Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Notes 183
it will also confi rm H 2 . So my observing a yellow cup (which is a non-black,
non-raven) apparently confi rms the hypothesis that all ravens are black.
17. Worrall, “Methodology,” 48.
18. Musgrave, “Evidential Support,” 185–86.
19. Ibid., 197 n. 17.
20. Musgrave, Essays on Realism, 232–33; Sober, Reconstructing the Past, §2.5
[61–63]).
21. Musgrave, Essays on Realism, 244.
22. Swinburne, Existence of God, 160–66.
23. Sober, “Testability,” 70.
24. Musgrave, Essays on Realism, 246.
25. Ibid.
26. This seems to be what Paul Thagard (“The Best Explanation,”181) means by
“dynamic consilience”; it is a view that fi nds more detailed expression in the
work of Imre Lakatos (“Falsifi cation,” 134).
27. Peter Lipton’s remarks (Inference to the Best Explanation, 95–97, 101) may
offer a way ahead.
28. Timmer, “Scientists on Science,” section on “Explanatory Power.”
29. Sober, “Testability,” 58, “Intelligent Design,” 67, “Design Argument,” 34.
30. Both examples are Sober’s (“Design Argument,” 34).
31. Sober, “Design Argument,” 34.
32. Sober, “Testability,” 70.
33. As I noted earlier (2.1.4), one could still employ probability calculations
to decide on the posterior probability of the hypothesis in question—
Pr(H|E&K)—even if the likelihood of the evidence, given the hypothesis—
Pr(E|H)—is 1.0. In other words, one could employ confi rmation theory
in order to assess the degree of evidential support that a proposed theistic
explanation enjoys, even if that explanation is deductive in form. But this
does not appear to be how Swinburne is arguing.
34. Draper, “Pain and Pleasure,” 332.
35. To put it this way assumes that “it happened by chance” represents an explanation.
Does it? I don’t know; for a discussion, see Psillos, Causation and
Explanation, 9.4 (256–59) and 11.2 (285–87). In any case, my point is that
we can always test a theistic hypothesis over against the assumption that the
event in question happened by chance.
36. Hales, “Evidence and the Afterlife,” 341–42, citing an anonymous internet
article.
37. Wilcox, “Dark Sucker Theory.”
38. As Wilcox suggests (ibid., Question 12), DST also makes no predictions
that would allow one to discriminate between it and our accepted theories
of light (7.1).
39. Another real-life example, highlighted by Paul Thagard (“The Best Explanation,”
186), is the way in which the analogies between sound and light supported
the wave theory of light.
40. Depew and Weber, Darwinism Evolving, 71.
41. Darwin, Origin of Species, Chap. 4 (132–33).
42. Depew and Weber, Darwinism Evolving, 148–49.
43. Thagard, “The Best Explanation,”188.
44. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science, 83–84.
45. Thagard, “The Best Explanation,” 188.
46. Quine and Ullian, Web of Belief, 67.
47. Mackie, Miracle of Theism, 100.
48. Ibid.
49. Swinburne, “Mackie, Induction, and God,” 387.