02 PHI - The Teleological Argument

Paley’s argument

1. consider a mechanical device like a watch

2. The watch exhibits a great amount of complexity and order and seems to be designed with a goal or purpose in mind

3. Therefore the watch must have been designed by a designer

4. Consider nature

5. parts of nature exhibit even greater complexity and order

6. Therefore, by analogy, these parts of nature must have had a designer

Objections to paley

1. Who designed the designer

2. Not all of nature seems to be functioning correctly → that does not mean that there is not a designer

Taylor’s rock example

If there were a bunch of rocks on the beach that spelled “welcome” you would assume that someone organized them that way and they did not just get there by pure chance

General structure of a teleological argument

1. Consider some phenomenon P that exhibitis a great deal of complexity and order

2. It is highly likely that an inteligent designer wanted P to exist and brought about its existence

3. it is unlikely that P occured by pure chance

4. Therefore since P exists, it is much more likely that some intelgient designer wanted, and brought about P into existence

Differences between cosmological and teleological argument

1. cosmological argument is logical whereas teleological is based on probability that a designer exists

2. Cosmological argument does not involve designer or complexity into the argument

Dawkins and biochemical complexity

1. agrees with the teleological argument that parts of nature cannot come into existence with one single chance

2. disagrees because they could come into existence through the proccess of evolution

1. cannot explain the initial conditions of the universe

2. cannot explain early stages of life such as RNA and DNA

Behe

Believes in irreducible complexity

A system which is composed of several parts, where if one of the parts stops working the whole system stops functioning is irreducibly complex.

1. The probability of irreducibly complex biological processes existing, on the

   hypothesis that only gradual evolutionary processes are at work, is vanishingly small.

2. The probability of irreducibly complex biological processes existing, on the

   hypothesis that there is at least one intelligent and powerful designer of the universe

   who wanted them to exist, is very high.

3. Therefore since irreducibly complex biological process exist, it is much more probable that there is at least one ID who wanted them to exist then them occurring via the gradual evolutionary process.

Big question for Behe

Will his argument always stand with science?

Collins Fine tuning argument

1. The probability of all of the physical constants that are life permitting being assigned by random chance is low

2. The probability that a designer assigned all of the relevant physical constants is high

3. Therefore it is much more likely that an ID assigned all of the relevant physical constants that permit life then they were assigned by mindless chance.

Who designed the designer

There is a designer

Multiverse (parallel, varying,

Who would have designed the universe generator which then assigns all of the physical constants?