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DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9725-7
BOOK REVIEW

Science and religion: Compatibility issues

Daniel C. Dennett and Alvin Plantinga: Science and religion:
Are they compatible? New York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011, vii+82pp, 6.99/$9.95 PB
Jim Slagle

Published online: 11 October 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

This slim contribution to the Point/Counterpoint series is the outcome of the debate
between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett at the Central Division meeting of the
American Philosophical Association in 2009. The debate consisted of a lecture by
Plantinga, a response by Dennett, and a counter-response by Plantinga, which the
book reproduces. The book includes further responses by Dennett, Plantinga, and
Dennett again.
Because it is a debate, there are numerous points that cannot be addressed in
detail within Science and Religions short length. Perhaps, the three most significant
are whether the randomness of Darwinism is compatible with Gods guiding the
course of evolution, whether a naturalistic evolutionary explanation is preferable
because it posits fewer entities than a theistic evolutionary explanation, and
Plantingas Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism. Regarding the first,
Plantinga points out that the randomness of Darwinian evolution does not mean
uncaused nor does it mean unsupervised. It merely means the lack of any physical
mechanism in the organism or its environment that determines which mutations
would be beneficial for the organisms survival and then causes just those mutations
to take place. Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that God may
determine which mutation would be beneficial and then causes it, since God is
neither physical nor a mechanism. Hence the randomness involved in Darwinism
does not imply that the process is not divinely guided (6).
Incredibly, Dennett concedes this but considers it moot because of the second
point: it is an entirely gratuitous fantasy (27). We can certainly add God or other
designing agents (like extraterrestrials) to the picture, but if we already have an
explanation available that fully accounts for everything we observe, to appeal to
such agents is completely unnecessary. Ockhams razor cuts them away, and we are
J. Slagle (&)
Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Burgemeestersstraat 16/202,
3000 Leuven, Belgium
e-mail: jnkslagle@yahoo.com

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left with just the naturalistic explanation. This is perhaps the main objection to any
compatibilist position between science and religion, and while Plantinga addressed
it briefly in his opening speech, Dennett obviously remains unimpressed. Plantinga
argued that, all things being equal, we should prefer the simpler explanation that
posits fewer entitiesbut things are not always equal. If naturalism cannot plausibly
account for some aspect of reality then we should prefer theism, even though theism
posits the additional entity God.
This leads directly to the third point, Plantingas Evolutionary Argument against
Naturalism or EAAN. Roughly, the argument is that the probability that we have
reliable cognitive faculties given naturalism and evolution is low (Plantinga drops
the or inscrutable which he has traditionally added at this point). This does not
mean that the brain would not evolve to acquire reliable indicators of its
environment in order to induce appropriate behavior, but that these indicators do not
have any necessary connection to the belief contents, much less to their truth-values.
The indicator triggers a particular behavior which allows the organism to survive in
a particular circumstance, and this indicator also triggers a particular beliefbut
what reason do we have to think that this belief is about the circumstance, much less
that it is a true belief about the circumstance? Plantinga has been asking this
question in some form for 20 years and it is clear he is underwhelmed by the
objections he has received. He argues that for any belief one would have a 50/50
chance of its being true, since for any true belief that is available its denial is
available as well. If we take one hundred unconnected beliefs, the probability for
them to be mostly true in this scenario is extremely small. From this, the rest of the
argument follows: one who sees the low probability has a reason to not believe that
his cognitive faculties are reliable; therefore, he has a reason to not believe any
belief produced by his cognitive faculties, including belief in naturalism and
evolution. Therefore, naturalism is self-defeating. As such, naturalism cannot
plausibly account for an aspect of reality, namely, the existence of beings that
reason, know, and engage in scientific analysis.
Of course, Dennett demurs. In his final essay, he compares Plantingas EAAN to
the claim that an engineer once proved that bumblebees are too aerodynamically
challenged to flyirrespective of the fact that one just whizzed past your face. If
one could prove mathematically that bumblebees cannot fly, the obvious response
should not be that God is holding them all up with an invisible finger every time one
tries to launch itself out of the hive but that the mathematical proof is erroneous.
The same goes for Plantingas argument: if we have an argument demonstrating that
we cannot have reliable cognitive faculties on naturalistic principles, the appropriate
response is to question the argument, not the principles. This, Dennett argues is the
same error made by Plantingas favorite scientist, Michael Behe, who mistakes his
inability to imagine a naturalistic explanation with a reason for thinking there is not
a naturalistic explanation. Both Behe and Plantinga are committed to what Richard
Dawkins callsthe Argument from Personal Incredulity, and it is an obvious
fallacy (76).
It is unfortunate that Dennett refers to this, however, since in the essay preceding
this one, Plantinga referred to this very fallacy and applied it to Dennett, Dawkins,
and likeminded authors: Dennett and others make that same kind of argument from

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personal incredulity against theism. They find theism incredible, fantastic, irrational,
worthy of ridicule and mockery, and so on. They dont typically give reasons (or if,
like Dawkins, they do, they are exceptionally bad reasons): They just find it
incredible (60). At any rate, Dennett has not actually refuted Plantingas EAAN, he
has merely claimed that it must be invalid because otherwise it would mean that
naturalism is falsewhich is precisely what Plantinga is arguing for.
Again, there is much more to this debatesuch as whether the assumption that
God will not gratuitously interfere with the regular course of events amounts to an
assumption of atheism, or whether belief in God is as absurd as belief in
Supermanbut to go into much more detail over such a short book would be
disproportionate. Overall, Science and Religion is an excellent book which takes
two of the top living philosophers going head-to-head over one of the most
controversial (hence, interesting) subjects in Western culture. One wishes the
authors had kept going or had asked several other philosophers to read their debate
and write responses of their own; but their goal, I take it, is to keep the book short so
that it can be used as an additional text for courses in philosophy of science,
philosophy of religion, and (of course) science and religion. Besides, if one wants to
read more, there is plenty of material available by both authors.
The only weakness, and it is a big one, is that one side did not really come
prepared. Dennett makes no mystery about his disdain for religion, and his
unwillingness to take it seriously or even pay much attention to it: the fact that it is
an ancient tradition with many eminent contributors does not make it more
deserving of attention than any other mythology (48). This hubris, when matched
up with perhaps the premier philosopher of religion of the last 100 years, results in a
rather lopsided fight. Dennett certainly has a razor-sharp wit, but it does not really
matter how sharp your knife is when you bring it to the proverbial gunfight.

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