Hume and the argument for biological design
Biology and Philosophy 11 (4):519-534 (1996)
Abstract
There seems to be a widespread conviction — evidenced, for example, in the work of Mackie, Dawkins and Sober — that it is Darwinian rather than Humean considerations which deal the fatal logical blow to arguments for intelligent design. I argue that this conviction cannot be well-founded. If there are current logically decisive objections to design arguments, they must be Humean — for Darwinian considerations count not at all against design arguments based upon apparent cosmological fine-tuning. I argue, further, that there are good Humean reasons for atheists and agnostics to resist the suggestion that apparent design — apparent biological design and/or apparent cosmological fine-tuning — establishes (or even strongly supports) the hypothesis of intelligent design.
Keywords
Categories
PhilPapers/Archive ID
OPPHAT
Upload history
Archival date: 2021-01-12
View other versions
View other versions
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
174 ( #27,963 of 56,084 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
6 ( #53,462 of 56,084 )
2009-01-28
Total views
174 ( #27,963 of 56,084 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
6 ( #53,462 of 56,084 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.