The Dumb Watchmaker
Offline I have heard it many times. Theists trying to use a watch to prove there's a God. In case you are one of the lucky few who hasn't heard this comparison, here it goes:
"If you find a watch in the desert, you immediately assume there's a watchmaker. Why? Because everything that is designed needs a designer. Therefore, when you see the universe, when you see life, you should assume there's a designer."
There are variations of this argument. The "Look at this banana" argument, and the look at this painting argument that Kirk Cameron used in the ABC "Atheist-theist" debate.
For starters, if I see a watch on the ground, I assume there's a watchmaker, yes. Why I don't assume is that the watchmaker always was. Doing so would be explaining something as complex as a watch with something even more complex: the watchmaker. Theists claim the universe needs a designer, and that the designer always was. This is no different than saying the watchmaker always existed, and one day, he pulled a watch out of his ass. This is just lazy thinking. You cannot explain something complex with something even more complex that requires even more of an explanation.
There is another problem with the watch-watchmaker analogy. The idea that a designer needs to be a "thinking being". Lightning is a very complex phenomenon requiring thousands of volts, and a place to strike. A place that can absorb electrical energy. Does that mean every lightning has a Lightning Engineer in the clouds? No. The laws of nature make it possible for lighthing to exist. Likewise, evolution makes life a possibility.
The designer in these cases is the laws of nature. That being the case, mistakes are made, for the designer is not a thinking being. It is a dumb watchmaker, working through rules, with nothing that can stop him from making mistakes. 90% of the species that inhabited this planet are gone. Most mutations result in failures. More than half of the stars that have existed in the univerve have probably become supernovas. The solar system is full of asteroids that failed to become planets. Only one planet in our solar system supports life. The latter failed in Mars, and it probably failed in the thousands of planets that inhabit the Milky Way galaxy. Some designer we have.
We lack a thinking designer. We have a designer that goes by rules. A dumb watchmaker. Richard Dawkins would say "blind watchmaker", but I think that's a little prejudicial toward blind people, for most of them could learn how make watches even though they can't see.
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The first problem with the watchmaker argument is that it assumes that the world is designed. It's a terrible use of logic that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.
When somebody sees a cloud, they do not associate it with a cloudmancer.
I think that any analogy that invokes watches ought to be immediately cast aside. After all, watches are quite boring.
Some of them are damn expensive too. Like scientology.
I've always hated the 'watchmaker' arguement. I used to drive a girl to work. One day she turned to me and asked me if I believed in God. She turned out to be a Jehovah Witness, and that was one of the arguements she threw at me in her feeble attempt to convert me. At the time I had no idea how to refute something so idiotic. I think my response was something like...'ummm.. but..... errrrr...'
It is a better version of "Music proves God because long before guitars were invented angels used to play harps." Can anyone refute that one? Geez. God must be real.
Shameless plug, but anyway...
I wrote a little, thing, against the watchmaker argument.
http://www.rationalresponders.com/watch_meet_rock
There's a more stupid version of the watchmaker argument, and it goes like this:
Isaac Asimov and Isaac Newton walk into a room. In that room, there's a table with a picture of the universe in it. Isaac Asimov says, "Someone must have taken that picture."
Isaac Newton says," Why do you think that? If you believe the universe made itself, why don't you assume the picture took itself?"
Here is one of mine (based on the previous article):
An atheist and a theist approach a river. The atheist says, "Look at the those stones, they are smooth because they have been exposed to the river's flowing water."
And the theist says, "Don't be stupid. The stones are smooth and perfect because they were designed by God."
When I look at the natural world (i.e. parts that are not made by humans) I see no trace of design. If you look at a hill, which after all is just a pile of stones and earth in a random shape where is the design there. Of course there are processes which went into making that hill, which can be explained by plate tectonics and erosion, and sometimes such processes can be complex. If there were a designer of the earth a hill would be a perfect pyramid shape perhaps, or a smooth semi-spherical type shape. Looking from the streets near my house in Lancaster out across Morecambe bay at the mountains beyond is beautiful sure, in fact it is one of the most beautiful views I know (and I've been to a lot of places in the world) but where are the smooth edges? the neat shapes? the evidence of design? In biological organisms there is just the efficiency required to survive, such qualities as symmetry and graceful movement, good vision are simply forms of effiency just as a bubble is the most steady structure for a film of water containing air.
Atheist Books
The human being is an example of a terrible design. The eyes weren't created to read books at all. He who reads too much eventually ends up wearing glasses. Why? Our designer "Evolution" created the eyes to help us survive. Is reading part of a caveman's survival? No Cancer is an example of our bodies lacking the proper "feedback system" that can prevent cell mutations from growing and reproducing inside of us. Regrowing a lost arm or leg isn't exactly something we need to survive. Therefore the human body lacks the ability an octopus or a lizard has to regrow missing parts. We still have organs we don't need. Like a bone in our spines that can support a tail, but since we don't have tails, it serves no purpose. Or muscles that could allow us to move our ears up had our ears resembled those of dogs. Finally, if you are eating, it'd be a good idea to avoid this one. What kind of designer creates a being capable of conceiving computers, spaceships, but at the same time is so imperfect it needs to take a smelly shit once in a while? A perfect digestive system would digest the food, expel it, and it wouldn't be the disgrace of a process it is. We are the ones who have perfected it by investing things like toilet paper and deodorants. Not any God.