SystemShock
Uh yu ka t'ann
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Seems William Paley's watchmaker argument is itself evolving. It's moved from a heath to the beach, and instead of a watch, it now can be a painting, a book, names carved in a tree, names written in the sand... and along the way, the term "fine tuning" was added to Paley's original argument. Heck, even Muslims are using it now. And yet, in any of its forms, it is still fallacious.
One other aspect of the evolution of this argument, is that Paley's argument states: "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers". Of course, the "or artificers" part has been removed from modern arguments, as within the analogy, it implies there can be more than one god, which flies in the face of any monotheistic religion. And that is a fundamental flaw in using watchmaker to argue for/prove the existence of a single god.
The watch Paley alludes to may have been complex, and may have been assembled by one single watchmaker, but that complexity was not achieved overnight by one single person. It was the culmination of 1000's of years of observation and technological advances, from the time someone noticed that shadows move with the Sun, someone else figured out how to extract metals from rock, someone else figured how to make glass from sand, someone else figured out uses for springs, etc... and obviously, the watchmaker didn't create ore or sand. So in the end, it seems the watch has evolved from thousands of years of adaptation to various physical constraints.
... and then there is the puddle.
One other aspect of the evolution of this argument, is that Paley's argument states: "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers". Of course, the "or artificers" part has been removed from modern arguments, as within the analogy, it implies there can be more than one god, which flies in the face of any monotheistic religion. And that is a fundamental flaw in using watchmaker to argue for/prove the existence of a single god.
The watch Paley alludes to may have been complex, and may have been assembled by one single watchmaker, but that complexity was not achieved overnight by one single person. It was the culmination of 1000's of years of observation and technological advances, from the time someone noticed that shadows move with the Sun, someone else figured out how to extract metals from rock, someone else figured how to make glass from sand, someone else figured out uses for springs, etc... and obviously, the watchmaker didn't create ore or sand. So in the end, it seems the watch has evolved from thousands of years of adaptation to various physical constraints.
... and then there is the puddle.