جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "الیوت سوبر" در نشریات گروه "فلسفه و کلام"

The theory of evolution gave rise to various philosophical and religious oppositions from the very onset. The conventional modern interpretation of this theory is also regarded in opposition to theism. Naturally, some attempts have been made, since the emergence of this theory, to show the consistency or inconsistency of the claims of this theory with religious doctrines. Elliot Sober, the prominent contemporary biological philosopher, has offered a novel account of the relationship of the evolution theory and theism. He attempts to show the presumptive nature of that theory and prove its consistency with the existence of the hidden determining factors (including God) on the one hand, and investigate the relationship between the claim of unguided nature of the biological mutations and theism on the other hand. The final achievement of his investigations is that the evolution theory is neutral regarding the theistic claims and thus observes the naturalistic methodological rules. In this article, we have expounded Sober’s position and have finally evaluated it. It seems that the image he presents of the unguided nature of evolution based on empirical evidences is incomplete, and he has unduly been transferred from unguided mutations to unguided evolution.

Intelligent Design (ID) is an attempt to defend the idea that the order of nature bears marks of its Creator. This image of the concept has a historical root in ancient Greek philosophy. ID argues that science and theology support each other, when they are rightly understood. Under the influence of investigations of modern sciences –especially biology and cosmology- ID became the most serious battle in contemporary debates between theists and atheists. In this article, after an introduction for describing ID in general, Sober’s view point on the subject is described and criticized. Sober’s main claim is that ID is not testable and so should be rejected from scientific enterprise. In this article, we show that (1) his notion of testability is not complete and (2) ID can satisfy the testability criterion with some considerations. Sober's critics mainly underlie his notion of designer (divine) intervention in nature. The first response of this article is not only a deductive proof for ID, but also a critique of methodological naturalism.