(Taken from Secular Outpost):
INTRODUCTION: "Paul Draper has usefully identified a fallacy of inductive reasoning he calls the 'fallacy of understated evidence.' According to Draper, in the context of arguments for theism and against naturalism, proponents of a theistic argument are guilty of this fallacy if they 'successfully identify some general fact F about a topic X that is antecedently more likely on theism than on naturalism, but ignore other more specific facts about X, facts that, given F, are more likely on naturalism than on theism.'[1]
What makes this so interesting is Draper's assessment of how various (inductive) theistic arguments commit this fallacy. By reviewing his writings, I've compiled the following summary of Draper's assessment of the evidence, illustrating how Draper believes the fallacy of understated evidence applies in practice to contemporary arguments in the philosophy of religion."
Go to the Following Link to See a Column Chart of the Fallacy:http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2011/11/23/paul-draper-the-fallacy-of-understated-evidence-theism-and-naturalism/#ixzz3X7w2NlJE
--By Jeffery Jay Lowder
RESPONSE: Please see the attached document below for additional items of understated evidence (and defeaters) in red, that render theism many many times more probable than naturalism such that even if we grant all the understated evidence contained in the link above as prima facie evidence that significantly weakens, cancels, or outweighs theism, the ultima facie result is that theism is many times more probable than naturalism on our total available evidence (items in bold black font were added for fun):
INTRODUCTION: "Paul Draper has usefully identified a fallacy of inductive reasoning he calls the 'fallacy of understated evidence.' According to Draper, in the context of arguments for theism and against naturalism, proponents of a theistic argument are guilty of this fallacy if they 'successfully identify some general fact F about a topic X that is antecedently more likely on theism than on naturalism, but ignore other more specific facts about X, facts that, given F, are more likely on naturalism than on theism.'[1]
What makes this so interesting is Draper's assessment of how various (inductive) theistic arguments commit this fallacy. By reviewing his writings, I've compiled the following summary of Draper's assessment of the evidence, illustrating how Draper believes the fallacy of understated evidence applies in practice to contemporary arguments in the philosophy of religion."
Go to the Following Link to See a Column Chart of the Fallacy:http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2011/11/23/paul-draper-the-fallacy-of-understated-evidence-theism-and-naturalism/#ixzz3X7w2NlJE
--By Jeffery Jay Lowder
RESPONSE: Please see the attached document below for additional items of understated evidence (and defeaters) in red, that render theism many many times more probable than naturalism such that even if we grant all the understated evidence contained in the link above as prima facie evidence that significantly weakens, cancels, or outweighs theism, the ultima facie result is that theism is many times more probable than naturalism on our total available evidence (items in bold black font were added for fun):
| fallacy_of_understated_evidence.docx |
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