The argument from design

Imagine that you are out walking an early Monday morning. Suddenly you detect something shining on the ground. You pick it up and see that it is a delicate watch. Intrigued, you take the clock back home and pick it apart. Amazed by the fine, very complex machinery inside you say to yourself "this cannot have just come about by chance, someone must have made this clock". Tuesday morning, when you are out walking again your foot suddenly bumps into something, and you look down… There lies a dead man. You take him home and dissect the body. With the aid of electron microscopy and other high tech tools you look into the cells and see how extremely, impressively complex they are. Again you look up and say to yourself "this human being is far more complex than the watch I found yesterday, this human cannot have just come from nothing, there must have been a creator"…

This argument which I believe is referred to as the argument from design or the watchmaker analogy, was put forward by a man named Paley (actually I think I have read somewhere that he was not the first person to use the argument, but it is associated with him). Unless this is the first time you read my blog you will probably know that I do not buy this argument, for several reasons. First of, this is an analogical argument, and analogical arguments are only as good as the analogy. In other words, the argument is valid only to the extent that a clock and a human being are similar, and we all know they are not very similar. For example, I happen to know that humans can make babies. In contrast, I have never seen clocks make new clocks, not even when I put my different clocks in the same drawer (though maybe that is because all my clocks are broken?). There are of course many other differences between clocks and human beings but I will let the reader use her imagination here.

The perhaps biggest flaw in the argument from design is to suppose that the alternative to design is sudden, random formation. Paley simply did not understand evolution, and neither does anyone today who argues that the theory of evolution by natural selection suggests that things just come about by chance (see my previous post called, "Natural selection is NOT blind chance"). Mutations, which are approximately random will give rise to new DNA molecules every now and then. Some DNA molecules, independent of whether they are in a virus, bacteria, mouse, dog, cat, whale, monkey or human being, will be more successful in terms of survival and replication, than the average DNA molecule. Sometimes the molecules just "gets lucky", but over time the phenotype (the characteristics) of the DNA molecule plays an important role in determining the fitness of that molecule. Say that one DNA molecule contains the code for making Prions, which then goes up and destroys the brain of its host. This molecule would not be very successful (unless it lets its host reproduce before starting to express the protein)... The Ebola virus is another example of a rather "unintelligent" strand of DNA (or is it RNA, I don't really know). Sure it is great at spreading between different individuals, however, this does not compensate for the fact that Ebola viruses kill their host really rapidly and brutally. Had the virus been a little bit more subtle and patient it would have been much more successful.

The point here is simply that the fitness of a particular strand of DNA is not random. Depending on what it does it will have a larger or lesser chance of getting into the next generation, and this process is referred to as natural selection. It is quite ironic that the argument from design so often comes from those who believe in God.

In essence, the argument from design becomes something like the following: No, humans surely cannot have come about through natural selection, that is just too unlikely! It is much more likely that we have a divine being, superior to all human being who came about (wait a minute, how did he come about???), and made the humans, that is much more likely… hmmm. Seems to me that creationists are undermining themselves…

For a much more thorough analysis of the argument from design I recommend Richard Dawkin's "The Blind watchmaker".