Irreducible complexity

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  Specified complexity

  Specified complexity is an argument proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept is intended to formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex. Dembski states that specified complexity is...
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  Argument from poor design

  The dysteleological argument or argument from poor design is an argument against the existence of God, specifically against the existence of a creator God (in the sense of a God that directly created all species of life). It is based on the following chain of reasoning: The argument is structured...
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  Watchmaker analogy

  The watchmaker analogy, or watchmaker argument, is a teleological argument for the existence of God. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support...
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  Chinese room

  The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980), which attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never be properly described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave....
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  Problem of evil

  In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the question of whether evil exists and, if so, why. The question particularly arises in religions that propose the existence of a deity who is omnibenevolent while simultaneously also being omnipotent, and omniscient; attempts to...

• Poverty of the stimulus

  The poverty of the stimulus (POTS) argument is a variant of the epistemological problem of the indeterminacy of data to theory that claims that grammar is unlearnable given the linguistic data available to children. As such, the argument strikes against empiricist accounts of language acquisition....

• The Experience Machine

  The Experience Machine is a short section of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick. The text is one of the best known attempts at a refutation of ethical hedonism, based on considering a choice between everyday reality and an apparently preferable simulated...

• Twin Earth thought experiment

  The Twin Earth thought experiment was presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper "Meaning and Reference" and subsequent 1975 paper "The Meaning of 'Meaning'", as an early argument for what has subsequently come to be known as semantic externalism. Since that time, philosophers have...

• Argument from nonbelief

  The argument from nonbelief (also known as the argument from divine hiddenness) is a philosophical argument against the existence of God. The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which everyone or everyone...

• Argument from inconsistent revelations

  The argument from inconsistent revelations, also known as the avoiding the wrong hell problem, is an argument against the existence of God. It asserts that it is unlikely that God exists because many theologians and faithful adherents have produced conflicting and mutually exclusive revelations....