A Design Argument From Cognitive Reliability You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see what appear to be three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence is based on your taking the rock piles as more than merely natural formations. You take them as providing information about the trail's direction, which is to say that you to take them as trail markers, as meaning something, as about something distinct from themselves, as exhibiting intentionality, to use a philosopher's term of art. The intentionality, of course, is derivative rather than intrinsic. It is not part of your presupposition that the rock piles of themselves mean anything. Obviously they don't. But it is part of the presupposition that the rock piles are physical embodiments of the intrinsic intentionality of a trail-blazer or trail-maintainer. Thus the presupposition is that an intelligent being designed the objects in question with a definite purpose, namely, to indicate the trail's direction. Of course, the two rock piles might have come into existence via purely natural causes: a rainstorm might have dislodged some rocks with gravity plus other purely material factors accounting for their placement. Highly unlikely, but possible. This possibility shows that the appearance of design does not entail design. Nevertheless, your taking of the rock piles as trail markers presupposes (entails) that they are designed. It would clearly be irrational to take the rock piles as evidence of the trail's direction while at the same time maintaining that their formation was purely accidental. And if you found out that they had come into being by chance due to an earthquake, you would cease interpreting them as providing information about the trail. One must either take the rock piles as meaningful and thus designed or as undesigned and hence meaningless. One cannot take them as both undesigned and meaningful. For their meaning -- 'the trail goes that-a-way' -- derives from a designer. Now consider our incredibly complex sense organs. We rely on them to provide information about the physical world. I rely on eyesight, for example, both to know that there is a trail and to discern some of its properties. I rely on hearing to inform me of the presence of a rattlesnake. I rely on my brain to draw inferences from what I see and hear, inferences that purport to be true of states of affairs external to my body. The visual apparatus (eye, optic nerves, visual cortex and all the rest) exhibits apparent design. It is as if the eyes were designed for the purpose of seeing. But the appearance of design is no proof of real design. And indeed, human beings with their sensory apparatus are supposed to have evolved by a process of natural selection operating upon random mutations. If so, eye and brain are cosmic accidents. But if this is the case, how can we rely on our senses to inform us about the physical world? If eye and brain are cosmic accidents, then we can no more rely on them to inform us about the physical world than we can rely on an accidental collocation of rocks to inform us about the direction of a trail. As a matter of fact, we do rely on our senses. Our reliance may be mistaken in particular cases as when a bent stick appears as a snake. But in general our reliance on our senses for information about the world is justified. Our senses are thus reliable: they tend to produce true beliefs more often than not when functioning properly in their appropriate environments. We rely on our senses in mundane matters but also when we do science, and in particular when we do evolutionary biology. The problem is: How is our reliance on our sense organs justified if they are the accidental and undesigned products of natural selection operating upon random mutations? To put it in terms of rationality: How could it be rational to rely on our sense organs (and our cognitive apparatus generally) if evolutionary biology in its naturalistic (Dawkins, Dennett, et al.) guise provides a complete account of this cognitive apparatus? How could it be rational to affirm both that our cognitive faculties are reliable, AND that they are accidental products of blind evolutuionary processes? I agree with Richard Taylor who writes: . . . it would be irrational for one to say both that his sensory and cognitive faculties had a natural, nonpurposeful origin and also that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves, something that is not merely inferred from them. (Metaphysics, 3rd ed. p. 104) This suggests the following design argument: 1. It is rational to rely on our cognitive faculties to provide access to truths external to them. 2. It is rational to rely on our cognitive faculties only if they embody the purposes of an intelligent designer. Therefore 3. Our cognitive faculties embody the purposes of an intelligent designer. To resist this argument, the naturalist must deny (2). But to deny (2) is to accept the rationality of believing both that our cognitive faculties arose by accident and that they produce reliable beliefs. It is to accept the rationality of something that, on the face of it, is irrational.
Now consider our incredibly complex sense organs. incrediby complex only to you, subjective and irrelevent We rely on them to provide information about the physical world. not for scientific purposes... we use instruments to make measurements I rely on eyesight, for example, both to know that there is a trail and to discern some of its properties. I rely on hearing to inform me of the presence of a rattlesnake. I rely on my brain to draw inferences from what I see and hear, inferences that purport to be true of states of affairs external to my body. The visual apparatus (eye, optic nerves, visual cortex and all the rest) exhibits apparent design. It is as if the eyes were designed for the purpose of seeing. But the appearance of design is no proof of real design. And indeed, human beings with their sensory apparatus are supposed to have evolved by a process of natural selection operating upon random mutations. If so, eye and brain are cosmic accidents. But if this is the case, how can we rely on our senses to inform us about the physical world? If eye and brain are cosmic accidents, then we can no more rely on them to inform us about the physical world than we can rely on an accidental collocation of rocks to inform us about the direction of a trail. what trail? there is no such analogy in the natural world, no such structure like your 'trail'. You have constructed a strawman As a matter of fact, we do rely on our senses. Our reliance may be mistaken in particular cases as when a bent stick appears as a snake. But in general our reliance on our senses for information about the world is justified. Our senses are thus reliable: they tend to produce true beliefs more often than not when functioning properly in their appropriate environments. We rely on our senses in mundane matters but also when we do science, and in particular when we do evolutionary biology. The problem is: How is our reliance on our sense organs justified if they are the accidental and undesigned products of natural selection operating upon random mutations? our senses are unreliable, that is why we use instruments and the scientific method To put it in terms of rationality: How could it be rational to rely on our sense organs (and our cognitive apparatus generally) if evolutionary biology in its naturalistic (Dawkins, Dennett, et al.) guise provides a complete account of this cognitive apparatus? How could it be rational to affirm both that our cognitive faculties are reliable, AND that they are accidental products of blind evolutuionary processes? I agree with Richard Taylor who writes: . . . it would be irrational for one to say both that his sensory and cognitive faculties had a natural, nonpurposeful origin and also that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves, something that is not merely inferred from them. (Metaphysics, 3rd ed. p. 104) oh there we go- Metaphysics! should have known, I bet it also has a chapter on how to use a crack pipe and oujia board This suggests the following design argument: 1. It is rational to rely on our cognitive faculties to provide access to truths external to them. 2. It is rational to rely on our cognitive faculties only if they embody the purposes of an intelligent designer. Therefore 3. Our cognitive faculties embody the purposes of an intelligent designer. flimsy, very flimsy
The last sentence is an irritatingly common misrepresentation of faith. Faith is not believing despite the lack of evidence, faith is believing despite the fact that the evidence falls short of proof. Anyway, Davies is going to argue that science, like religion, is ultimately based on faith: "You couldn't be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified. My faith is supported by the vast amount of evidence around me such as working computers and medicines. If this falls apart tomorrow- so be it. I have no emotional attachment to it unlike religious faith. This type of faith is simply an assumption needed to exist in everyday life. The alternative to natural order is chaos, haven't seen it yet so it seems like a good assumption that the laws of physics will still hold in the morning. A chaotic universe would be one we could not exist in, a rather pointless discussion.
It's called theory because of the problem of induction. No sceptic, or anyone has read some Hume, Kuhn, Feyarabend (basic required reading for anyone who is not content being an uneducated rube) etc actually has faith in anything, let alone science. You ought to educate yourself more, unless you are one of those people who think that setting up straw men then attacking them is anything resembling true debate.
Where's your evidence that any of those beliefs are based on faith? Any rational person holding any of those beliefs would abandon them if strong enough evidence came to light that they were wrong. Thus they are not faith-driven beliefs, but beliefs driven by what people consider to be evidence. All sceptical empiricists hold all scientific beliefs (i.e. theories) to be falsifiable, and vulnerable to the induction problem (i.e. that the future cannot be guaranteed to be like the past). Therefore by definition they don't have faith in anything. All their beliefs are tentative "best guesses" based on available evidence and how it seems to fit together, and would be willingly abandoned if a better and more plausible way of explaining the universe came along. Almost no religious believers think this way. They have faith, and will ignore evidence against their position no matter how strong. The few intellectually honest theologians admit that religious belief is based ultimately on faith rather than strong empirical evidence.
There is no proof there are little green men on Jupiter. There is no proof there aren't little green men on Jupiter. By your logic, explaining why one doesn't believe in little green men on Jupiter would make one look stupid. This is an absurd conclusion, therefore your logic is wrong - some might even say it makes you look like an idiot
the existence of little green men on Jupiter is so unimportant that arguing over it is just retarded same with God, he is so cheap and useless, there is no point in caring if he exists or not, unless you can't find anything else to kill time with
It's his homework assignment. [/QUOTE] Actually it's a theory that uses science to explain creation. When you clowns answer the simple question we will proceed.