TheTeleological Argument

The teleological argument is based on the notion of telos, the end for which something has a certain structure. One must distinguish between

· Order, which is mere pattern, as in snowflakes

· Design, which is the use of order for some end, as in the human eye, whose function is to allow us to see.

The argument aims at showing that design is an aspect of the natural world. Traditionally, there are two versions of the argument, physical, applied to some broad physical feature of the world, and biological, applied to the design displayed by living organisms.

The biological version of the teleological argument

The biological version of the argument is quite old, occurring already in Cicero’s De Natura Deorum. Its best version is in W. Paley’s Natural Theology (1802). He did not think that the argument from design is best applied to cosmology, although the book does contain a chapter on design in cosmology which is heavily influenced by Newton.

The basic intuitions behind the argument are

· the seemingly obvious fact that organs have functions in the economy of organisms

· the obvious fact that morphology and physiology are instrumental to the performance of that function

So, the eye is made thus and so because of the function it performs; in other words, it shows design.

The argument now considers the question of how an organ, e.g., the human eye, came about; to make things clear Paley uses an analogy with a watch.

A. The watch analogy

• The watch is a thing whose function is to keep time by producing the regular motion of the pointers.
• The watch displays irreducible complexity (not Paley’s terms): the parts have to be just so and function simultaneously for the watch to work at all.
• There are only two possibilities: 1. The watch is the result of chance; 2. The watch is the result of intelligent design. Since (1) is phenomenally unlikely, we are left with (2)
• Hence, the existence of the watch presuppose that of an intelligent designer (an intelligent person).
• Living organisms display the same irreducible complexity as the watch

• Hence, living organisms presuppose an intelligent designer. The fact that living organisms reproduce does not affect the argument.

Objections:

• We have not seen the designing or the making of a single organism.

Reply: Ignorance of craftsmanship does not affect the argument. Compare to the case of a lost art.

• The organism (the watch) is not optimally designed.

Reply: Less than optimal design is still design.

• There are parts whose function we do not understand

Reply: the argument still applies to the parts whose design we understand.

• The design is brought about by unintelligent agencies, e.g. a principle of order or some law of living organisms.

Reply: a principle of order or a law aside from an intelligent agent is nonsense, for they are nothing but “the modes according to which an agent proceeds.”

B. The argument is cumulative: the eye shows design, and so does the ear, etc.

C. Prospective Contrivances: In the growth of organisms, at times parts are provided beforehand which are not used until later. This implies a contemplation of the future (forethought), which presupposes intelligence.
Examples:

• human teeth: they are formed within the gums and stop there during lactation. Then they grow, and are eventually shed and replaced by adult teeth once the jaw has sufficiently expanded.
• eyes and lungs are already formed in utero, when they are of no use.

D. Omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, self-existence, and spirituality are compatible with the nature of the designer, although not derivable from the argument.

Problem: but the finiteness and imperfection of creation point to a finite and imperfect god. Hence, atheistic teleological arguments are possible.

E. The unity of God is proved by the uniformity of the plan of the universe, as:

• The laws of nature are universal
• The structure of all large terrestrial mammals is similar; sexual reproduction applies to terrestrial and aquatic animals and plants.

Note that this is a good piece of evidence, used by Darwin, for evolution.

F. The goodness of God.

• God does not want the misery of creatures, otherwise our organs would be designed to produce pain. The analogy is with a sickle, which may produce pain by mishap but not by design, as an instrument of torture would.

Objection: teeth of predators?
Reply: predation balances superfluity.

• God is not indifferent to the misery or happiness of creatures, otherwise the fact that creatures enjoy themselves would be merely by chance. Fish, bees, aphids, hares, have a very jolly time.
• Hence, God wishes the happiness of creation

Objection: Pain?
Answer: the salutary role of pain.

Critique of the Teleological Argument

A . The argument is useless (or at best of limited utility) with respect to orthodox theology because:

• it's unable to decide between monotheism and polytheism.
• it does not allow to infer (vs. admit as compatible) the perfection of God because
1. the effect (the world as a whole), as we know it, is finite; hence its cause is probably finite.
2. the designer shows no sign of great benevolence: we have been wretched savages for most of our time, and if we as a species could produce a Newton, it is unbelievable that God could not make us better.
3. the designer shows no sign of justice: all the justice we see is our product.

B . Darwin's theory of natural selection provides a better explanation of the design living systems display, the principal focus of Paley's argument. Darwin explicitly addresses the question: How could complex organs be the product of evolution? Answer: They can be result of small modifications, each favorable, through a very long period of time. Example, eye starting with nerves which are light sensitive. This addresses the issue of irreducible complexity (the all or nothing objection) advanced by Paley with respect to the eye.
NOTE: In his study of orchids (1862) D. also notes that their various reproductive contrivances for attracting insects are formed out of pre-existing material (typically petals).
In addition, at times

• organs are not contrivances but contraptions
• are useless and vestigial

Note: these facts sit well with evolution

New versions of the argument from Behe have just added new examples (flagella, clotting systems, etc.), for which many possible evolutionary accounts have been proposed, without structurally changing the argument.

NOTE: Evolution cannot produce irreducible complexity by accretion; however, evolution could explain cases of irreducible complexity by the taking away of parts. Indeed natural arches with keystones do occur even without evolution at work.

The cosmological version of the Teleological Argument

This is an old version of the argument that received new impetus with the scientific revolution. For example, Newton adopted what might be called a teleological fine tuning argument, claiming that the facts that

• the giant Jupiter and Saturn are not too close to the Earth to disturb its orbit, which would make inhabitable
• the Earth is no too close and not too far from the Sun to have life

show design, because the likelihood of that happening by chance is very small. The telos here is the existence of (intelligent) life.

However, we now know that the solar system has been violently perturbed, that the young Earth was bombarded by meteorites, and that life on Earth has undergone five mass extinctions, all of which militates against intelligent design aimed at producing, and presumably preserving, life.

A non-teleological Argument TO Design

Suppose we drop the reference to the telos of an organ or of the solar system and instead think in terms of the probability of the world being as it is.

Newton claimed that the facts that

• the planets in the solar system (he knew Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) move in the same direction
• they are on the same plane

provide good evidence for the hand of God, as the chance of that coming about by mere mechanical means is virtually nil. However, apart from the fact that Newton got his “facts” rather wrong, today we believe that the solar system resulted from the gravitational collapse of a rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas, resulting in the sun and the planets; this weakens Newton’s argument.

Along analogous lines, we can think about the probability of the existence of a world with intelligent life in it instead of one without it. In physics there are several (form 5 or 6 to 26, depending on whom one asks) independent dimensionless physical constants, such as the charge of the electron and Plank’s constant. Here’s the basic argument:

1. The world contains intelligent life
2. It seems likely that life is possible at all only if these constants have a relatively small number of values, call it ‘V’
3. V could come about only either by chance or by some process, or by intelligent design
4. The likelihood of V happening by chance is vanishingly small
5. There’s no consensus on any process resulting in V. (Note that Darwin’s theory rules out the use of an analogous argument in biology)
6. Hence, V came about by intelligent design.

NOTE: There’s disagreement as to how many independent dimensionless physical constants there are. As we need to deal with dark matter or other newly discovered forms of matter, the number of such constants will likely increase. Historically, there is an oscillatory process in the number of constants: new experimental discoveries compel the postulation of new ones, and theoretical advances diminish them. For example, the constants of chemistry are now theoretically reducible to those of quantum mechanics. Presumably, if we find a new theory underlying both general relativity and quantum mechanics, the number of constants will go down, although nobody knows for sure.

Problems:

• Do we know that any matter is compatible with different fundamental physical constants? That is, are different constants physically possible? That we can imagine so or even that we can plug them into the equations of physical laws is no evidence of physical possibility.
• We have no idea whether the various arrangements of different basic physical constants are equiprobable, so that (3) may be questioned.
• Nobody really even knows how many fixed constants are needed for long-lived stars and eventually supernovas, from which the heavy elements necessary for life come. Perhaps 4 is enough, as Stenger has argued claiming that about 25% of possible combinations could result in life; perhaps all 26 are needed; perhaps more. Nobody knows.
• The existence of the present physical constants may simply be a brute fact. Note that given equiprobability any combination of physical constants would be as improbable as the present one, and any would have special qualities. Suppose one throws a die 10 times; the probability of getting any combination, e.g., 1,1,3,2,5,6,3,3,2,2, is 6^-10. Any combination has special qualities. In ours, the first and the last two (1,1 and 2,2) are palindromes, the latter being the double of the former; the sum of the third and fourth numbers gives the fifth; the difference between the sixth and seventh gives the eight; the sum of all the numbers is 28, the number of days in February, and the successor to the cube of 3 (3³), etc. Any world would have special unique properties, which makes the argument useless.
• If god created the universe with the right physical constants in order to produce life, why
• is life apparently so rare and the universe so largely inhospitable to life?
• did it take so long for life to appear, at least on Earth?
• is evolution so slow and inefficient?