Argument from Design
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[edit] Definition
The Argument from design may be summarized as follows: When I see a complex object such as a watch, I know it has been designed: therefore, when I see a complex object such as a tiger, I should infer that it has been designed.
[edit] Quotations
- There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office, in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it...
- I know no better method of introducing so large a subject, than that of comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. They are made upon the same principles; both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws themselves; but such laws being fixed, the construction, in both cases, is adapted to them.
- --- William Paley: Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity
[edit] History
It is commonplace to associate the Argument from Design with William Paley, the author quoted above, so much so that it is often referred to as "Paley's argument". However, the argument is not original with him: by the time he wrote the argument had been advanced by the naturalist and clergyman John Ray, and by William Derham, author of the Artificial Clockmaker and Fellow of the Royal Society; the Argument from Design had also been discussed critically by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
It is equally an error to charge Paley with plagiarism on this count: he was writing about an opinion so widely known in his time that it was not necessary for him to disclaim originality; and it is not his fault that subsequent generations have tended to give him the credit for the argument.
[edit] Discussion
The Argument from Design, used as an argument for the existence of a creator, may have been useful to theists in Paley's day, but it is utterly futile in the hands of modern creationists.
Paley and other theists argued that the appearance of design shows the existence of a designer, addressing his arguments to people who knew of only one cause for the appearance of design, namely a designer.
The creationist, on the other hand, argues that the appearance of design shows the existence of a designer, addressing his arguments to people who know of two possible causes for the appearance of design, namely: the existence of a designer; and evolution by random mutation and natural selection.
Take the particular example given by Paley of the resemblance between the eye and a telescope, for example. It is no use arguing that the eye resembles a telescope and so must have been specially designed for that purpose when talking to someone who understands the evolution of the eye.
To draw a parallel, people used to know about fire as a source of heat and light, but not about nuclear fusion as a cause of these same two effects: and so in those days people quite sensibly based their reasoning on the idea that the Sun was a fire, since it resembled one. We might call this the Argument from Fire. But it would be foolish for someone living today to say: "We know that fire produces heat and light: therefore the Sun is on fire: therefore the Sun is not powered by nuclear fusion."
Not only has biology moved on since Paley's day, but so has design. It is now commonplace amongst engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians not to design complex structures, but rather to hand the problem over to a computer which simulates the processes of reproduction, mutation, and selection to produce a design fit for a given task. Paley in his day could point to a man-made object such as a telescope, and say "It is complex, so it had a designer". Today, even looking at an object we know to be man-made, we cannot make that inference. To resume the parallel with nuclear fusion, the creationists' use of the Argument from Design is like continuing to use the Argument from Fire even after nuclear fusion has been produced artificially in the laboratory.
