN have you read to come to this conclusion? The EEAN shows that although theism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled theist.