E-Book Overview
In God and Design, Neil A. Manson has gathered a group of intellectually stimulating articles pertaining to the Argument from Design. The collection includes articles supportive and critical of both local design arguments (i.e., Michael Behe's irreducible complexity) and global design arguments (i.e., the fine-tuned laws which govern the universe). Thankfully, the representation is quite fair, and authors on both sides of the debate get a fair chance. However, global design arguments seem to be the main topic of the debate. For a fuller treatment of the controversial Intelligent Design movement, other works should be pursued. As for the fine-tuning argument, Robin Collins adds a useful discussion of some "solid cases of fine-tuning"- thus overturning the claim that the probability figures for fine-tuning are pulled out of thin air. William Lane Craig successfully lays out the argument and discusses several objections in his paper. Jan Narveson objects to the explanatory power of theism, but his arguments seem to be unconvincing and are also addressed effectively by Richard Swinburne in his paper. The major criticisms of the fine-tuning argument found in the papers, however, have to do with the methods of probability used in supporting the inference to design. Eliot Sober and the Mcgrews/Vestrup argue that there is no basis for probabilities when concerning fundamental constants of nature. However, Collins in particular has elsewhere developed a `rigorous' definition of fine-tuning, thus overcoming this particular objection, in my view. Once the validity of probability judgments are granted, it seems to me that the case for design is compelling.
E-Book Content
GOD AND DESIGN Is there reason to think a supernatural designer made our world? Recent discoveries in physics, cosmology, and biochemistry have captured the public imagination and made the design argument—the theory that God created the world according to a specific plan—the object of renewed scientific and philosophical interest. Terms such as “cosmic fine-tuning,” the “anthropic principle,” and “irreducible complexity” have seeped into public consciousness, increasingly appearing within discussion about the existence and nature of God. This accessible and serious introduction to the design problem brings together both sympathetic and critical new perspectives from prominent scientists and philosophers including Paul Davies, Richard Swinburne, Sir Martin Rees, Michael Behe, Elliott Sober, and Peter van Inwagen. Questions raised include: • What is the logical structure of the design argument? • How can intelligent design be detected in the Universe? • What evidence is there for the claim that the Universe is divinely fine-tuned for life? • Does the possible existence of other universes refute the design argument? • Is evolutionary theory compatible with the belief that God designed the world? God and Design probes the relationship between modern science and religious belief, considering their points of conflict and their many points of similarity. Is God the “master clockmaker” who sets the world’s mechanism on a perfectly enduring course, or a miraculous presence continually intervening in and altering the world we know? Are science and faith, or evolution and creation, really in conflict at all? Expanding the parameters of a lively and urgent contemporary debate, God and Design considers the ways in which perennial questions of origin continue to fascinate and disturb us. Neil A.Manson is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and a former Gifford Research Fellow in Natural Theology at the University of Aberdeen. He has a long standing interest in the science and religion debate. GOD AND DESIGN The teleological argument and modern science Neil A.Manson LONDON AND NEW YORK <