There are many modern-day skeptics who apparently still subscribe to the myth that the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume soundly refuted Rev. William Paley’s argument from design on philosophical grounds, even before Darwin supposedly refuted it on scientific grounds (see here, here and here for examples). The supposition is absurdly anachronistic: Hume died in 1776, and his posthumous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion were published in 1779, but Paley’s Natural Theology was not published until 1802, three years before Paley’s death in 1805. Some of the more intelligent skeptics, such as Julian Baggini, are aware of this fact, but still make the risibly absurd claim (see here) that Hume anticipated and refuted Paley’s argument from design. The truth, however, is the complete reverse.

It turns out that Rev. Paley had already read Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; indeed, he even refers in passing to “Mr. Hume, in his posthumous dialogues” on page 512 of Chapter XXVI of his Natural Theology! Moreover, a careful examination of Paley’s design argument shows that he had anticipated and responded to all of Hume’s criticisms.

I’d like to begin by drawing attention to one major difference between the design argument put forward by the character Cleanthes (and subsequently refuted by Philo) in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and the design argument formulated by William Paley. As Professor John Wright has pointed out in some online remarks on Hume’s Dialogues, Cleanthes’ design argument was an inductive argument based on an analogy between human artifacts (which we observe being produced by intelligent agents) and the machines we find in Nature, whereas Paley argued that we could immediately infer Intelligent Design from any machine we happen to find:

Paley thinks we infer the existence of an intelligent cause immediately from the observation of the machine itself. According to the argument which Cleanthes puts forward, the only reason we ascribe an intelligent cause to machines like watches, is because we discover from observation that they are created by beings with thought, wisdom and intelligence. (Paley had read Hume and was obviously aware of this difference in their arguments: see his answer to his first Objection.)

For Paley the inference from watch to intelligent watchmaker is no different from the inference from complex natural organisms to an intelligent designer. He is just trying to show you can make the same inference in both cases. For Cleanthes, on the other hand, it is important that we observe the maker in the case of the human productions and we do not in the case of the productions of nature. We observe the effects in both cases and that they are somewhat similar to each other. But we never observe the cause in the case of natural machines: it is only inferred through the scientific principle “like effects, like causes.” Cleanthes draws the conclusion that the cause of natural machines something like a human mind, but very much greater.

Cleanthes’ argument is a genuine inductive argument, based on observation of the relation of cause and effect in the case of human production; Paley’s is not.

I should add that Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell, made the same point in an online lecture he gave at Cambridge University in July 2012, entitled, Intelligent Design: The Most Credible Idea?. At about (52:30), Meyer addresses Hume’s objections to the design argument, as follows:

The other case against the design argument came from Hume, which was the claim that the design argument was a failed analogy. And what he did was, he said, “Look. You’ve got the structure of the analogical argument is that you’ve got two similar effects with a known cause, allowing us to infer a similar cause for the other effect.” That’s the logical structure of the analogical argument. Hume attempted to defeat that by showing that the similarity between effect E1 – human artifacts – and effect E2 – living systems – was much less than had been previously indicated. The structure of the argument that I’ve developed – and that other people in the ID research community are developing – is not an analogical argument, properly speaking. We’re not arguing from similarities of effects; rather, what we’re doing is picking out identical effects in both living systems and artifactual systems – in particular, specified complexity, which can be very rigorously defined – and saying, “OK, we’re looking at identical effects. Now what is the best causal explanation of that effect given our knowledge of cause and effect? So the argument does not have the logical structure of an analogical argument of the kind that Hume critiqued, but rather, of an inference to the best explanation – a standard scientific form of argumentation – and so the case I made is that Cause 4 – Intelligence – provides a better explanation, because it’s the only cause which is consistent with our knowledge of cause and effect as we observe it in the world around us, as we observe the causes now in operation.

Dr. Meyer is of course perfectly correct. In this post, what I propose to do is examine Hume’s criticisms of the design argument in detail, and show how Paley’s version of the design argument was specifically tailored to address those criticisms head-on.

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Twelve myths about Paley’s design argument, or: Why everything you thought you knew about Paley’s Natural Theology is wrong

If you’ve read anything about Paley’s “design argument” for the existence of God, then you’ve probably heard it expressed in the following garbled form:

Rev. William Paley argued that there were strong similarities between complex structures that we find in Nature (such as the eye) and human artifacts, such as a watch. The human eye is like a machine, he claimed. So are the other organs of the body. But we already know from observation that mechanical artifacts, such as watches, are invariably designed by intelligent beings – namely, human beings. Operating on the principle, “like effects, like causes,” we can infer by analogy that complex organs, such as the eye, were probably made by an Intelligent Designer, Who is like a human being, but much, much smarter. Since this inference is based on an inductive argument (rather than a deductive one) which makes use of an analogy, its conclusion is not absolutely certain. Nevertheless, maintained Paley, it is extremely probable that an Intelligent Designer exists. Paley then went on to argue that since the whole world is rather like a giant watch, we may legitimately conclude that the universe was made by a Designer – a Cosmic Watchmaker, if you like.

You’ve probably also read about Hume’s allegedly devastating rebuttal of the Design argument, which basically goes like this:

First, Paley’s “watch analogy” for complex natural systems was never a very good one in the first place. The eye isn’t a watch, and neither is the universe. The numerous disanalogies between complex natural structures (such as the eye) and a human artifact, undermine the inference that these natural structures were designed. The design inference is even weaker when we examine the universe as a whole: in reality, it is nothing like a watch.

Second, the numerous defects that we find in the organs of living things constitute powerful evidence against the hypothesis that they were designed by an Intelligent Creator.

Third, even if we had good evidence for an Intelligent Designer of Nature, our experience tells us that intelligent designers are invariably complex entities, so we would then have to ask: who designed the Designer? And who designed the Designer’s Designer? And so on, ad infinitum. Wouldn’t it be more rational, then, to simply say that Nature is self-ordering, instead of opening the door to an infinite regress of designers, which in the end, explains nothing?

Fourth, even if we could establish the existence of a Designer of Nature who can somehow avoid this infinite regress, we would still faced with another question: how can the Designer of Nature be a bodiless agent, as theists maintain? Our experience tells us that intelligent agents are always embodied beings, and nobody has ever seen a disembodied agent making anything. There is no good evidence for spooks. The notion of a spiritual Designer is therefore both absurd and unsupported by any credible evidence.

Fifth, even if could make sense of the notion of a spiritual Designer, how can we be sure that there’s only one Designer of Nature? Might there not be many designers, as polytheism supposes?

Sixth, even if we could establish the unity of the Cosmic Watchmaker, such a Being would not need to be continually involved with the cosmos; maybe He created its complex systems at some point in the past, but He no longer interacts with the cosmos. So how do we know that the Designer of the cosmos is still alive?

Seventh, even if He still exists, we have no way of knowing whether the Cosmic Designer is a personal Being; for all we know, the Designer might be an impersonal force, like Spinoza’s Deity.

Finally, even if we could establish that the Designer is a personal Being, there is no way of demonstrating that He is infinitely powerful, wise or good. The effects we see in Nature are finite, and from a finite effect, it is illicit to infer the existence of an Infinite Cause.

We can only conclude, then, that Rev. William Paley’s identification of the Designer of Nature with the God of Judaism and Christianity in his Natural Theology is utterly unwarranted: it is a gigantic leap of faith which defies the laws of logic.

The above exposition of Paley’s design argument contains several errors, which I’ve collected together under the heading of twelve myths, which are commonly found in discussions of Paley’s argument for God’s existence. My refutation of these myths will enable readers to see clearly how Paley met and rebutted every one of the eight Humean criticisms listed above.

The biggest myth of them all: Paley failed to take biological reproduction into account, in his argument

Perhaps the biggest myth – especially among younger skeptics – is that Rev. Paley failed to take into account the rather obvious fact that organisms reproduce (and are therefore capable of refining and improving upon their internal bodily design with each generation), whereas artifacts typically don’t reproduce – which is why design inferences that work for watches don’t work for living things. At the end of my post, I’ll prove that Paley anticipated this very objection and rebutted it decisively, before going on to discuss briefly whether Darwin’s Origin of Species successfully refutes the logic of Paley’s argument.

Without further ado, allow me to present “Twelve myths about Paley’s design argument.”

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Myth One: Paley likens the world to a giant watch in his Natural Theology.

A Russian mechanical watch. Image courtesy of Kristoferb and Wikipedia.

Fact: Paley explicitly rejected the analogy between the world and a watch, in his Natural Theology. He points out that when making design inferences, “we deduce design from relation, aptitude, and correspondence of parts.” However, “the heavenly bodies do not, except perhaps in the instance of Saturn’s ring, present themselves to our observation as compounded of parts at all,” since they appear to be quite simple and undifferentiated in their internal structure (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXII, p. 379). When discussing the movements of the heavenly bodies, he writes: “Even those things which are made to imitate and represent them, such as orreries, planetaria, celestial globes, &c. bear no affinity to them, in the cause and principle by which their motions are actuated” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXII, p. 379) – the reason being that the mechanism of a watch requires that its parts be in physical contact with one another, whereas the gravitational influence exerted by one heavenly body on another is action at a distance.

Indeed, nowhere in his Natural Theology does Paley declare that the world is like a watch. The closest statement I can find is his declaration, “The universe itself is a system; each part either depending upon other parts, or being connected with other parts by some common law of motion, or by the presence of some common substance” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXV, pp. 449-450). To be sure, Paley does argue that “In the works of nature we trace mechanism” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, pp. 416-418), but he never declares that Nature itself is one giant mechanism. Rather, Paley’s proof of God was based on the existence of mechanisms (plural) occurring in the natural world.

What Paley does liken to watches are the biological structures (such as the eye) that we find in the natural world. For example, he writes that “very indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation,” and in the same passage he adds that “here is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter III, pp. 17-18).

NOTE: I should like to point out here that when Paley speaks of contrivances, he simply means: systems whose parts are intricately arranged and co-ordinated to serve some common end, or as he puts it, a system possessing the following three features: “relation to an end, relation of parts to one another, and to a common purpose.” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 413.) For the purposes of Paley’s argument, it is utterly irrelevant whether this end is intrinsic to the parts in question, as in a living organism, or extrinsic, as in an artifact.

Elsewhere, when discussing the example of the eye and other organs, he writes: “If there were but one watch in the world, it would not be less certain that it had a maker… Of this point, each machine is a proof, independently of all the rest. So it is with the evidences of a Divine agency… The eye proves it without the ear; the ear without the eye.” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter VI, pages 76-77).

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Myth Two: Paley’s argument for a Designer in his Natural Theology is an argument from analogy.

Fact: Paley’s argument is not based on any analogy. He doesn’t say that the complex organs found in living things are like artifacts; he says that they are the same as artifacts in certain vital respects. In particular, these complex organs share several common properties with artifacts: “properties, such as relation to an end, relation of parts to one another, and to a common purpose” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 413), or as he puts it elsewhere, “[a]rrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, [and] relation of instruments to a use” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter II, p. 11). Paley refers to the organs of the body as “contrivances,” precisely because they share these vital properties with man-made artifacts. (For the benefit of Thomist readers who may be wondering, I should point out that Paley is fully aware of the intrinsic teleology of living things, and that he repeatedly refers to “final causes” in his Natural Theology.)

Next, Paley argues that intelligence is the only known adequate cause of objects possessing the combination of properties found in artifacts and complex organs. Our experience tells us that that no other cause, apart from intelligence, is capable of producing effects possessing these properties. Paley concludes that the complex organs of living creatures (such as the eye) must therefore have had an Intelligent Designer. In his own words:

Wherever we see marks of contrivance, we are led for its cause to an intelligent author. And this transition of the understanding is founded upon uniform experience. We see intelligence constantly contriving, that is, we see intelligence constantly producing effects, marked and distinguished by certain properties; not certain particular properties, but by a kind and class of properties, such as relation to an end, relation of parts to one another, and to a common purpose. We see, wherever we are witnesses to the actual formation of things, nothing except intelligence producing effects so marked and distinguished. Furnished with this experience, we view the productions of nature. We observe them also marked and distinguished in the same manner. We wish to account for their origin. Our experience suggests a cause perfectly adequate to this account. No experience, no single instance or example, can be offered in favour of any other. In this cause therefore we ought to rest… Men are not deceived by this reasoning: for whenever it happens, as it sometimes does happen, that the truth comes to be known by direct information, it turns out to be what was expected. In like manner, and upon the same foundation (which in truth is that of experience), we conclude that the works of nature proceed from intelligence and design, because, in the properties of relation to a purpose, subserviency to a use, they resemble what intelligence and design are constantly producing, and what nothing except intelligence and design ever produce at all. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 413-414).

For Paley, the inference to design, upon seeing a contrivance, is immediate:

This mechanism being observed (it requires indeed an examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have said, observed and understood), the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker…

Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion, that we had never seen a watch made; that we had never known an artist capable of making one; that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed…

Ignorance of this kind exalts our opinion of the unseen and unknown artist’s skill, if he be unseen and unknown, but raises no doubt in our minds of the existence and agency of such an artist, at some former time, and in some place or other. (Chapter I, pp. 3-4)

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Myth Three: Paley put forward an inductive argument for a Designer: because there are complex systems in Nature which resemble human artifacts, which are made by intelligent agents, we can infer that an Intelligent Designer made Nature’s complex systems.

Sherlock Holmes, a fictional detective who was renowned for his powers of deductive logic, and his companion Dr. Watson. Holmes’ most famous remark was one he made to Dr. Watson in chapter 6 of The Sign of the Four: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Illustration by Sidney Paget from the Sherlock Holmes story The Greek Interpreter.
William Paley put forward what he claimed was a deductive proof of the existence of an Intelligent Designer of Nature. For example, in his Natural Theology, he refers to “the marks of contrivance discoverable in animal bodies, and to the argument deduced from them, in proof of design, and of a designing Creator.” (Natural Theology, 12th edition, J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter IV, p. 67.)

Fact: Paley himself declares on several occasions that his argument for a Designer of Nature is a deductive argument. Paley refers to his argument as a deductive argument in the following passages in his Natural Theology:

…the marks of contrivance discoverable in animal bodies, and to the argument deduced from them, in proof of design, and of a designing Creator…
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter IV, p. 67)

Now we deduce design from relation, aptitude, and correspondence of parts.

(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXII, p. 379)

… the universality which enters into the idea of God, as deduced from the views of nature.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIV, p. 443)

Nowhere in his Natural Theology does Paley ever describe his argument as an inductive one.

The premises and conclusion of Paley’s deductive design argument

The premises of Paley’s deductive argument are as follows. First, we know that intelligent agents are capable of producing effects marked by the three properties of (i) relation to an end, (ii) relation of the parts to one another, and (iii) possession of a common purpose.

Second, no other cause has ever been observed to produce effects possessing these three properties.

We are therefore entitled to conclude that if there are systems in Nature possessing these same three properties, then the only cause that is adequate to account for these natural effects is an Intelligent Agent.

The view that Paley’s argument is deductive has scholarly support

I would like to add that Thomist scholar Del Ratzsch, in his article on Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, also acknowledges that Paley’s argument is a deductive one. In his article, he writes:

Although Paley’s argument is routinely construed as analogical, it in fact contains an informal statement of the above variant argument type. Paley goes on for two chapters discussing the watch, discussing the properties in it which evince design, destroying potential objections to concluding design in the watch, and discussing what can and cannot be concluded about the watch’s designer. It is only then that entities in nature – e.g., the eye – come onto the horizon at all. Obviously, Paley isn’t making such heavy weather to persuade his readers to concede that the watch really is designed and has a designer. He is, in fact, teasing out the bases and procedures from and by which we should and should not reason about design and designers. Thus Paley’s use of the term “inference” in connection with the watch’s designer.

Once having acquired the relevant principles, then in Chapter 3 of Natural Theology – “Application of the Argument” – Paley applies the same argument (vs. presenting us with the other half of the analogical argument) to things in nature. The cases of human artifacts and nature represent two separate inference instances:

up to the limit, the reasoning is as clear and certain in the one case as in the other. (Paley 1802 [1963], 14)

But the instances are instances of the same inferential move:

there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. (Paley 1802 [1963], 13)

The watch does play an obvious and crucial role – but as a paradigmatic instance of design inferences rather than as the analogical foundation for an inferential comparison.

… Indeed, it has been argued that Paley was aware of Hume’s earlier attacks on analogical design arguments, and deliberately structured his argument to avoid the relevant pitfalls. Paley’s own characterization of his argument would support this deductive classification…

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Myth Four: Paley’s argument for God in his Natural Theology is a merely probabilistic argument, rather than a demonstrative proof.

Left hip-joint, opened by removing the floor of the acetabulum from within the pelvis. Image courtesy of Gray’s Anatomy and Wikipedia.
For William Paley, the ligament of the ball-and-socket joint proved the existence of a Designer beyond all shadow of a doubt.

Fact: Paley explicitly states, over and over again, in his Natural Theology, that he views his argument for a Designer not as a merely probabilistic argument, but as a proof, whose conclusion was certain and indubitable. For example, in his discussion of the ligament of the ball-and-socket joint of the thigh (illustrated above), Paley declares that it provides us with unequivocal proof of a Creator:

If I had been permitted to frame a proof of contrivance, such as might satisfy the most distrustful inquirer, I know not whether I could have chosen an example of mechanism more unequivocal, or more free from objection, than this ligament. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter VIII, pp. 112-113).

Referring to the human eye, Paley wrote:

Were there no example in the world, of contrivance, except that of the eye, it would be alone sufficient to support the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the necessity of an intelligent Creator. It could never be got rid of; because it could not be accounted for by any other supposition, which did not contradict all the principles we possess of knowledge; the principles, according to which, things do, as often as they can be brought to the test of experience, turn out to be true or false.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter VI, p. 75)

After describing the circulation of the blood, he writes: “Can any one doubt of contrivance here; or is it possible to shut our eyes against the proof of it?” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter X, p. 161).

Finally, in summing up his case, Paley wrote:

For my part, I take my stand in human anatomy: and the examples of mechanism I should be apt to draw out from the copious catalogue, which it supplies, are the pivot upon which the head turns, the ligament within the socket of the hip-joint, the pulley or trochlear muscles of the eye, the epiglottis, the bandages which tie down the tendons of the wrist and instep, the slit or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the knitting of the intestines to the mesentery, the course of the chyle into the blood, and the constitution of the sexes as extended throughout the whole of the animal creation. To these instances, the reader’s memory will go back, as they are severally set forth in their places; there is not one of the number which I do not think decisive; not one which is not strictly mechanical; nor have I read or heard of any solution of these appearances, which, in the smallest degree, shakes the conclusion that we build upon them.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVII, p. 536).

Paley’s clinching argument: if the design skeptics are right, then all design inferences are invalid, which is absurd

Paley puts forward one final argument to convince diehard skeptics in his day, who were still inclined doubt the legitimacy of any inference from the numerous contrivances that we find in the natural world to the existence of a Designer of Nature. He offers a reductio ad absurdum: if the skeptics are right, he says, an absurd consequence follows: it would mean that no matter how perfectly ordered the universe was, we could still never be sure that it had an Intelligent Creator. No sane person would accept such a ridiculous conclusion, he says:

Of every argument, which would raise a question as to the safety of this reasoning, it may be observed, that if such argument be listened to, it leads to the inference, not only that the present order of nature is insufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent Creator, but that no imaginable order would be sufficient to prove it; that no contrivance, were it ever so mechanical, ever so precise, ever so clear, ever so perfectly like those which we ourselves employ, would support this conclusion. A doctrine, to which, I conceive, no sound mind can assent.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, pp. 414-415)

Paley’s probable conclusions as to the functions of various bodily organs, contrasted with his certainty that they were designed

It is true that in Paley’s Natural Theology, the term “probable” is used when Paley is speculating as to the possible purposes of the various contrivances that we find in Nature – especially, the organs of the human body. Thus he considers it probable (but not certain) that the purpose of the blood circulation is to “distribute nourishment to the different parts of the body”. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter X, p. 164.)

At the same time, however, Paley is quite emphatic that our lack of certainty regarding the precise purpose for which the various contrivances occurring in organisms were designed does not weaken the certainty of the inference that they were designed. Thus Paley is absolutely certain that the valves which regulate the flow of blood were designed by an intelligent agent. “Can any one doubt of contrivance here?” he asks rhetorically. He even wonders how it is possible “to shut our eyes against the proof of it.” Thus in the same passage, Paley expresses his absolute certainty on the question of whether the valves of the blood vessels were designed, while acknowledging that he is uncertain as to what the blood circulation is designed for. The term “probably” is only used in connection with the latter question, not the former.

So long as the blood proceeds in its proper course, the membranes which compose the valve, are pressed close to the side of the vessel, and occasion no impediment to the circulation: when the blood would regurgitate, they are raised from the side of the vessel, and, meeting in the middle of its cavity, shut up the channel. Can any one doubt of contrivance here; or is it possible to shut our eyes against the proof of it?
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter X, p. 161)

A Red Pierrot butterfly, feeding at the M.E.S. Abasaheb Garware College campus in Pune, India. Image courtesy of Akshay Rao and Wikipedia.

Finally, Paley regarded the existence of beauty in the plant and animal kingdoms as a most remarkable fact, and he considered it probable, but not certain, that the beauty we observe in living creatures was the product of design. The reader may be wondering why Paley hesitated to draw the design inference here. Of the complexity of “parts and materials” there could be no doubt: Paley writes admiringly of “the painted wings of butterflies and beetles,” and “the rich colours and spotted lustre of many tribes of insects.” However, we need to recall that for Paley, a contrivance (which for Paley, necessarily requires a Designer) is more than a complex arrangement of parts. The parts have to serve a common end. Now, with the body’s internal organs, the end is usually (but not always) readily discernible, because it is a biological end. A biological function, once established, leaves no room for argument. However, the beauty of the external coloring of a plant or animal often does not appear to serve any biological function, leaving Paley somewhat perplexed. Perhaps, he suggests, animal beauty is meant to attract other animals. Perhaps the beauty of flowers serves the same purpose. Now that would qualify as a bona fide end, if it were confirmed. At the same time, Paley was troubled by the existence of complex systems of parts which seemed to serve no other purpose than ornamentation.

A third general property of animal forms is beauty. I do not mean relative beauty, or that of one individual above another of the same species, or of one species compared with another species; but I mean, generally, the provision which is made in the body of almost every animal, to adapt its appearance to the perception of the animals with which it converses. In our own species, for example, only consider what the parts and materials are, of which the fairest body is composed; and no further observation will be necessary to show, how well these things are wrapped up, so as to form a mass, which shall be capable of symmetry in its proportion, and of beauty in its aspect…

All which seems to be a strong indication of design, and of a design studiously directed to this purpose. And it being once allowed, that such a purpose existed with respect to any of the productions of nature, we may refer, with a considerable degree of probability, other particulars to the same intention; such as the teints of flowers, the plumage of birds, the furs of beasts, the bright scales of fishes, the painted wings of butterflies and beetles, the rich colours and spotted lustre of many tribes of insects.

In plants, especially in the flowers of plants, the principle of beauty holds a still more considerable place in their composition; is still more confessed than in animals. Why, for one instance out of a thousand, does the corolla of the tulip, when advanced to its size and maturity, change its colour? … It seems a lame account to call it, as it has been called, a disease of the plant. Is it not more probable, that this property, which is independent, as it should seem, of the wants and utilities of the plant, was calculated for beauty, intended for display?
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XI, pp. 197-199)

Here, then, Paley’s cautious assertion that the beauty observed in animals and plants gives “a strong indication of design” with “a considerable degree of probability” reflects his lack of certainty as to whether beauty actually serves a legitimate biological purpose in the organisms in which it is found.

The point that Paley is making here is that we need to be absolutely certain that there is a purpose served by a complex arrangement of parts, before we can impute design to it. Once we have ascertained that the parts do indeed serve a common purpose, the inference to an Intelligent Designer is absolutely certain.

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Myth Five: Paley overlooked the numerous disanalogies between complex natural structures (such as the eye) and a human artifact, such as a watch. Additionally, his watch analogy for the cosmos was a very poor one.

The human eye. According to William Paley, “Were there no example in the world, of contrivance, except that of the eye, it would be alone sufficient to support the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the necessity of an intelligent Creator.“
Parts of the eye: 1. vitreous body 2. ora serrata 3. ciliary muscle 4. ciliary zonules 5. canal of Schlemm 6. pupil 7. anterior chamber 8. cornea 9. iris 10. lens cortex 11. lens nucleus 12. ciliary process 13. conjunctiva 14. inferior oblique muscle 15. inferior rectus muscle 16. medial rectus muscle 17. retinal arteries and veins 18. optic disc 19. dura mater 20. central retinal artery 21. central retinal vein 22. optic nerve 23. vorticose vein 24. bulbar sheath 25. macula 26. fovea 27. sclera 28. choroid 29. superior rectus muscle 30. retina. Image courtesy of Chabacano and Wikipedia.

Fact: As I demonstrated in my reply to Myth One above, Paley never likened the universe to a watch, so the objection against his watch analogy for the cosmos rests on a false premise.

As regards the organs of living things, Paley did indeed compare them to watches, but as I pointed out in my response to Myth Two above, Paley did not declare that the complex organs found in living things are like artifacts; rather, he says that they are the same as artifacts in certain vital respects. In particular, these complex organs share several common properties with artifacts: “properties, such as relation to an end, relation of parts to one another, and to a common purpose” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 413).

In a telling passage, Paley compares the eye to a telescope, and argues that despite the evident dissimilarities between the two, their common possession of the three properties described above, which characterize what he calls contrivances, warrants the inference that they were both intelligently designed:

As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it…

To some it may appear a difference sufficient to destroy all similitude between the eye and the telescope, that the one is a perceiving organ, the other an unperceiving instrument. The fact is, that they are both instruments. And, as to the mechanism, at least as to mechanism being employed, and even as to the kind of it, this circumstance varies not the analogy at all. For observe, what the constitution of the eye is. It is necessary, in order to produce distinct vision, that an image or picture of the object be formed at the bottom of the eye. Whence this necessity arises, or how the picture is connected with the sensation, or contributes to it, it may be difficult, nay we will confess, if you please, impossible for us to search out. But the present question is not concerned in the inquiry…

In the example before us, it is a matter of certainty, because it is a matter which experience and observation demonstrate, that the formation of an image at the bottom of the eye is necessary to perfect vision… The formation then of such an image being necessary (no matter how) to the sense of sight, and to the exercise of that sense, the apparatus by which it is formed is constructed and put together, not only with infinitely more art, but upon the self-same principles of art, as in the telescope or the camera obscura. The perception arising from the image may be laid out of the question; for the production of the image, these are instruments of the same kind. The end is the same; the means are the same. The purpose in both is alike; the contrivance for accomplishing that purpose is in both alike. The lenses of the telescope, and the humours of the eye, bear a complete resemblance to one another, in their figure, their position, and in their power over the rays of light, viz. in bringing each pencil to a point at the right distance from the lens; namely, in the eye, at the exact place where the membrane is spread to receive it. How is it possible, under circumstances of such close affinity, and under the operation of equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the one; yet to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having been employed, as the plainest and clearest of all propositions, in the other?
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter III, pp. 18-21)

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Myth Six: Paley failed to address the argument that the numerous defects that we find in the organs of living things constitute powerful evidence against the hypothesis that they were designed by an Intelligent Creator.

Fact: Paley addressed this objection in the very first chapter of his Natural Theology, where he argued that someone who came across a watch lying in a field would still infer that it was designed, even if it contained defects. A badly designed object is still a designed object. In Chapter V, he returned to the objection, and allowed that imperfections might call God’s skill, power or benevolence into question, but even so, countervailing evidence that convincingly attests to God’s omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence could outweigh the evidence against God’s wisdom, power and goodness from the natural evils we observe in the world:

Neither, secondly, would it invalidate our conclusion, that the watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the design, and the designer, might be evident, and in the case supposed would be evident, in whatever way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we could account for it or not. It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to show with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter I, pp. 4-5)

When we are inquiring simply after the existence of an intelligent Creator, imperfection, inaccuracy, liability to disorder, occasional irregularities, may subsist in a considerable degree, without inducing any doubt into the question: just as a watch may frequently go wrong, seldom perhaps exactly right, may be faulty in some parts, defective in some, without the smallest ground of suspicion from thence arising that it was not a watch; not made; or not made for the purpose ascribed to it…

Irregularities and imperfections are of little or no weight in the consideration, when that consideration relates simply to the existence of a Creator. When the argument respects his attributes, they are of weight; but are then to be taken in conjunction … with the unexceptionable evidences which we possess, of skill, power, and benevolence, displayed in other instances; which evidences may, in strength; number, and variety, be such, and may so overpower apparent blemishes, as to induce us, upon the most reasonable ground, to believe, that these last ought to be referred to some cause, though we be ignorant of it, other than defect of knowledge or of benevolence in the author.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter V, pp. 56-58)

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Myth Seven: Paley’s Intelligent Designer would still have to be complex, which means that on Paley’s own logic, He would need to be designed, too.

Fact: Paley was well-aware of Hume’s “infinite regress” objection, which has been popularized in our own day by Professor Richard Dawkins. He refuted it by denying its initial premise: he contended that the Designer must be immaterial and could not be composed of any complex contrivance of parts. Thus Paley’s Designer is an immaterial, simple Being:

Of this however we are certain, that whatever the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we see, can be He. The universe itself is merely a collective name: its parts are all which are real; or which are things. Now inert matter is out of the question: and organized substances include marks of contrivance. But whatever includes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its constitution, testifies design, necessarily carries us to something beyond itself, to some other being, to a designer prior to, and out of, itself. No animal, for instance, can have contrived its own limbs and senses; can have been the author to itself of the design with which they were constructed. That supposition involves all the absurdity of self-creation, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing can be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a will, which itself is void of; which is indebted for any of its properties to contrivance ab extra. The not having that in his nature which requires the exertion of another prior being (which property is sometimes called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self-comprehension), appertains to the Deity, as his essential distinction, and removes his nature from that of all things which we see. Which consideration contains the answer to a question that has sometimes been asked, namely, Why, since something or other must have existed from eternity, may not the present universe be that something? The contrivance perceived in it, proves that to be impossible. Nothing contrived, can, in a strict and proper sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have existed before the contrivance.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 412).

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Myth Eight: Paley fails to address Hume’s objection that in our experience, intelligent designers are always embodied beings, so the Intelligent Designer of Nature would need to be one, too.

Fact: Paley put forward two arguments for God’s spirituality in his Natural Theology. First, he argued (following the opinion of most scientists of his day), that matter is essentially inert, in the sense that it is unable to make something move, unless something else first moves it. It follows that the ultimate source of motion in the cosmos must be something immaterial, or spiritual:

“Spirituality” expresses an idea, made up of a negative part, and of a positive part. The negative part consists in the exclusion of some of the known properties of matter, especially of solidity, of the vis inertiae, and of gravitation. The positive part comprises perception, thought, will, power, action, by which last term is meant, the origination of motion; the quality, perhaps, in which resides the essential superiority of spirit over matter, “which cannot move, unless it be moved; and cannot but move, when impelled by another (Note: Bishop Wilkins’s Principles of Natural Religion, p. 106.).” I apprehend that there can be no difficulty in applying to the Deity both parts of this idea.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 448).

Second, Paley contended that the Designer of Nature could not be composed of any matter that was organized into contrivances made up of interacting parts, because then He would have to have been designed by some entity outside Himself, which would mean that He would no longer be self-existent:

Of this however we are certain, that whatever the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we see, can be He. The universe itself is merely a collective name: its parts are all which are real; or which are things. Now inert matter is out of the question: and organized substances include marks of contrivance. But whatever includes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its constitution, testifies design, necessarily carries us to something beyond itself, to some other being, to a designer prior to, and out of, itself. No animal, for instance, can have contrived its own limbs and senses; can have been the author to itself of the design with which they were constructed. That supposition involves all the absurdity of self-creation, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing can be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a will, which itself is void of; which is indebted for any of its properties to contrivance ab extra. The not having that in his nature which requires the exertion of another prior being (which property is sometimes called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self-comprehension), appertains to the Deity, as his essential distinction, and removes his nature from that of all things which we see.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 412).

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Myth Nine: Paley’s Design argument fails to establish that there’s only one designer of Nature.

Fact: In his Natural Theology, Paley argued that the uniformity of the laws of Nature constituted the best evidence of the Creator’s unity. The laws of physics are uniform throughout the entire cosmos, while the laws of biology are the same everywhere, within the Earth’s biosphere:

Of the “Unity of the Deity,” the proof is, the uniformity of plan observable in the universe. The universe itself is a system; each part either depending upon other parts, or being connected with other parts by some common law of motion, or by the presence of some common substance. One principle of gravitation causes a stone to drop towards the earth, and the moon to wheel round it. One law of attraction carries all the different planets about the sun. This philosophers demonstrate. There are also other points of agreement amongst them, which may be considered as marks of the identity of their origin, and of their intelligent author. In all are found the conveniency and stability derived from gravitation…

In our own globe, the case is clearer. New countries are continually discovered, but the old laws of nature are always found in them: new plants perhaps, or animals, but always in company with plants and animals which we already know; and always possessing many of the same general properties. We never get amongst such original, or totally different, modes of existence, as to indicate, that we are come into the province of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different will. In truth, the same order of things attend us, wherever we go.

(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXV, pp. 449-450)

The works of nature want only to be contemplated… We have proof, not only of both these works proceeding from an intelligent agent, but of their proceeding from the same agent; for, in the first place, we can trace an identity of plan, a connexion of system, from Saturn to our own globe: and when arrived upon our globe, we can, in the second place, pursue the connexion through all the organized, especially the animated, bodies which it supports. We can observe marks of a common relation, as well to one another, as to the elements of which their habitation is composed. Therefore one mind hath planned, or at least hath prescribed, a general plan for all these productions. One Being has been concerned in all.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVII, pp. 540-541)

To sum up: Paley believed he had refuted Hume’s argument that for all we know, there might be many designers, as polytheism supposes.

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Myth Ten: Paley’s God in his Natural Theology was only required to wind up the clockmaker universe at the beginning; after that, He is redundant, so we can’t be sure if He still exists or not.

Fact: This is a commonly repeated criticism of Paley’s watchmaker argument. However, what many people do not realize is that Paley anticipated this very criticism in his Natural Theology, and vigorously rebutted it.

For Paley, laws and mechanisms are incapable of explaining anything, in the absence of an agent

The first flaw in the critic’s argument is that it assumes that a law or mechanism, once established, suffices to explain how things work, and require no further explanation. As Paley pointed out, laws and mechanisms are incapable of explaining anything, in the absence of agency:

A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the “law” does nothing; is nothing.

What has been said concerning “law,” holds true of mechanism. Mechanism is not itself power. Mechanism, without power, can do nothing.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 416)

Neither mechanism, therefore, in the works of nature, nor the intervention of what are called second causes (for I think that they are the same thing), excuses the necessity of an agent distinct from both.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 419)

The watch and the hand mill: two analogies used by Paley to illustrate the world’s continual dependence on God

A human-powered treadmill, used for grinding wheat or corn. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

In his book, Natural Theology, William Paley used the image of a human-powered grinding mill as an analogy for the continual dependence of the universe on the power of God, who upholds it. Paley’s analogy of the grinding mill is clearer than his watch analogy, because it is obvious that it requires the continual activity of an intelligent agent to keep it moving.

Paley used two analogies to illustrate his claim that the cosmos requires the continual activity of a living God to keep it functioning: that of a watch and that of a grinding mill (illustrated above).

Let a watch be contrived and constructed ever so ingeniously; be its parts ever so many, ever so complicated, ever so finely wrought or artificially put together, it cannot go without a weight or spring, i.e. without a force independent of, and ulterior to, its mechanism… By inspecting the watch, even when standing still, we get a proof of contrivance, and of a contriving mind, having been employed about it. In the form and obvious relation of its parts, we see enough to convince us of this… But, when we see the watch going, we see proof of another point, viz. that there is a power somewhere, and somehow or other, applied to it; a power in action;–that there is more in the subject than the mere wheels of the machine;–that there is a secret spring, or a gravitating plummet;–in a word, that there is force, and energy, as well as mechanism.

So then, the watch in motion establishes to the observer two conclusions: One; that thought, contrivance, and design, have been employed in the forming, proportioning, and arranging of its parts; and that whoever or wherever he be, or were, such a contriver there is, or was: The other; that force or power, distinct from mechanism, is, at this present time, acting upon it. If I saw a hand-mill even at rest, I should see contrivance: but if I saw it grinding, I should be assured that a hand was at the windlass, though in another room. It is the same in nature. In the works of nature we trace mechanism; and this alone proves contrivance: but living, active, moving, productive nature, proves also the exertion of a power at the centre: for, wherever the power resides, may be denominated the centre.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, pages 416-418.)

First, Paley appeals to the illustration of a watch to argue that the Designer of Nature must still be alive and active in the cosmos. The contrivances that we see in Nature tell us that it had a Designer, but it is the movement of the cosmos that tells us that the Designer must still be alive and active in the world.

Second, Paley’s analogy of the human-powered grinding mill illustrates the way in which the cosmos requires the continual activity of an intelligent agent (God) to keep it moving.

Why Paley believed that God was needed to keep the cosmos moving

To the modern reader, it may appear that Paley’s watch analogy overlooks a rather obvious objection: watches, when wound up, can continue running for a very long time without further intervention from their maker, and a hypothetical perfect watch, once constructed, might continue running throughout the duration of the cosmos. Thus it seems that Paley’s argument fails to establish the existence of a God Who is still living; all it shows is that the cosmos once had a Designer, Who may or may not still be alive.

The answer to this objection is that Paley and his contemporaries shared a common belief about matter that no longer strikes us as self-evident: namely, that a material object is incapable of making another object move unless something else moves it. Thus in Chapter XXIV of his Natural Theology, entitled, Of the Natural Attributes of the Deity, Paley refers (on page 448) to “the origination of motion; the quality, perhaps, in which resides the essential superiority of spirit over matter, ‘which cannot move, unless it be moved; and cannot but move, when impelled by another (Note: Bishop Wilkins’s Principles of Natural Religion, p. 106.).’” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIV, p. 448).

Again, in Chapter XXIII, Of the Personality of the Deity, when discussing the nature of the Deity, Paley writes that whatever the Deity may be, “inert matter is out of the question” (Paley, W. Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 412).

We can now trace the logic of Paley’s argument for a preserving Cause of the cosmos’ motion. Since bodies are incapable of initiating motion, Paley concludes that the bodies in the cosmos can only act upon each other if something immaterial is continually acting on them. We also find that bodies throughout the natural world whose parts are arranged in a complex manner, enabling them to work together for a common end. Experience tells us that intelligent agency is the only cause which is capable of producing systems with this combination of properties. From this, we may deduce that the Immaterial Agent that keeps the world moving is also an Intelligent Agent. In Paley’s words: “In the works of nature we trace mechanism; and this alone proves contrivance: but living, active, moving, productive nature, proves also the exertion of a power at the centre: for, wherever the power resides, may be denominated the centre” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 418).

Paley thought his design argument worked perfectly well, even if the universe had no beginning (and hence, no initial “wind-up”)

A final problem with the objection that all Paley’s argument establishes is the existence of an Divine Watchmaker Who wound up the cosmos at the beginning (and Who may no longer be alive) is that it assumes Paley thought he could prove the universe had a beginning. In fact, he argued that even if it were eternal, it would still require a Designer:

Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, i. e. by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far, brings us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. A chain, composed of an infinite number of links, can no more support itself, than a chain composed of a finite number of links. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter II, pp. 12-13.)

The machine which we are inspecting, demonstrates, by its construction, contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver; design, a designer; whether the machine immediately proceeded from another machine or not. That circumstance alters not the case. That other machine may, in like manner, have proceeded from a former machine: nor does that alter the case; contrivance must have had a contriver. That former one from one preceding it: no alteration still; a contriver is still necessary. No tendency is perceived, no approach towards a diminution of this necessity. It is the same with any and every succession of these machines; a succession of ten, of a hundred, of a thousand; with one series, as with another; a series which is finite, as with a series which is infinite. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter II, pp. 13-14.)

Our observer would further also reflect, that the maker of the watch before him, was, in truth and reality, the maker of every watch produced from it; there being no difference (except that the latter manifests a more exquisite skill) between the making of another watch with his own hands, by the mediation of files, lathes, chisels, &c. and the disposing, fixing, and inserting of these instruments, or of others equivalent to them, in the body of the watch already made in such a manner, as to form a new watch in the course of the movements which he had given to the old one. It is only working by one set of tools, instead of another. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XII, p. 16.)

For Paley, the Designer of Nature is the Cause of existence of everything in Nature

The final and decisive refutation of the claim that Rev. William Paley only argued for a Deity that wound up the universe at the beginning is that there are passages in his Natural Theology, where he explicitly declares God to be the cause of existence of everything in Nature:

… I shall not, I believe, be contradicted when I say, that, if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that which regards the phenomena of nature with a constant reference to a supreme intelligent Author. To have made this the ruling, the habitual sentiment of our minds, is to have laid the foundation of every thing which is religious. The world thenceforth becomes a temple, and life itself one continued act of adoration. The change is no less than this, that, whereas formerly God was seldom in our thoughts, we can now scarcely look upon any thing without perceiving its relation to him. Every organized natural body, in the provisions which it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes. We are on all sides surrounded by such bodies; examined in their parts, wonderfully curious; compared with one another, no less wonderfully diversified.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVII, p. 539)

Against not only the cold, but the want of food, which the approach of winter induces, the Preserver of the world has provided in many animals by migration, in many others by torpor.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XVII, p. 298)

Under this stupendous Being we live. Our happiness, our existence, is in his hands. All we expect must come from him.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVII, p. 541)

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Myth Eleven: Paley’s God in his Natural Theology is an impersonal Designer, and not the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Fact: Paley’s work was entitled Natural Theology, so it is hardly surprising that he does not explicitly argue for the existence of the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Nevertheless, Paley argued that God must be a personal Being, because He is capable of designing things. As he put it: “that which can contrive, which can design, must be a person” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, p. 408). A designer, by definition, possesses consciousness and thought, and must be capable of perceiving a goal or end, and adapting and directing means to achieve this goal. Such a being, Paley argued, must be a person (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, pp. 408, 441).

In addition to being personal, Paley argued in his Natural Theology that the Designer of Nature must be:

(a) transcendent, because “contrivances” [systems composed of parts working together for a common end] are found at all levels throughout Nature, so their Author must lie beyond Nature;

(b) uncaused, or self-existent, because His existence does not have any preceding cause;

(c) the cause not only of the origin of things, but of their continuation in existence, because the physical laws which define their very natures, could only have been chosen by an intelligent agent, and because these laws only continue to hold by virtue of the ongoing activity of this intelligent agent;

(d) one, because the uniformity of His plan can be seen throughout Nature;

(e) spiritual, because He is a personal agent capable of thought and will, and capable (unlike matter) of moving things without needing anyone to move Him;

(f) good, because the contrivances He has placed in living things are designed for the good of those creatures, and not for their harm;

(g) omnipresent, because His power extends throughout Nature;

(h) omnipotent, because everything is His handiwork, so there is nothing to limit His power over Nature;

(i) omniscient, because the knowledge required for the formation of created nature is infinite, since He selected the laws of the cosmos from an infinite range of possible options;

(j) simple, because complex beings require an external cause for the skillful contrivance of their parts, whereas God has no cause;

(k) beyond space and time, since He is their Author, and has no limits. (One could draw the conclusion, though Paley himself does not explicitly say so, that God is therefore timeless and immutable.)

In all these respects, Paley’s God is identical with the God of classical theism. On two points, however, Paley differs from most classical theists.

First, Paley equates the necessity of God with the possibility of our demonstrating His existence, whereas for classical theists, God’s necessity is usually grounded in the notion that God is Pure Existence, and hence incapable of non-existence.

Second, Paley appears to believe that God is capable of perceiving the world in some way. Even if this perception occurs timelessly in the mind of God, it would still mean that He is passible, or capable of being affected by the world. Classical theism, however, traditionally holds that God is impassible. However, neither the necessity nor the impassibility of God forms part of the defined teachings of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. None of these religions teach that God is Pure Existence. Nor do they teach that God is impassible, or incapable of being affected by His creatures; rather, what they teach is that God does not have passions, or bodily feelings.

I conclude that Paley falls within the broad tradition of classical theism, albeit of a very pragmatic variety, insofar as he endeavors to explain the Divine attributes in terms of how they affect us, rather than describing them in terms of God’s inner being – a subject about which Paley prefers not to speculate.

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Myth Twelve: At most, Paley’s design argument establishes only the existence of a finite, limited Deity, which falls short of the Infinite God of classical theism.

Fact: A careful examination of Paley’s writings shows that he put forward no less than four arguments for God’s infinity, in his Natural Theology. Some of these arguments are better than others, but they certainly show that Paley was well aware of Hume’s objection that the design argument could only establish the existence of a finite God, and that he vigorously endeavored to refute it.

First, using the example of the eye, Paley argued that God’s designs are infinitely more skillful than our own (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter III, p. 21).

We can also discern a second argument for God’s infinite intelligence in Paley’s observation that when God selected the laws of Nature, He had to make a choice from among an infinite number of alternatives, only an infinitesimal proportion of which were compatible with the formation of a stable cosmos (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXII, p. 393).

Third, Paley argued that God must be infinitely powerful, because He is able to control an indefinitely large region of space by His volitions: His power extends everywhere.

Fourth, Paley considered that God must be infinitely wise, because He is apparently capable of manifesting His wisdom and benevolence in an unlimited number of ways, and upon an unlimited number of objects (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVI, p. 492; Chapter XXVII, p. 548).

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Did Paley’s argument take into account the fact that organisms reproduce?

Left: Hoverflies mating in midair flight. Image courtesy of Fir0002/Flagstaffotos and Wikipedia.
Right: The sexual cycle. Image courtesy of UserStannered and Wikipedia.

Perhaps the silliest myth about Paley’s Natural Theology is that he overlooked a rather obvious dissimilarity between living things and artifacts: that living things reproduce and are therefore capable of gradually improving or refining their design, whereas artifacts such as watches don’t reproduce, which is why they are utterly incapable of improving their design on a step-by-step basis. The fact is that Paley spent four whole pages refuting this argument in Chapter II of his book, where he imagines what a person would rationally infer, if he found a watch that was capable of making a copy of itself:

Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch, should, after some time, discover that, in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement, another watch like itself (the thing is conceivable); that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts, a mould for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other tools, evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us inquire, what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion.

I. The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism, by which it was carried on, he would perceive, in this new observation, nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done, — for referring the construction of the watch to design, and to supreme art. If that construction without this property, or which is the same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been employed about it; still more strong would the proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this further property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.

II. He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, in some sense, the maker of the watch, which was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that, in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair; the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use. With respect to these, the first watch was no cause at all to the second: in no such sense as this was it the author of the constitution and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of the parts by the aid and instrumentality of which it was produced. We might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a stream of water ground corn: but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair, is neither more nor less than this; by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it, and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, viz. the corn is ground. But the effect results from the arrangement. The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary, for any share which the water has in grinding the corn: yet is this share the same, as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch, upon the supposition assumed in the last section. Therefore,

III. Though it be now no longer probable, that the individual watch, which our observer had found, was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in anywise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now, than they were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different properties. We may ask for the cause of the colour of a body, of its hardness, of its head; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question, by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office, in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind. (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter II, pp. 8-11)

Later on in his book, Paley fleshed out his argument that reproduction, while teleological, is also a mechanical process, which still requires the existence of an Intelligent Designer:

The generation of the animal no more accounts for the contrivance of the eye or ear, than, upon the supposition stated in a preceding chapter, the production of a watch by the motion and mechanism of a former watch, would account for the skill and intention evidenced in the watch, so produced; than it would account for the disposition of the wheels, the catching of their teeth, the relation of the several parts of the works to one another, and to their common end, for the suitableness of their forms and places to their offices, for their connexion, their operation, and the useful result of that operation. I do insist most strenuously upon the correctness of this comparison; that it holds as to every mode of specific propagation; and that whatever was true of the watch, under the hypothesis above-mentioned, is true of plants and animals… Has the plant which produced the seed any thing more to do with that organization, than the watch would have had to do with the structure of the watch which was produced in the course of its mechanical movement? I mean, Has it any thing at all to do with the contrivance? The maker and contriver of one watch, when he inserted within it a mechanism suited to the production of another watch, was, in truth, the maker and contriver of that other watch. All the properties of the new watch were to be referred to his agency: the design manifested in it, to his intention: the art, to him as the artist: the collocation of each part to his placing: the action, effect, and use, to his counsel, intelligence, and workmanship. In producing it by the intervention of a former watch, he was only working by one set of tools instead of another. So it is with the plant, and the seed produced by it.

Can any distinction be assigned between the two cases; between the producing watch, and the producing plant; both passive, unconscious substances; both by the organization which was given to them, producing their like, without understanding or design; both, that is, instruments?

From plants we may proceed to oviparous animals; from seeds to eggs. Now I say, that the bird has the same concern in the formation of the egg which she lays, as the plant has in that of the seed which it drops; and no other, nor greater. The internal constitution of the egg is as much a secret to the hen, as if the hen were inanimate… Although, therefore, there be the difference of life and perceptivity between the animal and the plant, it is a difference which enters not into the account. It is a foreign circumstance. It is a difference of properties not employed. The animal function and the vegetable function are alike destitute of any design which can operate upon the form of the thing produced. The plant has no design in producing the seed, no comprehension of the nature or use of what it produces: the bird with respect to its egg, is not above the plant with respect to its seed. Neither the one nor the other bears that sort of relation to what proceeds from them, which a joiner does to the chair which he makes.
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter IV, pp. 49-52)

Finally, Paley denounced the intellectual laziness of skeptical philosophers in his day, who were fond of invoking self-replication as an explanation for biological complexity, while failing to advert to the obvious fact that an organism’s reproductive system is itself a contrivance of parts working together towards a common end, and that such a contrivance must have had an Intelligent Designer:

The minds of most men are fond of what they call a principle, and of the appearance of simplicity, in accounting for phenomena. Yet this principle, this simplicity, resides merely in the name; which name, after all, comprises, perhaps, under it a diversified, multifarious, or progressive operation, distinguishable into parts. The power in organized bodies, of producing bodies like themselves, is one of these principles. Give a philosopher this, and he can get on. But he does not reflect, what this mode of production, this principle (if such he choose to call it) requires; how much it presupposes; what an apparatus of instruments, some of which are strictly mechanical, is necessary to its success; what a train it includes of operations and changes, one succeeding another, one related to another, one ministering to another; all advancing, by intermediate, and, frequently, by sensible steps, to their ultimate result!
(Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXIII, pp. 420-421)

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Did Darwin refute Paley’s argument?

Portrait of Charles Darwin, by George Richmond. Late 1830s. Image courtesy of Richard Leakey, Roger Lewin and Wikipedia.

Neo-Darwinists often claim that Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, published in 1859, decisively refuted Paley’s argument for a Designer, once and for all. For my part, I think Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection made a relatively minor dent in Paley’s case.

In a nutshell, Paley’s argument is that intelligent agency is the only process adequate to account for the origin of what he calls contrivances – that is, systems whose parts are intricately arranged and co-ordinated to subserve some common end. (For the purposes of Paley’s argument, it is utterly irrelevant whether this end is intrinsic to the parts in question, as in a living organism, or extrinsic, as in an artifact.) What Charles Darwin did was to put forward a mechanism (natural selection) which is capable (in principle) of explaining how one complex, highly co-ordinated system of parts which assists an organism’s survival could, over millions of years, gradually evolve into another complex system serving an altogether different purpose, through an undirected (“blind”) process. (Of course, such an evolutionary transformation can only occur if there is a viable pathway between the two systems, which blind processes are capable of traversing without any intelligent guidance.) What Darwin did not show, however, is how the fundamental biochemical systems upon which all organisms rely for their survival, could have came into existence, in the first place. We might refer to these fundamental systems in Nature as Paley’s original contrivances. These contrivances cannot be explained away as modifications of pre-existing biological systems, since by definition, anything that preceded them was not viable.

I conclude that in the absence of a Darwinian explanation for the origin of life, Paley’s argument remains perfectly valid, for biochemical systems which are universal to living things, and which go back to the dawn of life on Earth. These “original systems” are “contrivances” in Paley’s sense of the word, and as they were not modified from other systems found in living things, Paley’s argument would still apply to them.

In order to successfully rebut Paley’s argument, then, Darwinists therefore need to explain the emergence of life itself – something which they have so far signally failed to do.

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Yesterday, we saw how Wikipedia is one of the most influential sites on the Internet, how it vaunts itself on its commitment to NPOV, a neutral point of view:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. This policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it.

“Neutral point of view” is one of Wikipedia’s three core content policies. The other two are “Verifiability” and “No original research“. These three core policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. ["Wikipedia:Neutral point of view," Wikipedia, acc. Dec 30, 2012]

. . . and so it is entirely in order for us to contrast its article on ID with that of the New World Encyclopedia to see how objective, truthful, well warranted and fair-minded the Wikipedia article is.

So, far, it is already quite apparent from even so simple a contrast, that Wiki’s article on ID is tendentious, and — for years — has been in need of severe correction. Accordingly, I intend to proceed with a step by step correction of Wiki’s introduction, in the just linked thread and invite participation in the discussion.

Today’s contribution:

It is vital to correct the misrepresentations of design theory at Wikipedia, for record; both because of the influence of Wikipedia, and because these are the same mischaracterisations that are ever so common.

So, let us continue.

For today, let us move on down just a bit:

The Institute defines it [ID] as the proposition that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[1][2] It is a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, presented by its advocates as “an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins” rather than “a religious-based idea”.[3] All the leading proponents of intelligent design are associated with the Discovery Institute [n 1][4] and believe the designer to be the Christian deity.[n 2]

1 –> Wiki correctly cites the basic assertion of design theory, but fails to give the empirically grounded warrant for that claim and then substitutes a loaded and well-poisoning context.

2 –> This is an unfortunately familiar rhetorical tactic in our day, making a red herring side-track attention, leading us away to a convenient strawman soaked in ad hominems and ignited to cloud, confuse, polarise and poison the atmosphere.

3 –> Such is certainly not the vaunted NPOV and should be corrected.

4 –> However, the material issue at stake is, how can it be warranted scientifically to infer from “certain features of the universe and of living things” that they are “best explained” as designed by an intelligent cause, and not the credible product of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity?

[MORE . . . ]

What follows goes on to discuss the warrant for the pattern of scientific reasoning that grounds the design inference on empirical signs, corrects the well poisoning attempt, and sets the context for further discussion.

And since this article is really a notice,  I direct your attention to the just linked thread for onward discussion. END

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The evolution of even a single protein-coding gene is astronomically unlikely. How do I know? Because even the evolutionistsunrealistically optimisticestimates show a 27 order of magnitude shortfall. And so a review paper from last year entitled “The evolutionary origin of orphan genes” attracted no little attention. Orphan genes are protein-coding genes that appear in a single species. Because they appear only once in the evolutionary tree, they must have evolved relatively rapidly and their history cannot be traced back to early evolutionary history. This means evolutionists cannot appeal quite so much to strange, unobservable and unverifiable events and processes to explain their origin. Given the 27 order of magnitude shortfall an explanation for how any protein-coding gene evolved, and certainly orphan genes, would be a terrific breakthrough. So did the paper actually explain “The evolutionary origin of orphan genes”? [Hint: Lucy was an evolutionist]  Read more

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The headline says it all: “Evolution by Splicing.” Evolutionists once believed that the species arose by mutations that altered the nucleotide sequences of protein-coding genes. But these genetic differences between species do not seem to be very significant. Next evolutionists thought perhaps the differing expression levels of the genes did the job. Perhaps it was quantity rather than quality that created the species. But again the expression level differences are not so great. Now evolutionists have a new mechanism, and it is yet another example of evolution’s reliance on complexity, serendipity and misrepresentation.  Read more

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News has just put up a post with the Meyer lecture on intelligent design (with a close focus on the pivotal case, origin of life, the root of Darwin’s tree of life analogy).  I responded here, in light of the history of ideas issues raised by the lecture as well as the question of why origin of life  is so pivotal tot he whole question at stake, but in so doing I had occasion to visit the Wikipedia article on Intelligent Design.

I saw that it had further mutated and evolved under intelligent direction into an even more strident tone than the last time I bothered to look or comment, and so I think it instructive to contrast two introductions to ID in online encyclopedias, Wiki and New World Encyclopedia (NWE) which has the inputs of Dr Jonathan Wells:

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Wiki: >> This article is about the form of creationism promulgated by the Discovery Institute. For the philosophical “argument from design”, see Teleological argument. For other uses of the phrase, see Intelligent design (disambiguation).
Intelligent design (ID) is a form of creationism promulgated by the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank. The Institute defines it as the proposition that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”^[1][2] It is a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, presented by its advocates as “an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins” rather than “a religious-based idea”.^[3] All the leading proponents of intelligent design are associated with the Discovery Institute ^{[n 1][4]} and believe the designer to be the Christian deity.^{[n 2]}

Scientific acceptance of Intelligent Design would require redefining science to allow supernatural explanations of observed phenomena, an approach its proponents describe as theistic realism or theistic science. It puts forth a number of arguments in support of the existence of a designer, the most prominent of which are irreducible complexity and specified complexity.^[5] The scientific community rejects the extension of science to include supernatural explanations in favor of continued acceptance of methodological naturalism,^{[n 3][n 4][6][7]} and has rejected both irreducible complexity and specified complexity for a wide range of conceptual and factual flaws.^{[8][9][10][11]} Intelligent design is viewed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community, because it lacks empirical support, offers no tenable hypotheses, and aims to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes.

Intelligent design was developed by a group of American creationists who revised their argument in the creation–evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings such as the United States Supreme Court’s Edwards v. Aguillard decision, which barred the teaching of “Creation Science” in public schools on the grounds of breaching the separation of church and state.^{[12][n 5][13]} The first publication of the phrase “intelligent design” in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.^[14][15] From the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents were supported by the Discovery Institute, which, together with its Center for Science and Culture, planned and funded the “intelligent design movement”.^{[16][n 1]} They advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula, leading to the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, where U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents”, and that the school district’s promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[17]>>

NWE: >> Intelligent design (ID) is the view that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection” ^[1] Intelligent design cannot be inferred from complexity alone, since complex patterns often happen by chance. ID focuses on just those sorts of complex patterns that in human experience are produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. According to adherents, intelligent design can be detected in the natural laws and structure of the cosmos; it also can be detected in at least some features of living things.

Greater clarity on the topic may be gained from a discussion of what ID is not considered to be by its leading theorists. Intelligent design generally is not defined the same as creationism, with proponents maintaining that ID relies on scientific evidence rather than on Scripture or religious doctrines. ID makes no claims about biblical chronology, and technically a person does not have to believe in God to infer intelligent design in nature. As a theory, ID also does not specify the identity or nature of the designer, so it is not the same as natural theology, which reasons from nature to the existence and attributes of God. ID does not claim that all species of living things were created in their present forms, and it does not claim to provide a complete account of the history of the universe or of living things.

ID also is not considered by its theorists to be an “argument from ignorance”; that is, intelligent design is not to be inferred simply on the basis that the cause of something is unknown (any more than a person accused of willful intent can be convicted without evidence). According to various adherents, ID does not claim that design must be optimal; something may be intelligently designed even if it is flawed (as are many objects made by humans).

ID may be considered to consist only of the minimal assertion that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent agent. It conflicts with views claiming that there is no real design in the cosmos (e.g., materialistic philosophy) or in living things (e.g., Darwinian evolution) or that design, though real, is undetectable (e.g., some forms of theistic evolution). Because of such conflicts, ID has generated considerable controversy.>>

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This is an obvious case of whose report do you believe, why?

I would like to hear our thoughts on these two introductions, noting that in its current appeals for funding and support Wikipedia says it is the no. 5 most popularly visited web site in the world.

As a starter, I think the Wiki article is an obvious case of ideologically charged well-poisoning, as Nizkor summarises:

Poisoning the Well

This sort of “reasoning” involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person. This “argument” has the following form:

1. Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented.
2. Therefore any claims person A makes will be false.

This sort of “reasoning” is obviously fallacious. The person making such an attack is hoping that the unfavorable information will bias listeners against the person in question and hence that they will reject any claims he might make. However, merely presenting unfavorable information about a person (even if it is true) hardly counts as evidence against the claims he/she might make. This is especially clear when Poisoning the Well is looked at as a form of ad Homimem in which the attack is made prior to the person even making the claim or claims.

. . . and that it so taints Wikipedia that something as loaded, unfair and biased as their article [just look at the drive-by ideologically loaded a priori materialism driven, question-begging redefinition of science in the teeth of easily accessible history and philosophy, compounded by the twisted-about propaganda tactic accusation that it is those who would appeal to more traditional and well accepted views who are trying to redefine science, cf.  my remarks on that problem here , here and here on as well as Johnson's rebuke here] passes their vaunted “NPOV” — neutral point of view — mechanisms that I must view all Wikipedia articles with considerable caution.

So also, on topics where the known biases of the obviously dominant a priori evolutionary materialist secular humanist views are liable to distort what is presented and how it is presented, this popular online encyclopedia has essentially zero credibility.

I also think that should inform our decisions regarding support to that site in any way, shape or form.

Now, what do you think? Why? END

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You learned in your high school biology class that genes are copied, or transcribed, and that the transcript was used by the ribosome to synthesize a protein. But how does the cell know which genes to transcribe, which form of the gene to use, and when to transcribe it? These questions are answered by various mechanisms collectively referred to as gene regulation. The DNA region upstream of a gene may have various molecules and proteins attached which influence its expression, that DNA region and the histone proteins about which it is wrapped may have methyl groups or other small groups attached to them serving as signals, once transcribed the resulting mRNA transcript may be spliced into alternate forms, the mRNA transcript can also be controlled by snippets of RNA that bind to the transcript, the speed with which the transcript is translated into a protein can be controlled at the ribosome, and so forth. It is an incredible network of signals and mechanisms controlling which genes are used, how they are used, and when they are used. Now, new research is helping to elucidate yet another mechanism which is the equivalent of a fine-control knob on the timing of the transcription process.  Read more

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You’ve heard of “red in tooth and claw,” natural selection, and the survival of the fittest. As one evolutionist put it, “The death of unfit individuals is what causes a species to adapt and improve.” This is because evolutionary theory is founded on that Malthusian idea of limited resources. Life is a zero-sum game. And so when a chance mutation happens to confer a reproductive advantage to one individual, he and his descendants survive and propagate at the cost of others, who do not. It is evolution’s version of a final accounting, but in this Darwinian spreadsheet there is no forgiveness, just survival. Of the fittest that is, and death of the unfit.  Read more

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The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant’s word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant’s word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both.

Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant’s story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story.

That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism — the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence — it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed.

But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, “Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles,” they answer, “But mediaevals were superstitious”; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say “a peasant saw a ghost,” I am told, “But peasants are so credulous.” If I ask, “Why credulous?” the only answer is — that they see ghosts.

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It has been eight years since the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, that took the lives of over 230,000 people. In his December 14, 2012 post, Today We Grieve With Those Who Grieve, Barry Arrington wisely warned against the vain enterprise of trying to “make sense of this senselessness,” and he quoted from the essay, Tsunami and Theodicy by theologian David Bentley Hart, who forthrightly asserts that we have no right to “console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred.” Quite so.

Over at his Debunking Christianity blog, skeptic John Loftus has put up a post entitled, In a Godless Universe the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is What We’d Expect Would Happen. The poor taste in Loftus’ choice of the title left me at a loss for words. It is inappropriate to use point to such an event as an argument for atheism, at a time when parents are grieving. And for my part, I do not wish to add to their pain by trying to find a “reason” for the senseless tragedy that happened in Newtown. Children are dead, and there’s nothing good about that.

Loftus’ challenge to theists is to compare the theistic hypothesis that there is a God with the atheistic hypothesis that there isn’t one, to see which one provides “the best explanation for this horrible tragedy.” As I have said, I think it’s inappropriate to discuss the recent tragedy in Newtown when people are still publicly grieving, so I won’t. What I’ll do instead is address the Problem of Evil at a general level: does the occurrence of senseless tragedies in the world render God’s existence improbable?

From my limited human perspective, it seems highly improbable that an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God would allow such a tragedy to happen. So I begin the debate at an enormous disadvantage against Loftus. Nevertheless, I believe I can still show why Loftus’ argument for atheism, based on the Problem of Evil, deserves an F-double minus.

Let’s begin by examining Loftus’ argument. Loftus makes a preliminary point of clarification at the outset:

I’m not speaking about a godless ethic, that supposedly atheists do these kinds of deeds, and/or that they have no ethical standards to condemn such terrible senseless acts. I do have an ethic and I do condemn these kinds of deeds. That’s a topic for another time so don’t derail what I’m saying with irrelevant comments. What I’m saying here is something different.

Very well, then. I propose to leave ethics out of this post, and out of respect for the families of the bereaved, who presumably include people with and without religious faith, I would ask readers to leave ethical arguments out of any comments they make on this thread.

All bold emphases in this post are mine, by the way.

Loftus’ argument rests on an appeal to probabilistic reasoning:

People are not too good at comparing hypotheses but that’s what we must do… [I]f we compare the godless hypothesis that there is no god with the God hypothesis that there is an all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity, it’s patently obvious that the best explanation for this horrible tragedy is the godless one. Now believers may think they have good reasons to accept the God hypothesis anyway, but this tragedy is not one of them to say the least. Let me briefly explain.

In a godless universe shit happens without rhyme nor reason. Life is predatory from the ground up. Creatures eat one another by trapping unsuspecting victims in unusual ways, launching surprise attacks out of the blue, and hunting in packs by overpowering prey with brute force and numbers. Sometimes a creature just goes wacko for no reason at all. Humans are not exempt. Sometimes the wiring in our brains goes haywire and we snap. We too are violent and we inherited this trait from our animal predecessors. We also show care and concern to our kith and kin but we can lash out in horrific ways at what we consider an uncaring world.

In a universe where there is an all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing God this tragedy is not what we would expect to happen…

When comparing these two hypotheses the God hypothesis fails and the godless hypothesis prevails, hands down, no question, no ifs ands or buts about it.

I’m going to grade Loftus’ argument in this post. Let me be as generous as possible: I’ll start by giving him an A as a default grade. If I find no flaws in his argument, then he’ll retain that grade. But if I find a significant flaw in Loftus’ logic, then I’ll knock his grade down by one level, from A to B and so on.

Loftus’ failure to take account of prior probabilities

Loftus opens his argument by declaring: “People are not too good at comparing hypotheses.” I’ll say! Loftus provides a perfect example, when he writes: “[I]f we compare the godless hypothesis that there is no god with the God hypothesis that there is an all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity, it’s patently obvious that the best explanation for this horrible tragedy is the godless one.”

Here, Loftus makes Mistake Number One, and it’s a mistake for which he really has no excuse, as he has studied Bayesian logic. If you’re going to evaluate the probability of a hypothesis (e.g. “There is a God” or “There is no God”) given the evidence (a senseless tragedy), then there are two things you need to know. The first is the probability of the evidence, given the hypothesis (or its negative), and the gist of Loftus’ argument is that the probability of senseless tragedies is much higher if there isn’t a God than if there is one. The second thing you need to know is the prior probability that the hypothesis is true – that is, the antecedent likelihood (in the absence of evidence) that there is a God, or (alternatively) that there isn’t one. Without that number, you simply cannot compute the probability of your hypothesis, given the evidence. For failing to even mention (let alone specify) one of the key parameters required by Bayes’ Theorem, Loftus gets one level deducted from his essay grade, which goes down from an A to a B.

Loftus’ illegitimate narrowing of the evidence set

Loftus compounds his error with Mistake Number Two: mis-identification of the set of evidence pertinent to the hypothesis that there is a God. In doing so, he brings his grade down from a B to a C. If you were trying to decide whether there was a God or not, you wouldn’t focus on what Loftus calls “this horrible tragedy” to the exclusion of all else; you’d examine the totality of the evidence that was relevant to your argument. The argument that Loftus is putting forward here is the Argument from Evil. If you were attempting to decide whether the existence of evil renders God’s existence unlikely, you would need to look at the totality of good and evil in the world before making up your mind. Why? Well, it might be the case that the “no-God” hypothesis explained senseless acts of violence very well, but was utterly unable to explain most of the other good or bad events in this world, while the God hypothesis explained most of the good or bad events in the world very well, but not the meaningless violence. In that case, if you decided to reject the God hypothesis on the basis that it couldn’t explain the senseless acts of violence occurring in the world, then you’d be guilty of myopically fixating on a very limited subset of the evidence, and ignoring the “big picture.”

Loftus’ “no-God” hypothesis explains senseless tragedies, only if physicalism is true

Loftus then makes another error, which I’ll call Mistake Number Three: he fails to distinguish between two variants of his “no-God” hypothesis, which make very different predictions regarding the likelihood of senseless tragedies occurring in our world. Remember that the “no-God” hypothesis simply denies the existence of “an all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity.” However, the “no-God” hypothesis makes no prior assumptions regarding the truth of physicalism, so we have to consider two variants: one in which physicalism is false, and the existence of spirits is permitted, and one in which physicalism is true, and the existence of spirits is not permitted.

Let’s assume that physicalism is false. In that case, the existence of spirits is a possibility that we have to take seriously. Spirits are by definition immaterial entities, so their intelligence does not “supervene upon” any underlying properties. Now suppose we ask ourselves: “What level of intelligence would we expect a spirit to have?” The only answer we can give is that all levels of intelligence are equally probable, from zero to infinity. The same logic would apply to a spirit’s power: it could be at any level, from zero to infinity. Goodness is trickier: some people (who accept a dualistic account of good and evil) might want to assign negative values to evil spirits and positive values to good ones, while other people might be inclined to argue (as St. Augustine did) that evil is a privation, and that goodness should have a floor value of zero, rather than minus infinity.

Now consider the question of how much power, goodness and intelligence a spirit would require, in order to keep the world free of senseless tragedies. Assuming that such a world is possible, I see no reason why it would take an infinite degree of power, goodness and intelligence to keep the world that way. A (very high) finite level of power, goodness and intelligence would do the trick: let’s call it N. The range of values from 0 to N is finite, whereas the range of values above N is infinite. For any given spirit, then, the odds are that it has sufficient power, goodness and intelligence to prevent senseless tragedies. Thus in a world where spirits existed, of varying levels of power, goodness and intelligence, where all levels were equally likely, one would surely expect there to be some spirit (or spirits) that was powerful enough, good enough and intelligent enough to keep the world free from senseless tragedies. A dualist could point out in reply that the most powerful and intelligent spirit in the world might happen to be evil; but even if we accept a dualistic account of evil, there’s still a 50% chance that the world’s most powerful and intelligent spirit would be good, and would therefore be inclined to prevent senseless tragedies.

At any rate, one thing is clear: if physicalism is false and the existence of spirits is possible, then we can no longer argue (as Loftus does) that senseless tragedies are unsurprising events, as a sufficiently powerful, good and intelligent spirit could easily prevent them.

Now let’s assume that there are no spirits, and that an entity’s intelligence, power and goodness all “supervene upon” underlying properties – in other words, let’s assume that some version of physicalism is true. In such a world, the existence of a being with a sufficient level of power, goodness and intelligence to keep the world free from senseless tragedies is very unlikely: such a being would need to possess a finite but nonetheless very high level of intelligence (far greater than our own), and would therefore need to be very complex on a physical level, making its existence highly improbable.

The point I’m making here is that Loftus’ argument that the occurrence of senseless tragedies is unsurprising in a godless world works only if physicalism is true. If it is false, then his conclusion doesn’t follow. In order to succeed, Loftus’ argument from evil really needs to distinguish between three possible hypotheses:

1. Physicalism is false, and an all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity exists; .
2. Physicalism is false, and no all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity exists, but spirits of varying levels of power, goodness and knowledge may exist.
3. Physicalism is true, and therefore no all powerful, perfectly good, all knowing deity exists, and no spirits exist either.

For failing to distinguish between all relevant hypotheses, Loftus sees his grade fall from a C to a D.

Since Loftus’ Argument from Evil only works if physicalism is true, I’m going to assume for the purposes of this essay that for Loftus, physical processes provide the ultimate explanation of everything that goes on in the world.

Loftus’ “no-God” hypothesis fails to explain the universe in the first place

Let’s now address Loftus’ argument. Loftus writes: “In a godless universe…” HOLD IT, right there! This is where Loftus makes Mistake Number Four. If you’re going to seriously defend the hypothesis that we live in a godless universe, then you still need to account for the mere fact that we live in a universe at all – especially when theists commonly use the fine-tuning argument as a powerful reason for believing in a Deity. Loftus hasn’t even attempted to do that in his post. He should have, because even if the argument from evil gave us good reasons for rejecting the God hypothesis, those reasons might well be “trumped” by even weightier arguments in favor of that hypothesis – in which case, belief in God would still be rational. For failing to address this obvious objection, Loftus’ essay grade drops from a D to an E.

The fine-tuning argument which Loftus overlooks is a formidable one, which can be fleshed out rigorously, in mathematical terms. Dr. Robin Collins explains why not only the universe, but the entire multiverse needs to be fine-tuned, in a widely cited essay entitled, The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe (in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, 2009, Blackwell Publishing Ltd). One reason, which I discussed in a blog post entitled, Why a multiverse would still need to be fine-tuned, in order to make baby universes, is that the laws of the multiverse would need to be just right – i.e. fine-tuned – in order for it to even occasionally produce universes whose constants and initial conditions permit life to exist on some planets, later on.

I understand that Loftus is a big fan of Professor Victor Stenger, an American particle physicist and a noted atheist, who is also the author of the recent best-seller, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: How the Universe is Not Designed for Humanity (Prometheus Books, 2011). Stenger’s latest book has been received with great acclaim by atheists: “Stenger has demolished the fine-tuning proponents,” in the words of one gushing Amazon reviewer. Unfortunately for Loftus, however, the claims made in Stenger’s book have been completely demolished in a critical review by Dr. Luke A. Barnes, a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. In his review, Dr. Barnes takes great care to avoid drawing any metaphysical conclusions from the fact of fine-tuning. His main concern is simply to establish that the fine-tuning of the universe is real, contrary to the claims of Professor Stenger, who asserts that all of the alleged examples of fine-tuning in our universe can be explained without the need for a multiverse. Readers who are daunted by the technical jargon in Dr. Barnes’ online ARXIV paper, The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life (Version 1, December 21, 2011), may prefer to peruse a non-technical overview containing key excerpts from Barnes’ paper in my blog post, Is fine-tuning a fallacy? (January 5, 2012). I would like to add that Dr. Barnes has written an incisive online critique of Mike Ikeda and Bill Jeffery’s widely cited paper, The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism, which is cited by Professor Stenger in his book, in order to show that even if some observation were to establish that the universe is fine-tuned, it could only count as evidence against God’s existence. Part 1 of Dr. Barnes’ reply to Ikeda and Jeffery is here; Part 2 is here.

If this were not bad enough news for Loftus, it is now reasonably certain that not only our universe, but the entire multiverse had a beginning, as well. Leading cosmologists such as Alexander Vilenkin admit this fact, as I pointed out earlier this year, in my blog post, Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning”. So here’s my question for Loftus: if the multiverse had a beginning, then what caused it to begin? If the multiverse had a cause, then it must have been something outside any kind of space and time, and not subject to physical laws – for if it were, then it too would be part of the multiverse! And if Loftus believes that the multiverse sprang into existence without a cause, then perhaps he’d like to explain why middle-sized objects, such as rabbits in hats, pre-Cambrian fossil rabbits and Boltzmann brains, never seem to magically appear out of nothing. Or perhaps he thinks they do spring into existence, in some other universe? Pray tell, Mr. Loftus.

The physicalistic version of Loftus’ “no-God” hypothesis fails to explain the emergence of life

Let us go on. Loftus writes:

In a godless universe shit happens without rhyme nor reason. Life …

Whoa, Mr. Loftus! Life? Where did that come from? Loftus knows perfectly well that atheism needs to account for the origin of life, or the argument from senseless suffering in the world won’t work. The occurrence of senseless suffering might provide a strong reason for rejecting the hypothesis that there is a God, but the difficulty of accounting for life’s origin as a result of unguided physical processes may constitute a far more powerful reason for accepting the God hypothesis, making belief in God much more rational than unbelief. For failing to address this obvious objection, Loftus’ essay grade falls from an E to an F.

How big is the problem of accounting for the origin of life? It’s a major scientific headache – and that’s putting it mildly.

Why life had to have been designed: the video that tells it all

Professor John C. Walton is a Research Professor of Chemistry at St. Andrews University, and a Chartered Chemist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Professor Walton made his views on the origin of life public in a recent talk for the Edinburgh Creation Group entitled, The Origin of Life, given on September 21, 2010, and available online at http://vimeo.com/415018 .

(NOTE: This video normally plays OK, but if you experience delays, press the PAUSE button at the bottom and wait about two minutes, until the gray bar at the bottom has finished scrolling across to the right. Then press the PLAY button to start the video. Enjoy! Alternatively, you can watch the video on this link.)

Here are the highlights of Professor Walton’s talk:

• Statistically, the chance of forming even one “useful” RNA sequence can be shown to be essentially zero in the lifetime of the earth.
• The complexity of the first self-replicating system, and the information needed to build it, imply intelligent design.
• Hope of beating the colossal odds against random formation of replicating RNA is based on ideology rather than science.
• As lab experiments on model replicators become more complex they demonstrate the need for input from intelligent mind(s).
• Acceptance of an early earth atmosphere free of oxygen atoms strains belief beyond breaking point!
• No chemically or geologically plausible routes to nucleotides or RNA strands have been developed.
• Geological field work shows no support for a “prebiotic soup.” It favors little change in the atmosphere over time. Living things have been present since the first crustal rocks.
• After over 50 years of sterile origin of life research it is time to give intelligent design a fair hearing.

As this is not intended to be a technical article, I will not go into detail here regarding the severe – some would say insoluble – problems with each of the proposed scenarios for the origin of life. Instead, I will simply draw Loftus’ attention to several scholarly articles which will, I hope, make him aware of the enormity of the problem.

Dr. Douglas Axe of the Biologic Institute (who has published in PNAS) highlights the difficulty of obtaining functional proteins through an unguided search process, in his article, The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds (BioComplexity 2010(1):1-12. doi:10.5048/BIO-C.2010.1).

Indeed, the odds against proteins forming by unguided natural processes are so formidable that many scientists now believe that another molecule – RNA – formed first, and that proteins were formed from RNA. But the same problem arises for RNA as for proteins: the vast majority of possible sequences are non-functional, and only a very tiny proportion of them work. In a discussion hosted by Edge in 2008, entitled, Life! What a Concept, with scientists Freeman Dyson, Craig Venter, George Church, Dimitar Sasselov and Seth Lloyd, the late Professor Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), who is not a creationist or Intelligent Design theorist, explained why he found the RNA world hypothesis so incredible:

…[S]uppose you took Scrabble sets, or any word game sets, blocks with letters, containing every language on Earth, and you heap them together and you then took a scoop and you scooped into that heap, and you flung it out on the lawn there, and the letters fell into a line which contained the words “To be or not to be, that is the question,” that is roughly the odds of an RNA molecule, given no feedback – and there would be no feedback, because it wouldn’t be functional until it attained a certain length and could copy itself – appearing on the Earth.

Professor Shapiro sets forth his reasons for rejecting the “RNA world” scenario at greater length in his article, A Simpler Origin for Life (Scientific American, February 12, 2007).

In his online article, Origin of Life Theories: Metabolism-first vs. Replicator-first Hypotheses biologist (and ex-atheist) Richard Deem disposes of another proposed pathway to life – the pre-RNA world:

Because of the enormous problems associated with the spontaneous synthesis of RNA, some researchers have opted for a pre-RNA world, in which smaller molecules substitute for RNA. However, none of the proposed compounds have ever been shown to be able to catalyze their own synthesis. In addition, numerous spontaneously-produced inhibitors block pre-biotic chemistry, requiring the use of purified compounds.

In short: all “replication-first” scenarios for the origin of life encounter insuperable stumbling blocks. For that reason, some scientists have proposed an alternative “metabolism-first” scenario for the origin of life. However, the eminent origin-of-life chemist Leslie Orgel published a telling (posthumous) critique of the “metabolism-first” hypotheses of Robert Shapiro, Stuart Kauffman and others, in his article, The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth (PLOS Biology, January 2008, Volume 6(1):e18), in which he highlighted the lack of experimental support for these scenarios, as well as their failure to address the fundamental problems relating to the origin of life:

The prebiotic syntheses that have been investigated experimentally almost always lead to the formation of complex mixtures. Proposed polymer replication schemes are unlikely to succeed except with reasonably pure input monomers. No solution of the origin-of-life problem will be possible until the gap between the two kinds of chemistry is closed. Simplification of product mixtures through the self-organization of organic reaction sequences, whether cyclic or not, would help enormously, as would the discovery of very simple replicating polymers. However, solutions offered by supporters of geneticist or metabolist scenarios that are dependent on “if pigs could fly” hypothetical chemistry are unlikely to help.

A more recent article entitled, Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks: A constraint on the metabolism-first path to the origin of life by Vera Vasasa, Eors Szathmary and Mauro Santos (PNAS January 4, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912628107) highlights an even more fundamental problem with the “metabolism-first” scenario: proto-metabolic systems would have been incapable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. The authors write:

Abstract

A basic property of life is its capacity to experience Darwinian
evolution. The replicator concept is at the core of genetics-?rst
theories of the origin of life, which suggest that self-replicating
oligonucleotides or their similar ancestors may have been the ?rst
“living” systems and may have led to the evolution of an RNA world. But problems with the nonenzymatic synthesis of biopolymers and the origin of template replication have spurred the alternative metabolism-?rst scenario, where self-reproducing and evolving proto-metabolic networks are assumed to have predated self-replicating genes…. [W]e demonstrate here that replication of compositional information [in the metabolism-?rst scenario - VJT] is so inaccurate that ?tter compositional genomes cannot be maintained by selection and, therefore, the system lacks evolvability… [W]e conclude that this fundamental limitation of ensemble replicators cautions against metabolism-?rst theories of the origin of life, although ancient metabolic systems could have provided a stable habitat within which polymer replicators later evolved…

Conclusion

We think that the real question is that of the organization of chemical networks. If (and what a big IF) there can be in the same environment distinct, organizationally different, alternative autocatalytic cycles/networks, as imagined for example by Ganti (37) and Wachtershauser (38, 39), then these can also compete with each other and undergo some Darwinian evolution. But, even if such systems exist(-ed), they would in all probability have limited heredity only (cf ref. 34) and thus could not undergo open-ended evolution.

We do not know how the transition to digitally encoded information has happened in the originally inanimate world; that is, we do not know where the RNA world might have come from, but there are strong reasons to believe that it had existed.

Why the improbability of life undercuts Loftus’ Argument from Evil

According to the best scientific information we have, then, the origin of life as a result of unguided processes is extremely improbable – so improbable as to turn Loftus’ argument from senseless tragedies on its head. For even if we allow that the occurrence of senseless tragedies under the “God hypothesis” is highly improbable, we have to grant that at least this hypothesis passes the “origin-of-life” test with flying colors: intelligent beings are certainly capable of generating the specified complexity that characterizes life. But if the evolution of life as a result of unguided processes is even more improbable than the occurrence of senseless tragedies under the “God hypothesis,” then the physicalist version of Loftus’ “no-God” hypothesis will be at a disadvantage, compared with the “God hypothesis.”

Loftus can only recover his advantage if he can formulate an independent argument for the truth of physicalism. There are good reasons for regarding a physicalist account of the human mind as false, however. These are summarized in Dr. David Oderberg’s online article, Concepts, Dualism, and the Human Intellect (article #33 on Oderberg’s “Articles” home page; also in A. Antonietti, A. Corradini, and E.J. Lowe (eds), Psycho-Physical Dualism Today: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefied, 2008: 211-33).

Why the multiverse doesn’t help Loftus explain the emergence of life

There is one other way that Loftus could regain the upper hand in this argument, and that is by arguing that in an infinite multiverse, the origin of life is no longer a difficulty: given enough time, it will inevitably spring up somewhere. This is the solution endorsed by evolutionary biologist Dr. Eugene Koonin, who argues that only the multiverse can transform the origin of life into a reasonably probable event. In a paper entitled, The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life (Biology Direct 2007, 2:15 doi:10.1186/1745-6150-2-15). Koonin contends that the “RNA world” hypothesis for the origin of life is vanishingly improbable in a single, finite universe, given the traditional laws of physics, so he proposes instead that the RNA world is not only likely, but inevitable, if we accept the cosmological model of eternal inflation. The theory of eternal inflation holds that the universe is constantly giving birth to smaller “bubble” universes within an ever-expanding multiverse. Each bubble universe undergoes its own initial period of inflation. In some versions of the theory, the bubbles go both backwards and forwards in time, allowing the possibility of an infinite past. What’s more, all macroscopic histories permitted by the laws of physics are repeated an infinite number of times in an infinite multiverse, so life would be bound to pop up somewhere, sometime.

However, there’s just one small problem with Dr. Koonin’s theory: according to the latest research by cosmologist Alex Vilenkin (which I discussed above), the universe isn’t eternal. Lisa Grossman explains why in an article in New Scientist (“Why physicists can’t avoid a creation event”, 11 January 2012, issue 2847):

In 2003, a team including Vilenkin and Guth considered what eternal inflation would mean for the Hubble constant, which describes mathematically the expansion of the universe. They found that the equations didn’t work (Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.90.151301). “You can’t construct a space-time with this property,” says Vilenkin. It turns out that the constant has a lower limit that prevents inflation in both time directions. “It can’t possibly be eternal in the past,” says Vilenkin. “There must be some kind of boundary.”

To sum up: not even the multiverse can render the origin of life probable.

Predation: a necessary fact of life

Male Lion (Panthera leo) and cub eating a Cape Buffalo in Northern Sabi Sand, South Africa. Photo by Luca Galuzzi. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

But I haven’t finished with Loftus’ essay yet. After telling us that things happen “without rhyme nor reason,” he continues:

Life is predatory from the ground up. Creatures eat one another by trapping unsuspecting victims in unusual ways, launching surprise attacks out of the blue, and hunting in packs by overpowering prey with brute force and numbers.

Stop right there, Mr. Loftus! You’re seriously maintaining that predation is something “without rhyme or reason”? It appears you need to read more about food chains. I suggest you have a look at this biology handout, which examines in detail the food chain:

wheat plant -> mouse -> weasel -> hawk.

The daily energy requirements of these organisms are 5.5 kJ, 20 kJ, 80 kJ and 330 kJ respectively. In a typical food chain, an organism uses 90% of the energy it receives for life processes, leaving only 10% to be passed up the chain to the next organism. I’ll leave it to Loftus to figure out how many weasels a hawk must eat to obtain its daily energy requirements, how many mice those weasels must eat to obtain their energy requirements, and how many wheat plants those mice must to obtain their energy requirements. I put it to Loftus that a purely vegetarian world would be a world devoid of most (if not all) sentient life-forms, and that predation, far from being without rhyme or reason, makes excellent ecological sense.

The natural theologian William Paley realized that nature needed some way to keep animal populations in check. As he put it: “Immortality upon this earth is out of the question. Without death there could be no generation, no sexes, no parental relation, i. e. as things are constituted, no animal happiness…. The term then of life in different animals being the same as it is, the question is, what mode of taking it away is the best even for the animal itself.” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVI, p. 473.) Paley then argued that there would be even more animal pain in the world if animals were not killed by predators, because deaths from disease and starvation are slow and lingering: “Is it then to see the world filled with drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless, and unhelped animals, that you would alter the present system, of pursuit and prey?” (Natural Theology. 12th edition. J. Faulder: London, 1809, Chapter XXVI, p. 474)

Presumably Loftus will reply that he meant to say that predation is without rhyme or reason, morally speaking, and that God could have made a universe with a different set of laws, in which predation was not necessary. This kind of reasoning exemplifies what I call the Pegasus fallacy: the fallacy of assuming that because we can picture something, it must be possible. I can picture Pegasus – but when I start asking myself detailed questions about how he would fly, my picture breaks down. In short: we simply do not know whether God can build a life-friendly universe with a set of laws allowing all animals (including sentient and sapient ones) to obtain their energy requirements on an ongoing basis, without killing other organisms. Loftus says he can imagine one. Fine, but I would challenge him to specify its physical laws. All we know is that in this universe, sentient life – and sapient life – isn’t possible without at least some predation.

For characterizing predation as senseless, Loftus’ essay grade drops from a F to an F-minus.

The marvel of the human brain

Loftus continues:

Sometimes a creature just goes wacko for no reason at all. Humans are not exempt. Sometimes the wiring in our brains goes haywire and we snap.

What Loftus is assuming here is that creatures with human brains are capable of evolving in the first place, given the time available. The fact is, however, that the human brain is an enormously complex thing – it’s orders of magnitude more complex than the most advanced computer ever built, or even the Internet. I put it to Loftus that if intelligent human beings are incapable of creating anything which matches the complexity of the brain, then how much less so is unguided evolution.

Regarding the brain’s complexity, I would refer Loftus to an article by Professor David Deamer, of the Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, entitled Consciousness and Intelligence in Mammals: Complexity thresholds, in the Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol. 14. The upshot of Deamer’s calculation is that even if you think that consciousness resides in matter (as Deamer does, and as Loftus certainly does), then the most complex computer ever built by human beings still falls a long way short of the human brain, in terms of its complexity. In fact, it falls dozens of orders of magnitude short.

In the article, Deamer proposes a way to estimate complexity in the mammalian brain using the number of cortical neurons, their synaptic connections and the encephalization quotient. His calculation assumes that the following three (materialistic) postulates hold:

The first postulate is that consciousness will ultimately be understood in terms of ordinary chemical and physical laws…

The second postulate is that consciousness is related to the evolution of anatomical complexity in the nervous system… The second postulate suggests that consciousness can emerge only when a certain level of anatomical complexity has evolved in the brain that is directly related to the number of neurons, the number of synaptic connections between neurons, and the anatomical organization of the brain…

This brings us to the third postulate, that consciousness, intelligence, self-awareness and awareness are graded, and have a threshold that is related to the complexity of nervous systems. I will now propose a quantitative formula that gives a rough estimate of the complexity of nervous systems. Only two variables are required: the number of units in a nervous system, and the number of connections (interactions) each unit has with other units in the system. The formula is simple: C(complexity)=log(N)*log(Z) where N is the number of units and Z is the average number of synaptic inputs to a single neuron.

It is important for the reader to understand that Deamer’s formula for complexity is a logarithmic formula. Thus a system with a complexity of 10 isn’t twice as complex as a system with a complexity of 5, but rather, five orders of magnitude more complex.

Deamer obtained his figures for the human brain from Roth and Dicke’s 2005 article, Evolution of the brain and intelligence (Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9: 250-257). The human brain contains 11,500,000,000 cortical neurons. That’s N in his formula. Log(N) is about 10.1. What about Z, the number of synapses per neuron? Z turns out to be astonishingly high: “Each human cortical neuron has approximately 30,000 synapses per cell.” Thus log(Z) is about 4.5. According to Deamer’s complexity formula, then, the complexity of the human brain is 10.1 x 4.5, or 45.5.

How do the most advanced computers compare with the human brain? Very poorly, if we apply Deamer’s complexity formula:

…[B]ecause of the limitations of computer electronics, it will be virtually impossible to construct a conscious computer in the foreseeable future. Even though the number of transistors (N) in a microprocessor chip now approaches the number of neurons in a mammalian brain, each chip has a Z of 2, that is, its input-output response is directly connected to just two other transistors. This is in contrast to a mammalian neuron, in which function is modulated by thousands of synaptic inputs and output relayed to hundreds of other neurons. According to the quantitative formula described above, the complexity of the human nervous system is log(N)*log(Z)=45.5, while that of a microprocessor with 781 million transistors is 8.9*0.3=2.67, many orders of magnitude less… Interestingly, for the nematode the calculated complexity C=3.2, assuming an average of 20 synapses per neuron, so the functioning nervous system of this simple organism could very well be computationally modeled.

So there you have it. A microprocessor with around 1 billion transistors is in the same mental ballpark as … a worm. Rather an underwhelming result, don’t you think?

“What about the Internet as a whole?” you might ask. The number of transistors (N) in the entire Internet has been estimated at 10^18, so log(N) is 18. log(Z) is log(2) or about 0.3, so C=(18*0.3)=5.4. That’s right: on Deamer’s scale, the complexity of the entire Internet is a miserable 5.4, or 40 orders of magnitude less than that of the human brain, which stands at 45.5.

The reader will recall that Deamer’s formula is a logarithmic one, using logarithms to base 10. What that means is that the human brain is, in reality, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more complex than the entire Internet! And that’s based on explicitly materialistic assumptions about consciousness.

To be fair, Deamer does point out that “what the microprocessor lacks in connectivity can potentially be compensated in part by speed, which in the most powerful computers is measured in teraflops compared with the kilohertz activity of neurons.” For argument’s sake, I’m going to apply that figure to the Internet as a whole. 10^12 divided by 10^3 is 10^9, so let’s lop off nine zeroes. That still makes the human brain 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10^31 times more complex than the entire Internet.

How does this affect Loftus’ Argument from evil? If the best that intelligent human beings can come up with is a system which is dozens of orders of magnitude less complex than the human brain, then it is reasonable to believe that the improbability of senseless suffering under the “God hypothesis” is dwarfed by the much greater improbability of a human brain arising as a result of unguided processes, under the physicalistic version of Loftus’ “no-God” hypthesis. In which case, belief in God is far more reasonable than unbelief.

Loftus may object that given enough time – four billion years – unguided evolution could create structures like the human brain. Here, I would like to ask Loftus a question: does he think that the unguided process of Darwinian evolution builds on complexity at a geometric rate? It is easy to see how human creativity can grow in this way: for instance, Moore’s law tells us that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years – which would mean that it would take (1/log(2))*31, or 103 years, for the Internet to catch up with the human brain. (However, on 13 April 2005, Gordon Moore stated in an interview that the law cannot be sustained indefinitely: “It can’t continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.”) But to attribute that kind of growth to an unguided, unintelligent process is simply absurd. Additionally, there is not a scintilla of experimental evidence that complexity in living things can increase at such a rate, through unguided evolution.

But if the rate of growth in complexity as a result of unguided processes is much slower than a geometric rate, then the problem of insufficient time resurfaces: even four billion years will probably not be enough time to build a human brain.

For its failure to explain the complexity of the human brain, Loftus’ essay grade drops from a F-minus to an F-double minus.

I hope that Loftus will come to realize that his Argument from Evil is badly flawed, and that it makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions.

I hope, too, that the tragedies that occur in this world will not cause him to forget the goodness and beauty that we see all around us. This, too, needs to be explained, and its existence is far more puzzling on a “no-God” hypothesis than the existence of senseless evil is if we accept the reality of God.

I will conclude by wishing John Loftus a Happy New Year.

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