Isaac's Meandering Musings

One shortcoming of my critique of Dawkins' 'Ultimate Boeing 747 Argument' in a previous post is its lack of quotes from those philosophers/theologians/scientists critical of Dawkins argument. My own argument was a synthesis of their arguments. Below, I have included quotations from some of the essays and books I mention in the previous post, as well as some others that I don't mention, to supplement my own discussion. I should note that none of the quotes below exhaust the authors' discussion of Dawkins' argument (or similar arguments). They are intended only as examples. " As for Dawkins' argument, it is that any creator of the cosmos would have to be very complex indeed, and since complexity is produced by evolution the existence of such a being is vanishingly unlikely. The argument, needless to say, parodies itself. To begin with, there is the rather confused notion that a mechanically complex reality can be created only by something even more m...

Richard Dawkins has made an unusual argument against God that has become wildly popular among the so-called ‘New Atheists’. Below is a diagram of how I think Richard Dawkins’ ‘Ultimate Boeing 747’ argument (see The God Delusion , [1] Chapter 4) is best summarized – and refuted. Others may present Dawkins' argument differently, for example see this Wikipedia entry . See also William Lane Craig formalization of the argument here . The differences in formalizing Dawkins' argument are largely due to the fact that Dawkins himself failed to state the argument coherently. This has led, inevitably, to a degree of interpretation when formalizing the argument.  Dawkins’ own words are in italics . The premises of Dawkins’ argument (as I interpret it) are in bold . After the initial critique, I discuss some possible responses to my refutations and finish up by raising some other objections to Dawkins’ overall critique of the design argument. Dawkins’ argument, in his own words: ...

From journals, to newspapers, to blogs, the New Atheism has been hotly debated. Below are lists of articles (most of which can be found on the web) which debate the New Atheism. The quality of the articles varies dramatically. Some of the critiques of the New Atheism are careful and one might say devastating (though the word is much over-used in popular rhetoric today), others are poor and superficial. It is up to the individual reader to decide which is which. Among my favourites are the articles by William Lane Craig, David Bentley Hart, and some of the articles by Peter S. Williams. Edward Feser’s discussion of the New Atheists’ poor critique of the cosmological argument is definitely worth reading. In fact, all the articles by Feser should be read by those interested in the subject. Similarly, the critiques of Richard Dawkins’ ‘Ultimate Boeing 747’ objection to design inferences by David Glass, Alvin Plantinga, Eric J. Wielenberg and Patrick Hammond are informative and thought-...