The Design Argument is quite similar to The Cosmological Argument as
it attempts to infer the existence of God, but instead of from the
existence of the cosmos it is from a particular aspect or character of
the world, namely the presence of order, regularity and purpose.
Order, regularity and purpose are seen as marks of design, and the
argument concludes that God must be the source of that design.
There are various types of Design Arguments, with philosophers giving
them different names but the two most well known are The Argument from
Design and The Argument to Design. Both arguments are inductive, a
posteriori and synthetic. The Argument from Design is the most popular
form, involving analogy. In philosophical terms it can be expressed
as:
P1. Objects in nature are similar to man-made machines.
P2. Man-made machines are the result of intelligent design.
P3. Similar effects will have similar causes
C. Objects in nature are the result of something similar to
intelligent design.
Supporters of the argument included such philosophers as St Thomas
Aquinas and William Paley. Aquinas featured the argument as the fifth
of his five ways. The heart of the argument is that non-intelligent
material things produce beneficial order, and therefore require an
intelligent being to bring this about, i.e. God
William Paley went on to use the analogy of a watch, he asked us to
suppose that we are crossing a heath and come across a watch. He
argued that even if you had never seen a watch before, you would know
that the instrument did not happen by chance, but must be the result
of the work of an intelligent mind. He went on to say that the watch
demanded a watch maker and that likewise, the order in the universe
demands a designer. Paley is often depicted as someone who was trying
to prove God to the unbeliever however he implies that he is more
concerned with making things clearer to those who believe in God
already.
The Argument to Design, also referred to as The Anthropic Argument
The ability to compare the universe to a watch allows for familiarity, which is what I believe draws agreement and acknowledgement of his argument. It is thought that, as humans, we have at least one person in existence that is aware of how to put together a properly functioning watch, and we know that a watch needs to be put together intelligently. Given Paley’s reasoning he presents that the world is also intricately made which creates a parallel between a watch in the universe, giving individuals a sense of familiarity. As such, it naturally follows that there ought to be a universe maker, or God, who appears to be the only one capable of doing such a thing. Primarily, my concern is that the intelligent maker must be God; Paley merely assumes that the reader agrees and gives no further insight on why the creator must be God. Furthermore, he assumes the universe works without proof or any real knowledge which seems a rather fatal flaw. It is irresponsible to believe that the universe works the way we assume to fulfill our desire to explain the existence of God, similar to Mackie’s objection to the cosmological argument (Mackie 171). I do not believe Paley’s argument survives Hume’s objection due to the necessity of experience. He merely uses analogy to justify his claim; the only difference is that he has experience with a watch and none in regards to the universe. Again, he is
In fact however, Paley was not talking about a watch. Paley was talking about the universe, with the watch as a metaphor. The universe is obviously much more complex than a watch and they both serve a purpose. The gears in the watch function to tell us time. He also listed a supernatural being as the creator of the makings of the “Watch,” that every living thing, rock, drop of water, and the heavens above were created by a supernatural, all seeing being. Though Paley never says that the “creator” is God, one can assume according to other people’s perspectives that the creator would be, and that the pieces of nature were the equivalent of the parts of a watch that keep it ticking and combining in effort to contribute to a bigger purpose. This bigger purpose however is needing the efforts of those below it, or else nothing else would work, as stated by Paley.
William Paley develops his view of the design argument through an example of a wristwatch. He has the reader imagine themselves coming across a watch on the ground. He then asks the reader how they think the watch came to be there or came to exist in the first place. Looking at the watch, Paley says that one will notice the intricate design of the watch and notice that all the parts were put together in such a way to serve a purpose, namely, to tell time. Paley believes that from looking at the watch we will be lead to think that the watch has a clever designer. The watch displays a certain evidence of its own design.
Paley lays his argument as such: a watch is like the universe in complexity and functionality, a watch needs a designer, therefore, the universe needs a designer as well. Paley’s argument centers around the simile between a watch and the universe . He points out that the watch is complicated with many parts, yet all work together to form a functional machine. Paley shows in his argument that all the pieces of the watch are put together for a definite purpose. No matter how many watches were made before this one, Paley explains that the watch still has a maker. Watches cannot be designed by other watches, some superior being must have created at least the first one. The designer obviously understands how the watch works and how to create it to function properly.
A lot of conflicts, debates, and even fights are about a theory by a scientist called Charles Darwin. This theory is the theory of evolution, which is viewed as the most important and the most debated theory of all-time. This theory changed science forever. However, this theory is not believed by everyone and some people even say that Charles Darwin, who formulated this theory, even said it was wrong before he died. However, this theory is not all wrong and useless, because natural selection, which is the mechanism of this theory, is believed in by most people and scientist. Although natural selection is believed in by most people and scientist, there is an argument that natural selection is a random process, however natural selection is definitely not a random process.
Evolution is described, as being the change that occurs on a genetic level when a new generation spouts from an ancestral population. Change is destined to happen. That is why in the science of biology the word evolution means descent with modification. Through various factors such as the temperature of the environment, humidity, and altitude a species will adapt to survive and will eventually pass on genetic traits that help the species next generation survive.
The basis of support for Paley’s argument is that the watch has a designer, who is the designer of the universe, and the creator of the complex universe is God. The watch has complex functioning since it is the design of an intelligent being which is similar to other phenomenas that have like explanations. The world is composed of complex artifacts, therefore there has to be an intelligent designer. Stumbling across the watch on the ground was no accident unlike finding a stone, therefore the universe could not have been an accident. Every piece specifically designed in the watch has a purpose. Yet, everything is not perfectly designed in the world, similar to how parts of the watch contain its imperfections. Paley suggests that just because we do not know the purpose of certain pieces of the watch does not imply that they have no function. This is parallel to how each artifact in the universe is so sophisticatedly designed for certain
Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection explains the general laws by which any given species transforms into other varieties and species. Darwin extends the application of his theory to the entire hierarchy of classification and states that all forms of life have descended from one incredibly remote ancestor. The process of natural selection entails the divergence of character of specific varieties and the subsequent classification of once-related living forms as distinct entities on one or many levels of classification. The process occurs as a species varies slightly over the course of numerous generations. Through inheritance, natural selection preserves each variation that proves advantageous to that species in its present circumstances of living, which include its interaction with closely related species in the “struggle for existence” (Darwin 62).
explosion; nothing turns into something, and the world as we know it is formed. Or, there is a one true God who formed this world through supernatural means and created man out of the dust. Both seem pretty far-fetched for the ultimate answer to the preeminent question of the age: Why we are here and where we came from. Evolution is assumed to be true due to the fact that it seems to be proven by natural scientific organic processes, and Christianity is assumed to be false because it is based off some book that a bunch of random people wrote form 5,000 years ago. All of this would be postulated if this paper was written by the general populous, but this is not the case. In this paper, evolutionism, also called Darwinism, and creationism will be compared and contrasted, and in the end, give substantial information as to why creationism is the only conceivable answer.
Children often play a game called telephone, where one child whispers a statement into another child's ear, and the statement is passed on to other children; at the end of the game the last child will repeat the statement that was told to him or her. The majority of the time, the statement said would be completely different than the original one. This is an example of evolution through natural selection; where somewhere along the life span of the statement, it was modified, and the modified statement was passed on to form a new statement.
To begin with, Paley’s watchmaker argument contains a major Fallacy of composition. Paley explains: “Every indicator of contrivance … which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature”.6 This statement infers that like a watch, nature exhibits the same complexity and perceived purpose, and therefore, like a watch, must require a designer. This statement is completely invalid as it assumes because the individual parts of a watch are made for a purpose and are complex, so to must the parts of the universe, and therefore the universe has a creator, which is extremely irrational.
In order for a species to survive, its population has to evolve. Evolution is the process of gradual change driven by natural selection to improve survival. Evolution is the explanation of how life got to its current state. Before the idea of evolution, the Bible gave the explanation of how things came to be, the Theory of Creation. Charles Darwin is credited for developing the theory of evolution. Scientist such as Georges Cuiver, James Hutton and Charles Lyell, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck heavily influenced Darwin. It is because of Darwin’s voyage aboard the Beagle that we now have a scientific explanation of how species came to be. Canines have evolved and have been domesticated by artificial selection into our household pets. Unlike natural
Many scientists in the past, such as Aristotle and Plato, believed that there were no changes in populations; however, other scientists, such as Darwin and Wallace, arose and argued that species inherit heritable traits from common ancestors and environmental forces drives out certain heritable traits that makes the species better suited to survive or be more “fit” for that environment. Therefore, species do change over a period of time and they were able to support their theory by showing that evolution does occur. There were four basic mechanisms of evolution in their theory: mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection. Natural selection is the gradual process by which heritable traits that makes it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce increases, whereas there is a decline in those who do have those beneficial heritable traits (Natural Selection). For example, there is a decrease in rain which causes a drought in the finches’ environment. The seeds in the finches’ environment would not be soft enough for the smaller and weaker beak finches to break; therefore, they cannot compete with the larger and stronger beak finches for food. The larger and stronger beak finches has a heritable trait that helps them survive and reproduce better than others for that particular environment which makes them categorized under natural selection (Freeman, 2002).
The evolution theory, one of the most significant theories, laid groundwork for the study of modern biological science. This theory has lead scientists into unending debates due to lack of empirical supports. Until the mid-eighteenth century, when Charles Darwin came up with an explanation to evolution, scientists, then, began to endorse this hypothesis. In “Natural Selection,” Darwin explains the natural selection, a plausible mechanism that causes evolution, to gain approval of his cynical audience for his evolution theory. He supports his claim with numerous examples of animals and plants that have developed traits beneficial for survival. A century later, Stephen Jay Gould, influenced by Darwin’s work, supports the evolution theory with a different method. In “Evolution as Fact and Theory,” Gould, in contrast to Darwin, criticizes his detractors, the creationists who believe that every life form is the creation of a supernatural being, to reinforce the validity of the evolution theory. Gould undermines creationism by emphasizing its misused concepts of theory and popular philosophy, proving that it is not science. Besides denouncing creationism, Gould also provides theoretical examples as evidence to prove evolution is a theory. Despite their different approaches, both Darwin and Gould effectively prove the existence of evolution.
Paley’s argument discussed that an object so intricate and complex as a watch it must have a designer. The complex watch has so many functions and fragments inside of it such as the coils and the second and minute hands that move around the clock that make it so intricate. The watch has been really thought out. Inside the watch the middle and second hand move in equal and constant measured motion. The complexity of the watch shows that it has to be a product of a being that is very intelligent. The complexity of the watch can be also compared to the way our eye works. The eye is a complex organ that is able to regulate movement and perceive the world around us in a very complex way. Although the eyes are complex organs, it is one of the