Alvin Plantinga, Intelligent Design, and the Religious Right
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Even smart people can have terrible ideas. That's one thing I learned from watching the runup to the Iraq war.
Alvin Plantinga is a smart man. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. Perhaps it was only an error in judgement that led to his written defense of Intelligent Design for Science and Theology News.
At least, that's what I thought at first.
Then I learned a few facts about Dr. Plantinga.
Alvin Plantinga was educated at Calvin College, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Michigan. He returned to Calvin college to teach, staying there for 20 years before moving to Notre Dame.
As you might infer from the name, Calvin College is a Calvinist school, and Plantinga is a Calvinist. He shares his Alma Mater with the founders of Amway. One founder of Amway, Jay Van Andel, was a member of the Heritage Foundation and a right wing philanthropist. The other, Richard DeVos, is a past president of a secretive conservative group, the Council for National Policy.
Plantinga shares his religious denomination with noted Christian Reconstructionists Howard Ahmanson and Gary North. Reconstructionism is a radical right wing version of christianity. Reconstructionists have advocated the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things.
Howard Ahmanson is a major funder of the Discovery Institute. His wife, Roberta, has been a commencement speaker at Calvin college. She also provided the funding for William Dembski to come to Calvin College and promote Intelligent Design.
Alvin Plantinga has never espoused Reconstructionism. But he bears an unmistakeable likeness to ID proponents like William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and Jonathan Wells.
At the very least, he is motivated not by scientific impartiality but by a religious faith.
At worst, he shares the designs of Ahmanson and other radicals in the Christian right to put their faith in power over America - at the expense of science, freedom, and rationality.
Alvin Plantinga is a smart man. He is a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. Perhaps it was only an error in judgement that led to his written defense of Intelligent Design for Science and Theology News.
At least, that's what I thought at first.
Then I learned a few facts about Dr. Plantinga.
Alvin Plantinga was educated at Calvin College, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Michigan. He returned to Calvin college to teach, staying there for 20 years before moving to Notre Dame.
As you might infer from the name, Calvin College is a Calvinist school, and Plantinga is a Calvinist. He shares his Alma Mater with the founders of Amway. One founder of Amway, Jay Van Andel, was a member of the Heritage Foundation and a right wing philanthropist. The other, Richard DeVos, is a past president of a secretive conservative group, the Council for National Policy.
Plantinga shares his religious denomination with noted Christian Reconstructionists Howard Ahmanson and Gary North. Reconstructionism is a radical right wing version of christianity. Reconstructionists have advocated the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things.
Howard Ahmanson is a major funder of the Discovery Institute. His wife, Roberta, has been a commencement speaker at Calvin college. She also provided the funding for William Dembski to come to Calvin College and promote Intelligent Design.
Alvin Plantinga has never espoused Reconstructionism. But he bears an unmistakeable likeness to ID proponents like William Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and Jonathan Wells.
At the very least, he is motivated not by scientific impartiality but by a religious faith.
At worst, he shares the designs of Ahmanson and other radicals in the Christian right to put their faith in power over America - at the expense of science, freedom, and rationality.
posted by futuregeek at 2:20 PM
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4 Comments:
Platinga is a very interesting guy, in my opinion. In what I've read of him, he's not so much insisting that science is wrong (although yes, he holds a creationist view himself) as he is insisting that secularists and atheists are wrong.
...The trouble comes when other ID and religious people try to claim that their creationism is scientific, or that there is a controversy within the science community, right?
In Science and Theology news, Plantinga argues that ID is scientific, and science is too constrained by naturalism to be useful.
And that's where the problems start.
Thanks for the paper - interesting reading.
I just stumbled on this post, and I wanted to comment. Please watch the asumption that if someone has a certain worldview, they cannot be objective.
It borders on arrogance to think that you escape your own condemnation.
You also are committed to a worldview and it probably shapes the contours of your thoughts. It doesn't mean you cannot be objective in your thinking.
BTW- I think ID is a fascinating study. I have not heard any opponent adequately deal with it. Instead they resort to name calling and slander (e.g., that's just creationism, blah). There are many proponents of ID who are by no means creationists.
hmmm,
We all start out with assumptions. That's how the human brain works, and no one is free from it. The great thing about science is that it allows us to deal with strict facts. A scientific theory or experiment is valid only if it produces repeatable results. You might interpret the results wrongly, indeed your theory might be flawed, but eventually, with repeated testing and experimenting, you should be able to figure out the natural laws governing a process.
The problem with ID, as I see it, is that it starts from an assumption: if we can't understand how a thing evolved, it must have been designed. This assumption then leads to all kind of interesting things. If there is a designer, who might that designer be? What might his/her/its purpose be? etc.
There is a strong trend in the study of ID. Most of its adherents seem to be Christian or otherwise religious. Much of their money seems to come from the religious right - and that's something I'm pointing to in this post. If ID was purely scientific, then why would there not be more atheist supporters? What's up? Is ID a valid scientific theory?
Of course I have a certain worldview that shapes the way I look at things. But I do make an effort to look at things objectively - I'm sure you do too. But ID just seems to fit too conveniently with a certain ideological persuasion.
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