Random chance or design?

goddidit

I don't read too much JW material because it's pretty much all the same old rubbish and the constant lies and propaganda drives me nuts.

However, I've noticed a common theme with the 'argument from design' articles. You know, look at the eye, isn't it complex, evolution is wrong, blah blah. All the ones I've seen end in a question like "what do you think, is this a product of random chance or design?"

The propaganda in this question is obvious. Evolution is not random chance but that option is conspicuously absent.

Has anyone seen an 'argument from design' article that *doesn't* end with this question?

sabastious

You know, look at the eye, isn't it complex, evolution is wrong, blah blah.

Lol, I like the paraphrase there!

-Sab

sabastious

Has anyone seen an 'argument from design' article that *doesn't* end with this question?

Arguments from design are always really shallow from what I have seen, JW or not.

-Sab

eric356

All "analogy"-type arguments from design (like the WT uses) are flawed in this way. David Hume pretty well refuted this line of argument hundreds of years ago. Whenever you hear someone say "Doesn't a painting need a painter?" they are making the same mistake.

There is another, Bayesian formulation of the design argument, but the WT and (nearly all of) its readers are not sophisticated enough to understand it. You can read this (slightly technical) explanation of design arguments by Prof. Neil Manson here: http://home.olemiss.edu/~namanson/DA%20for%20Delight%20in%20Thinking.doc

bottleofwater

Well... the first thing that could be considered living would have to have been random chance...

Somewhere something had to have been random to begin with...

Big Bang... random?

SweetBabyCheezits

BOW, I believe you're thinking of abiogenesis, not evolution.

goddidit

"Well... the first thing that could be considered living would have to have been random chance..."

But that's a different argument. What does that have to do with the formation of the eye?

Following that logic just lumps everything into one bucket, looks for something science hasn't answered thoroughly yet, then proclaim "ahh haa, god must've done it then". Also known as 'god of the gaps'.

I suppose that's what the writers are going for, which is why JWs don't even know what evolution is.

AnneB

Maybe the larger question is "purpose or plan?"

eric356

No, even the first living thing would not be totally random. The molecules that were present have chemical affinities for one another and only bond in specific ways, so it's not like throwing parts together and making a car. If "random chance" means "without purpose or intention" than you have a philosophical, not a scientific question. You can always walk back one step and ask, "Well, was THAT random?" It doesn't really go anywhere. The only way forward is to propose a way of detecting purpose or intention in a way that is not a false analogy or logically flawed in some other way.

cyberjesus

You are really expecting a Complex argument from a creationist? Really? thats the best they can come up with.

Because when a creationist decides to really research in depth and honestly biology to create a knowledgeable argument... they become evolutionist. Thats inevitable

Random chance or design?

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