Talk:Evolutionary argument against naturalism

The Argument from Reason

This argument against naturalism (that natural evolution is extremely unlikely to result in rational minds) is really just a variant on The Argument from Reason for the existence of God (that natural physics is extremely unlikely to result in rational minds). Both arguments originate with C.S. Lewis. This article deserves some commentary to that effect and an actual link to our wiki article on the latter subject. --173.76.67.53 (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source for this claim? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Adaptive and Maladaptive Belief

What are "Adaptive belief" and "Maladaptive belief"?--144.122.56.98 (talk) 12:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Beliefs that are good for your person/bad for your person. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Asserting or claiming

"Asserting" in the introoduction is fine. It's the same as "claiming" really. The main issue is that the article does not, as it did before, claim that this argument really does demonstrate a problem, violating WP:NPOV.

After all, the argument just says "humans are fallible, so they could be wrong when they accept evolution". And it unnecessarily adds reasons for the already well-known fact that humans are fallible.

Of course the template "humans are fallible, so they could be wrong when they accept xxx" can be universally applied, so the argument is silly to the extreme and should be called "Evolutionary argument against everything anyone accepts as true". "Asserting" indeed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I see that the argument is nonsensical but that the article lacks the necessary criticism, so I agree that there appears to be a POV issue. —PaleoNeonate – 05:01, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

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Responses section needs serious editing

Rather than writing about the responses to this argument as if they are counter-arguments, the section on Responses is essentially a rant written against the topic of the article. The responses are characterized as inerrant fact that has set straight the record pertaining a religious fanatic. I haven't read these sources myself, but the Responses section seems to have more straw men in it than a cornfield. If those are lifted from the sources, the section should be rewritten to be discussing sources instead of summarizing them as fact. If those aren't lifted from the sources, then they're original content and should be edited out. Either way, there is little more than a mess of missing commas and run-on sentences in that Responses section that imparts no knowledge other than that the writer of that section has a chip on her or his shoulder. Trogyssy (talk) 01:16, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, I gather that consensus about the argument is that it is profoundly stupid. That humans are fallible is an obvious fact and does not need to be derived from naturalism. When you remove that part, the argument burns down to the trivial "everything we know may be wrong", and its connection to naturalism is just a sleight of mind. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

On the inclusion of the criticisms of Daniel Dennet.

Daniel Dennet too has criticised Plantinga's argument. Include his criticism of Plantinga as well. The audio of the debate between Plantinga and Dennet on the compatibility of science and religion contains dennet's criticism of plantinga. Anas Azeem 2005 (talk) 15:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Nietzsche

I am too lazy to really care about wiki or anything but I just wanted to drop that Nietzsche already has this idea in his Nachlass. So I think its a miss to focus so much on an analytical standpoint instead of a continental one in this article...

Even going further - and this is now a bold claim - I believe this argument is really the main reason that led him to dismiss the idea of a "Truth" altogether. Because even the mere concept (of truth) as an abstraction is only lebensnöthig. This is why he writes in another passage in his Nachlass that it is stupid to think something is "true" (rejecting even the idea) just because it was "proven" to be irrefutable. And then he goes on to say that he long declared war on this logician's optimism if i remember correctly --- but again this is another passage... 137.193.146.231 (talk) 20:13, 26 August 2024 (UTC)