R&I – FS
How to determine design?
Paley’s watchmaker analogy claims that complexity indicates design… it does not. This has been addressed thoroughly, I’ll add a side note I think is relevant. The law of contraposition which will come up more than once works here. It comes into play in a dichotomy like this. Something is either evidence for a designer or against… or it’s neither and ends up being neutral. If complexity is evidence for a designer, then what is simplicity evidence for? No designer? This wouldn’t make sense, so the contraposition doesn’t make sense.
More recently an AIG blowhard named Stuart Burgess has been making the argument that Similarities are the hallmark of design (you may have heard people on this site parrot this very thing)
At face value it’s quite obvious that these assertions are merely trying to hijack evidence for evolution and insert God instead.
I think it’s valuable to point out to all of the pseudo- scientists out there, If Evolution were shown to be 100% false tomorrow that wouldn’t indicate that God is the answer… It wouldn’t even make God more likely. People spend so much effort trying to debunk things that they perceive to be inconsistent with their idea of God. It’s a God of the gaps mentality, if not an outright god of the gaps argument. It’s just trying to open up gaps for God to fill, you do realize this right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you do it. Some of the best science has come from people trying to debunk theories. But I digress.
Similarities are not the hallmark of design. If that were the case, then logically, dissimilarities would be the hallmark of non-design. If similarities were actually the hallmark of design, then two rocks that are similar would have to be designed.
What’s the point of all of these pseudo-science arguments from the creationist point of view?
If everything is designed then similarities and difference don’t matter, simplicity and complexity don’t matter… it’s all designed right?
If the last question rings true, are we only getting arguments that are illogical and don’t matter from these pseudo type theists?
What did I miss? how do we really determine if something is designed, and is indicative of a designer?
Silent