Posted on 01/08/2006 3:02:31 PM PST by tpeters
ID’s big problem: Who designed the designer?
Design is not a real alternative to chance because it raises an even bigger problem — who designed the designer?
By Richard Dawkins (December 27, 2005)
The logic of creationist arguments is always the same: some natural phenomenon is too specifically improbable, too complex, too beautiful, too awe-inspiring to come into existence by chance. Design is the only alternative to chance that the author can image. Therefore, a designer must have done it.
The scientific answer is also always the same: Design is not the only alternative to chance; natural selection is the best alternative.
Design is not a real alternative to chance at all because it raises an even bigger problem than it solves: Who designed the designer?
Natural selection is a real solution. It is the only workable solution for the problem of improbability that has ever been suggested. And it is not only a workable solution, but it is a solution of the utmost evidence and power.
Essentially, what’s wrong with intelligent design is that it is what philosopher Daniel Dennett calls a skyhook. It explains nothing at all except in terms of something larger, which is even more strongly in need of an explanation.
Dennett’s alternative to a skyhook is a crane. Natural selection is a superb crane. It starts from simple beginnings, which are by definition easy to understand, and it works up gradually to complex entities.
Another good example of extreme probability is a combination lock, as you would see in a bank. A bank robber could theoretically get lucky and hit upon the right combination by chance, but in practice, of course, combination locks are designed with enough improbability to make this tantamount to impossible.
But imagine a badly designed combination lock that gave out little hints progressively, the equivalent of “getting warmer, getting warmer” in a childhood game. Suppose that when each one of the dials on the combination lock approached the correct setting, the vault door opened a chink, and a little dribble of money comes out.
That’s what natural selection is about. It’s not a sudden all-or-nothing hitting of the jackpot. It’s gradually getting warmer toward the jackpot, and that is the key to the entire problem.
Richard Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
This essay is adapted from remarks delivered at the “Toward a New Enlightenment” conference in Amherst, N.Y., on Oct. 27-29. It is used with permission from the Center for Inquiry Transnational and the Council for Secular Humanism.
The designer. And don't tell me that doesn't make sense to science, since they buy into Quantum Physics just fine.
Or, on the other side of the argument, where did the stuff that formed the Universe come from?
Natural selection is a real solution.
Under natural selection - what does the selecting?
ping
Until the designer is objectively measured. the concept of a designer is solely a matter of faith and not science.
"And don't tell me that doesn't make sense to science, since they buy into Quantum Physics just fine."
If you're outside of time, there is no "before."
Under natural selection, who or what selects what is considered warmer and what is considered colder? And who or what decides what comprises the jackpot?
Exactly!! Evolution has the same problem. Where did the first subatomic particle of "cosmic soup" come from and the force that "souped" it up. Idiotic. Even laws of physics defy evolution.
"Under natural selection - what does the selecting?"
Basically complex physics and chemical reactions.
One problem with natural selection being the answer. If you go back far enough and ask the question from where did that originate, you get one of two answers. 1) The uncaused cause or 2) We don't know, but as scientist we will investigate until we get the answer. In other words, they don't have to answer the questions, just put your faith in them. Kind of like all liberal answers: How much money is enough for education. Whatever it takes to educate. How much is that. We'll know when it's enough. How much money to end poverty. Whatever it takes. We'll know when it's enough. Just trust us. Put you faith in man, rather than some God you can't prove. If you ask the wrong questions, you will always get the wrong answers.
Who designed the designer? It start with "G", but ya can't say it cuz ya get kicked out of the schools.
Since we do not know, I guess the Dover judge needs to declare Big Bang cosmology a fraud and make it unlawful to discuss it.,
And Pat Robertson.
mental masturbation
Basically complex physics. Just the sort of double-speak and contradiction-in-terms one must resort to to promote the concept of Unintelligent Happenstance.
Nonononono, don't.
Who designed God?
You say this as if it were yet another outrage of reason. Except that no one, ever, anywhere, has argued that the laws of physics have evolved, in a process like natural selection.
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