New Paper on Collins' Fine-Tuning Argument

Saward, Mark Douglas. "Collins' Core Fine-Tuning Argument", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming).


Here's the abstract:


Collins (The Blackwell companion to natural theology, 2009) presents an argument he calls the ‘core fine-tuning argument’. In this paper, I show that Collins’ argument is flawed in at least two ways. First, the structure, depending on likelihoods, fails to establish anything about the posterior probability of God’s existence given fine-tuning. As an argument for God’s existence, this is a serious failing. Second, his analysis of what is appropriately restricted background knowledge, combined with the credences of a specially chosen ‘alien’, do not allow him to establish the premise Pr(LPU∣NSU & k′)≪1 .

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