Random Comedy

As usual, The Onion nails it:

• "Realistic Announcer Shouting How Kevin Durant Making His Last 4 Shots Has No Bearing On Whether He Will Make Next Shot"
• "Cornell Drains Fun Out Of Cinderella Run By Explaining How On A Long Enough Timeline The Improbable Becomes Probable"

The Importance of Being Stochastic

Here is a bunch of links related to our natural tendency to misinterpret randomness as if it's an intentional pattern:

• Most of us are pretty bad at statistical reasoning.
• Here's a review of a decent book (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives) on this topic.
• What was that infinite monkey typewriter thing we were talking about in class? Someone recently tried it! Well, sort of.
• A radio show I love recently devoted an entire episode to probability.
  
• Another radio show I love ran a great 2-part series on the screening for diseases called "You Are Pre-Diseased".
• What's up with that recent recommendation that routine screenings for breast cancer should wait until your 50s rather than 40s? Math helps explain it.

Design in the Mind's Eye

Here's an interesting approach to explaining the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of the universe: maybe it's all in our mind.

Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that we see intentional design and patterns too much... including in things that are actually random. So things that seem so fine-tuned and unlikely from our perspective might not actually be. Here's a video dialogue on this topic:



Bloom has two great books (Descartes' Baby and How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) on how our minds develop from early childhood on.

Blind Watchmaking

Here are some more critical links on the design argument for God's existence.

• Here is an audio interview on Hume's criticisms of the design arg.
• One philosophers' take on the debate between evolution and intelligent design.
• Is our universe fine-tuned for life? Maybe not.
• Wait, can science even judge religious claims, or are they talking about different things? Maybe an inference to the best explanation can help us...
• What about all the "design flaws" in nature? Are they evidence against a supreme designer?
• In the video below, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson points to all kinds of "design flaws" in the universe.

Reading Response #2: Design Argument

Reading Response #2 is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, October 18th.  The assignment is to write an approximately 500-word essay on the following prompt:

What do you think best explains the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of natural objects and aspects of the universe? In other words, explain and evaluate the abductive version of the design argument for God's existence.

• First, briefly explain the abductive version of the design argument. Describe the relevant evidence that needs to be explained. List the possible hypotheses that attempt to explain that evidence. And explain why proponents of the design argument believe that the intelligent designer hypothesis is the most plausible one.
• Then, evaluate this argument. Is an intelligent designer the best explanation of this evidence? Or is there another, better explanation? Tell me your opinion. Do you think the abductive version of the design argument is a good argument or a bad argument? Why? Be sure to defend your opinion with reasons.

The response is based on the design argument section of the textbook (chapters 5, 6, and 7) and on our discussion in class on October 11th.  Like the other reading responses, you won't be graded on your opinion. You'll be graded on how well you DEFEND your opinion.  Reading response #2 is word 50 points (5% of your overall grade).

Like a Watch, Only More So

Here are some links on the design argument for God's existence.

• Here is a nice explanation of the design argument, along with an explanation of a wild arg for god's existence that we're not studying.
•  Here's an audio interview with Elliott Sober (the author of our textbook) on the design argument:
  
• Here's a long-ish video lecture on the notion of fine-tuning.

God Shtuff

If you've read a good article on god stuff, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, I have some stuff for you.

The website Closer to Truth has a ton of short interviews with modern-day philosophers (and other smart people) on their thoughts about god.  Here are some recommended videos on the design argument:

• Philosopher Richard Swinburne likes the design argument. (Part 2 of his interview is here.)
• Philosopher Bede Rundle is less convinced.
• Philosopher Colin McGinn tackles the issue of fine-tuning.

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? Oh, here it is!

• Nick Bostrom (the author of "Do We Live in a Computer Simulation?") argues for agnosticism