Everything in this world seems to have been made to perform a specific task. The sun rises, the stars shine in the dark, plants and animals get born and grow and nothing (nothing at all!) seems accidental. How is it possible then for the world which we live in to be a product of undirected forces of creation? How can human beings, with all the intricacies evident in their body systems, be made unless there was an intelligent being to construct them? We are made up of a billion, billion cells, all arranged and organized to perform a very specialized function. The cells themselves are so complicatedly engineered to produce energy from the food that we eat. There are countless enzymes, the absence of any of which can be detrimental to life. Furthermore, every protein inside our body is made by decoding the information in DNA, a biological database, found within every type of cell of the human body that has a nucleus. So how does any information system arise unless there was a mind to put it there in the first place? How can there be a law without a low giver, so to say?
The questions which I have deliberately entertained in the above lines are presumptuous; they lack a considerable degree of honesty. My introductory paragraph is impregnated with loosely defined terms. In the context which we are currently concerned with, terms such as âintelligent,â âengineered,â âdatabase,â âmindâ and âlawâ are all question begging terms. If carefully examined, they all turn out to be made out of an uncritical assumption rather than rational investigation. For example, there is no reason why one should think of an intelligent designer to explain the intricacies of the human body as that would require the designer to be of higher or at least equal complexity with his created world. And, this makes him guilty of the problems we brought him to solve in the first place. Put differently: How are we going to explain the complexity of the alleged designer? Are we going to propose another designer for the designer? If so, wouldnât that take us into an endless loop? Similar could be said of the remaining terms, but in order to pass onto more necessary issues, and since these terms can implicitly be dealt with as we move on with more elaborations, it is helpful to look at some of the most important arguments for design made in the past and show what their main weaknesses are.
I will, therefore, start with that of William Paley, a famous British theologian of the 19th century, then I will briefly discuss creation science and finally I will discuss intelligent design (in all cases assuming the role of a critic). The arguments given in support of these three appeals for design are, in essence, the same, but since they tackle the issue in varied historical contexts it is important to treat them separately. As I still am going to rely on memory, however, I donât claim to be thorough with the historical details I am about to share in the following paragraphs.
At the time when William Paley came up with his idea everybody seemed to have been convinced by his argument. In his youth, even Charles Darwin used to be an admirer of William Paley. For me, this is a clear indication of Paleyâs enormous influence in his time. For Darwin, who later on was going to be an evolutionist to have once been influenced by Paley’s argument for design, is historically something curious. Darwin must have found it hard to let go of the shackles of Paleyâs arguments from his mind before he came up with his ingenious theory of evolution. However, no matter how hard it might have been for Darwin to rebel against Paley, itâs not my intention to speculate on it now; I should simply proceed with Paleyâs argument. What was so special about Paleyâs argument, then, that made it sound so convincing to young Darwin and many of his contemporaries? To answer the question I should rather let the argument speak for itself.
Palley was convinced that the universe was created by an intelligent being. After observing the complexity and ârationalityâ of the way it worked he couldnât help but think of a creator behind the scene. It is one thing to admit that the universe is a complex enterprise, but it is a complete mistake to think of it as rational, for rationality, at least in this particular context, can be nothing other than a prejudiced human projection. I have this bad habit of trying to refute a case before completing telling the necessary background story to my reader. I think I should go back and complete telling the story first: stating Paleyâs argument. Paley used an allegory to illustrate his case which I have paraphrased without losing the essential points, because I am still depending fully on memory.
Imagine one is walking on a street and stumbles on a stone. In a situation like this would one be concerned with where the stone came from or whether it was made by someone? One may just move on and forget all that happened. But imagine another situation, where one happens to come across a watch falling on the ground, will he/she respond in the same way he/she did when he/she stumbled on a piece of stone. Any rational person wouldnât doubt that the watch must have been made by someone in somewhere at some time. Without even having seen the maker one can conclude, by only observing the watch, that there is a designer responsible for making the gadget. If one can make a connection between a device and its maker after just observing the devices purposive design then, Paley argued, there is no reason why one shouldnât make a connection between natureâs magnificence and an intelligent designer responsible for it. If one could be surprised enough by watches intricacies to make an inference to a watchmaker how much more, then, should one be after beholding nature and its complexity and all the orderliness that we see in it. These must have made the Christians of Paley’s time happy as it proved that their claim for the existence of a creator wasnât, after all, far-fetched. Paley’s argument did not, however, remain immune to criticism. This was because one of the intentions of Paley, as a theologian, was to prove the existence of the Christian god, and this made many of the philosophers at his time uncomfortable for two reasons. One was the fact that, all that the argument, if true, proved was the existence of an engineer and says nothing at all about the personality of the designer which is what theology is concerned with most. The second reason was an argument made by David Hume, a renowned British philosopher who criticized Paley’s argument for assuming that complicated entities could arise as a result of deliberate acts of design only. We see a lot of complicated things in this world, some natural and some man made, but we donât attribute a designer to all of them. If one thinks of a cow and Paley’s watch, for example, it is obvious that the cow is much more complicated than the watch but we also know that it was not made but given birth to by a preexisting cow. In this respect, if we are to be honest and follow Paley’s line of argument, we should also conclude that complicated things arise not only through acts of design but also through birth. So, by implication, isnât it possible, as Hume would counter argue that the universe which we live in was given birth to by a universe that existed before it. Hume has got a point here. Think of Paleyâs argument in its most straightforward form and you will realize that he undoubtedly makes an assumption that complexity arises through design alone, and he seemed to leave no space for equally acceptable alternative views in his thesis. All Hume did was pointing out an equally feasible alternative that an honest person should also accept in the same sense he would accept Paley’s argument, if he does accept it at all.
DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION provided an answer for how the complexity in living things could arise as a result of simple naturalistic processes. In its infantile stage, the theory was successful in providing a logically consistent explanation of why living things are the way they are. Even though there were some gaps that had to be filled to complete the picture, the theory was promising and powerful enough to be relied upon, for it avoided the circularity of reasoning evident in Paley’s argument for design. Reserving the issue of circularity for future discussions, it would suffice for now to just mention that Darwinism in its own accord was a blow to the design argument. Answering why and how it is so, would, conversely require a discussion of the theory of evolution separately, which, unfortunately, is hard to confine within the boundaries of the scope of this essay. I may, however, borrow some necessary points whenever my arguments seem to demand it.
Darwin, as mentioned earlier, was amazed by Paleyâs argument for design. It appears to me that he must have fully realized that on the one hand the world eludes our perception with an appearance of design and on the other hand that logic demands for explanation to be made without making an appeal to an intelligent being. His theory of evolution could, in a nutshell, be seen as a very neat solution of this dilemma. What was Darwinâs idea, then? Nature has a way of âdesigningâ, a way of bringing complicated better surviving life forms out of simpler ones. Living organisms change over time, though gradually. This gradual undirected change is punctuated by natureâs selective intervention to sort out the fittest of all to survive and to leave offspring. There is nothing purposive about this mechanism, however, in the sense that we may use the word âpurposeâ in our daily activities. In other words, nature and mutation (i.e. the change) are both blind; it is the combined effect of both that is capable of âdesigning.â As soon as one has grasped the factual logic behind this, the rest becomes something that has more or less to do with details. Those who might be interested in the details can consult any textbook on evolution.
I have, So far, been beating around the bush. I think itâs time now to expose the core fault of the logic behind the design argument. Humeâs argument was successful at pointing out the lack of specificity in Paleyâs thesis- that it was porous enough to allow the intrusion of equally feasible suggestions which were essentially against the theorizerâs interest. Hume is however criticized by modern philosophers for being guilty of the same logical flaw that the design argument is guilty of. How? Because he used the same mode of reasoning as did Paley and, as a result, succeeded only in dwindling but not fully refuting Paley’s argument. Much more fundamental look at the theory was needed to accomplish this particular purpose of refutation. Paley’s argument made one more flawed assumption that Hume couldnât identify_ that the designers existence was taken for granted. But since the concept of circularity deserves some clarification here, let me first say something on it, for then can we only sensibly see why and how it applies to Paley’s argument for design.
Circularity is one of the most common pitfalls of reasoning that is likely to be found in every level of complexity of argumentation. No matter how trained one might be in philosophical matters, once contaminated with it, a seemingly well-furnished building of arguments of him/her can be brought into ruins. A form of reasoning is circular if it implicitly or explicitly assumes the proposition it sets out to prove. It can be a very tricky enterprise, though. There is a story which goes like this: a student of philosophy came to his instructor and told him that he has found a logical prove for the existence of god. The instructor got curious and asked him to state his logic. âGod does not lie,â the student proceeded, âand the bible says that god exists, and since the bible is the word of god and since god cannot lie, therefore god exists.â At first sight it may seem interesting but after a closer look one cannot help but feel suspicious of the unwarranted simplicity of the logic. To prove the existence of god you cannot start with anything which you think is an attribute of him (god does not lie), because in so doing you have made an implicit assumption that he, after all, exists.
Let me bring another historically significant argument made by Saint Anselm. His argument went like this âgod exists either as an idea or as a real being. And we know that the idea of god is great. And if something is great it is of basic significance for it to exist than not to exist. Therefore God must exist.â Anselm was one of the most prominent philosophers of the church, whose arguments were so influential for centuries. This clearly demonstrates how tricky circularities can be. Anselm started with an indirectly presumptuous notion that god is great, from which he set off for nothing but to arrive back where he left. His departure and destination points are the same, and he fools himself into believing that he has made a progress. This, however, is surprisingly a very common thing in theology. I donât know if angels reason like that when they talk to each other. Heaven might want to play by these rules but here on earth we are already fed up with such and much more other kinds of absurdities and, what more, we have come to recognize them for what they are â utter stupidities.
The design argument raised a relevant question but attempted to answer it from an irrelevant standpoint. The main problem with the theory is that it mistakenly assumes that there is an independent intuition that enables us to identify design by simply observing complexity. To use modern gadgets as an example, think of a computer instead of Paleyâs watch and how you would think of it to have come to be the way it is. You might think of it as a product of an engineerâs ingenuity working in the Microsoft industry, and there would be nothing wrong with your guess. It is absolutely rational and highly probabilistic a guess. But why is it so? What makes you think of a designer when you behold an entity of tremendous complexity? Paley thought it was self-evident, something intuitively obvious. And, thatâs where he got it all wrong. Poor Paley attributed the complexity of the watch he found falling on the ground to a watchmaker, simply because he is well aware of the existence of watch makers and not because of any gut feeling. Put differently, he would be wrong if, for example, he thought that it was made by elves as nobody has ever seen an elf watchmaker in his lifetime. So, whoever he thinks has made the watch, Paley must have had a previous encounter with the maker because thatâs the only way he could have made sense. The same applies to his design argument regarding the whole universe. To claim that the universe has a designer because it is so complicated is, therefore, circular as it presupposes the existence of the designer instead of proving it. Had Paley noticed this logical truism he could have, I think, put a restraint to his obsessive theologically oriented curiosity. Damn! Why am I being so harsh on this guy!?
In the mid-19th century certain Christian fundamentalists offered a version of their own argument for design. They based their explanations on the literal translation of the account of creation given in the book of genesis. They claimed that the universe was created on six days interval and all the living organisms were created the way they are now. According to this fundamentalist view, evolution was a theory of the devil which eroded manâs sense of self-respect by tracing his ancestral line back and down to bacteria. Above all, their basic concern was that the theory of evolution had very destructive implications on the Christian worldview in general. Think of it for a moment. If living organisms are an artifact of evolutionary process will there be a need for godâs creative intervention as an explanatory agent? If man was the outcome of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary mechanism will there be an inherent meaning to his life that the bible would otherwise have us believe? If the timescale that evolution required to refine the adaptability of living organisms is billions of years, doesnât this hugely compromise the validity of the bible as the word of god â because literal reading of the bible indicates that the world is not older than ten thousand years or so? Given the above urgencies, it was natural for religious authorities to defend what was at stake, and this was done by inventing a pseudoscience (i.e. fake science) namely creation science. Henceforth, I will briefly discuss the main tenets of creation science and their problems.
I was so surprised when I saw for the first time a series of lectures given by a creationist. My sense of surprise had, however, more to do with my ignorance on the subject of evolution rather than with the smartness of the arguments entertained. The lecturerâs name was âDr.â Hovind. Actually, he is much more of a preacher than a lecturer. He âcriticizedâ the theory of evolution for being based upon âcontroversialâ evidences and frauds. He, for example, mentions that the search for the missing links that Darwin predicted in his theory was filled with instances of deliberate forgery. He also mentions that, in an attempt to show the link to a common ancestor, that, Thomas Huxley, a famous proponent of Darwinism, exaggerated the depiction of the embryos of different animals. Furthermore he claims that carbon dating or any of the other dating techniques is not as dependable as it is thought to be by evolutionists. His claims, as stupid as they are, are too numerous to be confined in just a few lines, the logic underlying his preaching can, however, be easily picked out and exposed to criticism. And I have decided to just do that.
The notion that god is the creator of everything IS as widespread AMONG THE EDUCATED AS AMONG THE UNEDUCATED. This might sound an overgeneralization but given the sad fact that almost everything the universities teach doesnât, if at all, treat issues of this kind seriously enough makes my guess somewhat reasonable. On the one hand you have people with PhDs who still believe that the moon is a deity and on the other hand you have little children who ask their parents honest and curious questions regarding the existence of god to which, however, they are unlikely to get honest answers. I wonder why we are unwilling to investigate our childhood folktale beliefs as we become more and more educated. Itâs not, for example, uncommon to hear well educated religionists rationalizing their silly beliefs even when the evidences seem to out rightly contradict their claims. Creationists are a case in point. These people are endowed with the brilliance of at least an average person; the reason why they are unwilling to admit or see the flaws of their arguments is due largely to their excessive bias towards what they groundlessly believe to be an infallible book- the bible. They tend to see the world from a biblical perspective. Even in topics were the bible is silent about, creationists strive to make it say what they already are convinced of what it must say. The bible, for example, says nothing about the big bang, but since it talks about how the universe was created creationists knit and tie verses to make things sound as if it was in fact talking about the big bang. The biblical accounts portray ignorance on almost every aspect of scientific knowledge that the theory is based upon. There is nothing in the bible suggestive of the cosmic wave background. There is nothing in the biblical record that talks about atoms and subatomic particles, the understanding of which is essential to appreciate the advances in modern physics.
But of course creationists would argue that the bible should not be expected to lay those facts literally; all it does is give figurative or allegorical glimpses. Apart from this, the bible, since it is not a book on science, should not be expected to give details on scientific matters, so I was told. I would call this question begging. Galileo once said, âthe bible tells us how to go to heaven not how the heavens go.â This famous saying of him was given while he was defending his case of heliocentricity, a position that the earth is revolving around the sun and not the other way around. He was opposed by church men for the most part because his claims contradicted that of the bible. Prioritizing biblical views in matters of scientific research was entangled within the fabric of many of Galileoâs contemporariesâ logic. If we look back in history it would be clear to us that all biblical views of the world have enormously deterred scientific knowledge and understanding. There is no scientific knowledge or insight that I can think of the bible has inspired or suggested. The bible, at its best, offers mythical views which are typical of any ancient mythical book. The best thing we can learn from the bible is on the subject of the Jewish people and Christians_ their culture, religion and mentality.
From this perspective, it could be said that the approach of creation science is parasitic in nature. Science discovers and creation science revises its interpretation of the bible in the light of the new discoveries and uses it as a weapon against science. In short, it feeds on science to support itself. This, indeed, is a very sad fact regarding the relationship between science and religion which I think will continue as long as people are not able to recognize creation science for what it really is _ a fake science and a disgrace to Christianity.
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