Watchmaker: Paley's watchmaker argument

Paley's watchmaker argument

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2608-paley-s-watchmaker-argument

William Paley’s “watch” argument.  Basically, this argument says that after seeing a watch, with all its intricate parts, which work together in a precise fashion to keep time, one must deduce that this piece of machinery has a creator, since it is far too complex to have simply come into being by some other means, such as evolution.  The skeleton of the argument is as follows:

1.Human artifacts are products of intelligent design; they have a purpose.
2.The universe resembles these human artifacts.
3.Therefore:  It is probable that the universe is a product of intelligent design, and has a purpose.
4. However, the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic than a human artifact is.
5. Therefore:  There is probably a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who created the universe. 1

Hume suggests that in cases where we justifiably infer from the existence of some phenomenon that a certain kind of cause must have existed, we do so on the basis of an observed pattern of correlations:


Objection: The great sceptic David Hume disposed of this sort of wishful analogical thinking nearly 250 years ago. Anyone trotting out this argument would do well to read him first before pole vaulting to untenable conclusions.
Response: Hume proposed that the universe "reproduced". His unstated assumption was that the universe did always exist ( which was the predominant view in his time) and produces "worlds" through some kind of seeding process. In fact, we know that the universe  began to exist and started with the Big Bang. David Hume objected to the analogy that the universe looked like a watch, since he assumed that there was no evidence for design. However, this assumption was also based upon ignorance. Hume did not know that the universe is a finely crafted masterpiece, and that even minor changes to the laws of physics would result in a universe that didn't even contain matter! So, Hume's main argument turns out to be completely wrong.


Here is Hume's "cosmology":

In like manner as a tree sheds its seeds into the neighbouring fields, and produces other trees; so the great vegetable, the world, or this planetary system, produces within itself certain seeds, which, being scattered into the surrounding chaos, vegetate into new worlds. A comet, for instance, is the seed of a world; and after it has been fully ripened, by passing from sun to sun, and star to star, it is at last tossed into the unformed elements which every where surround this universe, and immediately sprouts up into a new system.

William Paley (July 1743 – 25 May 1805) was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which made use of the watchmaker analogy. 1

I love analogies, and Paleys watchmaker analogy is a classic: 

In WILLIAM PALEY's  book  :
Natural Theology or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, collected from the appearances of nature  2, page 46, he writes : 

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 any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to shew the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch* upon the ground, and it should be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch, as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the several parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use, that is now served by it. 

My comment: Without knowing about biology as we do today, Paley made an observation, which is spot on, and has astounding significance and correctness, applied to the reality of the molecular world. Let's list the points he mentioned again:


- parts differently shaped
- different size
- placed after any other manner
- or in any other order


no motion would be the result. 


That applies precisely as well to biological systems, and cells. Each of these four points must evolve correctly, or no improved or new biological function is granted. How many mutations would be required to get from a unicellular organism to multicellular organism? Would evolution not have to go in a gradual slow, increasing manner from one eukaryotic cell to an organism with two cells,   3 cells, and so on,  to get in the end an organism with millions, and billions of cells?  Let's suppose there were unicellular organisms, and evolutionary pressure to go from one to two cells. What and how many mutations would be required in the genome? Mutations would have to provide the change of a considerable number of internal cell functions and created NEW information for AT LEAST all four requirements mentioned by Paley, but many more, as listed here :

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2010-unicellular-and-multicellular-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design#5651

He continues: To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts, and of their offices, all tending to one result:––We see a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by its endeavor to relax, turns round the box. We next observe a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the sake of flexure) communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fusee. We then find a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the balance, and from the balance to the pointer; and at the same time, by the size and shape of those wheels, so regulating that motion, as to terminate in causing an index, by an equable and measured progression, to pass over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made of brass, in order to keep them from rust; the springs of steel, no other metal being so elastic; that over the face of
the watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no other part of the work, but, in the room of which, if there had been any other than a transparent substance, the hour could not be seen without opening the case.

My comment: The choice of materials is also an essential ingredient and factor to be considered. Bones are totally different in terms of consistency than collagen - both essential for advanced multicellular organisms, and its synthesis is highly complex, ordered, it depends on the right substrates, right intake of the cell, complex mechanisms to transform brute forms of molecules into useful form, complex molecular machines, and manufacturing processes, and the information to direct the material to the right place. A lot of things to inform and to get right, in order for natural selection to choose just the right random mutations, no?  

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; that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.

My comment: Now Paley goes to address the common objections: " We have never observed a being of any capacity creating biological systems and life."  

I. 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: all this being no more than what is true of some exquisite remains of ancient art, of some lost arts, and, to the generality of mankind, of the more curious productions of modern manufacture. Does one man in a million know how oval frames are turned? 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. Nor can I perceive that it varies at all the inference, whether the question arise concerning a human agent, or concerning an agent of a different species, or an agent possessing, in some respects, a different nature.

Next objection: Does bad design mean no design? 

II. 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 shew with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all.

Objection: We don't know the use of a particular organ in a biological system:

III. Nor, thirdly, would it bring any uncertainty into the argument, if there were a few parts of the watch, concerning which we could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they conduced to the general effect; or even some parts, concerning which we could not ascertain, whether they conduced to that effect in any manner whatever. For, as to the first branch of the case; if, by the loss, or disorder, or decay of the parts in question, the movement of the watch were found in fact to be stopped, or disturbed, or retarded, no doubt would remain in our minds as to the utility or intention of these parts, although we should be unable to investigate the manner according to which, or the connection by which, the ultimate effect depended upon their action or assistance: and the more complex is the machine, the more likely is this obscurity to arise. Then, as to the second thing supposed, namely, that there were parts, which might be spared without prejudice to the movement of the watch, and that we had proved this by experiment,––these superfluous parts, even if we were completely assured that they were such, would not vacate the reasoning which we had instituted concerning other parts. The indication of contrivance remained, with respect to them, nearly as it was before.

Objection: Physical laws, rather than design, explain the origin of complex systems:

And not less surprised to be informed, that the watch in his hand was nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature. It is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the efficient, operative, cause of anything. 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. The expression, ‘the law of metallic nature,’ may sound strange and harsh to a philosophic ear, but itseems quite as justifiable as some others which are more familiar to him, such as ‘the law of vegetable nature’––‘the law of animal nature,’ or indeed as ‘the law of nature’ in general, when assigned as the cause of phænomena, in exclusion of agency and power; or when it is substituted into the place of these.

Paley explains these similarities and differences with the aid of mechanical metaphors:
Arkwright’s mill was invented for the spinning of cotton. We see it employed for the spinning of wool, flax, and hemp, with such modifications of the original principle, such variety in the same plan, as the texture of those different materials rendered necessary. Of the machine’s being put together with design ... we could not refuse any longer our assent to the proposition, ‘‘that intelligence ... had been employed, as well in the primitive plan as in the several changes and accommodations which it is made to undergo.’’ (1850, 143)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paley
2. Natural Theology or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, collected from the appearances of nature



https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml

1. http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%203%20Religion/Teleological.htm

I am not convinced by the modern ID movement's narrative that Paley's arguments were flawed and that he didn't understand the power of natural selection, but that now we can see inside 'Darwin's Black Box', we can see that there must be an intelligent designer.

You just need to look at the human body - or any other creature large enough to make out its form - to see that it has been designed. Look at a hand, for example. Try making a mechanical one, and one would soon see how much went into just the mechanical side of it. Without design all one gets is something like a cancerous blob.

Saying that the argument is only really convincing at the molecular level rather disempowers ordinary people from using their own eyes and common sense, it seems to me.

Andrew

All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in. nature, it is the blind watchmaker.
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, page 17

each part knowing its purpose size, shape and order of assembly.

The Watchmaker Argument - Debunked (Teleological Argument - Refuted) - Really ?!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmjHMbkOUM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0vWqmLSBd5kBt6iNWPx0it8962rnojU9cciMXBlJVmT9QWSgqqinfn6qY


The Watchmaker Argument - Debunked (Teleological Argument - Refuted) - Really ?!!

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2805-how-to-recognize-intelligently-made-artefacts#6567

The Watchmaker Argument - Debunked (Teleological Argument - Refuted)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmjHMbkOUM

Argument: its a false analogy an analogy is a comparison between things that have similar features for the purpose of explaining a principle or an idea and in this case Paley insists that a comparison can be made between the complexity of a watch and the complexity of the universe
Response: The Factory maker argument does not propose or argue that a analogy is made. It states that biological Cells are LITERALLY a facory complex.

What is a factory ?
Factory is from latin, and means fabricare, or make. Produce, manufacture. A factory or manufacturing plant is a site, usually consisting of buildings and machinery, or more commonly a complex having several buildings, where, in fully automated factories, for example, pre-programmed robots, manufacture goods or operate machines processing one product into another. A factory is a place where materials or products are produced or created. A factory is a manufacturing unit for manufacture/production of an article or thing.

Manufacturing:
Engineers, Programmers, Machine designers make blueprints of various goods or things: Factories, machines, and computers. Information transmission systems can be utilized to send the blueprints from the engineering department to the assembly sites of the factories. Carpenters, electricians, masons, machinists etc. construct machines, factories, assembly lines, robots etc. " Factories are usually full of machines, interlinked assembly lines that manufacture various kind of products.

All this is PRECISELY what cells do, but in a far far more sophisticated fashion than man-made fabrics. Biological cells run complicated and sophisticated production systems. The study of the cell’s production technology provides us with insights that are potentially useful in industrial manufacturing. When comparing cell metabolism with manufacturing techniques in the industry, we find some striking commonalities assures quality at the source, and uses component commonality to simplify production.  The organic production system can be viewed as a possible scenario for the future of manufacturing. We try to do so in this paper by studying a high-performance manufacturing system - namely, the biological cell. A careful examination of the production principles used by the biological cell reveals that cells are extremely good at making products with high robustness, flexibility, and efficiency. Section 1 describes the basic metaphor of this article, the biological cell as a production system, and shows that the cell is subject to similar performance pressures. Section 4 further deepens the metaphor by pointing out the similarities between the biological cell and a modern manufacturing system. We then point to the limits of the metaphor in §5 before we identify, in §6, four important production principles that are sources of efficiency and responsiveness for the biological cell, but that we currently do not widely observe in industrial production. For example, the intestinal bacterium, Escherichia coli,  runs 1,000–1,500 biochemical reactions in parallel. Just as in manufacturing, cell metabolism can be represented by flow diagrams in which raw materials are transformed into final products in a series of operations.

Argument: because two things share one quality in common that being complexity they must also share another quality in common a designer when this simply cannot be logically concluded
Response: If the analogy of two phenomena are very close and striking while at the same time, the cause of ONE of the phenomenon is very obvious; it becomes scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action of an analogous cause of the other phenomenon, though (the cause of the other phenomenon is) not so obvious in itself"
--- in "Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy", London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, page 149.

Argument: Yet another major problem with the watchmaker argument it completely ignores evolution by natural selection without getting into it too deeply natural selection has been completely and utterly proven to be an unconscious process that has given rise to countless complex and purposed organisms which without an understanding of natural selection do indeed give the impression that they were deliberately designed or in other words we know for a fact that nature can does and has produced remarkably complex organisms without a conscious and intelligent hand behind them
Response: The response is fallacious in two ways. First, the Watchmaker argument addresses the origin of life, and evolution. Both processes fall short of being explained successfully by natural means. No scientific experiment has been able to come even close to synthesize the basic building blocks of life, and reproduce a  self-replicating Cell in the Laboratory through self-assembly and autonomous organization. The total lack of any kind of experimental evidence leading to the re-creation of life; not to mention the spontaneous emergence of life… is the most humiliating embarrassment to the proponents of naturalism and the whole so-called “scientific establishment” around it… because it undermines the worldview of who wants naturalism to be true.
Secondly: only a holistic view, namely structuralism and systems biology, take into account all influences that form cell form and size, body development and growth, providing adequate descriptions of the scientific evidence. The BIG ( umbrella ) contributor to explain organismal complexity is preprogrammed instructional complex INFORMATION encoded in various languages and communication through signalling through various signalling networks  that act  on a structural level, which are pre-instructed to respond to environmental cues, development, and nutrition demands, therefore, the genetic and epigenetic codes and signalling networks and the instructions to build cells and complex biological organisms were most likely created by an intelligent agency.

Argument: the truth of the matter is that the reason we recognize as designed actually has nothing to do of how complex and purposed it is but rather it is because we already know that the watch was designed we have literally millions of examples of watches being created by a designer and 0 of examples of watches being made without a designer however and in contrast we have zero examples of life being created by a designer and literally millions of examples of nature creating complex life
Response: We have zero examples of life coming from non-life. Eugene Koonin: All things considered, my assessment of the current state of the art in the study of the origins of replication and translation is rather somber. Notwithstanding relevant theoretical models and suggestive experimental results, we currently do not have a credible solution to these problems and do not even see with any clarity a path to such a solution.

Argument: a fourth major flaw with the watchmaker argument is that evoke emits a special pleading fallacy or that it's completely self refuting its core premise asserts that purpose and complexity requires a designer and so if we draw the watchmaker argument out to its logical conclusion that there is a God and that it created the universe and everything in it then by applying the arguments logic to itself we must conclude that that God too had a designer and so on and so forth for infinity by definition special pleading is an argument in which the speaker deliberately creates an exception to their argument without justifying why and that is precisely
Response: 1. Contingent or non-necessary beings depend on an external cause that made them come into existence - the physical universe – is also contingent. 2. Since that external cause has to be outside the whole aggregate of contingent things, it cannot itself be contingent. So it is necessary. 3. Hey presto, we’ve demonstrated that there is a necessarily existent, uncreated, non-contingent being which causes all other things! And this, of course, is God. “All lemons are citrus. Mushrooms are not citrus.” This isn’t special pleading because there is a category difference. God is not in the same category as the creation.

Objection: it wouldn't prove a particular religion to be true or as Hitchens put it even if the watchmaker argument was valid you as a theist still have all of your work ahead of you in addition to the watchmaker argument not supporting theism it's logic is also inconsistent
Response: The watchmaker argument does indeed not address which entity and its nature, but that is beyond the scope of the argument. To identity the designer, theological and philosophical arguments are just fine.

Dismantling the watchmaker - really ?

http://answers-in-reason.com/religion/dismantling-the-watchmaker/?fbclid=IwAR2XWjDTG1YkmuN_2TIvLHzG7gRwTta8veCqK_GExll_48_LTLhTV78OWZ4

Argument: Lack of reference
We all know it, “If you walk across the beach of an uninhabited island, having never met another human being and find a watch, you would know it was made by a fellow human being. This is apparent too when we look at nature” – The Watchmaker Argument. We come across this argument, or attempt to argue this point all too frequently, and quite frankly, it’s annoying to say the least. Annoying and wrong, and here is why….

The premise of this argument is that there is a significant difference between man-made objects and objects designed by god or “an intelligent designer”. The experienced debaters among you, might already have raised their red flags and sounded the fallacy alarm, because this is a self-defeating premise. The problem is that if we accept this argument, the premise becomes void, because the one thing we understand to not have been designed, would be designed. This would mean that in fact, we haven’t the ability to discern between designed and not designed features, as the premise would have us believe. If, on the other hand, we do not accept this argument, the premise would remain in tact.

Reasoning behind the watchmaker argumentThe thinker
The reasoning behind this argument is that because there is a difference in aesthetics and function we can discern the difference between designed and not designed objects, systems etc. just by looking at them. There is, however,  no reason why we would recognize the work of a fellow human being as being the work of a fellow human being, without having an additional reason to. If, for instance, we stumble upon a cave while trekking through the mountains, we have no reason to assume it was man-made, nor that it formed naturally as a result of plate tectonics and rocky structure. Similarly, if we do not know what a watch is or what the watch is for (which is the case when we look toward nature, our planet and/or our existence) we have no reason to say it was man-made.

Evidence for this, is obtained from a documentary that aired first somewhere in the ’90s on BBC, I believe it was called Meet The Natives, but I haven’t been able to track it down, unfortunately (if anyone knows exactly which documentary it is, please notify me so I can insert a link and watch it again) in which a tribesman was taken into a modern city. afterwards, he was asked what he saw. The man replied: “nothing, except for a weird beast that could carry very much bananas.” The man, of course, didn’t see nothing, he just lacked the frame of reference to describe what he saw. But the fact that he referred to a truck carrying bananas as a “weird beast”, is the significant part of this documentary. The man had mistaken a man-made, mechanical device for a product of nature. Of course, the absence of a frame of reference, makes this argumentation rather doubtful. The fact remains, though, that the man had no frame of reference. Seeing as we have no better frame of reference for the situation this argument puts us in, we are forced to conclude the obvious; that this reasoning is baseless and/or an assumption.

There is another well-known analogy to explain the phenomenon behind this argument; that of the puddle. This analogy is centered around a puddle of rainwater. The puddle thinks to itself “this indentation in the ground was made for me especially, or I would not fit in so ideally.” However, the puddle formed the way it did because the indentation in the ground was there, the puddle formed in the indentation, the indentation dictating its form. The same is true for human beings in nature. when we look at forests, grass plains, shrubbery etc. We might get the distinct feeling that these things were made for us, placed there for our benefits, its fruits made to feed us. It has its logic, to be honest, as it helps sustain our lives and provide countless benefits. The same reasoning, however, forgoes the countless more inedible plants, deadly animals, poisons and gasses that naturally occur. The perception of intelligence behind this supposed creation, originates from the fact that nature is highly sustainable. Because us humans have thus far failed to create anything truly sustainable. To create something truly sustainable, would be an amazing feat of engineering. This is why it seems s appealing to ascribe that feat of engineering to a superior mind, a creator. a god. However, there is no objective reason for this, as the theory of evolution tells us. It is perhaps the most elegant part of evolution, that sustainability arises from lack of sustainability. That those life forms that are unsustainable fade away or evolve, to keep the sustainability of nature itself at a fairly consequent level.

To conclude the part of the watchmaker, I would like to state briefly that the argument is cheating. A watch contains at least a number of metal parts, as it must contain cogs and springs. Metal is not encountered in its refined form in nature. The argument therefore misleads its recipient, as the mental image encountered while treating this argument, is often that of a metal watch, which would indeed help us to assume a fellow human made the watch.

A more honest example to use in this argument, would be that of a refined walking stick; it has it’s ties to nature by being made of wood, yet it has been refined to show the touch of a human being. Odds are that this argument would be received with less enthusiasm, and bring about a number of different conclusions.

The Argument from Improbability - Debunked (Improbability Argument - Refuted)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_dDsiFZa1U&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1jCmT2aLfFx2NFBGjLENNOqsNF3qK-TLv84bqulRKXfMImsoTgQo4Z_l4



universe and particularly life was

either created by random chance or by a

god the probability of life emerging in

the universe was outrageously unlikely

however despite the overwhelming odds

life does exist in the universe

therefore it is more reasonable to

conclude that life was created by a God

rather than by random chance therefore

God exists or to put it in a colloquial

form and to paraphrase the cosmologists

Fred Hoyle the probability of natural

processes producing living organisms is

comparable to the chance that a tornado

sweeping through a junkyard might

assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials

therein the chances are extraordinarily

improbable

when presented this way it's easy to see

why so many find this argument seductive

when we ponder the sheer improbability

of everything around us I at least can

understand why so many people find the

argument from in probability to be

reasonable and convincing but and as I'm

about to demonstrate when exposed to the

slightest of scrutiny it embarrassingly

crumbles apart the first major fault

with the argument from in probability is

that it commits a massive black and

white fallacy within its first premise

it asserts that either the universe is a

product of random chance or it is the

product of intelligent design without

justifying why these two conclusions are

the only possibilities by doing this it

also subtly attempt

shift the burden of proof it does this

because it insists that unless someone

else can provide a third option then one

of the two options it proposes must be

correct which is not how logic works in

relation to the black and white fallacy

the argument from improbability like all

teleological arguments also crucially

ignores the fact of evolution by natural

selection for those of you in need of a

reminder natural selection is a

non-random natural process whereby

organisms that are better suited to

their environmental pressures such as

predators and changes in climate will

tend to survive and reproduce in greater

numbers than others of their kind fuss

insuring the perpetuation of those

favourable trades in succeeding

generations

what makes natural selection so

important and what also causes it to

crush the vast majority of teleological

arguments is that it proves that life

isn't the product of chance it proves

that the premise that life was either

created by random chance or by God is

completely and utterly invalid while the



that we don't know how the universe and

life was created and so therefore an

intelligent designer must have done err

it's a classical argument from ignorance

we don't know they're for God but in

some cases and in particular I'm

referring to those who are either

unaware of natural selection or don't

understand it the fallacy committed is

actually a personal incredulity fallacy

rather than an argument from ignorance


the difference being that the former

states that we don't know they're for

God while the latter states that I don't

know they're for God a fourth-floor that

the argument from improbability commits

is a special pleading fallacy

it does this because it first claims

that exceptionally improbable phenomena

is more likely to be the result of

intelligent design than random chance

but it then makes an unsubstantiated

special exception for the intelligent

designer itself or in other words it all

goes back to the age-old question who

designed a designer and it offers no

the

existence of a highly complex God is the

ultimate Boeing 747 that truly does

require the seemingly impossible to

explain its existence you can't have

your cake and a year two theists that's

not how this game works

The Watchmaker argument

For the uneducated man one of the most convincing of all "proofs" for the existance of a god is the watchmaker argument. It was presented by William Paley in Natural Theology, and the opening passage begins like this (Paley, 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 I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there."

Further down Paley continues:
"Every 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 or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."

The argument is wrong for several reasons:

Contradiction
The argument first assumes that a watch is different from nature, which is uncomplicated and random. It then states that since the universe is so complicated, complex, and ordered it too must have a creator. Thus, the argument gives the universe two incompatible qualities.



Shoemakers
What if you went further down the beach and found a shoe. Would you assume that a watchmaker made that shoe? Of course not, you would assume a shoemaker. Therefore, according to the analogy, created life must have a lifemaker, the sun a sunmaker and snowflakes a snowmaker. This implies that there are several creators in the world, responsible for all kinds of creation.
The watchmaker's father
Just like all watches have watchmakers, so do all watchmakers have fathers. Therefore, with the watchmaker anology, god has a father. Who is the father of god? and who is the father of the father? etc... This leads to an endless series, and the only way to end the series is to say that the original god just is without an origin and a cause. What then stops us from making the same assumption of the universe or Ultimate Reality? Occam's razor should even encourage us to do so!
Watches out of nothing?
The things used by the watchmaker to make watches already exists, but the theists claim that their god created things ex nihilo, from nothing. So the analogy is false here too.
The blind watchmaker
Richard Dawkins expains this best with his own words in the book The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
"Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of the day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind force of physics, albeit deplored in a special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future porpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."
False analogy
The watchmaker is a false analogy because it assumes that because two objects share one common quality, they must have another quality in common.
A watch is complex
A watch has a watchmaker
The universe is also complex
Therefore the universe has a watchmaker
The last step is wrong, because it concludes something that is not supported by the criteria. It is best clearified by another example:

Leaves are complex cellulose structures
Leaves grow on trees
Money bills are also complex cellulose structures
Therefore money grow on trees (wich, according to the idiom, they don't)
Empiric argument
But the theist may object, and say that all known complex objects we know of are created, so for empirical reasons, the universe must have a creator. It is logically a false analogy, but we can still use the empiric analogy that all complex objects are created.
This argument is a circular argument. It assumes that the universe, black holes, stars, planets, snowflakes, life etc are created. Actually physics, chaos theory and evolutionary theory tell us how most complex things in the world could have evolved on their own, without any help from any "watchmaker".

The theist may object again and say that this is a circular argument too. You have to assume a priori that theese things evolved naturally to believe they did. Philosophically that may be correct. Both theese empiric methods are built on more or less unproved premises. Therefore you can neither, empirically, say for absolutely sure that the universe evolved on it's own nor that it was created.

Does this imply that both conclusions are equally correct? No, for the first Occam's Razor says that one should not assume an entity that is unproven and thus tells us not to assume a god. Therefore, the watchmaker argument does not stand for itself as a proof of any watchmaker. To prove that god did it you would need more than just apparent design.

For the second the theist position has two additional criteria -- while assuming a god that remains unproved (remember it was a circular argument running foul to Occam's Razor), it also assumes that the scientific method is wrong. A scientific method that is verified everyday when we get dressed with mass produced clothes, when we cook our food, when we eat, when we use computers, telephones, cars, pharmaceutics etc. The theory that the scientific method is correct has not yet been falsified. When it comes to explaining things in the world we can say what the French astronomer Laplace said to Napoleon Bonaparte on the matter of god: "I have no need for that hypothesis".

Summary
The watchmaker argument is not a proof, it is an analogy. As most other analogies it is quite lame. It is contradictive, misses many important features, does not aid us in knowing who the watchmaker is, and most important does not stand alone as evidence of god, but must reliy on external evidence. Therefore the argument does not the least prove that the world was designed by a superhuman being. I cannot help ending with these rude, yet beautiful and poetic, words, which sum up P.W. Atkins wonderful book The Second Law (Atkins, 1994)
"We began with the steam engine... Nature reflects the steam engine, but in a much more elaborate way... We are the children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all there is left is direction. This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe. Yet when we look around and see beauty, when we look within and experience conciousness, and when we participate in the delights of life, we know in our hearts that the heart of the Universe is richer by far. But that is sentiment, and is not what we should know in our minds. Science and the steam engine have a greater nobility. Together they reveal the awesome grandeur of the simplicity of complexity."


http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm?fbclid=IwAR18QUG585mV3pM8C0fMUNgpaW_Di5tU3a2XC67QgEhVdQBN5LqGrPZmlGk

The Watchmaker argument, refuted by evolution?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdjjqBI_EzI&t=1701s

This video is a powerful tool to demonstrate why micro does not lead to macroevolution, why Darwins Theory of evolution does not withstand scrutiny and the enormous biological
challenge that would have had to be overcome to go from unicellular to multicellular life.

Some requirements for transition to multicellularity: 10.00
1, Cell differentiation: 13.32
2. Morphogenesis 18.15
3. Defining each Cell's specific function 25.40
4. Cell migration 27.07
5. Connecting adjacent cells 31.53
6. Cell-Cell communication 33.24
7. Adaptation & microevolution 43.35
8. The genetic program limiting body growth 47.12
9. Gene regulatory network 50.28
10. Setting up sexual reproduction 58.34
Endnotes: 1.02.54

Has Paley's Watchmaker argument been debunked?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2860-has-paley-s-watchmaker-argument-been-debunked

The Watchmaker Analogy.
July 12, 2012 at 6:05 PM
I was boning up on the Watchmaker Analogy due to a question today and I found this wonderful refutation of it. This is not mine and the original website can be found here http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm

For the uneducated man, one of the most convincing of all "proofs" for the existence of a god is the watchmaker argument. It was presented by William Paley in Natural Theology, and the opening passage begins like this (Paley, 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 I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there."
Further down Paley continues:

"Every 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 or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."
The argument is wrong for several reasons:

Contradiction
The argument first assumes that a watch is different from nature, which is uncomplicated and random. It then states that since the universe is so complicated, complex, and ordered it too must have a creator. Thus, the argument gives the universe two incompatible qualities.

Reply: i propose a new, more advanced teleological argument:

The factory maker argument
1. The origin of blueprints containing the instructional complex information, and the fabrication of complex machines and interlinked factories based on these instructions, which produce goods for specific purposes, are both always the result of intelligent setup.
2. Living Cells store very complex genetic and epigenetic information through the genetic code, and over twenty epigenetic languages, translation systems, and signaling networks. These information systems instruct the making and operation of cells and multicellular organisms. The operation of cells is close to thermodynamic perfection, and its operation occurs analogously to computers. Cells ARE computers in a literal sense, using boolean logic. Each cell hosts millions of interconnected molecular machines, production lines and factories analogous to factories made by man. They are of unparalleled gigantic complexity, able to process constantly a stream of data from the outside world through signaling networks. Cells operate robot-like,  autonomously. They adapt the production and recycle molecules on demand. The process of self-replication is the epitome of manufacturing advance and sophistication.
3. Therefore, the origin of biological information and self-replicating cell factories is best explained by the action of an intelligent designer, who created life for his own purposes.

Argument: Shoemakers
What if you went further down the beach and found a shoe. Would you assume that a watchmaker made that shoe? Of course not, you would assume a shoemaker. Therefore, according to the analogy, created life must have a lifemaker, the sun a sunmaker and snowflakes a snowmaker. This implies that there are several creators in the world, responsible for all kinds of creation.

Reply: As soon as we remove the specification ( watchmaker) and replace it with an intelligent designer, the argument falls apart. Watches, shoes, etc. have all the hallmarks of design. 

Claim: The watchmaker's father
Just like all watches have watchmakers, so do all watchmakers have fathers. Therefore, with the watchmaker anology, god has a father. Who is the father of god? and who is the father of the father? etc... This leads to an endless series, and the only way to end the series is to say that the original god just is without an origin and a cause. What then stops us from making the same assumption of the universe or Ultimate Reality? Occam's razor should even encourage us to do so!

Reply: Being cannot come from non-being.
Since we exist, then being has always been in one form or another.
Since the universe had a beginning, a non-physical being must have existed beyond the universe, causing the universe into existence.
That being is God. 


That does not remove God's capacity to make watches, shoes, and other things that are the result of designing agents. 



Claim: Watches out of nothing?
The things used by the watchmaker to make watches already exists, but the theists claim that their god created things ex nihilo, from nothing. So the analogy is false here too.

The blind watchmaker
Richard Dawkins expains this best with his own words in the book The Blind Watchmaker(1986)
"Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of the day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind force of physics, albeit deplored in a special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future porpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

Reply: There was no natural selection prior DNA replication. The origin of life is due either to a) chance, or b) intelligent design. 

1. Factories are the result of intelligent design
2. Biological cells are factories
3. Therefore, biological cells are designed.

Claim: False analogy
   A watch is complex
   A watch has a watchmaker
   The universe is also complex
   Therefore the universe has a watchmaker

Engineering requires an engineer. An artificial cell or minimal cell is an engineered particle that mimics one or many functions of a biological cell. Mimicking a living cell requires engineers. 1
Architecture requires an architect.  Biological Cells demonstrate a complex architectural structure like a factory complex in a building  2
Orchestration requires a director. Gene regulatory networks orchestrate the expression of genes 3
Organization requires an organizer. Cells are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems 4
Programming languages are always set up by programmers. Genes together form the master DNA program 5
Translation programs are always set up by translation programmers. 64 Codons of the genetic code are assigned to 20 amino acids during translation in the Ribosome.  6
Communication systems require network engineers. Cells give and receive messages with its environment and with itself. 7
Electrical networks require electrical engineers. Biological cells contain bioelectric circuits 8
Logistics require a logistic specialist. The cytoskeleton and microtubules serve as tracks for motor protein-based intracellular transport 9
Modular organization requires a modular project manager. Proteins and protein complexes organize intracellular interactions into networks of modules 10
Setting up recycling systems require a recycling technician. Cells sort out usable proteins for recycling 11
Setting up power plants requires systems engineers of power plants. Mitochondria are unusual organelles. They act as the power plants of the cell 12
Nanoscale technology requires nano processes, development engineers.  Living systems use biological nanomotors to build life’s essential molecules—such as DNA and proteins 13
Product planning and control require a production control coordinator. Eukaryotic cells have intricate regulatory control over the production of proteins and their RNA intermediates. 14
Product Quantity and Variant Flexibility control require product management engineers. Cells are extremely good at making products with high robustness, flexibility, and efficiency. 15
Waste disposal and management require a waste logistics manager.   Cells use proteasomes as "garbage disposal," 16
Creating a language requires intelligence. Cells use a remarkable variety of languages and communication methods 17
Creating Instructional information requires intelligent specialists. Soluble cues, cell-cell contact-dependent signals coordinate, encode and transmit regulatory information to instruct single-cell behavior18
Coordination requires a coordinator.  Circadian clocks are cell-autonomous timing mechanisms that organize and coordinate cell functions in a 24-h periodicity.19
Setting up strategies requires a strategist.    Cells use strategies to minimize energy consumption, by employing a number of common metabolic pathways for a variety of intermediate products before the pathway splits into different final products.  20
Regulation requires a regulator.  Regulatory circuits responsible for the function of individual genes or gene sets are at the lowest regulatory level. Then, there are circuits underlying the functions of cells, tissues, organs, and entire organisms. Endocrine and nervous systems are the regulatory circuits of the highest hierarchical level. 21
Controlling requires intelligence that sets up and programs the automatic control functions. Various cell cycle regulators control the Cell Cycle. 22
Recruiting requires intelligence which instructs autonomous programs how to do it. Proteins are for example recruited to fix DNA lesions. 23
Interpretation and response require intelligence which creates an interpretation program.  Cells monitor, interpret and respond to internal and external cues. 24
Setting up switch mechanisms based on logic gates with on and off states require intelligent setup. DNA binding proteins work based on circuit principles and logic gates 25
Setting up transport highways requires  Transportation Development engineers. Microtubules can act as specific transport roads for the trafficking of signaling factors 26
Controlled factory implosion programming requires an Explosive Safety Specialist.  Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. 27

Actions like engineering, architecting, orchestrating, organizing, programming, translating, setting up communication channels, electric networks, logistic networks, organizing modular systems, recycling systems, making power plants in nanoscale dimensions, product planning and control, establishing product quality and variant flexibility, setting up waste disposal and management systems, creating languages and instructional information, coordinating, setting up strategies, regulating, controlling, recruiting, interpreting and responding, setting up switch mechanisms based on logic gates, setting up transport highways and GPS systems, and controlled factory implosion, are ALWAYS and EXCLUSIVELY assigned to the action of intelligent agents. No exceptions

We can conclude, therefore, that biological systems, which cleverly perform all the demanding, multifaceted job activities described above, are most likely due to the set up of an intelligent designer(s). It is extraordinarily unlikely, statistically, and chemically, that blind fortune would be up to the task. Only a master player with foresight guided by superb chemical wisdom, putting all those systems together in a proper way is an explanation that makes sense.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cell
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrm2460
3. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrm2428
4. https://flexbooks.ck12.org/cbook/ck-12-biology-flexbook-2.0/section/2.10/primary/lesson/organization-of-cells-bio
5. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-dna-computer-program-makes-you-and-me-20180405/
6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29870756/
7. https://www.nature.com/scitable/topic/cell-communication-14122659/
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK549549/
9. https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-cellbio-100818-125149
10. https://www.pnas.org/content/100/3/1128
11. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-cells-recycle-components.html
12. https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/mitochondria-14053590/
13. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Viola_Vogel/publication/23154570_Harnessing_Biological_Motors_to_Engineer_Systems_for_Nanoscale_Transport_and_Assembly/links/551ab0590cf2bb754076cac6/Harnessing-Biological-Motors-to-Engineer-Systems-for-Nanoscale-Transport-and-Assembly.pdf
14. https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/eukaryotic-cells-14023963/
15. https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2060&context=lkcsb_research
16. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3524306/
17. http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/the-remarkable-language-of-cells
18. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/12/eaay5696
19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5057284/
20. http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/msom.1030.0033
21. http://www.bionet.nsc.ru/meeting/bgrs_proceedings/papers/1998/27/index.html
22. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-biology1/chapter/control-of-the-cell-cycle/
23. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317637/
24. https://europepmc.org/article/med/27856508
25. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4230274/
26. https://jcs.biologists.org/content/126/11/2319
27. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis

Empiric argument
Actually physics, chaos theory and evolutionary theory tell us how most complex things in the world could have evolved on their own, without any help from any "watchmaker".

Reply: Uncertainty quantification of a primordial ancestor with a minimal proteome emerging through unguided, natural, random events

1. The more statistically improbable something is, the less it makes sense to believe that it just happened by blind chance.
2. Statistically, it is practically impossible, that the primordial genome, proteome, and metabolome of the first living cell arose by chance.
3. Furthermore, we see in biochemistry purposeful design.  
4. Therefore, an intelligent Designer is by far the best explanation of origins.  

Self-replication had to emerge and be implemented first, which raises the unbridgeable problem that DNA replication is irreducibly complex. Evolution is not a capable driving force to make the DNA replicating complex, because evolution depends on cell replication through the very own mechanism we try to explain. It takes proteins to make DNA replication happen. But it takes the DNA replication process to make proteins. That’s a catch 22 situation.

Chance of intelligence to set up life: 
100% We KNOW by repeated experience that intelligence produces all the things, as follows:
factory portals  ( membrane proteins ) factory compartments ( organelles ) a library index ( chromosomes, and the gene regulatory network ) molecular computers, hardware ( DNA ) software, a language using signs and codes like the alphabet, an instructional blueprint, ( the genetic and over a dozen epigenetic codes ) information retrieval ( RNA polymerase ) transmission ( messenger RNA ) translation ( Ribosome ) signaling ( hormones ) complex machines ( proteins ) taxis ( dynein, kinesin, transport vesicles ) molecular highways ( tubulins ) tagging programs ( each protein has a tag, which is an amino acid sequence  informing other molecular transport machines were to transport them.) factory assembly lines ( fatty acid synthase ) error check and repair systems  ( exonucleolytic proofreading ) recycling methods ( endocytic recycling ) waste grinders and management  ( Proteasome Garbage Grinders )   power generating plants ( mitochondria ) power turbines ( ATP synthase ) electric circuits ( the metabolic network ) computers ( neurons ) computer networks ( brain ) all with specific purposes.

Chance of unguided random natural events producing just a minimal functional proteome, not considering all other essential things to get a first living self-replicating cell,is:

Let's suppose, we have a fully operational raw material, and the genetic language upon which to store genetic information. Only now, we can ask: Where did the information come from to make the first living organism? Various attempts have been made to lower the minimal information content to produce a fully working operational cell. Often, Mycoplasma is mentioned as a reference to the threshold of the living from the non-living. Mycoplasma genitalium is held as the smallest possible living self-replicating cell. It is, however, a pathogen, an endosymbiont that only lives and survives within the body or cells of another organism ( humans ).  As such, it IMPORTS many nutrients from the host organism. The host provides most of the nutrients such bacteria require, hence the bacteria do not need the genes for producing such compounds themselves. As such, it does not require the same complexity of biosynthesis pathways to manufacturing all nutrients as a free-living bacterium. 

The simplest free-living bacteria is Pelagibacter ubique. 13 It is known to be one of the smallest and simplest, self-replicating, and free-living cells.  It has complete biosynthetic pathways for all 20 amino acids.  These organisms get by with about 1,300 genes and 1,308,759 base pairs and code for 1,354 proteins.  14    They survive without any dependence on other life forms. Incidentally, these are also the most “successful” organisms on Earth. They make up about 25% of all microbial cells.   If a chain could link up, what is the probability that the code letters might by chance be in some order which would be a usable gene, usable somewhere—anywhere—in some potentially living thing? If we take a model size of 1,200,000 base pairs, the chance to get the sequence randomly would be 4^1,200,000 or 10^722,000. This probability is hard to imagine but an illustration may help.  

Imagine covering the whole of the USA with small coins, edge to edge. Now imagine piling other coins on each of these millions of coins. Now imagine continuing to pile coins on each coin until reaching the moon about 400,000 km away! If you were told that within this vast mountain of coins there was one coin different to all the others. The statistical chance of finding that one coin is about 1 in 10^55. 

Furthermore, what good would functional proteins be good for, if not transported to the right site in the Cell, inserted in the right place, and interconnected to start the fabrication of chemical compounds used in the Cell?  It is clear, that life had to start based on fully operating cell factories, able to self replicate, adapt, produce energy, regulate its sophisticated molecular machinery.

chemist Wilhelm Huck, professor at Radboud University Nijmegen
A working cell is more than the sum of its parts. "A functioning cell must be entirely correct at once, in all its complexity


https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oGda1JxKw


Summary
The watchmaker argument is not a proof, it is an analogy. As most other analogies it is quite lame. It is contradictive, misses many important features, does not aid us in knowing who the watchmaker is, and most important does not stand alone as evidence of god, but must reliy on external evidence. Therefore the argument does not the least prove that the world was designed by a superhuman being. I cannot help ending with these rude, yet beautiful and poetic, words, which sum up P.W. Atkins wonderful book The Second Law (Atkins, 1994)

Reply: Herschel 1830 1987, p. 148:
“If the analogy of two phenomena be very close and striking, while, at the same time, the cause of one is very obvious, it becomes scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action of an analogous cause in the other, though not so obvious in itself.”

A metaphor (“A biological cell is like a production system”) demonstrates that similar behaviors are driven by similar causal mechanisms.

Claim: No, it's just a false equivalency fallacy. We know watches are created by an "intelligent designer", we don't know life/earth/universe was created by an intelligent designer and by proxy no reason to assume it was, so it's a ridiculous comparison, particularly when we already know many of the naturalistic explanations for life, the earth, the planets, the universe, etc. It's almost as silly as saying "If I plant an apple seed, an apple tree will grow, therefore if I plant a lego, a lego tree will grow". Richard Dawkins came up with the idea of "Blind Watchmaker", which is a much more analogous comparison, at least in terms of biological evolution. (the blind watchmaker keeps trying and failing until he attaches the right parts correctly and succeeds)