Killing the Watchmaker (Origins)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, May 28, 2011, 14:47 (4926 days ago)
edited by unknown, Saturday, May 28, 2011, 14:52

My math professor back when I took my first class on mathematical proofs always got frustrated because I loved to use a proof technique called "Proof by Contradiction." It's a deceptive technique. You take what you're being asked to prove, and negate its logic. You then find a single counter-example and that negates your negation and you have just proved the claim. Being a programmer, I tend to be lazy; why do tons of extra work to prove something by induction or construction? My professor told me, in a thick, deep, and angry Russian accent, "Is like using cannon to hunt bird!" It's typically only used on really tough problems, not the one's at my level.-I told you that because I'm using a cannon all over again, but one could say that the Watchmaker argument is a cannon by itself; all the moving parts of a watch are intricately crafted. If you pick up a watch, clearly you know it's designed. So, by extrapolating that argument to the universe, we can conclude the same thing. -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 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."

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"