A final word on Plantinga's EAAN (Part 4)

I’ve been blogging about Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) over the past few weeks. The original plan was to (1) explain the argument, (2) suggest that it wasn’t that devastating to naturalists if a humble idea of ‘truth’ was adopted, (3) show that Plantinga’s theistic beliefs don’t give him any better epistemic foundation than a naturalistic one, and finally, (4) to refute the first premise, without which, the argument fails. Steps 1-3 have been accomplished, and while I’ve been trying hard to accomplish step 4, I'm not confident that I or anybody else has been able to clearly and convincingly succeed. Philosopher, Stephen Law, believes he has, but I must admit that I don't understand his response to the EAAN well enough to explain it here. I'm waiting for him to provide a dumbed-down version for lay people like me to understand. In the meantime, though, I'm forced to consider that Plantinga may well be right about premise 1: on naturalism and evolution, the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable probably is low. I actually want to thank Plantinga for reminding me of this prediction for it seems to me that things turn out looking very much as Plantinga would expect. This, I believe, provides even more evidence for naturalism and evolution and makes Christian theism even harder to accept. But before I get to that, there is one way that the first premise could very well turn out to be false.

If beliefs don’t affect behavior (epiphenomenalism), or they affect behavior but not by virtue of their content (semantic epiphenomenalism), then it is hard to see how evolution could select for mechanisms that produce True* beliefs, for evolution would seem to be blind to belief content just as Plantinga has suggested. However, if beliefs do affect behavior by virtue of their contents, then Plantinga’s crucial first premise is very likely false. As Plantinga himself has said:


"Now if content of belief did enter the causal chain that leads to behavior--and if true belief caused adaptive behavior (and false belief maladaptive behavior)--then natural selection, by rewarding and punishing adaptive and maladaptive behavior respectively, could shape the mechanisms that produce belief in the direction of greater reliability. There could then be selection pressure for true belief and for reliable belief-producing mechanisms." (Naturalism Defeated? p. 257)

It is probably the case that the naturalist lacks a robust explanation for how immaterial beliefs could cause behaviour, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one and it's not at all clear to me that the naturalist must be wedded to the idea that it's impossible. There is a long history attesting to the outstanding success of methodological naturalism (ie. science) in filling gaps in our knowledge and imagination - gaps previously filled by God or gods - with natural explanations. Plantinga likes to fill this particular explanatory gap with his God but there are problems with doing so that I have explained here, and I see no reason for the naturalist to also have to do so. If Plantinga disagrees, then I’d have to ask why he isn't correspondingly required to explain how it is that God himself tracks Truth*? I mean, how does he know, and even deeper, how does He know?

Ok. let's move on and see if the EAAN actually places a burden on Plantinga himself. Paraphrasing Plantinga: on naturalism and (therefore, unguided) evolution, the probability that a given belief will be true is 0.5. Accordingly, if someone has 100 independent beliefs, the probability that most of them, say, 75% of them, are true is going to be less than one in a million.

Now consider Harry the homo sapien living on the African Savannah 150,000 years ago. I suspect that Plantinga is correct in suggesting that the chance that the vast majority of his beliefs are going to be true is << 1/1,000,000.

Plantinga does think that our sensory organs could evolve naturally to reliably indicate certain environmental states of affairs, so some of Harry’s beliefs could also be true in some ways. For instance, Harry may believe that a green tree is in front of him and that he had better run around it or risk serious injury. Is his belief that the tree is green True? The tree merely absorbs all wavelengths of light except green. It reflects green wavelengths which are then detected by the indicators in his retina, leading to a belief that the tree is green, but the only thing that is green is his mental representation of the tree. Nevertheless, his idea that there is something in front of him and that colliding with it will cause injury surely is true. Does it matter that the tree isn’t really green but that his mental representation of it is? Evolution doesn’t seem to care about it so long as Harry sees the tree and avoids injury. Should we really care? That’s just how we experience certain truths about our environment. As I argued in part 2 of this series, that’s just truth to us.

So while most of Harry’s beliefs surely are false in a variety of possible ways, some are likely to be True and those that are likely to be True are the ones most likely to be derived from reliable indicators as Plantinga likes to call them, otherwise known as our senses. Now imagine what can happen when Harry and his colleagues can communicate and share their beliefs with tens, hundreds, thousands, and eventually billions of other people. And imagine what can happen when we realize, as a species, that the beliefs most likely to be True (or the ones with the most True content associated with them) are the ones that we can test against our environment. Imagine what can happen when that process shows us how poor many of our cognitive capabilities actually are and that we can begin to correct for those inadequacies. Plantinga is probably correct that the majority of Harry’s beliefs will be false, but thanks to science our species has developed ways of obtaining and sharing ideas that go far beyond anything evolution could have cooked up for Harry. As Sam Harris has pointed out, we’ve flown the perch built for us by evolution, and it’s far from clear to me that a modern day person, well educated in science and skepticism needs to worry too much more about her beliefs being false because of the EAAN. Anybody with a modicum of epistemic sophistication is already a humble fallibilist. She already looks to the best sources for justification that we can hope for: those delivered by science. A reliance on science is really an admission that our cognitive faculties suck and that to find Truth we have to follow a rigorous methodology that’s about correcting for sources of error and bias both within and outside of us and even then, we'll very often end up with adaptive models of Truth that we call truth.

So really, it is not naturalism that has troubles explaining the reliability of our faculties: it's theism. Cognitively, we seem to be pretty good at the kinds of things that require us to survive and successfully reproduce like avoiding predators, caring for our offspring, obtaining food, etc. However, as a species, our members are horrible at understanding physics, advanced mathematics, statistics, probability, chaotic (but fully deterministic) systems, etc. Getting good requires many years of advanced education and hard work; it certainly doesn’t come naturally. This would seem to be precisely the case expected on unguided evolution. So it seems to me that there is a burden on Plantinga to explain how our lousy cognitive processes are reflective of the notion that an allegedly perfect being created us in his image. Are we to believe that God is also subject to a plethora of deeply problematic cognitive biases and perceptual and memory errors? Could Satan plant false memories into the mind of God as certain psychologists have done to people, for example? Does God also condemn people to (eternal) punishment on the basis of shoddy eye-witness testimony?

The question of the conditional probability of reliable cognitive faculties is just too blunt for such a complicated topic. If none of our cognitive faculties are reliable, then I will admit that our search for Truth is hopeless. But if some of our faculties are reliable some of the time, then by cooperating and communicating and finding ways to avoid our cognitive weaknesses, I don’t see why we can’t build up from a humble foundation creating models of truth that get closer and closer to the Truth, and that, it seems, is precisely the situation I think we find ourselves in. Plantinga’s EAAN is interesting but at the end of the day, it changes little, if not nothing for me. I’m still very much a naturalist who firmly believes in the truth of evolution, and I’ll keep following the deliverances of empiricism over pure rationality. This, it seems to me, is an epistemically challenging and responsible stance, while making the whole matter go away by simply asserting that “Goddidit” ... well, you can decide for yourself what you think of that.

* In this 4 part series, I use lower case t 'truth' to denote what seems true to us and capital T 'Truth" for what's actually or ultimately true. More on this here.

To all the fathers of the world: love your daughters

This came to my attention a few days after father's day and I found it heart warming and inspiring. While Canadians are closer to gender equality than Pashtuns, we still have a long way to go, and there remain lessons for us to learn from the Samar Esapzai's of the world.

To all the fathers of the world: love your daughters

Written by Samar Esapzai

From: http://www.asafeworldforwomen.org/safe-world-blogs/sesapzai/4604-love-your-daughters.html

On Father’s Day: Why It’s Important For Little Girls To Have Great Fathers

By Samar Esapzai

A few days ago, I had some good friends over and the topic of relationships and mental/emotional stability came up. The friends, whose names I won’t mention for privacy purposes, are a couple and in a very happy, healthy and stable relationship. (And it always makes me elated to see such couples because I feel like I can completely relate to them.) So, anyway, the husband started telling us about his family and how he comes from a fairly good household in that he had a pretty good relationship with both his parents, especially his father and he couldn’t relate to his ex-wife as she had come from an almost broken home where her father often neglected, overly criticized and abused her, both physically and mentally. This, in turn, had affected her quite negatively and for some reason their relationship had also become a reflection of what she had endured while growing up: unhealthy, verbally abusive (she was the abuser), and just plain horrible. However, he feels more content and happier with his current wife because, like him, she, too, comes from a good family in which she is close to both her parents and has often received great support and encouragement in whatever she has pursued thus far. She, especially, has an incredible relationship with her father, who pretty much influenced the great, wonderful and very successful woman that she is today. As a result of that, her nature is pleasant, laid-back, confident and very positive (the most important of all). She is the total opposite of what his ex-wife was like and I couldn’t help thinking that her upbringing and especially her great relationship with her father had a lot to do with it, among other things, of course. And, then, it got me thinking a lot about my own father too and how supportive he has been — and, still is — throughout my life. Never once has he raised his voice or hand to me. Like, ever. My memories of my father from childhood up until adulthood are incredibly sweet. While my mother was a bit of a toughie, my father, on the other hand would spoil me. Rotten. And, being the only girl — only daughter — I was no doubt my daddy’s little girl.

My reader should know that I was born and grew up, less than half of my life, in the Middle East before my family and I immigrated to Canada. And growing up there wasn’t easy, as there were and still are, to my knowledge, too many restrictions on women: from not being allowed to drive to having to cover ourselves from head to toe in a burqa to not being able to travel alone anywhere without a male chaperone, etc. Of course, I was very young when we left (I was about 13 years old), but when we lived there my father ensured that neither me nor my mom were bothered by the strict rules of that country. He would take us to “safe” places where we didn’t need to cover up (not sure about now, but back then, some places would be swarmed with the religious [Islamic] police aka Mutawas, who would carry sticks and order women to cover up by threatening to hit them in public if they didn’t; it was despicable, to say the least). My father would avoid those places as much as possible. He would instead take us to the beach (more specifically known as the cornishe) quite often or to the compound malls, where I didn’t have to wear the abaya/burqa. He was always kind, considerate and undoubtedly the sweetest, most intelligent man I’ve ever known and love; my husband, of course, being a close second.

A good father can be empowering. Very empowering, in fact. And while, in my culture (Pashtun), which is highly patriarchal, fathers empowering their daughters is rare, it’s not completely impossible. Examples include Ziauddin Yousafzai — Malala Yousafzai’s endearing, extremely supportive and proud father. And proud he should be, for if it weren’t for him, Malala would not be such an influential and iconic figure worldwide, nor would she have had the courage and confidence to pursue and stand up for something that her father — a man, yes — had vowed to instil in her since the day she was born. Then there is Shamsul Qayyum Wazir – Maria Toorpakay’s (the famous Pashtun Squash player) father, who, albeit an elder tribesman hails from a highly male-dominated and conservative region in northern Pakistan, managed to go against the norm and allow his daughter to play sports, even if needing to guise her as a boy to do it. He, like Ziauddin Yousafzai, wholly supported his daughter, which in turn allowed her to gain confidence and come as far as she has in her exertion against oppressive forces, which would have otherwise denied her the life that she leads today. And, while no man is perfect, a growing girl needs to see a father who is there for her; one that cares about her immensely, and allows her the freedom and privilege to pursue her goals and passions.

We all know and understand that fathers are, for the most part, a primary male model in every young girl’s life. Just his presence in her life deeply influences and affects her in profound ways, from how they view themselves to what they come to expect from men and the world at large. Unfortunately, many men don’t understand how impactful their presence can be and perhaps even is in their daughter’s life. And the more involved they are, the better it is for the girl, because not only will she grow up to into a happy, confident and successful woman, but she will also be mentally and emotionally stable, especially in terms of relationships. Now, I don’t want to appear like a psychologist, as whatever I am discussing in this post is simply based on my own personal experience and observations. Women (including myself) I know and have seen, who are in very happy relationships, also have fathers who, too, have been their rock and their biggest supporters and motivators while growing up. And when daughters feel love and support from their fathers they generally have good relationships in marriage.

Most women, whose fathers have gone against traditional norms (religious or cultural) and have rejected stereotypical gender roles with images of the father helping around the house in terms of cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, etc., are happier and healthier, both in terms of their mental and emotional well-being. Witnessing both parents taking on non-traditional roles, both at home and outside, indeed has a very positive impact on her perception of what men’s role in a family relationship is all about. It conditions her in a good way — a healthy way — where gender roles are nonexistent and gender equality becomes the basis of her foundation. For, as a little girl, the first love in her life is her father and how he treats her will have a huge effect on her relationship with men later on in her life. And when fathers are true to daughters and true to the best in their masculine heritage, they (the daughters) will learn to respect men and treat them as equals. Consequently, a daughter will learn to gravitate towards men who respect her and treat her as an equal, while turning away from men who disrespect, violate/abuse, and treat her like anything but an equal. Hence, I can’t help agree that the Freudian theory of marrying or being with someone who has traits similar to someone you love and admire — usually a parent or a close sibling – is true. While my husband and my father aren’t exactly alike, I’ve realized that they do share very similar characteristics that further emphasizes my point about why it’s important — so, very, very important — for young girls to have great fathers, or great father figures.

Oh, and speaking of my husband, gosh, where I even begin to praise him? Not only has he been the most incredible, most loving, and most kind and supportive partner ever, in our amazing six years together, but I also see the way he is with our now 10 and a half month old daughter. The way he drops everything to play with her, talk to her, and even sing to her. The way he dotes on her and ensures that no harm ever comes to her. The way he’s always online checking reviews of fun, educational toys for her to ensure that she gets the safest and best quality toy that exists in the market. The way he loves her, like so, so much, and showers her adorable face with kisses, until she gets annoyed and cries out. Just watching them together makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. He will never be the type of dad who will say he is too busy to spend time with his little girl. No way. And because of him, my daughter is the most luckiest girl in the world. And I’ll make sure she always remembers that, for she is on the beautiful road to becoming another Malala Yousafzai and another Maria Toorpakay. Heck, she will be her very own example! No doubt about that.

So, to all the fathers of the world: love your daughters. Like really, really love them. They are nature’s most brilliant gift. Be there for them when they need you; talk to them, as communication is key; and ensure that you set the best example for them so that they will grow up believing in the beauty of equality and in the beauty of true love and happiness. The ball’s in your court, dear fathers of the world. Treat your daughters the best and you will die a very happy human being. 200 percent guaranteed.

On that note, here’s wishing a very happy Father’s Day to all the amazing dads in the world, including my beloved father and hubby.

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Samar Esapzai is a PhD student in international rural development, focusing on Gender and Development of Pashtun women.

She blogs at http://sesapzai.wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter @sesapzai.

Facebook: SesapZai - Artist. Academic. Philanthropist.

Samar blogs on the Safe World website