The Blind Watchmaker?

I had to search for a while to find one with the colors mine had. It was 1 year shy of qualifying as an historic vehicle when it was totaled by an incompetent driver in a snow storm.Many many miles of smiles.Getting back to the topic, Dogrelata posted: The VW van was an adaptation of a delivery van to passenger use and marks the speciation of passenger vans from commercial vehicles rather than from passenger cars. This is still seen in the use of truck frames and engines in vans as opposed to car parts.One thing you do see in vehicle evolution that you do not see in life is the adaptation of parts from one lineage into another, so you see comforts of passenger cars being incorporated into the vans instead of independent evolution after the common ancestor between cars and delivery vans.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : topic comments

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I was just explaining you to what dogrelata was telling you, since you had responded to him with "How so?" But now you say that you were agreeing with him all the time. So why the "How so?" Not at all what I was saying. If you are going to insist that it was design, then there are things you need to keep in mind about designs. And about production.What kind of evidence indicates design? Do we find such evidence in nature? Not so far. Is design required for something "irreducibly complex"? No, as indicated by experiments in which genetic algorithms using evolutionary processes produced irreducibly complex designs.Does any of that negate the possibility of some god having gotten involved? No. It does not require some incompetent Creator having to micromanage every minute step of the development of life, but it also does not negate an actually competent Creator from setting up the process for Nature to produce life and all species.But at the level at which design proponents insist that their god had to have meddled, no, there is no evidence of design.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

It is very common for engineers to describe a design as having evolved. The basic approach to a new design is to take something similar and then modify it to perform a new function. And then take that design and modify it further. And further, and further, until it has become something quite different from the original design.And, especially in software design, the design becomes increasingly complex. Irreducibly complex, even.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

I maybe didn’t do such a good job making myself clear in my original post as a number of responses appear to be homing in on the actual designed objects used as examples, rather than the design process and the attendant, implied intelligence required to produce things.So when I talk about evolution, I am talking about the evolution of the implied intelligence required to produce things, which, in large part, comes from an accumulated knowledge base. The natural selection I mention also refers to ideas, i.e. some survive to bolster the accumulated knowledge and intelligence base because they are a good fit for what that particular culture is looking for at the time, but many don’t. The watch was Paley’s choice not mine. In the original post, I sought to express the view that what this watch represents to Paley is somewhat different to what it represents to me

Okay, I think it’s time to move the debate forward a little.I’ve already expressed a view in the original post that I think William Paley’s choice of analogy to illustrate his point seems a little odd to me. But there’s a second reason why I question how appropriate the analogy is for the case he wishes to present.Paley clearly sees a correlation between the complex design he witnesses in a watch and what he perceives to be the complex structures thrown up by nature. From this he concludes design in nature, which in turn leads him to propose an intelligent designer. Less obvious, but implied in the nature of the argument, is that the high levels of complexity he sees in nature point to very high levels of intelligence in the designer.In the original post, I wanted to highlight the point that I believe design intelligence is accumulated incrementally, in an exponential manner. That is to say, I see design intelligence in the same way I see compound interest - as the accumulated knowledge base grows, each successive fixed percentage ”improvement’ yields ever greater ”advances’ in the accumulated knowledge base, with associated ”advances’ in design intelligence.Why is this point important? Let me try to illustrate with an analogy of my own.Think of a very heavy weight. For one person to lift it, they would need to be very strong. If ten people are available to lift it between them, individually they can be a lot less strong and still succeed in lifting the weight.So how much intelligence is required to produce a very complex design? In my opinion Paley, and those who share his sentiments, massively overstate the amount of design intelligence required to produce highly complex designs. If there was any evidence of ”zero to high complexity’ in a single step, I might have some sympathy, but I’m not aware of any evidence that shows intelligence has the capability to conjure high levels of complex design from a ”standing start’.As already suggested, the design intelligence that leads to high levels of complexity is accumulated over many years, centuries, eons. Thereafter, a relatively small amount of additional design intelligence is required to create something that is even complex than what went before.So, based on the above, what should we make of Paley’s analogy? Are we really to believe he is suggesting that his favoured intelligent designer has produced designs based on the pre-existing evolved, accumulated knowledge of peers and predecessors?I’m guessing this was never Paley’s intention, so once again question whether the analogy he cites unwittingly invalidates the very point he wishes to make.

But if we knew the outcome of the game before it was played, how much fun would there be in that?

Hi dogrelata, OK I will wait until after the game is over then introduce you to Him.Have fun,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Hello, I have been following this thread with great interest. While I'm certainly not an expert on William Paley, or even Intelligent design, I would like to point a few things that I believe are significant.From the short Google search I made on William Paley, I can deduce that he was no simpleton. He was obviously well read and well versed in philosophy. Which makes it clear to me that he obviously understood that science and knowledge are most definitely a function of accumulated observation, facts, theorems, rules, laws, and scientific inquiry and discovery. So, I have to assume that he understood that machines or mechanisms are the result of progressive adaptations on an earlier design of said machines or devices. Were he to deny this would be to deny reality as we know it to be, which I do not believe he is doing. For this reason I believe you are reading more into Haley's comment than was intended.Haley is not stating that designs, and hence, machines, do not evolve. What he is stating is that humans can, and do recognize intelligent design in structures and mechanisms that set them apart from random chance. It doesn't matter who or what created the watch. It might have been a stone age man for all he cared, though that would be highly unlikely. The point is that whoever found it, would know that it was an artifact, designed, created, and left behind or lost by an intelligent agent, and not the product of the random interaction between the sand, heat, water, or whatever natural forces are at work. To assume otherwise, would be absurd. (Do you dispute this?) So Paley is arguing the case for the cosmos as being generated from design because he can observe order, rule, precision, and causation in the universe which he believes could not have arisen randomly.This notion has it's modern variations. Why do you think 2001: A Space Odessy (I think I spelled it wrong) was so popular? Because while it is a work of fiction, it appeals to our human trait of finding order and structure out of chaos and randomness.This does not mean that I am a believer in Intelligent design. It only means that from a logical point of view, Paley's argument is sound and we should not read more into it than he intended.

Welcome to EvC jrodr036. Not that I’ve been around here very much myself, at least in terms of posts, but I found it gratifying to be welcomed by existing members in my early days.I like your post; it makes a number of good points. Have I read too much into what Paley says? Perhaps, but one of the things I learned early round here is that the devil is frequently in the detail, especially where analogies are concerned.If you’re saying that Paley simply wished to draw a parallel between the design he knows to have created the watch with the design he supposes created the universe, then I go back to my final point in Message 20 and suggest that it is a misleading analogy. That is to say I don’t believe for a moment Paley is suggesting the design he supposes led to the existence of this universe is a modified version of pre-existing, evolved, accumulated design intelligence, arising from a knowledge base built up by countless previous intelligent designers designing their various alternative universes. As such, I’m sure it mattered to Paley a great deal who the intelligent agent he believes created the design he supposes he sees in the universe was.I mention this last point because there is another problem I have with the analogy. The watch Paley imagines finding on the heath is entirely attributable to natural forces i.e homo sapien, yet Paley seeks to use the analogy to attribute supposed designs in nature to something other than natural forces.Whilst I accept some of the points you make, I still contend that Paley’s analogy seems a little odd to me.

How do you know I’m not him?

That depends on what ID model is applied. Using the Biblical model the designer from which all the energy came and by which it exists has been eternally the same omniscient omnipotent being. This model satisfies the 1,2 and 3 LTD in that all energy existing now has always existed and has always been managed by design involving designer work.Of course this model like every other model including BB and ToE has the problem of evidence. Then too, all models have major unknowns. The Biblical model has the unknown of how the designer could have existed eternally. For example the ToE and BB models have the problems of 1LoT as to where the BB energy came from and how abiogenesis came about.Abe: Since William Paley's design model was Biblical you can't falsify his analogy and POV on designer inability.If one argues then that the Biblical designer is not falsifyable another can argue that neither is the singularity or abiogenesis. Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Thank you for your courteous welcome to this forum.While I concur that Paley may have been coming from a "biblical" perspective, that does not diminish the strength of the logical thread he was presenting. While it is true that Paley was referring to God as the intelligent designer of the cosmos, it does not necessarily follow that he believed all this design arose instantaneously, in the advanced form in which the cosmos now exists. Again, Paley was an philosopher who understood the concept of causation.While he may have believed in creation "ex nihilo" (And I am not sure he did) the logic of his argument does not require that this be so.Paley spoke from a nineteenth century perspective, but even if the cosmos took billions of years it does not negate the reality that there is an underlying structure and order in the universe.The watch in the heath may have taken eons to produce in an unending chain of incremental adaptations, but there is no doubt that it did not arise "randomly" from the sand, stones, and soil that surround it. Anyone who found it would recognize that it is an artifact that was created with a specific purpose in mind. How it came to be there, why it came to be there, or even how it was made are irrelevant. We recognize what it is. Something designed, and produced. How long it took to design it, or even who designed it is irrelevant. What we know for sure is that something intelligent produced it and left it behind.

Off the top of my head, probably because it was 1831 and they didn't exist. A watch was pretty sophisticated back then. I believe that man thousands of years was likely just as intelligent as man is now. The only difference being that knowledge begets knowledge, and we build off of previous inventions. If no one invented the wheel, a car thousands of years later may never have been designed.In reverse, some historians allege that we have possibly lost a great deal of knowledge deriving from the ancients, particularly when it comes to celestial navigation with its complex azimuths and whatnot, when the library at Alexandria was destroyed.But more along the lines of uncovering teleology in nature, if Paley instantly recognizes a watch as being intelligently, but also asserts that nature is a treasure-trove of evidence concerning God's intervention, then wouldn't he have been just as likely to look at that stone and determine that it was made by a cosmic artificer?That often is the underlying problem with using arguments like that. For instance, the toaster in a forest scenario commits a flaw. If intelligence is so apparent, then wouldn't we be just as likely to instantly see the intent in the forest itself as readily apparent as the toaster? I would actually have to disagree given the amount of artifacts and testimonies. It doesn't verify it beyond doubt, but I think there is some credence that, while it may have been a rare occurrence, it still happened on occasion. Although one could certainly apply an evolutionary concept to the idea of knowledge begetting knowledge, the fact still remains that it took an intelligent being to create these items. It was not through capriciousness that we arrived at a sharpened flintstone, nor was it capriciousness that we arrived at a plasma screen tv.Where I personally see design in nature comes as an aggregate and not necessarily in any specific material. For instance, the penis and the vagina certainly, with all its contrivances, appears to have been specifically designed. I have heard of some lofty reasons about how such a thing could have arisen by chance X natural selection, but it sounds like an ad hoc answer to me.

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“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious" -C.S. Lewis

Ok, who designed the designer?

It always comes back to this - the Biblical model. What Biblical model? Isn’t the Biblical model just a faith based hypothesis masquerading as something else?The omniscient, omnipotent being to which you allude in undetectable and unquantifiable, yet those who propose it also seek to attribute to it a whole set of properties, ranging from character traits to supernatural, energy forming capabilities.Based on what though? Natural structures can be very complex, which may lead some to conclude that they are the result of design by purpose. So the argument goes that if parallels can be drawn between something that is known to have arisen out of intelligent design, a watch, and something that resembles a watch in terms of complexity, a natural biological structure, it can be inferred that the processes that led to their existence were similar.So if I say an ostrich can run at speeds of up to 70mph and the top speed of the humble old Citroen 2CV was around 70mph, does that mean I can infer characteristics of the ostrich by what I observe within a 2CV? I don’t believe so. Based on the evidence we see around us, it’s an unsound comparison.Whilst some have inferred intelligent design to be the process that has led to complexity within natural structures, others have concluded otherwise.On what do they base these conclusions? Mostly loads of hard evidence gathered over many years of painstaking research. Does this evidence offer all the answers? Of course not. Is there still more to be learned? Of course there is. Will the conclusions that are reached when more evidence is gathered be the same as it is today? We have no idea.There are no easy answers. A lot of very hard work has gone into gathering the knowledge we have today. A lot more still has to be done, along with very large helpings of patience and an acceptance that most of us will go to our graves knowing only a fraction of what we’d like to know.But if the alternative is, “if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck”, then I’m going to take the tough option every time. Let me get this straight. Paley is allowed to use inferred design processes to make his case, but because he sets his inferences within the constraints of a ”Biblical model’, nobody is allowed to point out the shortcomings or inconsistencies inherent within the inferences. Sorry, but this requires a few more Or are you saying you cannot disprove ”illogic’ by the use of logic?