YT:
William Lane Craig likes to think of himself as an academic, an intellectual and if you believe his fans, 'is regarded by many as one of the worlds leading in Christian Apologetics'. Well that's all fine and dandy until you actually check out William Lane Craigs track record in the peer review literature. See it turns out that William Lane Craig is a champion in academic circles only in the category of publishing 'uncitable junk'.
In academia 'the size of your balls' is largely determined how many papers you've written, and how many citations they pick up: basically how many interesting papers you've written. Turns out William Lane Craigs papers pull in on average about 2 citations, with his top citated work pulling something like a dozen citations. That's an absolutely farcical track record. Personally I find it difficult to see how the man can have such a high opinion of himself when his citations record is so poor. Indeed, by this metric, I've know people who have surpassed the entire contribution of WLCs academic career merely a couple of years after getting a PhD.
Normally I would let this sort of thing slide, apart from the man is such a professional slimeball in his dealings with the likes of Richard Dawkins that I figure his dirty little secret needs a little exposure. I mean with an ego like Craigs, you know the one thing that will cut his ego deeper than any insult is rubbing his nose in his utterly lack-luster citations record.
Personally I think he should hereafter be referred to as William Lane 'Two Citations' Craig, or he gets antsy about his credentials, Dr 'Two Citations' Craig.
4 Comments
HadouKen24says...If these are meant to be personal comments, then I don't see why Craig's argument's statements are necessarily all that horrible. As a student of philosophy, I was extremely underwhelmed by Dawkins and Hitchens. Sam Harris is somewhat better, but still not out of the woods. Their arguments simply aren't all that good.
Going on record as a scholar and saying it without backing it up is a bit gauche, of course. Which is what Bill Craig did. Bad form.
Craig is certainly better informed about the state of argumentation in philosophy about the existence of God, etc., than Dawkins and Hitchens are. That said, I'm not personally impressed by his arguments, and I'm not at all surprised to learn that he is very infrequently cited. There are philosophers on the atheist side who are far more convincing than Dawkins (and yes, even Denett), and far better informed about philosophy of religion. Craig is more of a philosopher than Dawkins, but he's still a hack.
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gwiz665@HadouKen24 you are doing the same thing as Craig is. "As a student of philosophy, I found [his arguments] underwhelming" just because you're a student of philosophy, doesn't mean we should take your word for it (appeal to authority). Back up your claim. Which arguments are underwhelming, in what ways?
Arguments have to be able to stand on their own feet, or they are worth nothing.
HadouKen24says...It's only fallacious if I'm actually making an argument, which I wasn't. Just personal comments on the man's work.
I didn't go into specifics simply because of time, but if you like, I can give you a brief rundown of what I find objectionable about his work.
The KCA: Craig seems to think that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is a very strong argument for theism, but it has numerous weaknesses. Craig argues for the impossibility of an actual infinite, whether in terms of a series in time, or of an infinitude of physical objects. His arguments in this regard are spectacularly weak. He believes, for instance, that the Hilbert's Hotel paradox shows that an actual infinite is absurd. This is not what the paradox shows, however--it only shows that an actual infinite would behave in unintuitive ways, breaking apart properties of numbers that we normally find together. Moreover, Craig provides no good reason to think that the first cause would have to be personal. He assumes that only a person could cause something to come from nothing, but doesn't back this up with any sound arguments.
Religious Epistemology: Craig asserts that philosophical arguments are neither necessary nor sufficient to have justified belief and genuine knowledge of the truth of Christianity--the light of the Holy Spirit is enough. He says this of himself as well, and is thus committed to his belief in Christianity regardless of any arguments that might be presented. He thus declares himself impervious to any argument that might vitiate Christianity--this is a profound philosophical failing. To declare that no conceivable argument can convince you away from your position is to declare the entire philosophical enterprise almost entirely purposeless with regard to that question.
The Resurrection: Craig uses Bayesian probability theory to argue for the likelihood of the resurrection, claiming that when the calculation of prior probability includes a belief in the existence of God, then the resurrection will be probable--and thus, the rejection of the resurrection by atheists just comes down to a dogmatic rejection based on a previously held belief. Craig is not the first to make this argument; Richard Swinburne first advanced it in the 70's. It is, however, a very bad argument. It only works if the "God" in question is in particular a Christian God to begin with. Not just any God will do, or the resurrection of Jesus is hardly more likely than the epiphany of Krishna or the revelations to Mohammad. But the specifically Christian notion of God was developed only out of belief in the resurrection in the first place. Thus, Craig's argument is largely circular.
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