3 3 2C H A P T E R 1 6 ■ F a l l a c i e s o f V a c u i t ynoTEs
(^1) John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (London, 1843), book 2, chapter 3, section 2.
(^2) Antony Flew, “Theology and Falsification,” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. A. Flew
and A. MacIntyre (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 98–99.
(^3) Duane T. Gish, Richard B. Bliss, and Wendell R. Bird, “Summary of Scientific Evidence for
Creation,” Impact, May/June 1981, 95–96.
How would you answer Flew’s question? If the answer to Flew’s question
were that nothing could entitle us to say this, as Flew suggests, then would
this show that religious positions like this are self-sealing? That they are
empty? Why or why not?
- Some creationist critics of Darwin’s theory of natural selection argue as
follows:
Natural selection is a tautologous concept (circular reasoning) because it simply
requires the fittest organisms to leave the most offspring and at the same time it
identifies the fittest organisms as those that leave the most offspring. Thus natural
selection seemingly does not provide a testable explanation of how mutation would
produce more fit organisms.^3
Does this argument show that Darwin’s theory is self-sealing? How could
defenders of natural selection best respond?
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