I mentioned Bradley Monton in an earlier post. Well, he has a very nice chapter forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion (Vol. II). It's entitled, "Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe". It's an excellent critique of Behe's design argument from irreducible complexity, as well as design arguments based on Dembski's explanatory filter. He also offers a great critique of Dembski's explanatory filter itself, concluding with a better model. A draft of his paper can be found here.
One reason why I think this paper is important is that it brings the recent experimental evidence that the universe is spatially infinite[1] to bear on issues in philosophy of religion.
P.S. Recall that Monton is an atheist, and yet he's a defender of the in-principle legitimacy of intelligent design in the sciences (as I mentioned in the earlier post, he's coming out with a monograph defending ID, entitled, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design). So here is yet another critique of Dembski's account of detecting design from someone not antecedently against the legitimacy of ID.
-------------------------
[1] based on the measurments of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) of the cosmic background radiation. Its measurements provide strong prima facie evidence that the universe is spatially flat, thereby providing strong prima facie evidence that it's spatially infinite.
Quick Links
- Book
- 200 (or so) Arguments for Atheism
- Index: Assessing Theism
- Why Mainstream Scholars Think Jesus Was A Failed Apocalyptic Prophet
- What's Wrong With Plantinga's Proper Functionalism?
- Draper's Critique of Behe's Design Argument
- The Failure of Plantinga's Free Will Defense
- 100 Arguments for God Answered
- Thomistic Arguments for God Answered
- On a Common Apologetic Strategy
- On Caring About and Pursuing Truth
- A Priori Naturalism, A Priori Inerrantism, and the Bible
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A Quick Objection to the Modal Ontological Argument
(From an old Facebook post of mine back in 2018) Assume Platonism about properties, propositions, and possible worlds. Such is the natural b...
No comments:
Post a Comment