Design Argument

Annotations:

• 1. Things that lack intelligence have a purpose 2. Things require direction from an intelligent being to achieve purpose 3. An arrow requires an archer to be directed towards a target 4. God is the intelligent being required to direct non-intelligent beings (organisms to purpose)

1. CRIT: Argument assumes what it is setting out to prove
   1. Why must all intelligent beings have a function?
   2. Why are these functions the result of an acting God?
2. CRIT: An arrow requires direction whereas an organism does not

Annotations:

• You walking across a heath and discover a stone that could have been there for ever. You then find a watch, for which the previous explanation is unsatisfactory.
• 1.The watch has parts which have been framed and worked together for purpose 2.The watch has been made with specific materials, suitable for its purpose 3.The parts produce regulated motion, and so carry out a function to make the watch work 4.If the parts were put together any other way, the watch would not work
• The complex features of the watch suggest design, it has contrivance, and so requires a contriver/ designer. Objects in the universe have contrivance, so they must have also been designed

1. CRIT: The stone clearly has no purpose, and the fact that parts of the watch have no purpose weakens the argument

   Annotations:

   • 1.We may be in ignorance about how watches are made  2.The watch may sometimes go wrong 3.Some parts appear to have no purpose 4.The watch might have come together by chance
   1. RESP: There are parts of the watch which remain undiscovered and perhaps will never be understood. Stone in field may be part of a larger puzzle
2. Hume's Criticisms
   1. Knowledge of watch making leads to knowledge of watch design, whilst knowledge of world-making does not lead us to knowledge about world design
      1. RESP: One in a million men know how oval frames are turned, but everyone is certain that they are designed. Certain intrinsic features about objects show design
         1. CRIT: Unable to compare Universes

            Annotations:

            • It is only possible to be certain of design without experience because we can compare it to other objects. With the universe, there is nothing which it can be compared to, we cannot know about the nature of the whole universe from certain parts of the world
            • Arguments from analogy are only strong if the two things being compared have lots of relevant similarities. A machine such has a watch does not have many similarities with the universe to support the conclusion that they were both designed. 
            • The universe seems to be more like a giant vegetable than a machine, with completely natural growth and organisation win a blind process. It may seem absurd to compare the universe to a giant vegetable, however it seems equally  absurd to compare it to a giant machine. Neither the giant vegetable nore the giant machine can be compared with the universe to prove its design.
   2. Argument does not demonstrate the existence of God

      Annotations:

      • Paley merely assumes that: 1.Machines and the universe exhibit similar features of design 2.Therefore they have both been designed by a being
      • There are design faults in machines as there are faults in the universe e.g. needless pain and suffering. The God who designed it must have no regard for morals-a God very different to the one described by Paley. 

1. The designer is not God but an unthinking machine (random+natural selection)
2. CRIT: Intelligent Design

   Annotations:

   • This claims that Darwinism cannot account for certain features of animals-the process of evolution is improbable. 
   1. 'the eye is too complex and well-adapted to have evolved'-Behe & Demski

      Annotations:

      • The separate parts of the eye are useless on their own, so would not lead to evolutionary success. The only explanation for their existence is that the eye came about as a whole. 
      1. Mousetrap Example

         Annotations:

         • The mousetrap cannot function without one of its parts, the designer designed all the parts to be in one place. In a similar way the eye would not work without one of its parts so must have been designed. 
      2. RESP: Someone with a bad eye can see better than someone with no sight

         Annotations:

         • The person with partial sight is better suited than someone with no sight. The one with partial sight passes on their genes which mutate over time to form a better-adapted eye. 
   2. RESP: Intelligent design is not a science as it claims to be, it does not follow scientific methodology or come to definate conclusions

1. Teleological arguments to the best explanation: Reverse Engineering

   Annotations:

   • Reverse engineering is used to trace back along the causal chain to arrive at the best explanatory cause
   • 1.We see beauty, life & orderliness in the universe 2.These cannot be explained by the sciences 3.God can explain them 4.Therefore Gd exists
   1. Beauty of nature cannot be explained by science e.g. tiger butterfly

      Annotations:

      • Evolution is the law of survival of the fittest, so surely the animals best suited have survived? Beauty is not required for survival and so must have been implemented by an intelligent being.
      • The tiger butterfly has amazing natural beauty-its wings resemble a tiger's face. God must have made the butterfly that way for us to admire. 
      1. CRIT: The tiger butterfly looks that way to defend itself from other animals who naturally mistake it for a tiger, also beauty is a natural mechanism for attracting mates
      2. CRIT: Hume's chance principle (Epicurian Hypothesis)

         Annotations:

         • The orderliness and life-supporting nature of the universe could be the result of simple chance. The universe exists the way it does as a result of random movements of a finite number of atoms. Over an infinite amount of time, the atoms will assume every possible position-some chaotic, some ordered (at the moment it is in a state of orderliness-Epicurean Hypothesis). 
         1. God is a much better explanation than the Epicurean hypothesis, which is based on pure chance
            1. CRIT: The Epicurean hypothesis is a much better explanation in terms of simplicity, explanatory power, predictive power and coherenece

Annotations:

• From the Greek word 'anthropos' which means human, this argument is so-called 'related to human beings'

1. Very precise and unusual conditions must have been met in order to facilitate life
   1. CRIT: Brandon Carte said that it may be unlikely for the universe to turn out this way, but that doesn't mean we can turn around and start questioning whether it could have happened by chance
   2. CRIT: Whichever way the universe turned out is equally as unlikely to happen by chance as this one,

      Annotations:

      • The Yahoos or Doodle-daddys could have evolved and marvelled at the unlikelihood of their own existence as we do. There is nothing inherently special about the features of the universe which lead to life.