The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

From the first article;

"The argument first assumes that a watch is different from nature, which is uncomplicated and random."

 Nature cannot be simply defined as uncomplicated and random since it has both elements of randomness, eg a rock strewn desert, and elements of complexity eg plants, animals etc.

That said, complexity is not a hallmark of design, nor is it antithetical to unguided processes. You keep suggesting that complexity is evidence of design, but I want you to consider the way technology advances in human culture. Take the computer, for instance: in the beginning, they filled whole rooms. In terms of moving parts and the effort it would take to build them, they were intensely complex, but the entire history of computer development has been one long move away from that. Despite being more designed than ever before, computers became smaller, simpler, easier to produce with less parts, with simplicity of function being the watchword when it comes to design and interface. They went from room-filling technological monstrosities that required specialized knowledge and tools just to operate, to something you can hold in the palm of your hand, turn on with a single button, and operate with your finger. Outwardly, in terms of mechanics and parts, and inwardly, in terms of software and control options, computers are getting simpler, not more complex, and this is a trend that can be applied to every piece of technology that people regularly work with: everything about the history of design that you've been exposed to indicates that greater design is accompanied by greater simplicity, greater ease of use, and greater unification and connectivity between devices.

... So, why the watchmaker argument? Your entire relationship with demonstrable design suggests that complexity does not correlate with design, and yet in this one specific case, to get to your desired conclusion, you flip the script on every technological revolution that has ever happened for no reason at all. Why is that?

I know that you hate it when I claim that the DNA (according to evolution) is the product of random mutations, but isn't that what Prof Dawkins is saying here;

"Natural selection, the blind unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

"Blind," does not equal random. While there isn't a pre-planned and guided foresight to evolution, there is an inherent filter built into the fabric of natural selection, which is that those organisms that survive it will be the ones with features that enabled them to do so. Those organisms without the ability to survive the environment they find themselves in... don't survive it.

By analogy, consider a computer program that spits out numbers. That's all it does, is display numbers, but those numbers cannot be even numbers, ever. Would you assert, then, that this computer program works by completely random chance where absolutely anything can happen?

No, of course not. You know, just based on what I've already told you, that the program won't produce a letter, nor will it produce an even number. While there's a randomized element, that element is bounded by restraints, just as natural selection is bounded by the fact that only those organisms it produces that won't die outright will survive. It's not anything more than a definitional part of what the system is- in the same way that you'll never get a married bachelor- but it does limit the output in such a way that the "wacky, totally random evolushuns!" strawman that creationists like to use doesn't apply.