[note: the author formatted this is a way that did not leave space for a page break. So I am inserting the break at the top — NR]
- Paley’s teleological argument is: just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watch-maker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker. Paley also addressed a number of possible counterarguments:
- Objection: We don’t know who the watchmaker is. Paley: Just because we don’t know who the artist might be, it doesn’t follow that we cannot know that there is one.
- Objection: The watch (universe) is not perfect. Paley: Perfection is not required.
- Objection: Some parts of the watch (universe) seem to have no function. Paley: We just don’t know those functions yet.
- Objection: The watch (re universe) is only one possible form of many possible combinations and so is a chance event. Paley: Life is too complex and organized to be a product of chance.
- Objection: There is a law or principle that disposed the watch (re universe) to be in that form. Also, the watch (re the universe) came about as a result of the laws of metallic nature. Paley: The existence of a law presupposes a lawgiver with the power to enforce the law.
- Objection: One knows nothing at all about the matter. Paley: Certainly, by seeing the parts of the watch (re the universe), one can know the design.
- Hume’s arguments against design:
- Objection: “We have no experience of world-making”. Counter-objection: We have no direct experience of many things, yet that never stops us from reasoning our way through problems.
- Objection: “The analogy is not good enough. The universe could be argued to be more analogous to something more organic such as a vegetable. But both watch and vegetable are ridiculous analogies”. Counter-objection: By definition, no analogy is perfect. The analogy needs only be good enough to prove the point. And Paley’s analogy is great for that limited scope. Hume’s followers are free to pursue the vegetable analogy if they think it is good enough. And some [unconvincingly] do imagine the universe as “organic”.
- Objection: “Even if the argument did give evidence for a designer; it’s not the God of traditional Christian theism”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding.
- Objection: “The universe could have been created by random chance but still show evidence of design as the universe is eternal and would have an infinite amount of time to be able to form a universe so complex and ordered as our own”. Counter-objection: Not possible. There is nothing random in the universe that looks indubitably designed. That is why we use non-randomness to search for extraterrestrial life and ancient artefacts.
- Other arguments against design:
- Darwin: “Evolution (natural selection) is a better explanation”. “There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” — The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. Counter-objection: “Natural selection” would be an alternative hypothesis to Paley’s if it worked. But it demonstrably doesn’t, so there is not even a point in comparing the two.
- Dawkins: “Who designed the designer?” Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Dawkins: “The watch analogy conflates the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves with the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes”. Counter-objection: Paley is aware of the differences between the living and the inert and is not trying to cast life into a watch. Instead he is only demonstrating that they both share the property of being designed. In addition, nothing even “arises”. Instead everything is caused by something else. That’s why we always look for a cause in science.
- Objection: “Watches were not created by single inventors, but by people building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: In Dover case, the judge ruled that such an inductive argument is not accepted as science because it is unfalsifiable. Counter-objection: Both inductive and deductive reasoning are used in science. Paley’s argument is not inductive as he had his hypothesis formulated well before his argumentation. Finally, Paley’s hypothesis can absolutely be falsified if a random draw can be found to look designed. This is exactly what the “infinite monkey” theorem has tried and failed to do (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: Paley confuses descriptive law with prescriptive law (i.e., the fallacy of equivocation). Prescriptive law does imply a lawgiver, and prescriptive laws can be broken (e.g., speed limits, rules of behavior). Descriptive laws do not imply a law-giver, and descriptive laws cannot be broken (one exception disproves the law, e.g., gravity, f = ma.). Counter-objection: Of all the laws with known origin, all (100%) have a lawgiver at the origin. The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive laws is thus arbitrary and unwarranted.
- Objection: It is the nature of mind to see relationship. Where one person sees design, another sees randomness. Counter-objection: This ambiguity is present only for very simple cases. But all humans agree that organisms’ structures are clearly not random.
- Dawkins: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Counter-objection: Just a corollary: since organisms indeed appear designed, then they are most likely designed according to Occam’s razor.
- In conclusion, Paley is right and his opponents continue to be wrong with not even a plausible alternative hypothesis.
Links:
Corneel,
All you and Entropy are doing is denying evidence that contradicts your worldview. You deny its evidence Entropy calls it fantasy. Theres no real discussion here. I offered to describe why I think the Bible is reliable and Entropy just categorically shut the discussion down.
There is more evidence for special creation then any other theory for the cause of the diversity of life. I gave it to you and you repeat the assertion it’s not evidence. I think the discussion has run its course. I could easily turn it around and just repeat the there is no evidence for common descent as a tactic but I don’t think that is true. Common descent is a partial explanation for life’s diversity.
If you are looking for literary criticism, no, they are not. One word summary: straw-men.
ET delete duplicate text
You provided evidence for special creation? Was this in another verbal conversation with Nathan Lents?
Write an OP and we take it from there. The discussion here is already all over the place.
Alan Fox,
I give evidence and you categorically deny it is evidence as the evidence is politically disadvantageous to you. Where do we go with this? Why are you thinking pushing an ideology not based on examining all the evidence from multiple perspectives is helpful?
You Cornel and Entropy are simply arguing from assertion at this point.
colewd,
Where is this evidence?
You have also claimed that phylogenetic inferences work by grouping similar organisms. You are contradicting yourself again, buddy.
And if phylogenetic analysis is “bullshit”, whence comes the phylogenetic signal, I wonder?
This is getting tiresome, Nonlin. Pay attention, please:
I demonstrated that the ancestral population of a group of completely unrelated guppies (or whatever) blows up to astronomical proportions if we trace it back a modest number of generations.
Can you figure out what the consequences are for your claim that we “group based on similarities without any presumption of origin.”?
Nope, they aren’t. You misunderstand and strawman the positions you oppose, refuse to present alternatives or clarify, dismiss all criticisms, and try to ridicule the persons presenting those criticisms. This you have been told many times.
Alan Fox,
You are living in it open your eyes.
The information that you have made a guess was contained in the post I used as an example. That was only part of the information, but it is still information. The original message does indeed contain information. What would happen to the information if the message was interrupted and interfered with before it reached me?
The original message read, “Ah, yes, the old “the information for these structures is not present in the DNA” gambit. My guess is that Heusser is not sufficiently familiar with the activity known as ‘baking‘.”
What if it was altered to read, “Ah, yes, the old “the information for ‘baking‘ structures is present in the DNA” gambit. My guess is that Heusser is not sufficiently known.’?
The end meaning is totally different to the originally intended meaning.
Indeed. It would be a change to have an interchange about the real issue that motivates Bill and nonlin.
Nope. They’re convoluted, poorly thought, elementary-school-like “essays” at most. They look as if you did not think things through. As if you did not check them a few times to find and fix editorial mistakes. As if you do not understand the subjects you’re pretending to discuss. As if you don’t know the difference between arguments and claims.
Corneel has made clear efforts at explaining things to you, has written very clear explanations, from which I have learned a thing or two. You have shown little understanding of those explanations, which come only to show that we should not be surprised by the poor quality of your “essays.”
Where are yours? The “pro/con” “notes” you present do not show that you understand the opposite viewpoints. They show that you have heard a few phrases that you write to pretend that they alone represent the opposite viewpoint, and then you dismiss them with a handwave. Often by just repeating the very same, poorly-written and poorly thought, claims you were making before the “notes.”
Your “essays” look as if you read some elementary school manual about essays and argumentation, and then you imagined that it was a matter of writing things in one go without much introspection.
I’m living in France. It’s a good life on the whole. I don’t want it to end but it will for me one day. Then I’ll just be a fading memory in those who knew me. What’s so terrible about that?
If that’s truly what you think, maybe you’re not reading the answers.
Alan Fox,
Its fine if that’s what you believe.
I just don’t think your are putting in the critical thinking to examine the rationality of your beliefs. If you discover that Christianity is true would that really have a negative impact on your world. I struggle why people have their eyes and ears closed to other world views. Is it all about politics?
Of course they didn’t do anything. Information means nothing until it is used. If you e-mailed Craig Venter with some of that code on your computer would he have the ability to make an amino acid string from them?
I am sorry you feel this way, but omnipotent Creators simply don’t do so well in scientific investigations. If everything was possible, then nothing in particular was very likely beforehand.
Yep, that’s what I said. My storage lacks the ability to express the genetic information.
Why would he?
Back in the real world the organism that passes unscathed through the filter of natural selection contains the attributes that it could pass on previous to actually passing them on.
And your point is?
Maybe your point is that the DNA stored in cells means nothing until it is used 🙂
Make a prediction………..
Betya can’t!
CharlieM,
I’m feeling generous, so I will try to explain, albeit without hope or agenda.
I wrote “Ah, yes, the old “the information for these structures is not present in the DNA” gambit” and you responded to this comment, quoting it and writing
“Neither Heusser nor I are denying that information is present in the DNA. ” [emphasis added]
Now, everybody who has heard of DNA agrees that it carries information — the debate surrounds what information — so a sane reader would construe your response as referring to the information for these structures. In other words, they would construe your “that” as a definite article, rather than a conjunction.
However, your subsequent comments lead me to re-interpret your original statement: you were not in fact responding in any way to what Corneel or I had written, you just wanted to offer up platitudes about the nature of information that were unrelated to Heusser’s misguided thesis, and reckoned that quoting a comment about information would provide suitable cover.
I should have known better. Upon reflection, the idea that you would actually be responding to what others write was rather unlikely.
On the other hand, the comment that I am replying to, with its discussion of the effect of re-ordering words on meaning, does confirm that you have made the same fallacious step regarding information that Heusser made.
So that’s all sorted out.
🙂
I know that if I were to discover that Christianity were true it would have an enormous, positive impact on my world. Eternity in Paradise with my loved ones sounds pretty awesome. And seeing that I already forgo theft, rape and murder, what’s the downside?
I’m pretty sure that it is about fear of death. I am also pretty sure that’s not what you meant.
Corneel,
If all you want to talk about is purely material explanations why are you here? To get beaten up because the theory that you support is very limited compared to its original promises?
DNA_Jock,
It’s about truth.
The evidence is quite strong if you let go of materialist preconceptions. I would not have considered myself a Christian based on evidence prior to my 60th birthday. The evidence is quite compelling if you match it up with the design inference either based on science or philosophy depending on where you demarcate science.
If you would feel good if it were true I would be happy to support a search. This really surprised me when I started down this trail.
It’s not whether we want purely material explanations Bill. This is not about what I want or what I don’t want. This is about what can be known, contrasting against mere fantasy. As I have said, my physicalism is a revisable conclusion, rather than a commitment. Show evidence of anything else, and I’ll move that way. But do not come with the lame excuse that I have to believe in fantasies first.
I think you’re misperceiving who gets beaten up here. We offer you explanations after explanations after explanations, and all you do is repeat and repeat already debunked “arguments” that get dismantled again and again and again.
The theory of evolution is not limited in what it does. You might be mistaking what you expect from it for what we might expect from it. I expect from it exactly what I get: a coherent explanation for the diversity of life. As a bonus, I get lots of very interesting accounts about the evolution of many features, and then loads more histories still to be worked out. Some more challenging than the others.
It’s fascinating seeing scientists suddenly figuring out things I thought would be impossible to figure out, just because I expect some evidence to be so eroded as to be forever lost. Yet, some genius comes and sees a way to get around that. Or some organisms gets sequenced and somebody notices that this sequence provides a brand new clue. The process of discovery is enlightening.
You seem to think that we expect to know everything from just accepting the evidence for evolution. Sorry, but at least I know better. I understand our human limitations, and having a coherent explanation for the diversity of life is much more than I could have asked for.
That contains no rebuttal of substance. I’m not even sure what ‘DNA is the carrier’ is supposed to mean. The information content of one strand of nucleic acid resides entirely within its physical properties – its shape and charge distribution, and the directionality given by the 3’/5′ linkage. Such a strand precisely specifies its complement, which may be another DNA strand, or RNA. It isn’t a set of letters on a page, though may be represented as such.
Each individual contains about 100 mutations not present in the parents. Is that evidence of special creation?
And a friend shall lose his friend’s hammer … gene databases are expanding at a remarkable rate, and the evidence you seek is not popping up. It would be something of a sensation if it did, so I don’t think anyone’s keeping a lid on this cryptic evidence, which can be searched by anyone.
Nonlin is here adopting the hardline position that all species, even subspecies, were specially created, precisely as we presently find them, their genetic commonalities being some kind of cosmic coincidence in their entirety. Right down to different varieties of dry rot, dandelion or Giardia. Many Creationists recognise how dumb that position is.
colewd,
Heh. Me too.
If this were anything close to true you would not make claims like:
Now you are claiming that the evidence is compelling, yet you cannot even acknowledge when you are asked how one would go about comparing design as a mechanism to anything else.
When your position is poor ignore difficult questions, even when they are based on your own claims? Is that the best you have?
Either you have something specific to say regarding how design handles the improbability problem of new cell types or you don’t. If you don’t admit that your quoted claim was simply in error.
Or not. I’m sure Jesus is proud…
Allan articulated it much better than I could.
Briefly, when divorced from the cellular context and the chemical properties of its constituents, the sequence of nucleic acids is biologically* meaningless. Hence, you cannot separate this information from its carrier.
* I had those sequences on my computer for a reason. But that’s a different kind of information.
But you didn’t know that the organism could pass on the attributes that it could pass on until it actually did. And that information got committed to the population of genomes when other organisms incapable of passing on any attributes were weeded out.
What promises are that? I expected evolutionary theory to provide me with an explanation for biodiversity. That promise it fulfills exceptionally well.
What promises were made to you?
Seeking common ground and consensus is for wussies.
I realise I was not being entirely clear in what I wrote, but I think you understood what I meant in the end. If I had been referring to the information for the structures I would have written, “Neither Heusser nor I are denying that that information is present”. Clumsier but clearer!
I ca assure you I was responding to what was written. The information I was referring to has very much to do with the final product but it is very much incomplete. Much more information is necessary before any functional proteins can be produced. Here is a section of the quote from Heussen which I posted above:
The part I had left out which came directly after this began:
The cell takes the information from the DNA, receives information from other sources and alters and adds to the DNA information to suit the particular situation. The DNA does not instruct the cell on what it needs to do. The cell manipulates material as required using information from various sources within and outwith the genome.
No, I am obtaining a clearer understanding of the real processes that are taking place in our cells every moment of our lives and the simple tale that DNA is somehow in charge of the proceedings is far removed from reality. Information needs to be precisely coordinated at and between all levels otherwise chaos ensues.
In my next post I will link to sites that give details on how the final protein building instructions are assembled with the focus on alternative splicing..
CharlieM,
Oh, goody! Molecular biology lessons!
CharlieM,
How does ‘the cell’ get this precious info?
The spliceosome is not a rigid molecular machine. It is a highly dynamic coordinated group of molecules that move around and work together in various ways to achieve particular outcomes depending on the specific situation.
From Chemistry World
From this site there is a link to movies demonstrating splicing. They begin:
Now it is clear from the videos that all these protein complexes cannot just be passively floating around and chancing upon the correct binding site. There is an enormous amount of coordination and purposeful goal-directed activity taking place through out the splicing process. And this is just one phase in one area at one level to produce one protein. Add that to all the other similar processes that are constantly active and the task of maintaining functionality in cells, in organs and in bodies, starts to become evident. And we are only beginning to understand the inner workings of organisms.
Those who thinks we have it all worked out and that the DNA contains all the information needed to perform these tasks is extremely deluded in my opinion.
I’ll finish with this quote from the PMC
The organism determines which pieces of information to use as appropriate.
Yes indeed. But I am not the source of the lesson. I can take no credit for the content. I am purely the carrier of the information. The information is available to be used and it’s up to the receiver to use it or not. They can decide if it’s appropriate or not.
CharlieM,
The spliceosome is a protein-directed metalloribozyme. Both its protein and RNA components derive from DNA. Self-splicing introns, likewise. Isoform prevalence is under chemical control, deriving ultimately from other DNA sequences in response to physiological triggers, both signal and response components of which, too, root in DNA.
So I don’t think any of this is effective in kicking the legs out from under DNA. Many enzymes have DNA/RNA as substrate – this merely means that one part has an effect on another.
And the bulk of the structure of my house derives from a builders yard which provided essential ingredients and component parts.
What’s that got to do with anything? Honestly, your analogies are rubbish! 🤣
It gets info from DNA, RNA, proteins, epigenetic factors, feedback loops, and its environment and it acts in a purposeful way that takes all of this information into account.
You’re creating a separate category for RNA, proteins, epigenetic factors and ‘feedback loops’, whereas in fact these are all rooted in DNA. The environment does provide some variation, but the bulk of an organism’s form and activity is rooted in the DNA it possesses.
I do my best on the spur of the moment 🙂
How does the information that is seated in the DNA get to where it can actually be used productively? It gets there through the coordinated activity of a host of complexes all along the way.
😁
Yes, biochemistry, I’m aware of it. Nonetheless, DNA is the source of the entirety of that. There is no DNA-acting ‘instruction’ residing anywhere other than in another segment of DNA.
You are asserting your belief, not giving me facts. The purposeful activity required to form, breakdown and reform all these protein complexes is as much rooted in the DNA as is the way we create meaningful dialogue rooted in the sequence of the English alphabet.
There is no linear cause and effect stemming from the DNA as you are trying to make out.
How does DNA instruct microtubules to aim for a certain location?
So, totally arbitrary then?
Check the so-called central dogma of molecular biology (I know, the fucking name, but other than that …)
By providing both the microtubules and the location’s “signatures” as Allan said:
ETA: Cleaned up text a bit.
And how do you know that the alphabetical sequence was originally formed arbitrarily?
But that is beside the point. Words are composed regardless of the sequence. Although the sequence does contain a few words.