In Conversation: The Watchmaker
A continued conversation about arguments for a creator
This article is part of a conversation regarding the watchmaker analogy and the arguments for the existence of a creator (God). This article is a response to a response, so any readers of this article that are interested in this topic should go back and read the first two articles that came before this one for needed context.
The conversation starts with an article titled Argument from Design for the Existence of God by Sheng-Ta Tsai.
Later, Sadi Safaraliev posted a response to Tsai’s article titled Unpacking the Flaws: A Response to Criticisms of the Argument from Design. This article is a response to Safaraliev’s article.
Safaraliev’s article is formatted in the following manner: Criticism #, then answer to criticism #. They highlight and respond to four such criticisms raised by Tsai. I will format this article to address each of Safaraliev’s answers to Tsai’s criticisms.
When I started writing this article, I learned of the difference between the usage of the words “criticism” and “critique.” Although they are both used interchangeably in the common vernacular, the word criticism is more often associated with passing judgment, finding fault, and overall negative feedback, whereas the word critique is more often associated with analyzing, identifying the good and the bad, finding ways to improve, and asking for clarification. Because of this, I will use the word critique instead of criticism from now on as it seems more fitting for a well-mannered debate.
Critique #1
For the first critique, Tsai questions the idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing, creator (God) would create a universe just for humans. They posit that the universe is too vast for humans to understand, until very recently, and claim that if such a creation event happened it would make more sense that the purpose was the production of other, more abundant, cosmological objects.
“If one must say that the universe has a designer, it makes more sense to say that the production of lifeless planets or hot and burning stars (or even black holes, which are more numerous than planets with life forms as far as we know) is the purpose of that design, than to say that human beings, who only came into existence about 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang and inhabit only one out of 100 billion planets in our Milky Way galaxy (of which there are about 100–200 billion in the universe), is the reason for the creation of the universe.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
Safaraliev responds to Tsai’s critique by linking a previous article of theirs where they ask the hypothetical question “What if we found a book on Mars?” Their conclusion is that we would undoubtedly have to conclude that it was created by some intelligent designer.
I agree with Safaraliev’s conclusion, but I also believe that the conclusion is moot since the question itself is nefarious. Safaraliev relates the words in a book to the DNA of living creatures.
“The DNA of a living being can be likened to a book where nucleotides are its letters” — Sadi Safarliev
However, there’s a fundamental difference between a book and the DNA of living creatures. When it comes to books, we have absolutely no evidence that natural processes can create a book filled with words arranged in some way that makes sense in a given language without the intervention of some intelligent being. Therefore, we say that the presence of a book requires a creator. But, as I wrote in my article How the Most Popular Atheist Became A Believer: A Response, there is plenty of scientific evidence showing that elements necessary to form DNA, and life in general, can arise through completely self-sufficient chemistry that was likely present on the early Earth. We have the evidence to suggest that DNA, and living creatures, do not require a creator in the same way that a book does, only chemistry. Below are some snippets of my article with links to sources.
“The famous Miller-Urey experiment published in 1953 showed that amino acids, which combine to form proteins and are considered essential building blocks of life, could form under chemical conditions that mimicked Earth’s early environment without the need for a starting lifeform.”
“In 2009, chemists showed that nucleotides that form RNA and DNA could arise from chemical reactions that could have naturally occurred on an early Earth.”
“Later in 2015, chemists showed that three of the major building blocks for cellular life (ribonucleotides, amino acids, and lipids) could all form from a single set of chemical reactions.”
This is only a small sampling of three papers from a much larger field of research showing that the building blocks of life can likely form abiogenically from basic chemical reactions given the right conditions. Biologists and geologists expect that these conditions were met at some point in Earth’s history.
Because we have evidence for how life may have been created through completely natural means and no evidence for how a book may have come about through completely natural means, equating the two is a false comparison.
Occam’s razor (or more correctly Ockham’s razor) is a philosophical problem-solving method used to give order to assumptions. Although it is most commonly phrased as “the simplest of two explanations is generally the correct one,” or even more simply, “don’t make things more complicated than they need to be,” it makes more sense to use the original phrasing, “plurality should not be posited without necessity,” when talking about scientific and philosophical concepts.
“Plurality should not be posited without necessity” means that we should always assume the simplest explanation for a set of observations and only assume a more complex explanation (plurality) if the simpler explanation does not sufficiently account for what we observe (necessity). This prevents scientists and philosophers from coming to absurd conclusions when an observation is better described by something much more mundane and plausible. For example, if you get a stomach ache after gorging at a buffet, it’s much more likely to assume that eating too much at the buffet is the cause rather than the spontaneous onset of stomach cancer. Sure, it could be stomach cancer that just happened to show symptoms for the first time right after gorging at a buffet but eating too much food in a short period is a much more reasonable answer. For most people, it is more likely to be the actual cause of their stomach ache.
Similarly, we know that it’s possible for organic chemistry to lead to the formation of the building blocks of DNA and life in general. We have plenty of direct evidence to back that up. But, we have no direct evidence to back up the idea that life was created by some all-knowing, all-powerful, creator that has never been seen and has never shown up in any of our scientific tests. In fact, most arguments for the existence of a creator are philosophical in nature and generally come from a “God of the gaps”-type argument. Essentially, God is fit into the equation when we fail to find an answer to a question. Instead of positive proof of God’s existence, it’s a lack of proof for something else that leads to the assumption of God. But, just because we don’t have a satisfying answer at the present does not mean that God is the only possible answer. It could be that our knowledge is simply limited in the present and we come up with much more reasonable answers in the future. That’s exactly how the argument has been applied historically. Once we close the gaps, God is no longer needed as an explanation. Throughout history, God has become ever-less needed to answer our questions as science has evolved and filled in more and more of the gaps.
Before we knew what caused illnesses like the plague it was God’s doing. Now, we know that the plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis which was passed on to humans after coming in contact with infected animals. We have plenty of evidence that 1) animals can be infected with certain bacteria, 2) bacteria can pass from animals to humans, 3) bacteria can cause infections in humans, and 4) that the plague is caused by bacterial infection. To the people of the medieval period, who knew nothing about bacteria, God was the only possible answer for such a horrific illness that affected so many people without any hope of a cure. But, with our modern-day understanding of medicine, people who are infected with the plague are routinely and successfully treated with antibiotics. Hence, there is no longer reason to hypothesize God as the cause.
Bacteria is a simple answer because we have tons of excellent experiments and data showing that bacteria are real things that cause illnesses in humans and we know exactly how to treat them with evidence-based medicine. We don’t really have to make any assumptions about bacteria or the plague because we have so many direct observations. God, on the other hand, is a much more complex answer simply because we have to make a lot more assumptions with a lack of direct evidence. We’ve treated the plague many times, we’ve never seen God. Likewise, we’ve seen the building blocks of life come about through completely self-sufficient chemistry, making abiogenesis the most simple explanation for life on Earth. Hence, there is no need to invoke God as an answer for the formation of life on Earth. Doing so would be positing plurality without necessity.
Although most religious apologists make an argument for the universe being created specifically for humankind, or life in general, to thrive, Safarliev points out that that need not necessarily be the case.
“For the sake of the argument, let’s assume for a moment that humans are not a part of the purpose of creation. A device may be designed but not used at all. Just because it is not used and therefore serves no external purpose, it doesn’t mean it has no designer.” —Sadi Safaraliev
This is essentially just rehashing Tsai’s words from earlier where they described a universe whose purpose was the formation of stars or black holes rather than life. In this way of thinking, life may just be a byproduct of a universe that was designed for a different purpose, such as creating black holes and stars. It could also be that the universe has no purpose at all and black holes, stars, and life all happen to be byproducts of a random set of laws. The anthropic principle tells us that if this were the case, we’d necessarily find ourselves in a universe where such laws exist. However, this explanation does not account for why the universe must have been designed in the first place.
There are certain theories that rule out the need for a creation event because they are infinite in scope, such as the cyclic universe model. It posits that the universe has always existed for all of eternity and continually undergoes a series of rapid expansion events followed by periods of shrinking back down to a singularity (a “big crunch”) before repeating the cycle again. In this model, what we call the big bang would simply be one of the infinitely many expansion events that the universe has undergone in the past and will continue to undergo in the future. Just as religious apologists claim that God needs no creator because they are eternal, the cyclic model posits that the universe needs no creator because it is eternal. The question “What happened before the universe was created?” would make no more sense to ask than “What is north of the north pole?” We don’t know if this idea of how the universe works is accurate or not, but if it were, it would do away with the question of a creator for good since there is no creation event necessary.
There are also theories that feature creation events without the need for a God. One such theory is black hole cosmology, which is a multi-universal theory that posits that the creation of our universe is the result of a black hole formed in a parent universe. The inside of the black hole in our parent universe could form a sort of white hole in a new universe (our universe) that caused the expansion we observe; what we call the big bang. Together, the black hole from our parent universe and the white hole that birthed our universe would create a sort of wormhole linking them together, which are theoretically possible according to general relativity. Although not exactly correct, you could think of it as taking space within our parent universe and turning it inside out to form a new space that we call our universe. With black hole cosmology, our specific universe had a time of creation, but its creation came about completely naturally from the laws of physics in a parent universe and the series of universes spawning other universes goes on eternally into the past and the future. Just like with the cyclic model, there is no sense in asking how the first universe was created because the series is eternal. By the definition of eternal, no matter which universe you selected as the first, you’d always be able to find an earlier one that spawned it. If this view of universe creation is accurate, then we don’t need God to explain how our universe was created and there’s no need to explain the start of the cycle of universes birthing other universes because there was no start.
Critique #2
In their article, Tsai points out that the universe, and even parts of Earth, are not suited for human habitation. This is a sensible observation to make since many (not all, but many) religious apologists make the argument that humans are designed in the vision of God, who is a perfect specimen. They generally claim that the human body is perfectly fine-tuned for survival as part of God’s master plan.
“Even if we leave aside the vastness of the universe for a second, and just focus on the Earth, it is obvious that the environment on the Earth is not especially friendly to human survival. We can’t live in the water, even though water covers 70% of the surface of the Earth (but many animals and plants can). Even on land, some parts of the world are either too hot or too cold to live in.
On top of that, diseases, parasites, predatory animals, famines, and other natural disasters threaten the survival of the human species since homo sapiens first appeared on the scene. For thousands of years, the average lifespan of individual humans is just around 30 years.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
Safaraliev responds with the idea that in order to understand what a perfect design for humans entails, we would need to know the exact purpose that God built us for.
“Evaluating the perfection of something requires appropriate measures that align with its intended purpose. It’s like not evaluating petrol or diesel based on taste, or claiming a smartphone is imperfect because it can’t fly. To evaluate the perfection of creation, one must first understand why God created the universe, what our purpose is, and what responsibilities we have.” — Sadi Safaraliev
I agree with this assessment. I’m still not convinced that starting with the idea that we were designed by God is the simplest and most probable explanation because it makes a lot of assumptions for which we have no evidence. But, it does make sense that if we did start with the assumption that humans were designed by God, we’d need to know God’s thoughts in order to accurately critique their designs.
Critique #3
In their article, Tsai writes about how complex things need not necessarily require a designer; a position which I, myself, hold.
“People who use the argument from design often assume that complex stuff cannot exist randomly, but must be designed deliberately. They may use Paley’s Watchmaker as an example. Yes, some complex things have designers, but it does not follow that all complex things are designed.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
I completely agree with Tsai’s argument here and have even written as much in previous articles. In How the Most Popular Atheist Became A Believer: A Response, I listed multiple logical fallacies that plague the idea of every complex thing requiring a designer (AKA the watchmaker analogy), including the non sequitur fallacy, circular reasoning, and false equivalence.
Safaraliev responds to Tsai’s point with the following:
“Well, any rational person would agree that complex things necessarily require intentional design. If we found a book, a picture or a painting on Mars, what would we conclude? Even if we found a needle on Mars, nobody would claim natural events did it, but an intelligent civilization” — Sadi Safaraliev
Why would any rational person agree that all complex things necessarily require intentional design when there’s been no logical reason given for such a thought? Safaraliev, like many other religious apologists, is simply stating such as fact without any logical reasoning to back it up. In fact, we have a ton of evidence to suggest the complete opposite. They’re called emergent phenomena or emergent properties. These are systems that display a level of complexity that is not shared by any of the individual parts that make up the overall system. Here are three examples of emergent phenomena:
- Liquid water: Individual water molecules do not behave like a liquid. But, if you get enough of them together then suddenly they do start behaving like a liquid. They take the shape of their container, they flow, they exhibit surface tension, they create rapids and whirlpools and waves, and are subject to phase transitions such as freezing to form solid ice.
- Weather patterns: Individual molecules in the atmosphere do not exhibit weather patterns, but get enough of them together and suddenly you have wind, rain, humidity, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
- Temperature: Individual atoms and molecules do not have a meaningful temperature of their own, but, if you get enough of them together such that you can measure their average kinetic energy, you get a temperature reading. Because taking an average requires multiple things to be measured, and in general the more things you measure the more accurate your average, temperature is inherently macroscopic as opposed to microscopic atoms and molecules. It only emerges once a sufficient number of atoms and/or molecules are collected together.
In each of the cases above, we have no reason to say that such complex systems require a designer. Again, we need not posit plurality without necessity. Liquid water comes about naturally on its own. We would not say that water requires a designer because we have a perfectly reasonable understanding of how the properties of water emerge seamlessly from a collection of individual molecules using the laws of physics. For the same reason, we would not say that weather patterns or the idea of temperature require a designer either even though they can certainly be described as complex systems. Since we have multiple examples of complex systems that arose completely naturally with no intervention and no logical reasoning as to why complex systems must require a designer, the idea of complex systems requiring a designer is moot.
Safaraliev again brings up the “Book on Mars” argument, but I’ve already tackled why said argument is a false comparison earlier. They also link to two other articles they’ve written, A Picture on Mars, and A Painting on Mars. Both of these articles are the exact same argument as the “Book on Mars” argument. They ask the hypothetical question of what would happen if you found a picture or a painting on Mars and say that you would have no choice but to conclude that they had a designer. I won’t argue with that conclusion. If a Mars rover found a painting on Mars I would certainly conclude that someone made the painting. However, as I stated earlier, it’s a false comparison to the Earth or the universe needing a designer because, unlike paintings or books, we have plenty of evidence to support the formation of planets due simply to the laws of physics. We also have multiple theories for how the universe was created that come naturally from the laws of physics. Again, as I pointed out in my article How The Most Popular Atheist Became A Believer: A Response, the argument that because one complex thing requires a designer means that all complex things require a designer is a logical fallacy (multiple, actually). There is no need for one thing to require a designer just because some other thing requires a designer and there has been no logical argument put forth to suggest such.
Next, to defend the idea of complex systems arising naturally without a designer, Tsai brings up the topic of natural selection.
“Research in biology has demonstrated that complex life forms and ecosystems can evolve naturally through random mutation and natural selection after simple life forms appeared on the Earth. No intelligent Designer is needed to account for their existence.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
I am fully in agreement with Tsai’s stance here, but it seems as though Safaraliev is not, as they respond with:
“Briefly, the concept of random mutations and natural selection suggests that a random genetic mutation may be beneficial for an organism, which makes it more fit to survive and reproduce. Harmful mutations, on the other hand, make the organism difficult or unable to survive. Over time, small beneficial changes accumulate, leading to the emergence of more complex species.
To begin with, most random genetic mutations are harmful to an organism, and while it is theoretically possible for a mutation to be beneficial, it is unlikely. Therefore, the logical laws of Sufficiency and Sufficient Cause suggest that randomness cannot account for beneficial mutations, and there must be another cause.” — Sadi Safaraliev
When Safaraliev claims that randomness cannot account for beneficial mutations because beneficial mutations are less likely to occur than deleterious mutations, they seem to be missing an important part of the way that evolution works.
If we considered a hypothetical scenario in which all creatures born never die and each creature has an equal chance at mating and reproducing, then yes, we would expect creatures with deleterious mutations to make up the vast majority of all creatures. These creatures would pass on deleterious mutations to their offspring, who would be likely to develop more deleterious mutations, etc. Beneficial mutations would happen every once in a while but would be vastly outnumbered by deleterious mutations.
However, if it wasn’t obvious already, that’s not what we observe. In real life, creatures that developed deleterious mutations are more likely to die before being able to reproduce than creatures that developed null or beneficial mutations, assuming they even survive being born in the first place. Because these creatures die before reproduction, they aren’t able to pass on their deleterious mutations to their offspring so the deleterious mutations don’t build up nearly as quickly as they did in our hypothetical scenario. Creatures that developed beneficial mutations are more likely to live long enough to reproduce and, in the process, transfer those beneficial mutations to their offspring. Their offspring are now more likely to reproduce and more likely to have even more offspring that also have the same beneficial mutation. The fact that beneficial mutations make it more likely that a creature will live long enough to reproduce while creatures with deleterious mutations are less likely to live long enough to reproduce gives beneficial mutations a distinct advantage of being passed on, even though deleterious mutations are more common. It doesn’t matter if deleterious mutations are more common if the creature with such mutation dies during birth or before being able to pass the mutation to offspring. This imbalance of beneficial mutations being passed on more frequently than deleterious mutations is the process of natural selection at work; the driving force behind evolution.
Safaraliev goes on to write:
“Before claiming that genetic mutations and natural selection can explain the diversity of life on Earth, one must explain the origin of simple life forms and the minimum requirements for survival and evolution.
In short, natural selection by random mutations is insufficient to explain the diversity of life on Earth and does not negate the necessity of the existence of God.” — Sadi Safaraliev
I’m not sure where Safaraliev gets the idea that natural selection requires an explanation for the origin of life to be sufficient. In the same way that the big bang theory is a theory of what happened after the creation of the universe and not a theory of how the universe was created, evolution via natural selection is a theory of how life progressed, not how it started. The theory of evolution is completely separate from the origin of life. In my opinion, it seems as if Safaraliev has a very loose understanding of evolution and natural selection.
Critique #4
The next section that Tsai features in their article is titled You have not thought it through. They claim that religious apologists have not thoroughly examined the argument that they are attempting to make and contradict themselves. In their response, Safaraliev has split Tsai’s section into three subsections.
In critique #4a, Safaraliev disagrees with Tsai’s point that:
“Either you believe that God designed nature and natural laws such that humans can appear in the world naturally, or you believe that this world is not designed to make the existence of human beings possible, thus supernatural intervention is required.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
By stating that God, by definition, would not need to intervene with their own work as they would have designed the laws of nature perfectly in the beginning.
“It does not fit with the definition of God as the Creator and Governor of nature, as suggesting that supernatural intervention is required means that God interferes with His own work which is nonsensical. Our claim is that all the natural laws and processes are the work of God.” — Sadi Safaraliev
I find this type of argument lazy. At the end of the day, religious apologists could take any talking point anyone threw at them, no matter how logical, and just make the claim that “Well, that’s how God designed it to be.” Their theory is non-falsifiable. If one is unwilling to change their stance on a given subject, even one as grandiose as the existence of God, then there really isn’t a debate to be had. At that point, it’s just two people talking at each other. That’s the vibe I get when religious apologists use the “Well, that’s how God designed it to be” argument. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, God made it so and there’s nothing you could say to change their mind.
For example, Safaraliev also claims that just because something can occur naturally, such as the emergent phenomena that I described earlier, or the abiogenic formation of life, that it could still be God’s doing. This is true, but it is not an argument. Instead, it is the lack of an argument. It’s the catch-all response to not having a better, evidence-based, argument locked and loaded. It’s not honest philosophical debate. Yes, it could be God’s doing, but like I spent much time going over earlier, we have no evidence of such. Surely, if we have a perfectly reasonable explanation for a given phenomenon that is backed by empirical evidence, that’s a more logical argument than an explanation that has no such evidence backing it up.
In critique #4b, Tsai claims that religious apologists cannot explain the creation of their own God, and how this is a contradiction if they are also making the claim that every complex thing requires a creator.
“If the notion of “complex things require designers” is to be applied consistently, why don’t Christians ask who designed their God? God is infinitely more complex than natural laws or the physical composition of human beings, so why doesn’t God need a designer? The excuse Christians give is that God, by definition, is not created.
That’s just lame. It’s a blatant application of special pleading. More seriously, by using this excuse, they contradict themselves by admitting that not all complex things require designers after all.” — Sheng-Ta Tsai
I’ve already covered the standard response to God’s creator “God is eternal, God requires no creator.” That’s pretty much exactly how Safaraliev responds to Tsai.
“‘To be created’ implies having a beginning when the creation process happens. Therefore, being created only applies to the beings that have a beginning of their existence. God is defined to be the Creator of all things and doesn’t have a beginning, therefore, He is neither created nor designed.” — Sadi Safaraliev
If God exists, then I find it perfectly reasonable for them to be eternal just as I find it perfectly reasonable that the universe could be eternal. But, I still have no reason to believe that God exists when there are other potential theories that have ample evidence backing them up. For me, a theory backed up by evidence is the obvious pick. I do agree with Tsai that agreeing that God can be eternal does contradict the statement that every complex thing requires a designer. It should be updated to “every complex thing, except for God, requires a designer.” But, my guess is that Safaraliev would argue that it’s already implied.
In critique #4c, Safaraliev responds to Tsai’s accusation of special pleading by claiming that the exception for God not requiring a designer is justified because he is eternal. Exactly as presumed.
Conclusion
The authors close their arguments in the following manner: Tsai claims that an argument from design is a bad hypothesis at best but offers nothing in the way of evidence. Safaraliev claims that Tsai’s article did little to nothing to disprove the necessity of a designer.
I believe Tsai’s arguments hold more weight than Safaraliev's simply because they are rooted in empirical evidence. While Safaraliev’s arguments for a designer can’t be disproven, they also can’t be proven since empirical evidence for a God does not exist and, according to some religious apologists, could never exist. Arguments that can’t be disproven hold less weight in a debate than those that can. Safaraliev’s arguments about books, pictures, and paintings, on Mars are all false comparisons and essentially just multiple rehashes of the exact same argument touted as three separate arguments. They are all renditions of the age-old watchmaker analogy that has been considered a logical fallacy for hundreds of years because it does not account for why everything must have a designer. Rather, it just assumes it to be such without reasoning. Safaraliev also seems to have some misunderstandings about evolution and natural selection, which I have identified.
Just as well, the burden of proof states that it is up to the one making a claim to vouch for its validity, not everyone else’s responsibility to disprove said claim. If Safaraliev wants to make the claim that there exists a God we’ve never seen, heard, or touched, then it’s up to Safaraliev to provide positive proof of such, not Tsai’s job to disprove it.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” — Carl Sagan
