Saturday, March 24, 2007
As featured in Wikipedia
Not only does Wikipedia carry a short biography stub of yours truly, the Wikipedia article on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion quotes from one of my published reviews of the book (cf. last but one paragraph):
"Peter S Williams, a Christian philosopher and author, in a review for the Christian charity Damaris International, says that while "The God Delusion is the work of a passionate and rhetorically savvy writer capable of making good points against religious fundamentalism," Dawkins "is out of his philosophical depth". Williams proposes rebuttals to two of the book's arguments against the existence of God: Dawkins' use of the anthropic principle and the "who designed the designer?" objection that according to Williams is at the heart of the 747 Gambit."
(Well, the 'who designed the designer' objection is half the objection made by Dawkins anyway - the other half being the 'you shouldn' explain anything by reference to something more complex' objection. Questions: 1) would it be reasonable to explain this post in terms of intelligent design even if you had no answer to the 'who designed the designer' objection in this case? 2) Is it reasonable to explain this post by reference to intelligent design even though the designer is clearly far more complex than the post? Answers: 1) Yes. Suppose you are wholly agnostic about all proffered explanations of human existence - you are agnostic about evolution, creationism, intelligent design, etc. etc. It would still be rational to posit design to explain this post. Suppose you are the first human being to land on another planet and you discover there a parchment bearing a text. You have no idea who may have designed the text - but you are nonetheless sure that the text was designed. Answer 2) Yes. Humans have yet to design anything more complex than a human - but we routinely explain things with reference to intelligent design by humans.)
"Peter S Williams, a Christian philosopher and author, in a review for the Christian charity Damaris International, says that while "The God Delusion is the work of a passionate and rhetorically savvy writer capable of making good points against religious fundamentalism," Dawkins "is out of his philosophical depth". Williams proposes rebuttals to two of the book's arguments against the existence of God: Dawkins' use of the anthropic principle and the "who designed the designer?" objection that according to Williams is at the heart of the 747 Gambit."
(Well, the 'who designed the designer' objection is half the objection made by Dawkins anyway - the other half being the 'you shouldn' explain anything by reference to something more complex' objection. Questions: 1) would it be reasonable to explain this post in terms of intelligent design even if you had no answer to the 'who designed the designer' objection in this case? 2) Is it reasonable to explain this post by reference to intelligent design even though the designer is clearly far more complex than the post? Answers: 1) Yes. Suppose you are wholly agnostic about all proffered explanations of human existence - you are agnostic about evolution, creationism, intelligent design, etc. etc. It would still be rational to posit design to explain this post. Suppose you are the first human being to land on another planet and you discover there a parchment bearing a text. You have no idea who may have designed the text - but you are nonetheless sure that the text was designed. Answer 2) Yes. Humans have yet to design anything more complex than a human - but we routinely explain things with reference to intelligent design by humans.)
