How persuasive are the design arguments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

How persuasive are the design arguments - Essay Example People always wanted to know much about the origin of humanity. This issue has always been mysterious for us and it really seems that nature that allowed us to touch upon its secrets, would like to hide the truth from humans. However, there are people, who dared to try to find out the truth. They are famous philosophers, who played an important role in the life of all of us. The philosophers devoted their lives to science in order to create the arguments, which attempt to explain the origin of humanity. The argument from design was widely discussed and serves as a foundation of the modern science. The given paper will make an overview of the arguments and come to corresponding conclusion. William Paley in his book Natural Theology (1802) paralleled between the living things intricacy and subordinate intricacy of a surveillance that was created by an intelligent creature, as it was known. This version is considered to be classic. Taking into account the reasoning from design, or teleological argument, the design that was discovered in the universe gave reason to talk about subsistence of the intelligent creator that is usually depicted as God. Paley underlined in his works that a watch could not become possible without the creator of this watch, thus it became clear that living creatures had no opportunity to exist without an intelligent creator. There is a version that living things are the offspring of intelligent design. It could be concluded that watches refer to the intelligent design, thus living creatures have similarity with them. The living things are â€Å"equipped† with the eyes, the main tools of gathering the information. Paley states: â€Å"[S]upp ose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think †¦ that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for [a] stone [that happened to be lying on the ground† (Paley, 1809. p.1). The idea of Paley is based generally on biological aspect and its intricacy. This version was seriously considered, when Mr. Darwin presented his famous evolution theory based on the natural selection in 1859. Darwin in this way explained how livings creatures, which are intelligent, could adapt in a perfect way to their environment, even if they were not so intelligent. By this statement Darwin doubted the Paley’s idea about the biological base of argument to design to a considerable degree. The 20th century gave birth to another argument that was connected to the cosmology. This argument is also called fine-tuning argument. It state s that it is possible to explain the life on the planet by the different independent natural processes, but the fact that the universe gave chance for the life existing on the privilege position, confirmed the presence of the intelligent creator. For example, you should understand that for life as it exists now at the earth many incipient conditions and values as well as physical constants are necessary. If these conditions do not operate in appropriate way or make some tiny error, life will be just impossible in our universe. This statement represents the additional proof of theory of the existence of some intelligent creature that made all conditions, values and constants work on life creation. Hurben and Drange claimed that the denomination of the different physical constants could be combined only with the possible found denomination. In this argument to design other possible combinations could not exist. In this case Carrier and Drange also claimed that such characteristic as f ine-tuning could be concerned as illusion, in the light of what was stated above. In the book called Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume you can find critics to this theory. Norman Smith underlined that Hume’s criticism was not only pernicious but also complete. This point of