Teleological Argument

The Teleological Argument, also called the Argument from Design, or “Intelligent Design” is the favorite argument of creationists; the entirety of creationism consists of cataloging Teleological Argument paraphrases. This was the most popular argument for the existence of God,[1] which Christian apologists of all denominations used to persuade their members and combat atheists. However, its use fell out of vogue after the Dover Trial. [2] The Teleological Argument is credited to St. Thomas Aquinas, who described this argument as the fifth and final proof for the existence of God in his magnum opus, Summa Theologica. [3]

In its most general form, the Teleological Argument states that the orderly structures and processes observed in the natural and physical world are complex to such a degree that they are only explainable by having been deliberately engineered.[4] This design thus requires a designer, who is assumed to be the God of Abraham. As such, the Teleological Argument is an a posteriori (after-the-fact) variation of the Cosmological Argument.[5] Teleological Arguments are often used in conjunction with the Argument from Ignorance [6] and the God of the Gaps Argument,[1] since it answers mysteries with more mysteries, and thus answers nothing.

The Teleological Argument is commonly stated in one of three ways: the Analogical “Watchmaker” Argument, and its variations; the Anthropic Principle (Fine-tuning Argument); and the Argument from Universal Truths and Natural Laws. Each of these arguments has a few common shortcomings, which would be addressed first:

• There is nothing specifically Christian about the Teleological Argument. The Teleological Argument offers no clues to the identity and origin of this designer; these results could be equally attributed to any god from any religion, or the collaborative effort of several gods. [7]
  • This designer may not even be divine, but an actual, literal engineer from an earlier civilization. [7]
  • There is no way to prove or disprove the notion that life was divinely created and/or inspired since there is no rigorous definition as to what constitutes “life” or “divinity.” (e.g., are viruses alive? Were the divinity claims of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Ramesses II legitimate?) [8]
• Like in the Cosmological Argument, if there is evidence of a designer, then causality requires this designer to also have a designer [6], who is of equal or greater complexity. [9] Just as a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker, a watchmaker implies the existence of a watchmaker-maker, which in turn, implies the existence of a watchmaker-maker-maker, ad infinitum. [7] The Intelligent Designer also requires a creator to explain how it came to be, [10] leading to an infinite regression.
  • A violation of causality (i.e., the law of cause-and-effect) has never been observed.
  • While apologists may claim that God had no cause, or his existence is just an effect, they only contradict themselves by attempting to make a causal argument based on the non-existence of causality. [6]
  • Assuming the existence of a designer cannot be a premise of any credible design argument, since citing the desired conclusion as a premise would “beg the question.” [9]
• The Teleological Argument only argues for the existence of a designer, and not their presence or continued existence. There is no indication that this designer oversees their creation, which may just continue plodding along after their designer’s absence and/or death. [7]
• Design arguments tend to be weak analogies. For example: [4]
  1. Natural objects and artifacts both have colors.
  2. Artifacts are painted or dyed.
  3. Therefore, natural objects are all colored by a great painter-dyer.

There is no limit to these kinds of arguments, all of which hold the same weight.

Analogical (“Watchmaker”) Argument

The Analogical Argument from Design draws an analogy between natural objects and man-made items. This argument is credited to William Paley, who popularized it in his book, Natural Theology, [11] and its example of a watch found lying on the ground. How would one go about determining its origin? Since both the watch and living things display an intricate combination of specialized parts working in defined processes, they must both be consciously designed. [7] Just as a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker, life implies the existence of a Creator.

A key feature of this argument is how living things are assemblies of distinct parts, which perform specific, specialized functions; the failure of any one part causes a domino effect which kills the organism. The existence of these specialized components is claimed to be “irreducibly complex;” that is, they are allegedly inexplicable by evolutionary or iterative processes, since any living systems requires the absolute “irreducible” basic set of these specialized parts to be alive in the first place. Intelligent Design advocates claim that natural selection could not create this system from some evolutionary pathway of successive, gradual modifications, because their functionality only exists when all the parts are assembled. [12] Removing any component from a complex biological structure would render that system inoperable. Since only fully-functional body parts offer survival advantages, natural selection wouldn’t perpetuate eyes, wings, etc. “under construction” or “on the verge of working.” This is what led creationists to frequently ask “What good is half an eye/wing/etc.?” The limit to which science can provide complete explanations on the formation and functional is cited as proof of an Intelligent Designer, which is assumed to be God.

However, this is the literal definition of the God of the Gaps Argument, which is itself, and extension of the Argument from Ignorance -- the fact that something is unexplained doesn’t mean it’s inexplicable. Science is a process for discovering information, which is still in progress.[8] Evolutionary biology is rich with counterexamples of how earlier structures were re-appropriated, adapted, and gradually refined and optimized to fit new roles. Each component of a Rube Goldberg machine is also irreducibly complex; and gradual refinement of such a system would eventually lead to a sleek, efficient mechanism. [12] Analogously, each watch component had a previous alternate use, which was modified and adapted to fit that particular application. The watch’s gears are miniaturized mill components. The watch’s face is a window. The strap is a shrunken belt. Likewise, the historical record shows plenty of “fossil” evidence of primitive timepieces (sundials, Egyptian water clocks) which preceded the watch, and influenced its construction. [10]

Nature herself flatly contradicts the creationist’s all-or-nothing argument. For example:

• Biology is rich with hideously bad designs. For example, if the human eye were Intelligently Designed:
  • Why is there a 50/50 chance that you are reading this through glasses or contacts lenses? [11]
  • Why are 1 in 12 men colorblind? [11]
  • Why are so many people afflicted with the misty, blurry view resulting from astigmatism? [11]
  • Why does the eye transmit an inverted signal? [13]
  • Why does the eye need so many parts? [13]
  • Why is there a blind spot in the center of our field of view? [13] Other animals, such as squid and octopi have eyes without this limitation.
    
    These are exactly the results that one would expect from evolution’s ad hoc, Rube Goldberg, do-whatever-works-right-now design ethos. If there is an intelligent Designer, he’s probably MacGyver.

• Biology is rich with examples of structures in various stages of development, or of radically different designs. For example: birds, bats, and insects each independently developed wings. Evolution has no long-term goal, no target, and no final perfection to work towards. “Progress” only appears in hindsight, based on the summation of reactions needed to fulfill the short-term goal of surviving long enough to reproduce. [11] Again, using eyes as an example, there are animals who have: [14]
  1. No eyes (e.g., some moles and cave-dwelling fish).
  2. Simple light-detectors (e.g., planarians). [11]
  3. Eyes with low resolution (e.g., the compound eyes of insects and horseshoe crabs).
  4. Eyes with poor focusing (e.g., the rhinoceros).
  5. “Pinhole camera”-style proto-eyes, with no focusing (e.g., the chambered nautilus). [11]
  6. Eyes that cannot see color (e.g., most dog breeds).
  7. Human-like eyes.
  8. Superhuman eyes (e.g., eagles, owls).

Since any degree of environmental awareness provides a tremendous competitive advantage, natural selection permits the propagation of these “half eyes,” because having half of an eye is a superpower in the world of the blind. Even a simple patch of light-sensitive cells would enable an organism to vertically orient itself, and to detect potential predators or prey that eclipses the light source. This eyeless lifeform will produce eyeless offspring -- but suppose that a few of the offspring possessed a small number of light-sensitive skin cells. These offspring would have a competitive advantage to avoid predators and reproduce more easily, and thus be likely to perpetuate this characteristic. Suppose now that a few offspring’s light-sensitive cells were concentrated into a single location, thus amplifying their sensitivity. Again, this competitive edge would quickly spread throughout the future generations, since the offspring which did not display this characteristic would be more likely to die before reproducing. Next, let us suppose that a tiny percentage of offspring are produced with a slightly concave shape to their light-sensitive regions, to help discern the direction of light sources, conferring another reproductive advantage. Since cells are filled with semi-transparent liquids, it wouldn't be too surprising if this liquid occasionally found itself within the concave surface of these light-sensitive regions, thus gradually developing an eye. [14]

[[[Dispel the micro/macro argument with color gradient images]]]

In a similar fashion, lungs developed from a similar process of lining the mouth with blood vessels to allow early fish to gulp air when in shallow muddy waters, and eventually to travel across land from puddle to puddle. Fish also retained this proto-organ, which evolved into the swim bladder. Fractional wings also confer benefits, since they can act as airfoils for gliding and/or for slowing and controlling jumps and falls. [11]

The Probabilistic ("747") Argument

Creationists also argue that the particular combinations of atoms which form the basis of living things are simply too complex to be the result of random processes. Furthermore, it would be impossible for life to ever develop if any one of these thousands of extremely narrow windows of opportunity had closed. Since the probability obtaining the one combination of atoms which leads to life has been calculated to be far less than the probability of one person winning a billion lotteries every day for a billion millennia, it would be “an act of faith” to believe that conscious design was not involved. [7] This is the “747 Argument,” since it is usually illustrated by the whimsical analogy of a tornado striking a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747 jumbojet.

This argument is a false dilemma between design and chance, based on the Principle of Indifference (i.e., the Principle of Insufficient Reason), which assumes if there are n possibilities in an unbiased system (i.e., there’s no reason why any one result should be more or less likely to occur), then the probability of each occurrence is then <math>1/n</math>. If a biological structure is a combination of m atoms, then the probability of its spontaneous formation is <math>(1/n)^m</math>, which becomes vanishingly small for large, complex (i.e., high-m) molecules like DNA or proteins. However, the Creationists incorrectly assume that all cases within the realm of logical possibility are equally probable, when the assembly of biochemical structures is subject to numerous biases, such as: [4]

• Governing factors. The results and rates of the chemical reactions which form these structures are influenced and controlled by a number of factors, including reactant concentrations, reactant surface areas, temperature, pressure, activation energy, and the presence of catalysts and electromagnetic radiation (especially UV light). Because of these biasing factors, will favor certain chemical reactions and forbid others, limiting the number of possible outcomes. While the creationist’s “winning the lottery” analogy is still apt, this reduction in the number of available outcomes changes the game from Powerball to the Pick 3.
• The large quantity of reactants involved. The entirety of the Earth’s crust and oceans were available for proto-life to build from [4]; and while the spontaneous self-formation of life form these materials in unlikely (like winning the lottery), the sheer abundance of these materials makes the miraculous inevitable (like buying a million lottery tickets). [8] While the chances of being hit by any one specific, individual raindrop are unfathomably small, people still manage to get wet in rainstorms, without having to invoke intelligent planning. [7]
• Natural selection of the results. Complex biochemical molecules can be assembled from the cumulative selection of their results. Rather than waiting for n components to spontaneously arrange themselves, “correct” components will save and propagate themselves. With no redundant work, this random process is reduced to an iterative process, analogous to being able to re-use old lottery tickets week after week. [14] If the tornado assembled only two components, those combined parts would make things easier for future tornadoes.
• Hindsight bias. Voltaire quipped that the human nose was irrefutable proof of intelligent design, since it was perfectly shaped to support eyeglasses. [15] While a tornado hitting a junkyard will likely result in some random scrap heap, no two scrap heaps are the same, and an assembled 747 is also a heap of parts. All scrap heaps are unique in hindsight, and all are equally improbable. [11] The creationists who see life as being improbably rare only count the hits and ignore the misses; [11] 99.9% of all of species have gone extinct, and the myriad of lifeforms which still exist exhibit a broad spectrum of congenital gifts and defects. [7]

The Anthropic Principle (Fine-tuning Argument)

The Anthropic Principle, or Fine-tuning Argument, claims that the universe is so finely tuned for life that any slight variation of physical parameters would render life impossible; that quite literally, this is the best of all possible worlds. This “fine-tuning” of the universe’s parameters necessitates a “tuner;” and this indication of design is thus evidence of a designer. [9]

However, the fine tuning argument fails because it is based upon a series of false or flawed assumptions: [2]

• The universe which we life is the only existent universe. This claim has been neither proved nor disproved.
• The universe’s physical parameters are/were variable.
• Huge variations in the ranges of the physical parameters are/were possible; making it extremely unlikely that the parameters were set to the current configuration by chance.
  • String theory indicates that there could be up to 10^500 possible parameter sets. [13]
• Our universe possesses the one, perfect, slot-machine like combination of parameters which can make life possible.
• Humans and other life could not exist if the universe has slightly different parameters. Admittedly, this is true for many parameter sets.

From this, two conclusions are drawn: [2]

• The Weak Anthropic Principle: If the universe had different parameters, we could not exist to discuss it.
  • This name reflects the fact that this is a tautology, it is an admittedly weak argument.
• The Strong Anthropic Principle: Because the universe’s physical parameter set is unlikely to have occurred by chance, it thus likely occurred by design, and the existence of humanity is one part of that design.

There are a number of general refutations to the fine-tuning argument: [13]

• Since physicists have not finalized the Theory of Everything, it is unknown if universes with different parameter values could even be possible.
• Since we only have experience with our universe and its one parameter set, we have no way of knowing what the possible parameter ranges and distributions are. As such:
  • There was no way of determining if our parameter set is likely or unlikely.
  • There is no way of knowing what parameter sets could also result in intelligent life.
• If multiple universes exist, then the chance other universe harboring intelligent life could be as high as 100%, even if life is rare, due to the very large sample size.

Additionally, there are some specific arguments which apply to specific parameter sets: [13]

• Certain parameters (e.g., golden ratio, π) cannot be varied because they are defined quantities.
• Many of the constants described in Fine-tuning Arguments (e.g.,c, G, h) are “constants of proportionality,” which are arbitrary numbers tailored to align observations with measurement systems. These constants can be assigned to any real, non-zero number without affecting physics; only the measurement systems used to express physics. Thus, no fine-tuning is involved.
• Electron to Proton Ratio (1:1). Theists claim that a larger ratio would cause electromagnetism to dominate over gravity, preventing galaxy formation. Additionally, theists claim if the ratio were any smaller gravity would dominate, preventing chemical bonding.
  • This assumes that the ratio is some arbitrary constant. However, the number of electrons equals the number of elections because the Conservation of Charge requires the universe, as a whole, to be electrically neutral. There is no fine-tuning involved.
• Magnitude Ratio of the Electromagnetic Force to the Gravitational Force (~10^39). While varying any one parameter may cause problems, computer simulations have shown that varying all parameters results in stable universes >50% of the time. Simulations have shown that these universes would have ratios between 10^34 and 10^44, and would be capable of forming stars with 10^10 year lifetimes, and are thus capable of supporting life.
• Expansion rate of the universe. Theists claim greater rates would prevent galaxy formation, and the universe would collapse if the rate were any smaller. However, no fine-tuning is involved, since the Expansion Rate of the Universe is limited by the Conservation of Energy and the fact that the original total energy of the universe was zero. All celestial bodies in the universe are receding from one another at rates such that they will come to rest at a vast difference, like a rocket traveling exactly at escape velocity.
• Mass density of the universe. Theists claim that if this quantity were larger, the Big Bang would have produced too much

deuterium (i.e., Hydrogen-2), and the stars would have burned too rapidly to give rise to life. Likewise, if this quantity were too small, then the Big Bang would have produced insufficient helium, resulting in stars that produce too little of the heavier elements needed for life. The mass density of the universe is precisely determined by the fact the universe starts out with zero total energy. There is no fine tuning because this is the consequence of the Conservation of Energy.

The Fine-tuning Argument is actually one of the better arguments against the existence of God, since an all-powerful God would have no need to fine tune the universe. If God is all-powerful, he could have created us to live in a hard vacuum. The Fine-tuning Argument only highlights how life was made to fit the Earth, and not vice-versa, and to claim otherwise akin to claiming that God created rivers to delineate state borders, and to provide water supplies for major cities. [9] If God created the Earth as a perfect sanctuary where life could flourish, then why is the so Earth hostile, rather than facilitating, to human life? 75% of the Earth’s surface is unpotable water, and great portions of its landmass (e.g., Antarctica, Siberia, the Sahara) are uninhabitable, or close to it. [14] Furthermore, the Earth was also fined-tuned to create earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, desertification, and other disasters with such frequency that man cannot help but to ponder the Problem of Evil. [7] If the universe was created specifically to support life, then why don’t we see more if it? [13]

Argument from Universal Truths and Natural Laws

Theists often claim that the existence of universal truths (e.g., 2+2=4) and physical laws (e.g., Newton’s Laws, Maxwell's Equations, the Laws of Thermodynamics, etc.) are proof of God’s existence, as laws imply the existence of a lawgiver.

However, this argument is a false equivalence, since it ignores the differences between prescriptive laws and descriptive laws; i.e., between "rules" and "practice". [9]

The universe is not governed by anything. Natural laws, like the Laws of Physics, are human inventions. They are not restrictions on the behavior of matter; they are restrictions on how physicists can formulate their mathematical models to describe their observations of matter. The laws of physics are just statements regarding observations of matter in regards to the symmetries and objectivity of nature. When a law is broken, it is because a symmetry has been broken, or because some observation is being described from a unique or subjective viewpoint. These laws must also be a part of any mathematical system. Emmy Noether proved that the laws of conservation of linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy follow automatically and must be part of any mathematical theory that does not single out any particular position of space, direction in space, or moment in time, respectively. [2] Einstein’s General Relativity extends Noether’s Theorem to 4D space-time. [13] Again, it is worth restating that these are all human inventions -- including the notions of space and time. Time is by definition, what a clock measures. Space is defined by the time light takes to travel between points. Despite this, the results of their observations are not arbitrary; they must yield consistent results, or the model is falsified.[2]

If God exists, then he must have a functioning mind, which in turn must be “governed” by laws, lest God have a randomly-constructed mind, akin to a randomly-wired brain consistent entirely of randomly-firing synapses. The laws which govern God’s mind would thus require an even higher lawgiver, leading to [Cosmological Argument|infinite recursion], unless universal truths exist independently of God.[9]

Bibliography

[1] P. Kreeft, Faith and Reason. [2] V. J. Stronger, The New Atheism. [3] A Manual for Creating Atheists. [4] Critiques of God. [5] D. Hume, Dialogues and Natural History of Religion. [6] D. Barker, Losing Faith in Faith. [7] G. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God. [8] 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian. [9] D. Barker, Godless. [10] S. Hitchcock, Disbelief 101. [11] R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker. [12] M. J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box. [13] V. J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis. [14] Atheist Universe. [15] B. Russell, Why I am Not a Christian. [16] I. J. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion. [17] Lambs to the Slaughter. [18] M. J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box.