Lecture #2

Andr ew Dement Philosophy Lecture 2 9/4/08 Palley?s Design Argument Still present today through the intelligent design movement Epistemically possible- might be true If we might stumble upon a stone it might have been there for eternity But if we would stumble across a watch we know that is has not been there forever bc its parts have been put together and has a purpose So the watch must have been created This is an analogy for the things we find in the biological world If we had stumbled across a human heart, it has a purpose so how could it have been around forever. If there is a desing, there must be a designer We see the appearance of design. Therefore there is a designer Inference to the best explanation(IBE) You start w a premise, a report of data, and come to a logical conclusion based on that data ***** 1859 Darwin comes out w the origin and poses an argument to combat Desing Evolution New species came into exsistance over time. Natural Selection*** An explanationn of evolution Variatiton in a population Triats are inherited Enviorment exerst selectional pressures mutation Genetic drift and the founder effect are also ways that evolution could have occurred How can we evalutate two opposing theories? Evaluate evidence Ex: watch evolution occur in a lab The finches beak Fossil records There are gaps Fossils are hard to make, and palley doesn?t have any record Clunky desing of the panda?s paw Falsifiable Could you find evidence that makes the argument false *** Fruitfulness *** Predictability Predicts how the future to look, Desing does not predict anything Natural selection makes many predictions Palley does not claim that the designer is god God does not fit all of the described attributes Clunky desing Benevilance The pig that kills itself w/ its tusks Ichneumon fly Lays its eggs in a live caterpillar and the grub eat it alive Black widow Praying mantis the fine tuning of the universe *** does this fit into the description of god?