• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
    • Articles (single)
    • Articles (in series)
  • Audio/Video
    • Audio Interviews, Lectures, and Debates
    • Video Interviews and Lectures
    • Powerpoint Slides
  • Blog
    • Current Posts
    • Blog Archives
  • Podcasts
    • The Tentative Apologist Podcast
    • Archived Podcasts
    • Reviews

philosophy of science

Should theological claims be judged by Popper’s Falsification Criterion?

April 1, 2020 by Randal

Today, I’ve gotten into discussions with folks on Twitter about whether Karl Popper’s principle of falsification should be invoked to judge the value/veracity/legitimacy of theological theories. Things got going with my tweet in response to Counter Apologist. (Follow up on Twitter to see our full back-and-forth exchange.) It's interesting how many atheists assume without question […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: epistemology, falsification, philosophy of science, theology

What’s wrong with the scientific study of morality? An interview with Paul Rezkalla

October 14, 2019 by Randal

Paul Rezkalla has an MA in Philosophy and Ethics from the University of Birmingham and an MA in theology from St. John’s University. He is currently working on a PhD in philosophy at Florida State University (with the esteemed Michael Ruse) and an MSc in cognitive and evolutionary anthropology from Oxford University. In this conversation, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, interview, metaethics, naturalism, Paul Rezkalla, philosophy of science, scientism

Intelligent Design Explanations are not Science Stoppers

May 25, 2017 by Randal

It’s a familiar charge for anybody well versed in the ID literature: ID explanations ought to be rejected because they are “science stoppers.” (See, for example, Karl Giberson and Donald Yerxa, Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation Story (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 225-26.) How’s that exactly? The idea is that once you invoke intelligence as […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: intelligent design, philosophy of science, science stopper

Scientism and Metaphysics-of-the-Gaps

May 19, 2014 by Randal

In this article I am going to address the concept of “God-of-the-gaps”. Any person who spends any time reading in the theology/science literature will find that the term God-of-the-gaps is often wielded as a sort of accusation. In other words, people don’t typically accept God-of-the-gaps. Instead, they accuse others of falling into the God-of-the-gap-trap (aka […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: God of the gaps, metaphysics, philosophy of science, science, scientism

Is evolution the easiest theory to disprove? A Response to Denis Lamoureux

May 16, 2014 by Randal

Yesterday I posted my review of the new Zondervan book Four Views on The Historical Adam. One of the book’s contributors, Denis Lamoureux, offered a response. Despite the fact that I stated Lamoureux presented the strongest case, he didn’t seem very happy with the review and listed several points that he thought I got wrong. […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Denis Lamoureux, falsification, philosophy of science, science, theory

24. Travis Dumsday on evil and divine hiddenness

November 19, 2013 by Randal

If there is any person in the modern age who has embodied saintliness, it was that pillar of faith, Mother Teresa. So it was quite the surprise when, after her death in 1997 her diaries were published and we discovered that this paragon of faith had often struggled with doubt. She wrote: “If there be a […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: intelligent design, interview, philosophy, philosophy of science, science, Travis Dumsday

Intelligent Design: A response to the A-Unicornist

June 19, 2013 by Randal

Mike D (aka The A-Unicornist) wrote an article yesterday titled “Randal Rauser is an ID proponent“. Near the beginning of the article Mike D quotes me as stating: “ID is the view that appeal to intelligent or agent causal explanations is a legitimate part of natural science.” He then replies: That’s not accurate, actually. Because of […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: agent cause, intelligent design, philosophy of science

Intelligent design: The ultimate science stopper?

September 2, 2011 by Randal

The Atheist Missionary’s claim: “The problem with ID is not that it is propounded by the Discovery Institute but rather that it dissuades research into biological origins by asserting a mile “0? without going any further.” Translation into general claim: “The problem with ID is that once you invoke an intelligent cause as the explanation […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: design inference, intelligent design, philosophy of science, science

Intelligent Design, explanation, and the laws of physics

July 7, 2011 by Randal

The debate on intelligent design continues with the latest proposal coming from Mike who writes: Intelligent Design could only be a valid scientific explanation if you were proposing an intelligent entity that is bound by the laws of physics. If God is any part of the proposal, it is by definition unscientific, since no science […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: intelligent design, laws of physics, philosophy of science, scientific explanation

Intelligent Design, Unknown Intelligence, and a Ouija Board

July 5, 2011 by Randal

 Joseph H. Axell posted a long rebuttal in the comment section of my article “Unintelligent arguments against intelligent design: A Primer“. There are a number of claims I’d like to challenge in the response. For instance Axell writes: “Dembski’s ‘explanatory filter’ for detecting design has been shown to be inadequate (false positives being but one […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: design filter, intelligent design, ouija board, philosophy of science, William Dembski

Why denying intelligent design borders on insanity

July 2, 2011 by Randal

Earlier this week I challenged The Atheist Missionary’s rejection of intelligent design and thus his position that it is illegitimate to make intelligent design inferences. I did so by posing the following scenario: The Atheist Missionary returns home on his birthday to see several dozen balloons taped to the side of his house forming a huge welcoming […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: directed contingency, intelligent design, philosophy of science, science

Unintelligent arguments against intelligent design: A Primer

July 1, 2011 by Randal

Earlier in the week a discussion of intelligent design arose in one of the threads. I was interested by the large number of really bad arguments that were produced and so I’ve decided to include them in this post along with the responses that David and I provided. What you see among the skeptics of ID are sound bites […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: intelligent design, philosophy of science, science, teleology

Footer

Against Malaria Foundation

Against Malaria Foundation

Support Kiva

Support Kiva

Search this website

Archives



Copyright © 2022 • Randal Rauser • A Steady Site