Analogy compares two things, and, on the basis of their similarities, allows us to draw conclusions about the objects. The more closely each thing resembles the other, the more accurate the conclusion.
Have you ever heard the expression you are comparing apples to oranges? We use the above-mentioned idiom when we want to express the notion that a comparison is not accurate due to that dissimilarity of things under scrutiny.
A good analogy will not compare apples to oranges. Is the universe similar to a created artifact? Are they similar enough to allow for a meaningful analogy. Hume argues that the two are so dissimilar as to disallow analogy. Further, we know so very little about the universe that we can not compare it to any created thing that is within our knowledge. If we want to employ a valid analogy between, say, the building of a house and the building of the universe we must be able to have an understanding of both terms.
Since we can not know about the building of the universe a Design Analogy for the existence of God is nothing more than a guess. Links to websites on David Hume. Notes on Critiques of this Argument:. See also Logic of the Teleological Argument. In recent years a number of scientists have attempted to supply a variation on the teleological argument that is also a counter to the evolutionary theory.
It is called Intelligent Design Theory. This theory disputes that the process of natural selection, the force Darwin suggested drove evolution, is enough to explain the complexity of and within living organisms. This theory holds that the complexity requires the work of an intelligent designer. The designer could be something like the Supreme Being or the Deity of the Scriptures or it could be that life resulted as a consequence of a meteorite from elsewhere in the cosmos, possibly involving extraterrestrial intelligence, or as in new age philosophy that the universe is suffused with a mysterious but inanimate life force from which life results.
One of its weaknesses is that the argument for intelligent design is subject to a great many definitions: what is intelligent design? Opponents of this argument will point out that rather than looking to see if an object looks as if it were designed, we should look at it and determine if its origin could have been natural.
Well designed compared to what? The universe is terribly complex, vastly interesting, awe-inspiring—but, as far as we can tell, it is the only one. Most people who bring this one up have in mind some variation of a creationist argument in response to Darwin or other evolutionary theorists.
The one usually credited with popularizing or developing this version is William Paley, who described it in Natural Theology Daniel C. The natural forces at work in the universe do change things, and at least in the case of organic matter, those changes are in a particular direction, or directions.
But that does not imply purpose or an intentional destination. Given a few million generations over a few billion years, such design forces can create an astonishing variety of interesting products—but that in no way suggests an omnipotent, omniscient, purposeful Creator. Counter argument to the teleological argument based on Complexity or Improbability.
The more the complexity of the universe or the improbability of its actual orderings then the less likely it is that it had or has an intelligent designer. The case made by the promoters of the intelligent design argument is actually providing evidence against the conclusion that there must be an intelligent designer. The more the complexity of the universe is advocated or presented by the promoters of the intelligent design argument as a supposed indication of intelligence at work, then the more it works against the conclusion that there must be an intelligent designer.
Because i f there was an intelligent designer there would be no need for all the complexity and waste observed in the physical universe. Who Owns the Argument from Improbability?
The more improbable the specified complexity, the more improbable the god capable of designing it. Darwinism comes through the regress unscathed, indeed triumphant. Improbability, the phenomenon we seek to explain, is more or less defines as that which is difficult to explain.
It is obviously self-defeating to try to explain it by invoking a creative being of even greater complexity. Darwinism really does explain complexity in terms of something simpler-which in turn is explained in terms of something simpler still, and so on back to the primeval simplicity.
It is the gradual escalatory quality of non-random natural selection that arms the Darwinian theory against the menace of infinite regress. Design is the temporarily correct explanation for some particular manifestation of specified complexity such as a car or a washing machine. It could conceivably turn out that …. The argument from probability, properly applied, rules out their spontaneous existence de novo. Sooner or later we are going to have to terminate the regress with something more explanatory than design itself.
Design can never be an ultimate explanation. And-here is the point of my title-the more statistically improbable the specified complexity, the more inadequate does the design theory become, while the explanatory work done by the crane of gradualistic natural selection becomes correspondingly more indispensable.
The argument from improbability firmly belongs to the evolutionists. It is our strongest card, and we should instantly turn it against our political opponents we have no scientific opponents whenever they try to play it against us.
Dennett, Daniel C. Dawkins, Richard. Hume, David. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Also called argument from design, teleological proof. Words nearby teleological argument telencephalon , telenovela , teleo- , teleobjective lens , teleological , teleological argument , teleology , teleomitosis , teleonomy , teleopsia , teleorganic.
How to use teleological argument in a sentence In , a Pakistani Christian woman got into a religious argument with some Muslim women with whom she was harvesting berries. Analogies are very helpful as illustrations, but as arguments they are always weak, and the Teleological Argument is no exception.
If we found a watch on a beach then we would have reason to regard it as a human artifact because we have a great deal of experience with watches and other industrial products. If savages found a watch and had no experience of metalwork or glasswork, they would not have reason to regard it as a human artifact. They would compare it to an unusually impressive pearly seashell.
Conversely, if city-dwellers discovered an unbroken conch shell in a museum, and if they knew nothing about shells either directly or indirectly, they would mistakenly regard it as artifactual. In order to legitimately judge the provenance of the universe, we need to know whether other universe-like things are created mostly by nature or mostly by design.
Since we cannot do this, the Teleological Argument is invalid. To use the terminology of those who classify fallacies, it rests "on an induction of one".
Those opposed would say that all teleological concepts in biology must, in one way or another, be reduced to natural selection. However principle 6 that the relevant design-like properties are not producible by unguided natural means will be more problematic in evolutionary biology.
What might be the rational justification for 6? There are two broad possibilities. Empirical: induction. The attempt to establish the universality of a connection between having relevant R s and being a product of mind on the basis of an observed consistent connection between having relevant R s and being a product of mind within all most of the cases where both R was exhibited and we knew whether or not the phenomenon in question was a product of mind, would constitute an inductive generalization.
This approach would suffer from a variety of weaknesses. The R -exhibiting things concerning which we knew whether they were designed would be almost without exception human artifacts, whereas the phenomena to which the generalization was being extended would be almost without exception things in a very different category—things in nature.
And, of course, the generalization in question could establish at best a probability, and a fairly modest one at that. It might be held that 6 is known in the same conceptual, nearly a priori way in which we know that textbooks are not producible by natural processes unaided by mind. And our conviction here is not based on any mere induction from prior experiences of texts. Texts carry with them essential marks of mind, and indeed in understanding a text we see at least partway into the mind s involved.
Various alien artifacts if any —of which we have had no prior experience whatever—could fall into this category as well. Similarly, it has been held that we sometimes immediately recognize that order of the requisite sort just is a sign of mind and intent.
Alternatively, it could be argued that although there is a genuine conceptual link between appropriate R s and mind, design, intent, etc. Both Aristotle and Galileo held a correlate of this view concerning our acquiring knowledge of the general principles governing nature. On this view, once the truth of 6 became manifest to us through experiences of artifacts, the appropriateness of its more general application would be clear.
That might explain why so many advocates of design arguments—both historical and current—seem to believe that they must only display a few cases and raise their eyebrows to gain assent to design. Either way, principle 6 , or something like it, would be something with which relevant design inferences would begin.
Further investigation of 6 requires taking a closer look at the R s which 6 involves. One thing complicating general assessments of design arguments is that the evidential force of specific R s is affected by the context of their occurrence.
Specifically, properties which seem clearly to constitute marks of design in known artifacts often seem to have significantly less evidential import outside that context. For instance, we typically construe enormous complexity in something known to be a manufactured artifact as a deliberately intended and produced characteristic.
But mere complexity in contexts not taken to involve artifacts the precise arrangement of pine needles on a forest floor, for instance does not seem to have that same force.
In the case of natural objects with evident artifactuality absent, it is less clear that such complexity—as well as the other traditional empirical R s—bespeaks intention, plan and purpose. Similarly, absolutely straight lines in an artifact are typically results of deliberate intention. That straight lines traveled by light rays is so would seem to many to be less obvious. Furthermore, even within those two contexts—artifact and nature—the various R s exhibit varying degrees of evidential force.
For instance, even in an artifact, mere complexity of whatever degree speaks less clearly of intent than does an engraved sentence. There are two crucial upshots. First, if complexity alone is cited, that complexity may not clearly speak of intent.
Second, although the exhibiting of genuine purpose and value might constitute persuasive evidence of a designer, establishing that the empirical characteristics in question really do betoken genuine purpose and value—and not just, say, functionality—seems to many to be difficult if not impossible. Evidential ambiguity would virtually disappear if it became clear that there is no plausible means of producing some R independent of deliberate intent.
Part of the persuasiveness of 6 historically came from absence of any known plausible non-intentional alternative causal account of the traditional R s. Thus, when we see a radio we know that something else—human agency—was involved in its production. But evidence of design in nature does not automatically imply gaps. In such a case, the appeal to agency would be virtually inevitable. The position that there are gaps in nature is not inherently irrational—and would seem to be a legitimate empirical question.
But although gaps would profoundly strengthen design arguments, they have their own suite of difficulties. Several possible snags lurk. Gaps in nature would, again, suggest supernatural agency, and some take science to operate under an obligatory exclusion of such. This prohibition—commonly known as methodological naturalism —is often claimed mistakenly, some argue to be definitive of genuine science. And the spotty track record of alleged gaps provides at least a cautionary note.
Such considerations will complicate attempts to very firmly establish design empirically on the basis of the types of properties we usually find in nature. Some advocates see design arguments as inferences to the best explanation, taking design explanations—whatever their weaknesses—as prima facie superior to chance, necessity, chance-driven evolution, or whatever. In arguments of this type, superior explanatory virtues of a theory are taken as constituting decisive epistemic support for theory acceptability, warranted belief of the theory, and likely truth of the theory.
There are, of course, multitudes of purported explanatory, epistemic virtues, including the incomplete list a couple paragraphs back and lists of such have evolved over time. Assessing hypotheses in terms of such virtues is frequently contentious, depending, as it does, on perceptions of ill-defined characteristics, differences in background conceptual stances, and the like.
Still, in general we frequently manage rough and ready resolutions. Suppose that some otherwise surprising fact e would be a reasonably expectable occurrence were hypothesis h true.
That, Peirce argued, would constitute at least some provisional reason for thinking that h might actually be true. This intuition is sometimes—though explicitly not by Peirce himself—formalized in terms of likelihood, defined as follows:. The likelihood of h is the probability of finding evidence e given that the hypothesis h is true.
In cases of competing explanatory hypotheses—say h 1 and h 2 —the comparative likelihoods on specified evidence can be taken to indicate which of the competitors specific pieces of evidence differentially support, i. Higher likelihood of h 1 than h 2 on specific evidence does not automatically imply that h 1 should be accepted, is likely to be true, or is better in some overall sense than is h 2.
Likelihood thus does not automatically translate into a measure of how strongly some specific evidence e supports the hypothesis h 1 in question Jantzen a, Chap.
This, then, leads directly to Bayesian probability theory. While the Bayesian approach is undoubtedly more rigorous than appeals to IBE, few teleological arguments are presented in these terms.
For a contrast between IBE and Bayesianism, see abduction. There is also the very deep question of why we should think that features which we humans find attractive in proposed explanations should be thought to be truth-tracking. What sort of justification might be available here? Furthermore, taking design to be the best explanation for something requires prior identification of the appropriate properties as design-relevant, and that recognition must have a different basis.
Choosing the best of the known may be the best we can do, but many would insist that without some further suppressed and significant assumptions, being the best as humans see it of the humanly known restricted group does not warrant ascription of truth, or anything like it.
There are other potential issues here as well. There is also the potential problem of new, previously unconsidered hypotheses all lumped together in the catch-all basket. Without knowing the details of what specific unconsidered hypotheses might look like, there is simply no plausible way to anticipate the apparent likelihood of a novel new hypothesis—let alone its other potential explanatory virtues.
This, on some views, is essentially what happened with traditional design arguments—such arguments were the most reasonable available until Darwinian evolution provided a plausible or better alternative the details and likelihood of which were not previously anticipatable.
Without going into the familiar details, Darwinian processes fueled by undesigned, unplanned, chance variations that are in turn conserved or eliminated by way of natural selection would, it is argued, over time produce organisms exquisitely adapted to their environmental niches. Natural selection, then, unaided by intention or intervention could account for the existence of many perhaps all of the R s which we in fact find in biology.
A parallel debate can be found between those who believe that life itself requires a design explanation Meyer and those proposing naturalistic explanations see the entry on life. That was—and is—widely taken as meaning that design arguments depending upon specific biological gaps would be weakened—perhaps fatally.
Premise 10 —not to mention the earlier 6 —would thus look to simply be false. What had earlier appeared to be purpose requiring intent was now apparently revealed as mere unintended but successful and preserved function. Of course, relevant premises being false merely undercuts the relevant schemas in present form—it does not necessarily refute either the basic design intuition or other forms of design arguments.
But some critics take a much stronger line here. Typically underlying claims of this sort is the belief that Darwinian evolution, by providing a relevant account of the origin and development of adaptation, diversity, and the like, has explained away the alleged design in the biological realm—and an attendant designer—in much the same way that kinetic theory has explained away caloric.
Indeed, this is a dominant idea underlying current responses to design arguments. However, undercutting and explaining away are not necessarily the same thing, and exactly what explaining away might mean, and what a successful explaining away might require are typically not clearly specified.
So before continuing, we need clarity concerning some relevant conceptual landscape. However, a — d are incomplete in a way directly relevant to the present discussion. Here is a very simple case. Suppose that an elderly uncle dies in suspicious circumstances, and a number of the relatives believe that the correct explanation is the direct agency of a niece who is primary heir, via deliberately and directly administering poison.
However, forensic investigation establishes that the cause of death was a mix-up among medications the uncle was taking—an unfortunate confusion. And that might very well turn out to be the truth. There are some additional possible technical qualifications required, but the general intuition should be clear.
Thus, e. Indeed, as some see it and as Paley himself suggested , there are phenomena requiring explanation in design terms which cannot be explained away at any prior explanatory level short of the ultimate level. For instance, few would assert that there is still an extant rational case for belief in phlogiston—any explanatory work it did at the proximate level seems to have ceased, and deeper explanatory uses for it have never subsequently materialized.
Perhaps its non-existence was not positively established immediately, but removal of rational justification for belief in some entity can morph into a case for non-existence as the evidence for a rival hypothesis increases over time. Purported explanations can be informally divided into two broad categories—those involving agents, agency, intention, and the like; and those involving mechanism, physical causality, natural processes, and the like.
The distinction is not, of course, a clean one functioning artifacts typically involve both , but is useful enough in a rough and ready way, and in what follows agent explanations and mechanical explanations respectively will be used as convenient handles. Nothing pernicious is built into either the broad distinction or the specified terminology. There are some instructive patterns that emerge in explanatory level-shifting attempts, and in what immediately follows some of the more basic patterns will be identified.
Intention, intervention, and other agency components of explanations can very frequently be pushed back to prior levels—much as many defenders of teleological arguments claim. The earlier case of the alleged poisoning of the rich uncle by the niece is a simple example of this. But in some cases, the specifics of the agent explanation in question may make appeal to some prior level less plausible or sensible. For example, suppose that one held the view that crop circles were to be explained in terms of direct alien activity.
One could, upon getting irrefutable video proof of human production of crop circles, still maintain that aliens were from a distance controlling the brains of the humans in question, and that thus the responsibility for crop circles did still lie with alien activity. While this retreat of levels preserves the basic explanation, it of course comes with a significant cost in inherent implausibility.
And in some cases, pushing specific agency back a level seems nearly unworkable. Suppose that the standard explanation of global warming was human activity, but that subsequently a complete, completely adequate, nailed down explanation in terms of solar cycles emerged.
That would seem to explain away the alleged human causation, and in this sort of case it would be difficult to retreat back one level and make the case that human agency and activity were actually driving the solar cycles. Still the level-changing possibility is as a general rule available with proposed agent explanations. And design typically is, of course, an agent explanation. In many attempted mechanistic relocation cases, it is difficult to see how the specific relocated explanatory factor is even supposed to work, much less generate any new explanatory traction.
Exactly what would caloric do if pushed back one level, for instance? Although level shifting of specific explanatory factors seems to work less easily within purely physical explanations, relocation attempts involving broad physical principles can sometimes avoid such difficulties. For instance, for centuries determinism was a basic background component of scientific explanations apparently stochastic processes being explained away epistemically.
Then, early in the 20th century physics was largely converted to a quantum mechanical picture of nature as involving an irreducible indeterminism at a fundamental level—apparently deterministic phenomena now being what was explained away.
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