Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

170 Notes
82. Lipton, Inference to Best Explanation, 24. The same argument, as it happens,
is put into the mouth of Cleanthes in David Hume’s “Dialogues” (iv
[65]; see Mackie, Miracle of Theism, 143).
83. Draper, “God, Science, and Naturalism,” 297–98.
84. Ibid., 297.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
1. Swinburne, Existence of God, 7.
2. Rowe, Can God Be Free?, 1.
3. Boyer, Naturalness of Religious Ideas, 43.
4. Barrett and Keil, “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity,” 240.
5. I have argued elsewhere (“What is Wrong with Intelligent Design?” 79–80)
that “intelligent design theory” also falls short of being a theory, since it is
far from clear what would follow, if its vague claim of “design” were true. If
any quasi-religious explanation merits Darwin’s criticism (1.3.2), it is surely
this one.
6. Meyer is currently the programme director of the Center for Science and Culture
at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the headquarters of the ID movement.
In an admirably upfront manner, Meyer (“The Return of the God
Hypothesis,” 27) argues that theism can be supported by way of “inference
to the best explanation” (IBE). “Theism,” he writes, “explains a wide ensemble
of metaphysically-signifi cant scientifi c evidences and theoretical results
more simply, adequately, and comprehensively than other major competing
world views or metaphysical systems.”
7. For another example, see Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, 232–53.
8. Or, perhaps, “theistic proposed explanation,” if that were not so awkward a
phrase.
9. I have borrowed this phrase from Peter Lipton (Inference to Best Explanation,
59–60).
10. Peirce, Collected Papers, 5:117 (§189). Actually, Peirce offered a number of
analyses of what he also called “hypothesis” or “retroduction” (Niiniluoto,
“Truth-seeking by Abduction,” 57–64), but this is the form upon which he
fi nally settled.
11. Here, as in some other key respects, my account of explanation follows that
of Carl Hempel (see, for instance, his Aspects of Scientifi c Explanation,
338), even though the explanations with which I am dealing do not have
exactly the same form as the deductive-nomological explanations that he
championed.
12. Lipton, Inference to Best Explanation, 60.
13. Psillos, Causation and Explanation, 97.
14. Perhaps Lipton is thinking of causal overdetermination (see 4.3.3.1) rather
than preemption. An example would be the situation in which two assassins
fi re simultaneously and infl ict what would be, even taken individually,
fatal wounds. But I fail to see how this would count against my distinction,
although it may count against the idea that a cause must be a necessary condition
of its effect.
15. National Academy of Sciences, Science and Creationism, 2.
16. Ibid.
17. See, for instance, Collins, “God, Design, and Fine-Tuning,” 123. I shall discuss
Swinburne’s work in some detail later (6.1.2).
18. For the thought behind this defi nition, I am indebted to Alan Musgrave
(“Deductivism,” 19), although I have reformulated it in the light of my later
discussion (2.1.3.2 and 3.1.2).