Watchmaker analogy

The watchmaker analogy is often used as a teleological argument (argument from design) in support of the view that the universe (or features of it) are the product of a conscious designer or designers.

History

Monotheists have suggested: if we find a watch on a heath, it is too complex to have appeared there by natural process so they assume that there must be a watchmaker responsible for its creation. Similarly, the argument goes, life is extremely complex and requires a creator. A Logician pointed out that the more historically correct assumption would be that a great multitude of people had contributed to the creation of the watch. Thus, the analogy more correctly implies multiple creators.

Cicero

The Roman Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) used ideas which later developed into the subject of this article. For Romans Tellus was the Romanised version of the Greek goddess, Gaia. Gaia played an important part in the Creation mythology of Ancient Greece. Creation mythology of traditional religions frequently gives a prominent role to a Mother goddess who gives birth to other things in creation. Frequently also love-making is involved. Gaia in some versions of the story made love to her son, Ouranos. Other parts of creation arose from this union. Cicero by contrast claimed that Caelus, the Romanised form of Ouranos was the offspring of the ancient gods Aether and Hemera.

The Watchmaker analogy was anticipated by Cicero in De natura deorum, (About the nature of the gods), ii. 34 Cicero wrote in a polytheist context about what he thought was the design of the universe.

When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?

— Cicero, quoted by Dennett 1995, p. 29, (Gjertsen 1989, p. 199)

Robert Hooke

Hooke's drawing of a flea.

The great experimental scientist Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703) made several similar comparisons to watches in his revolutionary book Micrographia. He understood watches and had improved watch mechanisms [1]. The book Micrographia featured drawings of life as it had never been seen before — through the lens of a powerful microscope — and compared man-made artifacts to natural organisms, concluding that artifacts paled in comparison with the "Omnipotency and Infinite perfections of the great Creatour" [2]. Hooke compared the way watches were assembled with the workings of the organisms he was examining. Later biologists concluded that these apparent designs were the result of natural selection. The picture on the right is one of many which Hooke drew from a microscope. He saw these pictures as providing further proof that life was divinely designed.

For, as divers Watches may be made out of several materials, which may yet have all the same appearance, and move after the same manner, that is, shew the hour equally true, the one as the other, and out of the same kind of matter, like Watches, may be wrought differing ways; and, as one and the same Watch may, by being diversly agitated, or mov'd, by this or that agent, or after this or that manner, produce a quite contrary effect: So may it be with these most curious Engines of Insect's bodies; the All-wise God of Nature, may have so ordered and disposed the little Automatons, that when nourished, acted, or enlivened by this cause, they produce one kind of effect, or animate shape, when by another they act quite another way, and another Animal is produc'd. So may he so order several materials, as to make them, by several kinds of methods, produce similar Automatons

— Robert Hooke, Micrographia(1664)

Other Writers

Hooke's mentor was Robert Boyle who also developed the concept of divine design [3]

The English divine William Derham (26 November 1657 – 5 April 1735) published his Artificial Clockmaker in 1696, a teleological argument for the being and attributes of God. The watchmaker analogy was also made by Bernard Nieuwentyt (1730).

Voltaire

Voltaire (1694-1778) was fond of the argument from design, but also seemed aware of its limitations and treated it gingerly. In his unpublished A Treatise on Metaphysics (1736) Voltaire considered the watchmaker analogy and concluded that it probably indicated the existence of a powerful intelligent designer, but that it did not prove that the designer must be God.

[One way] of acquiring the notion of a being who directs the universe...is by considering ... the end to which each thing appears to be directed... [W]hen I see a watch with a hand marking the hours, I conclude that an intelligent being has designed the springs of this mechanism, so that the hand would mark the hours. So, when I see the springs of the human body, I conclude that an intelligent being has designed these organs to be received and nourished within the womb for nine months; for eyes to be given for seeing; hands for grasping, and so on. But from this one argument, I cannot conclude anything more, except that it is probable that an intelligent and superior being has prepared and shaped matter with dexterity; I cannot conclude from this argument alone that this being has made the matter out of nothing or that he is infinite in any sense. However deeply I search my mind for the connection between the following ideas — it is probable that I am the work of a being more powerful than myself, therefore this being has existed from all eternity, therefore he has created everything, therefore he is infinite, and so on. — I cannot see the chain which leads directly to that conclusion. I can see only that there is something more powerful than myself and nothing more.

— Voltaire, From Chapter 2 of A Treatise on Metaphysics, second version, 1736. Translated by Paul Edwards

William Paley

William Paley.

Perhaps most famously, William Paley (1743 – 1805) used the analogy in his book Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature, published in 1802. In it, Paley wrote that if a pocket watch is found on a heath, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by a watchmaker and not by natural forces.

Paley went on to argue that complex structures, such as living things, must be the work of God. Later biologists concluded that these apparent designs were the result of natural selection. Paley believed the natural world was the creation of God and showed the nature of the creator. He believed the remarkable adaptations of plants and animals required an intelligent designer. Paley thought God had designed minute features carefully despite the large number, which had been designed. He believed the wings together with antennae of earwigs were examples. According to Paley God had designed "even the most humble and insignificant organisms" carefully. He believed therefore that God must care even more for humanity. Paley recognised that there is great suffering in nature and natural events appear indifferent to pain. He tried to reconcile this with belief in a benevolent God.(See Problem of Evil). His answer was to assume that life had more pleasure than pain.

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

— William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

A gold pocket watch clearly made by humans

Paley first assumes an obvious difference between a watch and a natural object, the rock, but then goes on to liken the evidence of design in the watch to that of nature. The design of the watch suggests a human designer, while the design of nature suggests a divine creator. Critics of the argument note that cultural knowledge allows most people to identify a human design, but there exists no analogous knowledge of the culture of an alleged designer of the universe, and thus similar conclusions about supposed design in nature cannot be drawn.[4]

As a sidenote, a charge of wholesale plagiarism from this book was brought against Paley in the Athenaeum for 1848, but the famous illustration of the watch was not peculiar to Nieuwentyt, and had been used by many others before either Paley or Nieuwentyt.

After Paley

When Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) completed his studies of theology at Christ's College, Cambridge in 1831 he read Paley's Natural Theology and believed that the work gave rational proof of the Existence of God. This was because living beings showed complexity and were exquisitely fitted to their places in a happy world. Subsequently, on the Voyage of the Beagle, he found that nature was not so beneficent, and the distribution of species did not support ideas of divine creation. In 1838, shortly after his return, Darwin conceived his theory that natural selection led to gradual change in populations over many generations during very long periods. He wrote in The Origin of Species, "It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified".

20th Century and 21st Century thinkers from an agnostic viewpoint argue that if God exists he gave us curious and enquiring minds. That suggests he wants us to use our Critical faculties even if this use brings us to a skeptical conclusion.

Solar System Analogy

File:Jupiter.SouthStation.agr.jpg

Jupiter at South Station, part of Museum of Science, Boston This scale model was clearly designed by humans.

A parallel argument is that if a model of the solar system or orrery is found it is most reasonable to assume that it was made by human beings and not by natural forces. Typically, debaters then try to argue that the real Solar system is also designed. As before we have cultural knowledge that objects like a model of the solar system are likely to be manmade.

The laws of planetary motion were first discovered by Johannes Kepler. Later, Isaac Newton expanded on them in his Newtonian dynamics and Albert Einstein developed refinements of the theory in his General relativity. This science attempts to explain the movements of the solar system at least as effectively as natural selection explains the apparent design of life. In both instances, randomness is evident. Within the solar system, chaos is exhibited in the spin axes and orbits of many planets.[5] Within the Theory of Evolution, random mutations lead to new variants, only a few of which survive. In both instances, seemingly perfect regularity fades into less than perfectly directed change. The allegedly divinely designed "watch" is less than ideal when analyzed in a broader context and using long-term perspective.

The case against the watchmaker analogy

Explaining complexity of life by postulating an even more complex designer is philosophically difficult. Explaining the complexity of the Solar System is equally difficult. The designer of life or of the Solar System would have to be designed by yet another even more complex entity. This leads to an infinite regression, though this line of reasoning does not factor in omnipotence.[6]

As Charles Darwin's investigations of natural history progressed he became convinced that "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered." In 1868 Darwin wrote, “I cannot possibly believe that a false theory would explain so many classes of facts.”

The geneticist Richard Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker and other books, put forward a case against an intelligent designer: that systems which are complex today did not have to be so in the past in order to grant the organism an advantage, so there was no point at which an outside agent was needed to explain the origin of complexity.

One example Dawkins gives is a light sensitive patch of skin which is enough to allow an animal to move into the warmth, or out of light which may reveal it to a predator, without the need for the lens, cornea, or iris, but this patch can be seen as the foundation of the retina of the much more evolved eye, which is then built up in small steps.

George H. Smith, in his book Atheism: The Case Against God, points out what he considers to be a fatal flaw in the watchmaker argument. He states:

Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature, as we have seen, provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning. (p. 268)

Thus, Smith concludes, the watchmaker "argument" is not valid for demonstrating the existence of God.

Poor Design

Another argument against the 'Watchmaker analogy' is the supposed existence of 'poor' designs in nature.

Examples of poor design are:

• In the African locust, nerve cells start in the abdomen but connect to the wing. This leads to unnecessary use of materials. [7]
• The inverted nature of the vertebrate retina. The nerve cells that connect the light-sensitive cells of the retina to the brain are located in front of these cells, partially blocking the incoming light. Because of this positioning, a blind spot is created where the optic nerve punctures the retina to reach these nerve cells.

A baby implanted in the mother’s fallopian tube, which will have to be aborted to save the mother's life. Critics cite such common biological occurrences as contradictory to the 'Watchmaker Analogy'.

Poor design of the human reproductive system include the following:

• In the human female, a fertilized egg can implant into the fallopian tube, cervix or ovary rather than the uterus causing an ectopic pregnancy. The existence of a cavity between the ovary and the fallopian tube could indicate a flawed design in the female reproductive system. Prior to modern surgery, ectopic pregnancy invariably caused the deaths of both mother and baby. Even in modern times, in almost all cases, the pregnancy must be aborted to save the life of the mother.
• In the human female, the birth canal passes through the pelvis. The prenatal skull will deform to a surprising extent. However, if the baby’s head is significantly larger than the pelvic opening, the baby cannot be born naturally. Prior to the development of modern surgery (caesarean section), such a complication would lead to the death of the mother, the baby or both. Other birthing complications such as breech birth are worsened by this position of the birth canal. Birth would hypothetically be easier if the birth canal passed through the front of the abdomen. [8]
• In the human male, testes develop initially within the abdomen. Later during gestation, they migrate through the abdominal wall into the scrotum. This causes two weak points in the abdominal wall where hernias can later form. Prior to modern surgical techniques, complications from hernias including intestinal blockage, gangrene, etc., usually resulted in death.[9]
• In the human male, a portion of the urethra is surrounded by the prostate gland. If the prostate gland is enlarged for any reason, the urethra becomes impassable, making urination difficult and painful and in extreme cases impossible. Prior to modern surgical techniques, inability to urinate usually resulted in death. [10]

Critics of the watchmaker analogy feel that an intelligent designer would not have created on what they see is a 'poor' design, unless the "designer" was inept or sadistic. Yet the good apparent design of so many life forms requires a designer, which is not inept, if they are designed. If it is assumed that life is the product of natural selection the problem of the supposed 'poor' design disappears, but not the problems of the complex intricate design from random things. Critics state that they felt they saw the presence of so many intrinsic flaws within natural organisms contraindicate any hypothetical "watchmaker."[11] These points are further discussed in argument from poor design.

See also

• Clockmaker hypothesis

References

• http://blogs.salon.com/0001561/stories/2002/11/18/refutationOfThebyDesignArgumentForTheism.html The 'by design' argument for theism]
• Full text of Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity
• Robert Hooke
• William Paley (1743-1805)
• The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, revised version published in 1958 by Darwin's granddaughter Nora Barlow.
• Recapitulation and Conclusion", By Charles Darwin.
• Natural History Magazine
• The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
• Evidence for Jury-Rigged Design in Nature
• Evolution and irrationality
• The Human Eye: A design review (This mentions the birth canal as well.)
• Chaos in the Solar System, by J Laskar
• Index to Creationist Claims
• Stupid Alleged Design of Human Reproduction