Paley is saying that if we were to come across a watch, we would conclude that the parts fitted together for a purpose had not come into existence by chance. An intelligent person would infer a designer of the watch. In the same way if we look at the world we can infer a design because of the way things fit together for a purpose. For example, Paley thought that a similar conclusion might be drawn intricate mechanisms of the human body. Paley used the example of the eye and the way in adapted for sight. Its various parts co-operate in ways to produce sight. He believed that the eye was for the specific purpose of seeing, and that this design suggests an intelligent designer. He adds example the instincts of animals that aid survival; wings for flight or a fish’s fins for swimming. Paley also used evidence from astronomy and Newton’s laws of motion and gravity to prove that there is design in the universe. Paley pointed to the rotation of the planets in the solar system, and how they obey the same universal laws, and hold their orbits because of gravity. This could not have come about by chance. He concluded that an external agent must have imposed order on the universe as a whole and on its many parts, and that this agent must be God. Basically Paley’s argues that the existence of the watch implies a watchmaker and so the existence of the universe implies a divine watch maker.
However David Hume argued that this analogy between God and human designers led to a criticism. God is a maker of things just like humans builders, plumbers etc. This makes God look anthromorphic or human and not a mighty power behind the universe. Human designers are fallible or limited and are not infinite, unlike the traditional concept of God. ‘This world, for all he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard.’ (Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779) This would make God look like a fallible apprentice who has made several mistakes and has moved on to create better worlds elsewhere: ‘and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it.’
Hume does not think that it is a good analogy to liken the universe to a vast machine. He argued that the universe is more like a vegetable or inert animal something that grows of its own accord, rather than something made by hand. One of the classical statements of the argument from design appears in David Hume’s ‘Dialogues on Natural Religion.’ One of the characters, Cleanthes, states it as follows: Look around the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and ever’ their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance - of human design. Thought, wisdom and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the Author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument aposteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence. The central claim of the argument from design is that our studies of nature reveal an orderliness and a pattern in the features of the physical, chemical and biological aspects of the world. The more that nature is studied, the more impressed one becomes with the intricate relation ships within its pans, and with the general plan of the universe. The order and design of nature resembles greatly the order and design of human artefacts, such as houses and watches, in which each part is perfectly adjusted to each other in order to achieve some purpose or end of the whole object. Since the effects of human planning are so much like the effects that we discover in the natural word, the argument runs, we can therefore infer, or induce, that the causes which produce the effects in each case art alike. In the case of human achievements, the cause is thought wisdom and intelligence Therefore there must be some kind of intelligent deity who is the author or cause of the effects of the universe Since the amount of design or order in the natural world and its complexity far exceed human ingenuity, the cause of this must also be of greater wisdom.
Hume argued that ‘the world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable than it does a watch or a knitting loom’. In particular he argued that the world could be compared to a carrot. The relevance of this is that if the analogy is made with the carrot then the mark of design in the world could be caused by something similar to generation or vegetation. The natural world may possess some inner self-regulation and growth. Like effects prove like causes. If we see how things are made such as watches, we realise they need wisdom, intelligence and thought. The effects in nature is a greater designer with greater wisdom, intelligence and thought.
Hume listed some unpleasant features of nature, e.g. earthquakes, war; disease, and questioned how the planning and design could be that of a just and good God. Workmen have to be judged in proportion to the quality of the work produced! Equally Hume argued that you cannot attribute to the cause anything more than is sufficient to produce the effect. He claimed that a more plausible hypothesis was that of a God who had no moral character. Alternatively there could be two forces, one good and one evil. This meant that Hume’s analogy leads to a non-moral imperfect God. The idea that God is not a moral God based on evil and suffering deals a significant blow to this argument. John Stuart Mill wrote: ‘Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes everyone who does not avert his eyes from it is their perfect and absolute recklessness. They go straight to their end, without regarding what or whom they crush on the road.’ Hume suggested that we cannot be sure that die so-called organised universe is not the result of some blind, cosmic accident.
A modern response was the challenge put forward by Charles Darwin. Darwin was an English naturalist who formulated the theory of natural selection in his work On the ‘Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ (1859). The book challenged the argument for design, as it revolutionised thinking about the way in which species, including human beings, developed. Darwin provided an alternative explanation for the design of the world, without reference to creation by God. Darwin argued that all living organisms adapted to changes in their environment over a time scale which can be millions of years through the process of evolution. One example is the black peppered moth. Trees were covered in black soot due to the industrial revolution and so the lightly coloured moth died out as it could not camouflage itself on the trees and so was eaten. The moth has evolved into a darker peppered colour moth and so adapted to the changes of it’s environment and therefore was better camouflaged against the soot covered trees. This is survival of the fittest – only the best adapted survive.
A counter reply to Hume’s criticisms is the anthropic principle put forward by F.R Tennant. This states that the world is designed and created so precisely and carefully to sustain life and for intelligent life to develop and that the world can be analysed in a rational manner. Tennant has furthered Paley’s argument by arguing that evolution was created by God to design the universe and carry on designing. This was based on the scientific knowledge of the time. Tennant also states that evidence for design in the universe in the fact that the world can be analysed rationally and that the world is geared to sustain life and evolution brought about intelligent life. Another argument Tennant puts forward is the aesthetic argument. This is the ability of humans to appreciate aesthetic objects both natural and man made such as statues, paintings, flowers or the sunset. This is not necessary for survival.
‘Beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value’
To be intelligent there is no need to appreciate beauty. In order to survive humans do not need to make aesthetic objects such as paintings. This counter argues that humans blindly evolved by chance and were rather designed by God.
In contrary to both Paley and could also be said Tennant, Richard Darkins in his book ‘The blind watch maker’ criticises Paley because Paley believes there is a creator but Darkins states that is there was a creator of the watch, the watch maker must be blind.
‘Paley compares the eye with a designed instrument such as a telescope, and concludes that ‘there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there -is that the telescope was made for assisting it’. There must have had a designer, just as the telescope had. Paley’s argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, - between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics albeit deployed in a very special way. A. true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose, in his mind’s eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know- is the explanation for the existence and apparently purpose ful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.’
All the arguments for and against design have valid points but none are fully successful in proving anything because each argument can be criticised where it has flaws. Therefore design in the universe comes down to probability and so it can be thought that the universe it just as probable to have been designed then it has not. However it can be argued that it was more probable that the universe was designed and that there was a designer. On the other hand there is no proof that the designer was God.
