Arguments for design

Arguments for design Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

Amazement • Two natural phenomena often inspire amazement in us: the night sky and life • The first is vast, awesome • The second is wonderful and intricate • Philosophers can also be amazed that we can understand the world at all

Life • Organs serve a purpose – heart – pump blood, eye – seeing • We understand parts of an organ in relation to serving this purpose • A living organism requires huge coordination of tiny parts each functioning well – complexity

Design • Complexity of this kind, the way parts work together, can indicate planning and design – intentional purpose • If life involves design, by definition, there must be a designer • But are living organisms designed?

Evolution by natural selection • Darwin explained how the appearance of design is possible without design • Genetic alterations happen randomly; most disappear. But those that improve reproduction survive and spread in a population, altering the species. • Such alterations are not actually ‘selected’ – natural forces secure their survival

Starry sky

The ‘fine tuning’ argument • Why do we live in a universe in which life (and evolution) is possible? • The conditions for life are very, very improbable. Life needs planets, and planets need stars. • For stars to exist, the conditions of the Big Bang (how big, how much bang) had to be exact to 1/1060

1 in 1060 • 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent • As precise as hitting a one-inch target on the other side of the universe • That’s for planets – life is even more improbable • Of course, if God designed the universe to develop life, this is not a massive coincidence

Paley • What’s the difference between a stone and a watch? • What is it about a watch that leads us to think that it must be designed? • The property of having an organization of parts put together for a purpose • But natural things also exhibit this same property (not analogy)

Objection • But natural things are produced by nature, and watches are not • They both have design-like properties • But watches also have properties that show they are manufactured • Without this, we can’t infer from apparent design to (real) design

‘Intelligent design’ • Behe on ‘irreducible complexity’: • a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of these parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning’. (‘Molecular machines’)

Discussion • Over 40 parts work together to move the tail of a bacterium – unless all 40 are present, the tail doesn’t work at all – so you can’t have evolution bit by bit • Parts of a system are often parts of a different system first, e.g. some parts of the bacterium tail motor work well as a pump • Something that was minor becomes essential, e.g. lungs

Arguments for design