Evidence for Intelligent Extraterrestrials is Evidence Against the Existence of God

The recent explosion in the discovery of exoplanets and our incipient ability to detect atmospheric biomarkers recommend reflection on the conceptual implications of discovering – or not discovering – extrasolar life. I contend that evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life is evidence against the existence of God, because if there are intelligent extraterrestrials, there are likely to be evils in the universe even greater than those found on Earth. My reasoning is based on Richard Gott's Copernican Principle, which holds that in the absence of information to the contrary, we should take ourselves to be typical observers

The Copernican Principle, Intelligent Extraterrestrials, and Arguments from Evil

The physicist Richard Gott defends the Copernican principle, which claims that when we have no information about our position along a given dimension among a group of observers, we should consider ourselves to be randomly located among those observers in respect to that dimension. First, I apply Copernican reasoning to the distribution of evil in the universe. I then contend that evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life strengthens four important versions of the argument from evil. I remain neutral regarding whether this result is a reductio of these arguments from evil or the statement of a genuine evidential relationship

The Equal Weight Argument Against Religious Exclusivism

In the last decade, analytic epistemologists have engaged in a lively debate about Equal Weight, the claim that you should give the credences of epistemic peers the same consideration as your own credences. In this paper, I explore the implications of the debate about Equal Weight for how we should respond to religious disagreement found in the diversity of models of God. I first claim that one common argument against religious exclusivism and for religious pluralism can be articulated as an Equal Weight argument. I then argue that to avoid this argument, religious exclusivists must reject Equal Weight. Next, I maintain that, while the exclusivist complaint that pluralism is self-undermining is incorrect, exclusivists can rightly object that the pluralist’s Equal Weight argument is self-undermining. Thus both exclusivists and pluralists have an interest in rejecting Equal Weight. My final discussion is speculative: I suggest that the goals of those of pluralist persuasion might be better met by religious permissivism, the view that some forms of both exclusivism and pluralism are rational responses to religious disagreement

The reliability of inference to the best explanation.

I analyze inference to the best explanation (IBE), and defend it against three problems. First, it seems we have no reason to think that the explanatory virtues exemplified by a theory count as evidence that the theory is true. Second, for all we know, the explanations we consider do not include the true explanation, and so our inference to the best of these explanations is doomed to failure. This is the problem of the bad lot recently defended by Bas van Fraassen. These two difficulties demand an argument that beliefs generated by IBE are justified. I answer this demand by developing a version of comparative reliabilism according to which a belief is justified if it is produced by a reliable process and there is no reliable, competing process. Thus, if IBE is reliable, and there is no reliable, competing process, beliefs generated by it are justified. The pessimistic induction is the induction from the falsity of previously-accepted scientific theories to the probable falsity of currently-accepted scientific theories. The pessimistic induction threatens to undermine the justification of beliefs generated by IBE, for if it is correct, IBE is an unreliable form of inference. I meet this challenge by arguing that IBE is reliable conditional on a background of true beliefs, including beliefs concerning which explanatory virtues are evidential. The past unreliability of IBE when these conditions were not met does not impugn the conditional reliability of IBE. I then follow Richard Boyd in arguing that the best explanation of the instrumental success of science, given the dependence of IBE on background beliefs, is that IBE is conditionally reliable. Because this is an abductive argument, concerns about circularity arise. I argue that these are defused by reliabilism.Ph.D.PhilosophyPhilosophy, Religion and TheologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128511/2/3029420.pd