As I was taking a stroll through downtown Portland, Maine a few days ago, I was approached by three nicely dressed individuals, one of whom was carrying a comically large video camera straight out of the '80s. They claimed that they were filming a documentary for their Bible study group, and asked if they could interview me. I was caught somewhat off guard, and not wanting to appear rude, I agreed. Their first question was fairly typical for these kinds of interviews: "Are you a Christian?" I said that I was not. With a smile, my interviewer asked me why I wasn't a Christian. Now, I'm usually more than happy to throw down with street preachers, but seeing as it was a beautiful day and I was enjoying a nice walk, I just wasn't in the mood. So in the most non-confrontational manner I could muster, I explained how I am an atheist (or if you want to get specific, an "anti-theist") because there is no compelling evidence to believe that any theistic claim is true.
I should have known better than to use the "A" word.
My interviewer was quick to respond. "OK, but pretend you are walking down a path in a forest, and you come across..." he began.
I had to interrupt him. "Is this the watchmaker analogy you're getting at?" I asked. To this he replied, "Um... yeah."
For those who are unfamiliar with the watchmaker analogy, it is a teleological argument for the existence of a Creator (in this case, God). A teleological argument is otherwise known as an "argument from design," and asserts that there is an order to nature that is best explained by the presence of some kind of intelligent designer. The most current incarnation of this argument is, of course, Intelligent Design.
Anyway, the watchmaker argument, as formulated by the British Christian apologist William Paley in his book Natural Theology, goes like this:
"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."
In recent years the watchmaker analogy has evolved (ha ha) to include the notion of "irreducible complexity," a term coined by the prominent Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe. So now instead of having the mere presence of a watch (Behe is particularly fond of using a mousetrap as an example) imply a watchmaker, we are to conclude that the watch is far too complicated to have been created by natural processes, and that therefore the watch must have been designed by an intelligent agent. Thus life, like the watch, is too complicated to have arisen by natural causes.
But let's think about this for a moment. If you look at a watch lying on the ground and think to yourself, "Oh, this must be designed," what are you comparing the watch to in order to make that judgment? Would you compare it to the ground, the trees, the grass, the animals, or the sky perhaps? If the watch looks designed compared to its surroundings, the only logical conclusion we could draw is that its surroundings are not designed. If we were unable to differentiate the watch from its natural surroundings, then we would deem it to be a natural object no different from a rock or a tree.
If we say that life is designed, again, with what are we making the comparison? All that is non-life? OK, but then we would still have to say that all non-life is not designed. But suppose we say that the entire universe is designed. Well, we don't have another universe to compare ours to, and as Hume points out, that's exactly the problem. We only have experience with one universe, and unless we have the opportunity to examine other universes (if they exist, of course), we cannot say with any degree of certainty that our universe is designed, nor do we have any reason to believe it is in the first place.
So without even having to rely on complex and dense scientific arguments to refute the watchmaker analogy, we can easily see that the argument serves to refute itself.
I explained all this, though quite abridged, to my interviewer, and this more or less ended our conversation. We parted ways amiably, with my interviewer wishing me a "blessed day," and with me wishing him a "rational day."
Now my purpose in bringing all this up is not to beat up on religion (or maybe it is... I haven't decided), but to point out that most, if not all, modern arguments for the existence of God(s) are rehashed arguments originating centuries ago, and when you boil them down to there basic logical structure, they are easily dismantled by counterarguments that are often just as old.
When searching for the truth, we do ourselves no favors by conjuring strange excuses on behalf of our beliefs in order to reconcile them with reality. What we should strive for is to arrive at our beliefs in an honest way -- a way that is mindful of the facts and adapts with change, and not one that bends to our wishes.
Have a rational day!
Do Biological Clocks Revive William Paley's Design Argument?
One more consideration threatens to revive Paley's ghost and scare the living daylights out of the Darwinists: the collapse of their historical argument. Living things, they say, have an evolutionary history that could produce complexity from simpler beginnings by natural selection. Well, both recent papers cited above said that similar mechanisms exist in mammals and fruit flies. The common ancestor of these are so far down Darwin's tree, it leaves evolutionists with two options: (1) the complex biological clock mechanisms had to already exist in the common ancestor, begging the question of how they arose, or (2) the mechanisms arose by "convergent evolution" -- a post hoc rationalization that assumes what it needs to prove.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/06/do_biological_c060411.html
Yes? So? What is your problem with complexity arising through natural selection, as in the case of the many different types of eyes that developed in living organisms? If that complexity enhances an organism's possibility of environmental change, it is selected for. It is seen through the fossil record and we can see it in living organisms.
""convergent evolution" -- a post hoc rationalization that assumes what it needs to prove."
That statement shows that you don't understand what convergent evolution is. In what way does it "assume what it needs to prove"?
The fact that dolphins and sharks have similar shapes is because that shape works well for the environment they inhabit, and the way they find food. They look similar on a superficial level, but they are completely different types of organisms. That's convergent evolution. It isn't assuming anything, but instead is an explanation for the similarity in shape of unrelated organisms.
What evidence do you have for a supernatural "designer"?
I could have a ton of evidence - it wouldn't matter. Evidence is largely interpreted by presuppositions held by the observer.
It doesn't "beg the question". Right now, scientists do not know precisely what that "last common ancestor" is. I'm sure that many attributes of living organisms, like having a head which contains sensory organs, bilateral symmetry, etc. It is certainly possible that a "biological clock" was present in that last common ancestor. Why not? That biological clock attribute helps organisms be active when they need to be. It may have developed through some environmental pressure, selected for by evolution.
What begs the question is claiming that complexity in organisms is caused by a supernatural being or some "designer". Who or what is the designer? What evidence (not based on your subjective opinion) do you have that such a designer exists? Why make the assumption of such a designer with no supporting evidence?
Evolution through genetic mutation and natural selection can account for what we see around us. Creationism/id can't.
I am well aware of the simplicity of this argument. It seems to be a poor substitute fr the watch/watch maker story but I see the determining factor of intelligence as a matter of change and the rate of change as a method of manifestation. Simply repeating numbers on either side of a decimal would appear to be endlessly redundant uselessness. However, in my work, this is exactly what I do and there are patterns that manifest themselves at specific rates.
I have noted that the stars and other derivative star objects in the universe manifest very similar characteristics. Similarity is the clue to incremental understanding. Given the fact that each star or derivative is a source of light and radiation, the set of sources may approach infinity, but distance and proximity suggest that the DNA is a repetitive model of symmetry that can be used to support decoding of the language between distant counterpart components. If so, just as the sequoia is one, so might we discover that superior intelligence isn't dependent on any one given appendage. We can be aware of but not necessarily constantly reliant upon this intelligence in a cognitive sense.
I am an information technologist so my perspective is jaundiced by math that does not consider quantity as an objective destination. Reuse is a more pertinent objective and rate of conversion a higher preference. Imaginative extrapolation along those lines yields a probability of something that can change in what we conceive as forward and backward cognition. Well, at least what we perceive as awareness of our relative state of animation.
In some ways, this is analogous with light passing through glass. Is it changed? A lot depends on the glass but more depends on the source of the light. We are masters of dumb ignition we call fire. There is evidence of smarter ignitions the source of which we are only just now beginning to find ways of measuring.
So, the evidence of life and intelligence are disjointed and unrelated in my concept. The fact that I can communicate with machines and those machines can respond in life like manners strengthens my perception of the presence of a higher intelligence. Likewise, the ability to objectify extremities temporarily gives greater credence to the concept of associative simultaneous development across vast distances.
How this fits into the argument for the existence of a creator intelligence is somewhat unorthodox, but I guarantee it has nothing to do with watches. Time may be relevant where life is defined in relevant terms. The best measure we have for time is the speed of light and we are not certain that all light moves at the same rate.
What we know as light as opposed to radiation is a narrow spectrum of the possibilities, so we are only dealing with the measurable and even then with the detectable elements therein. Lately we have begun experimentation with the intersection of light and radiation similar to what happens when hot meets cold or sound produces pain. These simplified analogies proffered here for the lay interests, but the issue of the existence would stem from not so much defining the orderly, bur organizing those seemingly disorganized interactions where the inverses intersect as a result of disparate sources.
This would account for the infinite occurrence of uniqueness at every scale from micro to megla and approaching infinity.
Right.
French dressing on my word salad please.
J.B.
Just found a wonderful quote from an unexpected source:
"The language of God is not English or Latin; the language of God is cellular and molecular".
----Timothy Leary
(Personally, some of my most religious moments occurred when studying chemistry, biology, physiology, anatomy, etc etc.)
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-sets-it-out-step-by-step/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+uncommondescent%2FJCWn+%28Uncommon+Descent%29
What actual evidence (not these silly "logic puzzles") do creationists have that supernatural causation is not only possible, but has happened?
"DNA isn't a literal "code""
You may want to get ahold of all the biosemioticians at the world's universities and research organizations and tell them they've all got it wrong.
http://binghamton.academia.edu/HowardPattee/Papers/894677/The_physics_of_symbols_and_the_evolution_of_semiotic_controls
Like all ID arguments, they ignore the evolutionary history involved. If something like the RNA hypothesis is true, the RNA molecule, which codes for itself, would also catalyze its replication.
What they are arguing is origin-of-life stuff, not ID. They think they are supporting ID, but they are only describing how the arrangement is set up today.
Many of these guys are as versed in the evolutionary history as anyone...
This is fallacious reasoning - the watch isn't seen to be designed, even in Paley's argument, in the context of it's surrounding, but in the details of it's assembly. It would appear designed if it were in a watch store, or, suspened in space, because it's design inherent. Furthermore, that the watch is designed doesn negate the idea that it's environment may be. The contrast may result from the fact that two very different levels of design are involved.
As to comparing universes - exaclty what criteria would you apply to another universe in order to detect design - the idea that a comparion is necesary seems fallacious as well. Desing would be assessed on independant criteria in each case separately. -The design, if it existed, and you were sophisticated enought to detect it, would be inherent in each universe and seen, evidentially, within each universe independantly - "A" would be percieved to be designed, in the same manner as "B" would be so assesed. You may then compare the designs for commonality, or diversity, but it would be on the basis of criteria separate from either object examined.
What you're talking about is subjective opinion as to whether an object is "designed" or not. We know that an actual watch is designed because we know how watches are manufactures, and can see it happen.
We know the natural processes that formed the Earth and led to life, and how that life has changed over time. Those processes show no indication of anything more than being naturally-occuring.
How do you know for sure that you would even recognize "design" if you saw it?
No, the theory of evolution does not claim that "something came from nothing". Evolution claims that living organisms change through time due to random genetic mutation and natural selection.
"so then i guess we get back to the watchmaker argument."
Actually not, since the watchmaker argument isn't a valid one.
"So my question to you is where did it all start from?"
Check it out: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/
"In my opinion with evolution does just that because it can not answer how it all started."
That's not what evolution says. You're talking about abiogenesis, which has evidence. Supernatural causation, OTOH, has no evidence.
"On top of that, things like fossil records and radiometric dating are in my opinion, and i say this not having the pedigree of someone in that area of study, flawed in how they ascertain their information and dates of things because most of the time using the same methods they are wrong about things we know the age of.
then you would be wrong. Do you understand how radiometric dating actually works? It's very accurate. You can choose to ignore the evidence because you don't like it, but that's your hangup, not mine.
Nah, they've just gotten tired of having to deal with the same BS argument over and over and over and over.
What if the watch were sitting on the floor of a garage?
5:55 PM CST
@ "dwight who" & "Cody Girl"
...Now I think is the time for folks to see the real Sagan. Here is the full quote in proper context:
"Spirit" comes from the Latin word "to breathe". What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word "spiritual" that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that souring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or the acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mahandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
"The Demon-Haunted World -
Science as a Candle in the Dark"
Carl Sagan, 1995, p.29/30
...For anyone wishing to explore the outer reaches beyond page 29, I believe you may discover one of the greatest books written in the 20th century.
J.B.
IMHO, you really are making this much more complicated than it actually is. If it takes intelligence to figure out how it works, it took Intelligence to make it.
now, for a control in your "thought experiment," please explain one thing that can be "figured out" without intelligence.
http://evoinfo.org/papers/ConsInfo_NoN.pdf
www.sameold.b.s.that'sbeen.refuted.before. com....
a simple source for the refutation of any of the absurdities that ballyhoo or any other religionist might suggest:
http://www.talkorigins.org/
… this is not disinterested scientific critique. This is personal invective. One sees this all the time. When preachers and religion apologists do it, you roll your eyes and move on. But when scientists do it, it’s far more disturbing, because they are, or ought to be, committed to dispassionate analysis."
http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/
Until we discover something that actually demonstrates that life is impossible naturally (and no, those supposed probability analyses that ID people do don't provide that information), entertaining it as a valid alternative and trying to promote it being taught in schools alongside the current valid theory is less than useless.
BTW, I also am opposed to teaching about the origins of life & evolution from a religious perspective in our public schools.
which, of course, there are none.
"Bit like sticking a coin on the sidewalk."
Was that humor ? Because you blew your own "punch line".
Your statement is non-sequitur, and reflects that you've missed the whole point of this blog.
Sidewalks and coins bear evidence of Human design and origin, unless you're from California.
J.B.
...Only a true British Canadian could say that !...
J.B.