Design argument

• The design argument has 3 key features;

  a posteriori meaning known after experience

  empirical meaning known through the 5 senses

  inductive if the premises are true the conclusion is likely
• William paleys watch analogy argues that the world is like a watch which is complicated in comparison to a rock so it must need a designer.
• Thomas aquinas 5th way argues that we are like sun flows are we are not intelligent in comparison to god so we need god to guide us in the same sense that the sun guides a sun flower.
• Michael behes intelligent design argument suggest that our old has a irreducible complexity this is because if you take away an important part to the world it will no longer work and examples use is the bacterial flagellum.
• Richard Swinburne argues that regularities of co-presences (in space)can be explained by evolution e.g. the human eye as there’s always something to work on. However science cannot explain the regularities of succession (time)e.g earth orbiting the sun

  analogy- humans order the world and in the same way we order the world another being must be ordering ours And we work together in celestial harmony.
• Frederick tennant aesthetic argument

  challenges evolution. There’s beauty in the wored that we don’t need to survive such as the beautiful sunsets like animals do ad they adaptation for survival like claws so as evidence of the ‘handicraft of god in nature‘ and that the worlds is literally ‘drenched in beauty’
• Frederick tennants anthropic principle

  the world is specifically designed to support human life as it ‘saw us coming’ and theres fine balance of conditions that allow us to survive

  1. the earth is the perfect distance from the sun
  2. just the right oxygen particles per a million to allow us to breathe
  3. gravity
• David humes criticisms

  1. botched worlds
  2. animal bodies or vegetation
  3. cannot say god is all good/powerful from the way the world is- gardener analogy.
  4. analogy with human artefacts is a bad on
• J.S. Mills problem of evil argument- if the world is designed how do you explain the appendix?
• epicurean hypothesis- there is an infinite number of worlds out there so the fact that one is designed is by chance not creation
• Charles Darwin theory of evolution
• Richard Dawkins is his blind watchmaker analogy says that god is not required to explain complexity. example the human eye has developed over millions of years to distinguish between light and dark through evolution
• Fred hoyles strength- the likelihood of the world happening by chance which is the same chances of a hurricane passing through a scrap yard and assembling a Boeing 747
• empirical eveidence supports the design as we can see it in migratory patterns of whales and sunflowers
• a posteriori info supports the design argument as we can see things such as the bacterial flagellum
• inductive as it make it likely that there is a designer which is explained by the fine tuning argument.