The watchmaker analogy

[ApeNotKillApe]

How about: the watch is the result of human nature, which is a result of the brain which is a result of natural forces. Which does not mean natural forces are the result of human nature, unless you suggest that without the human mind, the forces of nature are unperceived and chaotic.

True, but then you open up the idea that the minds of other species aren't technically natural and all their creations aren't natural, either.  The Great Coral Reef?  Unnatural.  Bee hives?  Unnatural.  Ant hills?  Unnatural.  Spider webs?  Unnatural.

I was thinking more, order is a natural result of chaos, "I" is a result of chaos.

[dyresand]

Yeah its a dumb argument.
You find a watch there for there is a creator.
The universe was created there for needs a creator this argument has too many fallacies and creates issues.
Simple physics as such there is no time and space outside the universe there for no being like god cannot exist on the outside.

[robvalue]

Yeah, you'd see a watch lying on a beach made of watches, next to a sea made of watches under the sky made of watches. And you'd think, "Oh, look, a watch. Boy am I sick of those."

The argument is bollocks, of course. Even if you grant it completely, it is still the fallacy of composition to try and apply the same result to the universe as a whole.

Simplicity is the hallmark of design, not complexity.

[Losty]

I have no idea what this thread is talking about but every time I see the title my brain starts singing match maker match maker make me a match D:

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Simplicity is the hallmark of design, not complexity.

Bingo lolly, rob.  Fuxxake, I'm not remotely a god, nor even an engineer, but I could design a better universe than this one.  Eyes back-to-front, vestigial organs, chemicals that emit deadly poisons even when you DON'T fuck with them - all of this is exactly what we'd expect from a universe built up through trial and error, certainly not what we'd expect a god to come up with.

Boru

[ignoramus]

It's obvious from the bible that God himself was not intelligently designed! Why should his creations be?

[Pyrrho]

Doesn't he notice the watch exactly because it's so out of place? Isn't it the intelligent design of the watch that makes it unnatural?

Define the word "unnatural" and I'll be able to answer that.

If by unnatural, you mean something that exists outside the natural world, the only thing I can think of that's unnatural is.... God, or any other supernatural being out there.

Here you go:

natural

adjective
1Existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind:carrots contain a natural antisepticnatural disasters such as earthquakes

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

That would be why one would be surprised by a watch on a beach that one had thought was untouched by humans.  A watch is not natural in the sense above.


But if one is interested in the Watchmaker analogy, the wiki page is a good introduction to it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

[houseofcantor]

OK, that was kind of hilarious. 


But what's the question? I keep hearing a tornado in a junkyard spinning up a 747, and that kind of argument displays an ignorance of evolution. 

[Angrboda]

Simplicity is the hallmark of design, not complexity.

The problem with this is that we find examples of simplicity in nature. Neither complexity nor simplicity point infallibly toward objects that are the product of design. That's the whole problem. Nothing specific points unerringly toward things that are designed; regardless of what property you choose as an indicator of design, there will always be exceptions. That's why the design argument fails, because there is no 'hallmark' of design that points to design and design alone. Thus for any property you choose, if an object has that property, it isn't necessarily the case that the object was designed. Thus, for any property that you find the universe displays, it isn't necessarily the case that it points toward the universe being designed. The lack of a property which indicates design is the main flaw with the design argument.

[Clueless Morgan]

OK, that was kind of hilarious. 
[snip]

But what's the question?

Paley's argument is this:

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there."

"Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."

ANKA asks doesn't this person notice the watch because it's so different than the ground its sitting on?

Yes.  That's one reason the argument fails.  To put the watch on the same footing as the stone in the original argument, it would go something like:

In crossing a heath made of watches, suppose I pitched my foot against a big watch, and were asked how the big watch came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever.

Which is what robvalue is getting at when he says,

you'd see a watch lying on a beach made of watches, next to a sea made of watches under the sky made of watches

In the case of WatchWorld, the watch you stub your toe on is as unremarkable as the unremarkable stone you stub your toe on in Paley's original example so there's no reason to conclude that the watch in WatchWorld hasn't always been there just as is assumed for the stone.  If, as Paley continues on to say,

Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature...

Then there's no reason to infer design (or non-design) in nature any more than you would infer design in WatchWorld.


It is because of our scientific understanding of geological and biological processes such as plate tectonics and evolution (among others) that we infer non-design in nature, and it is because we have experiences with creatures that manufacture mechanical (now electrical) devices like watches that we infer that the watch in Paley's argument is designed.