The argument from design is one of the "proofs" for the existence of God. In its basic form, this argument infers from the intelligent order and created beauty of the universe that there is an intelligent Designer and Creator of the universe. The argument has been criticized for begging the question: it assumes the universe is designed in order to prove that it is the work of a designer. The argument also suppresses evidence: for all its beauty and grandeur, the universe is also full of, well, to be delicate, let us say that the universe is also full of nasties. I suppose I should be more specific, but I think the reader knows the kind of thing I mean: babies born without brains, good people suffering monstrous tortures, evil people basking in the sun and enjoying power, reputation, etc. Volcanoes erupting, earthquakes rattling the planet, hurricanes and tornadoes, blindly wiping out thousands of lives a day. Is it unfair to call these things the nasties, what is blithely referred to by theists as non-moral evil or physical evil?
One of the argument's more famous variations involves an analogy with a watch. William Paley (1743-1805), the Archdeacon of Carlisle, writes in his Natural Theology (1802):
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there.The reason, he says, that he couldn't conceive of the watch having been there forever is because it is evident that the parts of the watch were put together for a purpose. It is inevitable that "the watch must have had a maker," whereas the stone apparently has no purpose revealed by the complex arrangement of its parts.
One could, of course, attack Paley's argument at this point and say, as Clarence Darrow did, that some stones would be just as puzzling as a watch; for, they are complex and could easily have been designed by someone for some purpose we are unaware of, and, in any case "on close inspection and careful study the stone...is just as marvelous as the watch." Be that as it may, Paley's point was not that watches are inherently more interesting than stones. His point was that a watch could be seen to be analogous with the creation of the universe. The design of the watch implies an intelligent designer. This fact, says Paley, would not be diminished even if we discovered that the watch before us was the offspring (no pun intended) of another watch. "No one," he says, "can rationally believe that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire in it--could be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that also a result connected with the utilities of other beings."
Paley then goes on to claim that "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." The implication is that the works of nature must have had a designer of supreme intelligence to have contrived to put together such a magnificent mechanism as the universe. According to Darrow, this `implication' is actually an assumption.
To say that a certain scheme or process shows order or system, one must have some norm or pattern by which to determine whether the matter concerned shows any design or order. We have a norm, a pattern, and that is the universe itself, from which we fashion our ideas. We have observed this universe and its operation and we call it order. To say that the universe is patterned on order is to say that the universe is patterned on the universe. It can mean nothing else. [note]
The problem with Paley's analogy is that the belief that the universe shows orderliness and purpose is an assumption. One quality of a good analogical argument is that the characteristics cited as shared characteristics must be truly shared characteristics. If there is doubt that one item (the universe) even has the most significant characteristic (of being orderly and purposive), then the analogical argument is not a sound one.
Another philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776), took up the design analogy a few years before Paley, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. One of the characters, Philo, suggests that "If the universe bears a greater likeness to animal bodies and to vegetables than to the works of human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the former than that of the latter, and its origin ought rather to be ascribed to generation or vegetation than to reason or design." (Book VII) "The world," says Philo, "plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable than it does a watch or knitting-loom. It's cause, therefore, it is more probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world we may infer to be something similar or analogous to generation or vegetation." Hume, apparently thought the analogy was a joke, but perhaps Paley is still laughing from that Great Carrot Patch in the Sky.
I might find this watch analogy more convincing of Divine Purpose if, while observing it in his imaginary scenario, Paley's watch suddenly and for no reason shot a lightning bolt through his forehead. That would be more in harmony with the universe I have come to know and love. If the watch could give AIDS to anyone who touched it, or contaminate his progeny for endless generations, then I might be convinced that this watch is like the universe and indicative of a Grand Designer.
See related entry on God.