#watchmaker argument

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

When your “solution” requires immediately ignoring your premise.

Also, “god” was created by SuperGod. #ProveMeWrong

[ironmyrmidon]

I saw someone try to make the watchmaker argument using ai-generated art.

I don't object to people using ai art in general, but I will object to using ai art specifically to argue that complex organization can't arise from random noise and fundamental rules.

[corin-tuckers-left-one]

I just saw a video on some blog about the watchmaker argument in the year of our Lord 2023 and. My guy that is literally what natural selection is meant to explain. Organisms can appear 'designed' because natural selection shapes their populations to suit whatever environment they're in. That's the whole freaking point!

[peggy-cherepaha]

My refutation of the Watchmaker Argument

The Watchmaker Argument is an analogy used to try to prove the existence of a deity who designed the world and everything in it. This argument, in some form or another, has been used for centuries to try to show that the complexity of life points to an intelligent designer, such as how if you stumbled upon a watch lying on the ground outside, you wouldn’t assume it came to be naturally, but you would instead conclude that someone designed and manufactured the watch.

There are many refutations of this argument, but I would like to present my own. There are many uncontacted tribes of people in the world, most of which live in the Amazon Rainforest. Because the rainforest is so dense and dangerous, there are many groups of humans that have been isolated for centuries or longer, and their most advanced technologies are stone spears and simple bows and arrows. We know about some of these tribes from aerial footage or helicopters accidentally flying over them. Let’s say one day a helicopter is giving some tourists a ride over the Amazon Rainforest, and one of the passengers is wearing a watch that happens to come loose and tumble out of the helicopter. This watch lands in the dense forest near the settlement of one of these uncontacted tribes. The tribespeople see the watch fall and carefully move closer to inspect it. One brave person picks up the watch to study it closely, and observes that this object is made of some strange hard material that shines like the sun, and that a small sliver is moving, as if the object is alive. The tribespeople decide to bring their find to the tribe’s elder, who, over the next several hours, carefully breaks open the watch and sees such small, detailed parts made of this strange material moving on their own.

The elder brings the tribespeople together and announces his findings: “This is a gift from the gods! This gift fell from the sky and is made of a hard rock that is imbued with the light of the sun god. The material is crafted in tiny and intricate detail by the tool god. The materials move on their own, given the breath of life by the animal god. Surely, in even ten thousand years, a mere human could never craft such a detailed and complex object. We should thank the gods for this magical gift they have given us.”

The conclusion this elder has drawn is completely logical given the circumstances, so why would a human living in the modern world not make the same conclusion when presented with a watch? It’s because of our background knowledge. An adult living in the modern world is surrounded by technological devices made of small, interwoven, metal components that can move on their own when supplied with energy. Many people have probably opened a watch at some point, or watched a video of a watch being manufactured. Even if you hadn’t, you have see similar mechanical components from other machinery.

So when people look at, say, an animal cell, and they see all of the organelles that need to work together with complicated chemical processes, a layman would be compelled to conclude that there is some deity or higher thought process going into the design of the cell. But for a microbiologist, who has much more background knowledge on cells and microscopic organisms, it is clear how a cell can arise from natural processes without any divine intervention.

[slaveofyeshua]

The Watchmaker Analogy DEBUNKED