mkehrt comments on Theists are wrong; is theism? - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Will_Newsome 20 January 2011 12:18AM

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Comment author: mkehrt 20 January 2011 02:50:19AM 2 points [-]

Phenomena with non-agenty origins include: any evolved trait or life form (as far as we have seen), any stellar/astronomical/geological body/formation/event...

It is pretty likely you are correct, but this is probably the best example of question-begging I have ever seen.

Comment author: gjm 20 January 2011 03:12:32PM 1 point [-]

All Dreaded_Anomaly needs for the argument I take him or her to be making is that those things are not known to be caused by "agenty things". More precisely: Will Newsome is arguing "interesting things tend to be caused by agents", which is a claim he isn't entitled to make before presenting some (other) evidence that (e.g.) trees and clouds and planets and elephants and waterfalls and galaxies are caused by agents.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 20 January 2011 03:28:43AM 0 points [-]

It seems to me that basing such a list on evidence-based likelihood is different than basing it on mere assumption, as begging the question would entail. I do see how it fits the definition from a purely logical standpoint, though.