RE: When Faith and Science Clash
September 20, 2012 at 8:56 pm
(This post was last modified: September 20, 2012 at 8:58 pm by Jackalope.)
(September 20, 2012 at 7:36 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: So there is basically three arguments against the teleological argument:
1) Chance, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't perfect chance.... (I would say it ignores the fact it shows Designer is highly probable)
2) Multiple universes (we happen to be in the lucky one).
3) Physical necessity (I find this to be the strongest if it's plausible).
No. There are other, older arguments. This is by no means a complete list:
Hume: Order in nature may be due to nature alone. For the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose can only arise from design.
Salmon: All objects which exhibit order are to our knowledge created by material, finite beings or forces. There are no known instances of immaterial, perfect, infinite being creating anything.
Voltaire: Even if the argument from design could prove the existence of a powerful intelligent designer, it would not prove that this designer is God (as proponents of ID are wont to assert).
Hume's refutation (now nearly 300 years old) is enough to confound the argument. It is not demonstrably true that order (the appearance of design) implies a designer. Hume effectively exposes the teleological argument as an argument from ignorance - which is to say that it is not necessarily true that there is no designer, but that the teleological argument fails to demonstrate such.