Steven Carr

Plantinga's charge that evolution has given us unreliable faculties is refuted by Plantinga himself, who wears glasses to correct what evolution has given him


Hey, if Plantinga can correct the cognitive faculties granted to him by evolution , by using naturalist means, then perhaps Dawkins can overcome his evolution-created unreliable cognitive faculties by naturalistic means.

So what is the deep epistemological problem with having cognitive faculties shaped by natural selection, when a simple pair of prescription glasses can cure many of these problems?

Selsaral

I haven't read Plantinga, but would the placebo effect be the kind of thing he is talking about? A feature of human psychology, shaped by evolution, that doesn't necessarily accurately reflect reality?

If so, it seems to be an empty criticism. Just because people can mistakenly attribute something that has no effect as a cure doesn't mean that no cure science has produced (even as small as ibuprofin for headaches) is effective.

It sounds like he's saying 'no one is perfect'. Well duh. Doesn't mean everyone is completely flawed. People's backs break down all the time, and they also enable us to perform all the tasks that keep us alive and healthy.

Izmir Stinger

He's just moving the goal post. Evolution doesn't have to create organisms with "reliable cognitive faculties," or perfect beings, or whatever the hell he means. Absence of such is not evidence against evolution.

All evolution has to do is create species that are adapted to survive in their environment. So lets check to see if it has done that:

6.6 billion homo sapiens, living in every conceivable surface environment on the planet... I'd say it was moderately successful.

RAFH

Evolution doesn't create. Its a description of a process which life on this planet undergoes in response to changes in its environment.

Its a model of reality which is sufficiently distilled to be useful in understanding how reality works. By distilled, the meaning is to eliminate a much non-essential and non-effective data from the system as possible so one can see what data are related to what other data and the nature of that relationship.

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection has repeatedly and reliably described reality. It has not failed to do so in any significant manner. As such its considered an accurate and reliable model of reality and useful as such.

Steven Carr

Plantinga concludes that if evolution by natural selection is true, then many people will believe false things.

Many people do believe false things.

So why does he not hail the predictive power of the theory of natural selection, and its stunning confirmation when observations are compared with theoretical predictions?

Bobinius

I never had the patience to fully read his paper. The idea makes me wanna pull my hair out. I don't get it how can this stuff be published. If your epistemic sources are imperfect, that does not mean that any idea you have is likely to be false. It does not mean that the actual idea you have that your epistemic sources are imperfect, is false. I don't think that Relativity was revealed to Einstein by some freakin angel: ergo, following Plantinga, it is probably false. Right.

Plantinga does not see that religion is one of the products of evolutionary processes and cultural ones, in a naturalistic framework. And while religion is less supported and guided against error by evidence and logic, we should conclude that religion is less likely to be true, than evolution.

Anyway, I don't how his alternative theistic system solves any epistemological problem. I don't think that if we start to believe in Jesus, we aren't epistemically imperfect anymore, and less prone to error. Au contraire, it is very dubious that given a perfect creator, we ended up like this.

post tenebras lux

That was one of my thoughts when I read his <cough> 'argument' <cough>

Whenever I watch the telly, my brain 'believes' it's watching a moving image ...

moonwatcher

What amazes me is that Plantinga is considered by so many to be one of the top living christian philosophers.

One thing I think needs to be pointed out. If you're going to bring up this topic you really ought to at least name, and preferrably link to, the paper in which Plantinga presents this argument.

Here's a link to the paper NATURALISM DEFEATED

and here's a wikipedia article EVOLUTIONARY ARGUMENT AGAINST NATURALISM giving a summary of the argument and links and sources related to it as well as several criticisms of the argument by other philosophers.

The objections to his argument, of course, are quite obvious. Among them being that our cognitive faculties AREN'T all that reliable in areas not directed related to survivability (our notoriously faulty intuitions in regards to statistics, for example, which wouldn't have been terribly important for survival among our ancestors)---this is a well-confirmed fact---and precisely what one would expect of cognitive faculties shaped by evolutionary processes. And, of course, the fact that our cognitive faculties have flaws and blind spots doesn't mean they can't be corrected for by effort and training---this is what the whole history of science, philosophy and critical thinking are about. The fact that our cognitive faculties were shaped by evolution means only that we might and probably do have some natural, ingrained cognitive glitches (like our tendency to anthropomorphize natural phenomena) and that we must not assume our cognitive faculties to be naturally perfect (which no sensible person would think anyway).

RAFH

In his offering for false beliefs leading to successful behavior, there is the classic failure to distinguish between the individual and the population. Individuals may well be shaped by evolution but they are not bound by it, particularly in voluntary behavior, however evolution operates on populations, not individuals.

Given his scenarios: "Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior.", Plantiga focuses on the behavior of individuals such as Paul. That Paul survives for the wrong reason occurs regularly in evolution, not just when Paul is an idiot who would like to be eaten but doesn't think this particular tiger will eat him and so runs away or he believes its a nice pussy but thinks the best way to pet it is to run away from it but when Paul thinks the thin ice is to pretty to walk on and so doesn't crash through and drown or when Paul feels its the wrong day to fly and doesn't jump off the cliff. Idiots such as Paul may escape their fate occasionally but not very often. Its not about a singular behavior of a singular individual that factors decisively in evolution, but the general behaviors of the general populations. Worse yet, these arguments are based on a proposed being which is very recent in its evolutionary, process, a being with beliefs which normally would have been filtered out by this point. Its only a modern man who would have such luxuries and as been noted time and again, such individuals generally do get eaten.

Once again, Plantiga bases his argument, as so many theists do, on a highly improbable conditional situation. The big 'IF' in so many theistic arguments.

I am likewise amazed someone with Plantiga's supposed reputation would make such suggestions.

Draconis

Evolution just provides those that survive the means to go on surviving, not perfection. Hence no supermen flying around.