Truth versus usefulness

Alvin Plantinga

As I said in a previous post, natural selection is the statistical observation that, in general, individuals better adapted to their environment tend to leave more descendants than those less adapted. It is, therefore, a question of usefulness. A trait that will increase the reproduction of an individual is, in principle, statistically favored by natural selection.

In my popular science book published in Spanish (Biological evolution and cultural evolution in the history of life and man) I mentioned that 

Evolution acts in the same way, both on life and on culture, although its way of acting is adapted to the specific environment on which it is applied (genes, nervous systems or cultural elements). 

Neuromania and Darwinitis

Raymond Tallis

Chapter 11 of the book The Naturalist Worldview of Moisés Pérez Marcos, which I discussed in the previous post, is dedicated entirely to the philosopher and neuroscientist Raymond Tallis, who despite his atheistic religious stance opposes some of the modern exaggerations of reductionist naturalism. Tallis published a book in 2011 titled, significantly, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the misrepresentation of humanity. This book describes two very widespread philosophical pathologies, which emerge from professional journals and educated colloquiums to discussions in the pub or TV screens. (Pérez Marcos, paraphrasing Tallis). They are the following:

The hidden premise

Alvin Plantinga

In previous posts in this blog I have mentioned that atheists sometimes try to justify their beliefs by using hidden premises in their reasoning, the most important of which is this:

God does not exist

At the end of their line of thought, they usually conclude that God does not exist, or some equivalent statement. As the starting premise is hidden, they probably don’t notice that they have incurred in circularity, one of the best-known fallacies since ancient times, which tries to prove the truth of a statement, by assuming from the beginning that the same statement is true.

In the introduction to his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx writes this:

Mind and Cosmos

Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel, philosopher, professor at New York University and specialized in the philosophy of mind, has published a book (Mind and Cosmos) where he summarizes his argumentation against materialist reductionism, dominant in philosophy since the mid-nineteenth century. I have read the book in a Spanish translation made by the Seville professor Francisco Rodríguez Valls, with whom I have collaborated more than once.

The book provides strong arguments in support of the claim that materialistic reductionism cannot explain conscience, reason, and other mental elements without explaining them away. But since conscience and reason are the dominant elements of our worldview, the conclusion we should arrive at is that materialistic reductionism must be false.

Four ideas by Alvin Plantinga about God and materialism

Alvin Plantinga

Taking advantage of the awarding of the Templeton Prize to the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga, this post will try to review a few of his thoughts in the debate between theism and materialism. As it is impossible to review all his work in detail, I will mention just four of his ideas:

1. The Mozart argument for the existence of God. Why are we able to appreciate beauty? According to the materialistic hypothesis, there is no explanation why evolution has led us to this, as it is difficult to see how this trait could be useful for our survival. Instead of good music, we should appreciate cacophony, which is more abundant in nature. If we assume that God exists, however, this fact is easy to explain, because God appreciates beauty (in fact, God is beauty). This argument, along with many others, is in this web address.

About the problem of evil

The Auschwitz concentration camp

In a previous article on the hunting hymenoptera I mentioned the problem of evil, often called the problem of pain, the well-known title of a book by CS Lewis. Although this question is mainly ethical or philosophical, it also has some relationship with science, as will be seen at the end of this post.

We can consider two different types of the problem of evil:

1. Human evil, caused by man. The Auschwitz concentration camp has become its most mentioned paradigm.
2. Natural pain, the fact that natural processes can cause severe pain to humans and other living beings.