Killing the Watchmaker (Origins)

by dhw, Sunday, May 29, 2011, 18:23 (4706 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: My cannon comes from Hume a 'la Pigliucci. And its not deceptive at all:-1. "The origin of the universe is a unique case, so analogy is pointless."
Pause. Reread that line. The logic is thus: Anything you try to compare to the universe is comparing only a part of the whole to the whole itself. There is no other self-contained whole we can use to compare the universe to. The universe is not a watch, will never be a watch, and you're not comparing two like things. I extend this to life. Which brings me to the next argument.
2. The analogy between the universe and human artifacts is weak. 
"Although the regularity of the laws of nature may superficially inspire analogy, human artifacts are always clearly designed with a preconceived function. It often takes quite a bit of imagination to see any purpose in some aspects of the universe." Combined with 1, 2 begins building upon a very powerful objection. Pigliucci quotes from J.B.S. Haldane, "He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles." This refers to (by Pigliucci) The tens of thousands of species of beetle that seem to have no purpose but to reproduce. This second point also assumes that all things on the planet have a purpose. "Maybe we just haven't found it yet." But that is—a very weak criticism.-The wheel has come full circle. When you joined us ... so long ago! ... you recommended an article (I forget by whom) in which the author grandly stated that XYZ behaved in exactly the way one would expect if life was not designed, and I asked how he could possibly know. Dawkins uses a similar argument: "Evolved organs, elegant and efficient as they often are, also demonstrate revealing flaws ... exactly as you'd expect if they have an evolutionary history, and exactly as you would not expect if they were designed." ('The God Delusion', p. 134 hardback edition). Again, how does he know? Is there any design that works perfectly for ever? (In any case, the argument for design is not incompatible with an evolutionary history, but that's a different tack.)-Of course there are "some aspects of the universe" in which it's difficult to see a purpose. But regardless of whether you're a theist or an atheist, does anyone seriously question that the function of the eye is to see? Of the sperm and egg to reproduce? Of the bowel to process and get rid of waste material? As is so often the case, we need to decide what level we're talking on: specific functions, or an overriding raison d'être? What is the purpose of Beethoven's Ninth? What is the purpose of asking what is the purpose? If you can't answer, does that prove that Beethoven's Ninth, or your philosophical question, is not the product of conscious intelligence? Maybe God just lets it all happen for the sheer hell/heaven of it. (Incidentally, Hubble vs Eyeball was your analogy, not mine ... you cited Hubble as an instance of human design being superior to that of Nature.) -I agree that "both the universe and life are events unique enough in known history to have no legitimate analogy among any and all human endeavors." But the crucial question of Chance v. Design does not NEED analogies. Do you or do you not believe that a functioning eye, penis, bowel could have been formed by means of a mechanism that initially assembled itself through the chance combination of inanimate materials? Whichever answer you give requires one kind of faith or another, unless you withhold belief (= agnosticism).-MATT: The rest of Pigliucci's arguments are really more targeted towards pure creationist arguments and don't really have any meaning for the players involved here. An interesting note; the father of modern "Intelligent Design" thought, Phillip Johnson launched his campaign in order to find a way to definitively bridge the gap between nature and God so there would be a strong basis in order to refute Dialectical Materialism. The grander point of Pigliucci's book is that Intelligent Design—as a movement—is politically minded and motivated from the very beginning. It doesn't really care about David's arguments; It's a battle to destroy all materialism that has its modern root in Cold-War propaganda and its ancient root going back to the enlightenment. In other words, it's a new "holy war."-You are right, the argument has no meaning for us as current contributors to this forum. But it's worth noting that when the forum opened, three and a half years ago, atheist websites castigated it as a vehicle for creationism. The fact is that fundamentalists on both sides cannot abide any questioning of their basic principles, and no doubt that is why we brave, well-balanced, open-minded, ever-questioning but ever-tolerant agnostics are spurned by one side as creationists and by the other as atheists.