The Argument from Design

lucaspa · #1 25th June 2003, 02:39 PM

In another thread Akscience posted this website:http://www.geocities.com/lvoegtli/godexists.htm entitled "Life: Evidence that God Exists"

You can see right here that we are fighting the atheism vs theism fight because it is talking about the existence of God. Evolution is neutral on the existence of God and isn't atheism.

The first line reads: " Life is evidence of God's existence. All complex objects result from a maker. Life is a complex object. Therefore, life resulted from a maker. The maker of life is God."

This is Paley's Argument from Design, and until 1859 it was "proof" of the existence of God. As the site continues:
"Major Premise (1): All complex objects result from a maker.

Minor Premise (2): Life is a complex object.

Conclusion: Therefore, life resulted from a maker."

The problem is with the word "maker". These guys obviously think "maker" has to be an intelligent entity that manufactures complex objects. But Darwin found that this is not the case. What Darwin found in natural selection was an algorithmic process that would make complex objects. That is, natural selection is a process that, if followed by a servile dunce with no intelligent input, is guaranteed to produce the complexities (designs) we see in living organisms. Long division is an algorithm.

Humans use natural selection in the form of genetic algorithms to make complex objects that we can't.

Therefore, rather than life being an exception to Premise #1, as the article claims, the maker is natural selection. So yes, life does result from a "maker", but the maker is chemistry to get the first life, and then natural selection to get the complexities we see in the species around us.

The article talks about a valid deductive argument. Darwin posed natural selection as just such a deductive argument. It is below:
"If, during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organization, and I think this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to the high geometric powers of increase of each species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each beings welfare, in the same way as so many variations have occured useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection." [Origin, p 127 6th ed.]

Premise #1: Individual organisms are not the same; they vary.

Premise #2: Geometric increase of organisms, arithmetic increase of resources.

Premise #3: Characteristics of individuals are inherited by their offspring.

Conclusion #1: There will be a struggle for those scarce resources among the individuals of a population.

Conclusion #2: The individuals with the best characteristics will win the struggle and reproduce.

Conclusion #3: Inheritance will preserve those characteristics to the next generation, where there will be a new struggle.

A deductive argument where the premises are abundantly demonstrated and the conclusions are inevitable.