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Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) is a philosophical argument asserting a problem with believing both evolution and philosophical naturalism simultaneously. The argument was first proposed by Alvin Plantinga in 1993 and "raises issues of interest to epistemologists, philosophers of mind, evolutionary biologists, and philosophers of religion".Beilby(2002) p vii The EAAN argues that the combined belief in both evolutionary theory and naturalism is epistemically self-defeating. The argument for this is that if both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low. This argument comes as an expansion of the argument from reason, although the two are separate philosophical arguments. Development of the idea The idea that "naturalism" undercuts its own justification was put forward by Arthur Balfour.Victor Reppert, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea, In Defense of the Argument from Reason (2003) p 46 C. S. Lewis popularise ...
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Theory Of Evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation tends to exist within any given population as a result of genetic mutation and recombination. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or more rare within a population. The evolutionary pressures that determine whether a characteristic is common or rare within a population constantly change, resulting in a change in heritable characteristics arising over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules. The theory of evolut ...
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Christianity Today
''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "evangelicalism's flagship magazine". ''The New York Times'' describes it as a "mainstream evangelical magazine". On August 4, 2022, Russell D. Moore—notable for denouncing and leaving the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention—was named the incoming Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief. ''Christianity Today'' has a print circulation of approximately 130,000, of which approximately 36,000 is free, and readership of 260,000, as well as a website at ChristianityToday.com. The founder, Billy Graham, stated that he wanted to "plant the evangelical flag in the middle of the road, taking the conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems". Other active publications currently active within Christiani ...
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Empirical Evidence
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the terms ''evidence'' and ''empirical'' are to be defined. Often different fields work with quite different conceptions. In epistemology, evidence is what justifies beliefs or what determines whether holding a certain belief is rational. This is only possible if the evidence is possessed by the person, which has prompted various epistemologists to conceive evidence as private mental states like experiences or other beliefs. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, evidence is understood as that which '' confirms'' or ''disconfirms'' scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. For this role, it is importan ...
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Bayes Theorem
In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule), named after Thomas Bayes, describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. For example, if the risk of developing health problems is known to increase with age, Bayes' theorem allows the risk to an individual of a known age to be assessed more accurately (by conditioning it on their age) than simply assuming that the individual is typical of the population as a whole. One of the many applications of Bayes' theorem is Bayesian inference, a particular approach to statistical inference. When applied, the probabilities involved in the theorem may have different probability interpretations. With Bayesian probability interpretation, the theorem expresses how a degree of belief, expressed as a probability, should rationally change to account for the availability of related evidence. Bayesian inference is fundamental to Bayesia ...
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University Of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the designation is reserved for colleges that have a graduate school. The word ''university'' is derived from the Latin ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". The first universities were created in Europe by Catholic Church monks. The University of Bologna (''Università di Bologna''), founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *Being a high degree-awarding institute. *Having independence from the ecclesiastic schools, although conducted by both clergy and non-clergy. *Using the word ''universitas'' (which was coined at its foundation). *Issuing secular and non-secular degrees: grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law, notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The un ...
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Elliott Sober
Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Education and career Sober earned his Ph.D in philosophy from Harvard University under the supervision of Hilary Putnam, after doing graduate work at Cambridge University under the supervision of Mary Hesse. His work has also been strongly influenced by the biologist Richard Lewontin, and he has collaborated with David Sloan Wilson, Steven Orzack and Mike Steel, also biologists. Sober has served as the president of both the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association and the Philosophy of Science Association. He was president of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (Division of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science) from 2012 until 2015. He taught for one year at Stanfo ...
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University Of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant university and the founding campus of the University of California system. Its fourteen colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,800 undergraduate and 13,200 graduate students. Berkeley ranks among the world's top universities. A founding member of the Association of American Universities, Berkeley hosts many leading research institutes dedicated to science, engineering, and mathematics. The university founded and maintains close relationships with three national laboratories at Berkeley, Livermore and Los Alamos, and has played a prominent role in many scientific advances, from the Manhattan Project and the discovery of 16 chemical elements to breakthroughs in computer science and genomics. Berkeley is ...
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Branden Fitelson
Branden Fitelson (; born August 17, 1969) is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. He is known for his expertise on formal epistemology and philosophy of science. Bibliography * Edward N. Zalta and Branden Fitelson"Steps Toward a Computational Metaphysics" ''Journal of Philosophical Logic'' 36(2) (April 2007): 227–247. See also *Evolutionary argument against naturalism The evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) is a philosophical argument asserting a problem with believing both evolution and philosophical naturalism simultaneously. The argument was first proposed by Alvin Plantinga in 1993 and "raises is ... * Minimal axioms for Boolean algebra References External links *Branden Fitelson at Northeastern University
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Defeater
A defeater of a belief is evidence that this belief is false. Defeaters are of particular interest to epistemology since they affect whether a belief is justified. An important distinction is between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. Undercutting defeaters remove evidential support for a belief while rebutting defeaters provide evidential support for the opposite thesis of the belief. Defeaters play a central role in modern developments of defeasible reasoning. Types There are two types of defeaters: ''rebutting defeaters'' and ''undercutting defeaters''. Rebutting Evidence for the opposite thesis of a belief is called a rebutting defeater of this belief. For example, looking through the window and seeing that the sky is clear is evidence for the belief that it is not raining outside. Therefore, this perception is a rebutting defeater of the belief that it is raining. Undercutting Evidence that undermines the evidential support for a belief without giving support to t ...
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Naturalistic Evolution
Naturalism may refer to: * Realism (arts), naturalism in the arts * Naturalism (literature), a literary movement beginning in the late 19th century * Naturalism (theatre), a movement in European drama and theatre * Naturalism (philosophy), the idea that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe * Naturalism (horse) (1988–2018), a racehorse See also * * Naturalness (other) * Natural history, a domain of inquiry involving organisms ** Naturalist, a person who studies natural history * Naturalistic fallacy, the mistake of explaining something as being good reductively, in terms of natural properties * Naturism, a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity * Naturalistic observation, a research methodology * Critical naturalism, an idea of Roy Bhaskar * Ethical naturalism, or moral naturalism or naturalistic cognitivistic definism * Humanistic naturalism, a branch of philosophical naturalism * Liberal naturalism, a heterodox form of philosophical ...
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Metaphysical Naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions. Definition According to Steven Schafersman, geologist and president of Texas Citizens for Science, metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy that proposes that: 1. Nature encompasses all that exists throughout space and time; 2. Nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal physical substance— ...
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Truth-value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values (''true'' or '' false''). Computing In some programming languages, any expression can be evaluated in a context that expects a Boolean data type. Typically (though this varies by programming language) expressions like the number zero, the empty string, empty lists, and null evaluate to false, and strings with content (like "abc"), other numbers, and objects evaluate to true. Sometimes these classes of expressions are called "truthy" and "falsy" / "false". Classical logic In classical logic, with its intended semantics, the truth values are ''true'' (denoted by ''1'' or the verum ⊤), and '' untrue'' or '' false'' (denoted by ''0'' or the falsum ⊥); that is, classical logic is a two-valued logic. This set of two values is also called the Boolean domain. Corresponding semantics ...
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