When I was getting my philosophy degree, as best I recall, the only regular class where Darwin's name was even mentioned was a philosophy of religion class, when we discussed Plantinga's EEAN.

I say "regular class," because I took an independent study course on logical positivism just before graduating. The logical positivists did use some ideas from evolution in their work, but they didn't treat it as philosophy. To them, it was just a scientific fact.

Raphael,

I'm not sure what I would make of this -- even after reading the longer quote, I'm not sure what the context was or what Darwin's conclusions were with regards to this.

More importantly, I'm not really arguing about the implications of this quote, rather the way in which the author seemed to stretch the conclusions beyond what the quote would entail.

Thank you for the explanation, Andre. What do you make of the quote from Darwin to W. Graham:

Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

If you're going to participate in the debate your work has caused, it might be helpful to engage with the objections other people have made rather than the objections you conjure up for yourself to knock down again in a reply which just restates your original premise.

Thank you for participating in the discussion regarding your article.

Natural selection is the product of rationality—according to a hypothesis generated by Charles Darwin’s rationality

As I have noted in other comments to this article, it doesn't make any difference, today, what Darwin's ideas about natural selection were. The idea of natural or adaptive selection have, may I say, evolved over the last 150 years in biology.

Unless you are merely interested in history -- and I don't think you are -- then, if I may be honest, it seems either silly or disingenuous for you to argue today with ideas that are 150 years old, especially about our brains, since that was 40 years before neurons were discovered.. I respectfully suggest that you argue about natural selection and evolution today with today's theory of evolution by adaptive selection and with the evolutionary biologists of today. Argue about brains today with the neuroscience and neuroscientists of today. Argue about brains and philosophy with the neurophilosophy of today and today's neurophilosophers.

Darwin was wicked smart, but his acorn of natural selection is today a mighty oak. Why are you standing in front of the oak but still arguing with the long-gone acorn?

[N]atural selection does not operate on “truth” but on
“reality,” on what the world is like. Truth, on the other hand, is a
propositional concept.

For philosophers, these concepts seem so very different -- especially for those philosophers who are quite fond of the ancient Greeks (especially the dualists like Plato) and the Christian ancient fathers and Aquinas.

But, for our brains, they are not different. There are many things in the physical world for which the brain has propositional views, as well as abstract ideas. The brain is mainly concerned with being right -- making correct assessments and responding correctly, and making corrections if wrong. The concept of 'truth' is just another object to evaluate and categorize, like 'kittens.' They are, of course, in different categories, but they are equally in categories.

The folk philosophy that has posited how our brain 'must' operate has little to do with how neuroscience is telling us our brains actually operate.

beliefs are not anchored in the genes

The way to make a brain is anchored in the genes, as are many instinctual responses. (For example, monkeys and humans are instinctually fearful of snake-shaped objects, the fusiform gyrus of infants is instinctually attracted to faces from birth, and a few smells instinctually trigger disgust but all other disgust reactions to scents are learned.)

The brain that our genes build is a learning machine, an input-evaluation machine, a memory-building and -access machine, and a response-driving machine. It has developed to reward learning and motivate learning, since learning leads to success.

Specific 'beliefs' or propositional attitudes are developed over time, but the ability to believe, to disbelieve, to not-have-a-position, and to change beliefs are functions of the brain.

I cannot see how Newton’s discovery of gravity, Mendel’s discovery of genes, and Darwin’s discovery of natural selection could have been catapulted by their genes.

That's because it wasn't catapulted by their genes (except to the extent that IQ is somewhat hereditary). It was catapulted by their society, culture, education, and knowledge base. Wallace discovered natural selection only shortly after Darwin did, and several others' thoughts were headed in that direction. The knowledge base and the culture were ripe for that discovery.

If the genes of people who accept certain truths are no different from those who do not accept them, then natural selection has nothing to select.

That statement is correct, but not in the way you think. The genes don't care about what is abstractly true. They care about what is successful; that is, with respect to nervous systems/brains, correct detection, correct interpretation, correct response -- with 'correct' meaning that which contributes to survival and reproductive success.

beliefs are not anchored in the genes—that’s why our beliefs can change.

Our genes build our brains. Human brains, like those of all mammals, include a large learning component. Part of this learning component is to learn new things, and part of it is to discard incorrect things or replace them with more correct things. Our learning ability wouldn't be a very useful skill if it was unable to purge unsuccessful ideas. That's why our beliefs can change.

The EAAN is just silly. Nervous systems, even ones in nematodes (ringworms), protect the animal by receiving input from inside and outside the organism, coordinating and evaluating the input, and triggering the appropriate response -- using hormones or neurotransmitters. The complete, entire, and sole purpose of the nervous system is to correctly interpret and respond to the environment. Species with a nervous system that is not good at this will not survive.

I agree with Plantinga -- and most neuroscientists -- that our brain did not evolve to understand quantum mechanics or multiple dimensions. But they did evolve to develop appropriate, successful beliefs.

However, the main story with mammals was that, because the mother's brain had been changed to include care for offspring as for self, the young could be born with a less developed body and brain that could learn and adapt to the environment instead of being born with all knowledge/instinct built in but with less ability to learn and adapt. These brains had to include memory and the ability (and desire) to figure things out and relate them to other knowledge -- e.g., this berry is in the category of 'good things to eat' but only when it is red. If these brains could not develop reliable patterns or did not have sufficiently reliable memory or make appropriate, fast determinations about the salience of items in one's environment, that species would not survive.

Social animals, in particular, had to develop additional ways of thinking -- or perhaps extensions of existing ways -- including 'theory of mind.' 'Theory of mind' is the ability to 'read' another group member and correctly interpret what that one is likely thinking or feeling (and the desire to figure this out). Without this ability, reliable and successful, social groups could not exist.

Also, certain sets of feelings were necessary: feeling emotionally bad for breaking the social rules and feeling good about being with attached others (as just two examples of many), which were extensions of the brain's punishment (feeling bad) for making mistakes when alone and the brain's reward (feeling good) for being in a safe place or being well fed. If these brain did not reliably generate the appropriate motivation, reward, or punishment for the circumstances, that species would not survive.

Social environments are the most complex and difficult challenges a social animal faces. Compared with that, hunting and doing calculus are easy.

The whole purpose for primitive nervous systems of 300 neurons and complex brains of 85,000,000,000 neurons is to make correct interpretations of the environment and generate correct (successful) behavior.

For social mammals, the 'environment' includes every place the individual travels and every type of condition and every water source and every kind of food or prey animal and every enemy and dangerous situation and every member of one's group and their personality. Humans have the greatest amount of available memory, the greatest ability and drive to learn, and the best pattern-detection and salience-detection abilities, plus error detection and correction.

All of these include the ability and the motivation to evaluate the correctness or wrongness of each perception and decision for each circumstance, even when very complex.

The individuals with the best brains for making correct evaluations and responses, and for correcting erroneous evaluations or responses, are the most likely to be successful.

Brains are all about being right, and about correcting when wrong, to the best of each species' ability, in every circumstance.

Why would anybody think that we can't trust our brains because they evolved?

But if my ideas are not convincing, read some of these refutations of this peculiar idea of Plantinga's:

"Plantinga’s Unconvincing 'Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism'” by Bob Seidensticker (Cross Examined at Patheos)

"Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism" Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci at his Rationally Speaking blog

"Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism refuted" - Philosopher Stephen Law at his Stephen Law blog (A 3,500+ word refutation!)

Several more refutations can be found at the Wikipedia
page on the EAAN

Raphael,

Here's the relevant bit:

My starting point is one of the statements he makes in his autobiography. When he expresses his doubts about the claims theism makes, he says that the theory of natural selection makes him wonder whether “the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, [can] be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions [re: theism].” And again in a letter to W. Graham in 1881, “Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

I would say Darwin does make a great point here: If the human mind is the mere product of natural selection, we cannot trust any of the conclusions it draws. Curiously enough, though, Darwin applies this insight only to any theological conclusions one might make but not to his own biological conclusions. He doesn’t seem to realize that when he discards theistic claims, he should also discard his own evolutionary claims, because he strongly believes that both are the mere product of natural selection.

It appears that Darwin is only questioning our ability to draw grand conclusions. Why then does the author say that Darwin believes we can't trust any conclusions? Not only that, but his very next sentence seems to contradict this claim. While the author is right to point out that the theory of evolution might itself be such a grand conclusion, I don't see how the article supports the claim that Darwin believed none of our conclusions were trustworthy. I hope this helps.

How is the article misleading?