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007 - The Argument from Design · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: The Argument from Design Kant called the argument from design
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  Speaker 1: quote the oldest, the clearest, and the most adapted to
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  Speaker 1: the ordinary human reason, of all the arguments advanced on
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  Speaker 1: behalf of the belief in god. Kant's dictum it will
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  Speaker 1: be observed omits all opinion as to its quality, and
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  Speaker 1: his own criticism of it left it a sorry wreck.
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  Speaker 1: John Stuart Mill treated it far more respectfully, and commenced
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  Speaker 1: his examination of it with the flattering introduction quote, we
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  Speaker 1: now at last reach an argument of a really scientific
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  Speaker 1: character unquote, And although he did not find the argument convincing,
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  Speaker 1: gave it a most respectful dismissal. The purpose of the
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  Speaker 1: present chapter is to show that the argument from design
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  Speaker 1: in the nest is in the last degree unscientific, that
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  Speaker 1: the analogy it seeks to establish is a false one,
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  Speaker 1: that it is completely and hopelessly irrelevant to the point
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  Speaker 1: at issue, and that one might grant nearly all it
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  Speaker 1: asks for, and even then show that it does not
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  Speaker 1: prove what it sets out to prove. That such an
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  Speaker 1: argument should have and for so long exerted so much
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  Speaker 1: influence over the human mind, gives one anything but a
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  Speaker 1: flattering impression of the power of reason in human affairs. True,
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  Speaker 1: it is that of late years the argument from design
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  Speaker 1: has felt the influence of the growth of the idea
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  Speaker 1: of evolution, and the champions of theism have used it
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  Speaker 1: with much greater caution and under an obvious sense that
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  Speaker 1: it no longer wielded its old authority. The fact that
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  Speaker 1: this is so forms a commentary on the statement so
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  Speaker 1: often made that man's craving for an ultimate cause leads
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  Speaker 1: to the belief in God, the truth being that man,
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  Speaker 1: the average man, only seeks for an expert explanation of
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  Speaker 1: immediate happenings. Once the immediate thing before him is explained,
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  Speaker 1: his curiosity is allayed. The average man lives mentally from
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  Speaker 1: hand to mouth, and troubles as little about ultimate explanations
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  Speaker 1: as he does about the exhaustion of the coal supply.
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  Speaker 1: It is a point of some significance that the perception
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  Speaker 1: of design in nature, as with the belief in deity,
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  Speaker 1: is if one may use the expression pre scientific in
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  Speaker 1: point of origin. What I mean by that is that
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  Speaker 1: it originates at a time when no other explanation of
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  Speaker 1: the origin of natural adaptations existed, It did not establish
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  Speaker 1: itself as one of several rival explanations, and in virtue
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  Speaker 1: of its own strength, it was established simply because no
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  Speaker 1: other explanation was at the time conceivable, and so soon
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  Speaker 1: as another explanation, such as that of natural selection, was
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  Speaker 1: placed before the world, the origin of adaptations as a
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  Speaker 1: product of an extra natural designing intelligence became, to most
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  Speaker 1: educated minds simply impossible. The perception of design in nature was,
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  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, no more than a special
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  Speaker 1: illustration of the animistic frame of mind, which reads vitality
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  Speaker 1: into all natural happenings. It is impossible to find in
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  Speaker 1: the statement that particular adaptations in nature are designed anything
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  Speaker 1: more scientific than one confined in the belief that rain
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  Speaker 1: is the product of a heavenly rain cow, or that
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  Speaker 1: flashes of lightning are spears thrown by competing heavenly warriors.
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  Speaker 1: It is the language only that differs in the two cases.
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  Speaker 1: The frame of mind indicated in the two cases are identical.
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  Speaker 1: The attractiveness of the argument from design lies in its
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  Speaker 1: nearness to hand and in its appeal to facts, combined
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  Speaker 1: with the impossibility of verification. That nature is full of
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  Speaker 1: strange and curious examples of adaptation is clear to all,
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  Speaker 1: although the significance of these adaptations are by no means
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  Speaker 1: so clear. Moreover, a very casual study of these cases
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  Speaker 1: show that they are better calculated to dazzle than to convince.
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  Speaker 1: The presentation of a number of more or less elaborate
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  Speaker 1: facts of adaptation, followed with the remark that we are
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  Speaker 1: unable to see how such cases could have been brought
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  Speaker 1: about in the absence of a designing intelligence, is at
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  Speaker 1: best an appeal to human weakness and ignorance. The reverse
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  Speaker 1: of such a position is that if we had complete
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the causes at work, the assumption of design
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  Speaker 1: might be found to be quite unnecessary. Quote we cannot
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  Speaker 1: see unquote is only the equivalent of we do not know,
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  Speaker 1: and that is a shockingly bad basis on which to
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  Speaker 1: build an argument. When therefore an eminent electrician like Professor
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  Speaker 1: Fleming says, quote we have overwhelming proof that in the
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  Speaker 1: manufacture of the infinite number of substances made in nature's laboratory,
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  Speaker 1: there must be at all stages some directivity risk. Can
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  Speaker 1: only mean that Professor Fleming cannot see the way in
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  Speaker 1: which these substances are made. It does not mean that
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  Speaker 1: he sees how they are made. And in saying this
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  Speaker 1: he is in no better position than was Kepler, who,
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  Speaker 1: after describing the true laws of planetary motion, when he
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  Speaker 1: came to the question of why the planets should describe
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  Speaker 1: these motions, fell back on the theory of quote angelic
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  Speaker 1: intelligences as the cause. The true explanation came with the
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  Speaker 1: physics of Galileo and Newton, and with that farewell to
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  Speaker 1: the angelic directivity. The only reason for Kepler's angels was
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  Speaker 1: his ignorance of the causes of planetary motion. The only
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  Speaker 1: reason why Professor Fleming says that the atoms quote have
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  Speaker 1: to be guided into certain positions to build up the
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  Speaker 1: complex molecules is that he is unable to isolate this
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  Speaker 1: assumed directive force and to show it in operation. He
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  Speaker 1: is like a modern Kepler, faced with something the cause
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  Speaker 1: of which he doesn't know, and lugging in God to
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  Speaker 1: save further trouble. It is an assumption of knowledge where
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  Speaker 1: no knowledge exists. God is always what Spinoza called it,
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  Speaker 1: the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown, God is
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  Speaker 1: brought forward. When causes are known, God retires into the background.
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  Speaker 1: God is not an explanation, It is a narcotic The
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  Speaker 1: argument from design rests upon the existence in nature of adaptations,
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  Speaker 1: either general or special, and quite obviously, the value of
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  Speaker 1: evidence derived from adaptations will be determined by the existence
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  Speaker 1: of non adaptations. If that is, it can be shown
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  Speaker 1: that a certain assemblance of forces produce adaptation, while in
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  Speaker 1: another instance they failed to produce it. It would then be
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  Speaker 1: logical to argue that the difference was due to the
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  Speaker 1: directive power being withdrawn in the latter case. But that,
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  Speaker 1: as we know, is never the case. What we see
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  Speaker 1: is always the same conditions producing the same effects. We
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  Speaker 1: are never able to say, quote, here are natural forces
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  Speaker 1: working minus a directing intelligence, and here is an assemblage
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  Speaker 1: of the same forces working plus the addition of a
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  Speaker 1: directing intelligence. If we could do that, we should be
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  Speaker 1: able to attribute the difference to the new factor. But
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  Speaker 1: this we are never able to do. And it is
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  Speaker 1: an elementary principle of scientific method that before we can
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  Speaker 1: assert the existence of a distinct force or factor, the
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  Speaker 1: possibility of isolation must be shown. Adaptation can then only
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  Speaker 1: be demonstrated by non adaptation and non adaptation in nature
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  Speaker 1: simply does not exist except in relation to an ideal
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  Speaker 1: end created by ourselves. Surprising as this may appear to some,
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  Speaker 1: examination shows it to be no more than a truism.
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  Speaker 1: And that, granted, the whole strength of the argument from
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  Speaker 1: at ours, whether in the inorganic or the organic world, disappears.
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  Speaker 1: To see the matter more clearly, let us drop for
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  Speaker 1: a time the word adaptation and substitute the word process,
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  Speaker 1: for that, after all, is what nature presents us with.
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  Speaker 1: We see processes, and we see results. It is because
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  Speaker 1: we create an end for these processes that we class
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  Speaker 1: them as well or ill adapted. To achieve it, we
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  Speaker 1: make a gun and say it is ill or well made,
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  Speaker 1: as it shoots well or ill. But whether it carries
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  Speaker 1: straight or not, the relation of the shooting to the
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  Speaker 1: construction of the gun remains the same. Judging the gun
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  Speaker 1: merely from its construction, the product answers completely to the
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  Speaker 1: combination of its parts. Constructed in one way, the gun
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  Speaker 1: cannot but shoot straight. Constructed in another way, the gun
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  Speaker 1: cannot but shoot crookedly. And the only reason we have
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  Speaker 1: for calling one good and the other bad is that
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  Speaker 1: we desire a particular result, but the goodness or badness
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the thing itself. Its adaptation
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  Speaker 1: to the end produced is as perfect in the one
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  Speaker 1: case as in the other. It could produce no other
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  Speaker 1: result than the one that actually emerges without an alteration
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  Speaker 1: in the means employed. A thing is what it is
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  Speaker 1: because it is the combination of all the forces that
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  Speaker 1: produce it. And to ask us to marvel at the
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  Speaker 1: result of a process when the one is the product
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  Speaker 1: of the other is like asking us to express our
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  Speaker 1: surprise that twice two equal four twice two equal four
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  Speaker 1: because four is the sum of the factors, and no
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  Speaker 1: one dreams of praising God because they don't sometimes make
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  Speaker 1: four and a half. The argument from adaptations in nature is,
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  Speaker 1: when examined, just about as impressive as the reasoning of
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  Speaker 1: the curate who saw the hand of providence in the
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  Speaker 1: fact that death came at the end of life instead
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  Speaker 1: of in the middle of it. Adaptation is not then
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  Speaker 1: a singular fact in nature, but a universal It is
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  Speaker 1: everywhere in the case of death as in that of life.
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  Speaker 1: It is the same in the case of a child
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  Speaker 1: born a marvel of health and beauty, as in that
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  Speaker 1: of one born deformed and diseased. There is nothing else
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  Speaker 1: but adaptations of means to ends in nature, however displeasing
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  Speaker 1: some of them may be to us. The harmony which
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  Speaker 1: the theist perceives in nature is not the expression of plan.
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  Speaker 1: It is the inevitable outcome of the properties of existence
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  Speaker 1: given matter and force, and it requires no quote directive
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  Speaker 1: intelligence unquote to produce the existing order. It would indeed
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  Speaker 1: require a God to prevent its occurrence. It is the
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  Speaker 1: same if we take the case of animal life alone.
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  Speaker 1: To say that animal life is adapted to its environment
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  Speaker 1: and to say that animal life exists is to say
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  Speaker 1: the same thing in two ways. Whether animal forms are
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  Speaker 1: fashioned by divine intelligence or not, the fact of adaptation
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  Speaker 1: remains or adaptations. It is the essential condition of existence.
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  Speaker 1: And as adaptation is the condition of existence, it follows
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  Speaker 1: that an animal's feelings, structure, and functions will be developed
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  Speaker 1: in accordance with the nature of the environment. If the
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  Speaker 1: conditions of existence were different from what they are, animal
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  Speaker 1: life would show corresponding modifications. But all the same, we
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  Speaker 1: should observe the same correspondence between animal life and its surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: Here again, we have a fact transformed without the slightest
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  Speaker 1: warranty into a purpose. Now, if the theist could prove that,
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  Speaker 1: out of a number of equally possible lines of development,
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  Speaker 1: living being show one fixed form, and that against the
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  Speaker 1: compulsion of environmental forces, he would do something to prove
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  Speaker 1: the probability of some sort of guidance. But that we
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  Speaker 1: know cannot be done. The forms of life are infinite
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  Speaker 1: in number, They vary within all possible limits, and always
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  Speaker 1: in terms of environmental conditions. In brief, what is said
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  Speaker 1: to occur with God can be shown to be inevitable
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  Speaker 1: without him. God in nature is a holy, gratuitous hypothesis.
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  Speaker 1: Later it will be seen that the whole basis of
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  Speaker 1: the argument from design is fallacious, that it proceeds along
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  Speaker 1: altogether wrong lines, and that the final objection to it
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  Speaker 1: is that it is completely irrelevant to the point at issue.
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  Speaker 1: For the moment, however, we proceed with a criticism of
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  Speaker 1: the argument. As usually stated, It must be borne in
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  Speaker 1: mind that what the theist desires to reach is a creator.
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  Speaker 1: But it is obvious that this plea can never give
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  Speaker 1: us more than a mere designer working on materials that
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  Speaker 1: already exist. Of necessity, design implies to things difficulties to
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  Speaker 1: be overcome, and skill or wisdom in overcoming them. Design
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  Speaker 1: is an understandable thing in connection with man, because man
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  Speaker 1: is always occupied in overcoming the resistance of force that
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  Speaker 1: exist quite independently of him, and which operate without reference
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  Speaker 1: to his needs or desires. But it would be absurd
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  Speaker 1: to assume design on the part of one from whom
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  Speaker 1: difficulties had no existence, or on the part of one
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  Speaker 1: who himself created the forces that had to be overcome
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  Speaker 1: and endowed them with all the properties which made the
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  Speaker 1: work of design necessary. Granting the relevance of the data
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  Speaker 1: upon which the belief in design rests, one could only assume,
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  Speaker 1: with mill that quote, the author of the cosmos worked
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  Speaker 1: under limitations, that he was obliged to adapt himself to
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  Speaker 1: conditions independent of his will, and to attain his ends
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  Speaker 1: by such arrangements as these conditions admitted of in the
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  Speaker 1: next place. The argument for design is an argument from analogy,
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  Speaker 1: and an analogy can, by its very nature, never give
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  Speaker 1: a complete demonstration. It can never offer more than a
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  Speaker 1: probability more or less convincing as the analogy is more
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  Speaker 1: or less complete. But in the case under consideration, the
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  Speaker 1: analogy is considerably less rather than more. Paley's classical illustration,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: taken almost verbatim from Malabranch, but as old otherwise as
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the days of Greek philosophy, where a statue took its place,
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  Speaker 1: was that of a watch, and the conclusion was drawn
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  Speaker 1: that as the parts of a watch bear obvious marks
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  Speaker 1: of having been made with a view to a particular end,
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  Speaker 1: so the animal structure and the universe as a whole
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  Speaker 1: bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that of late years the Palean form of the argument
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  Speaker 1: has been disavowed by most scholarly advocates of theism, But
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: as they immediately proceed to make use of arguments that
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  Speaker 1: are substantially identical with it, the repudiation does not seem
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  Speaker 1: of great consequence. It reminds one of a government that
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  Speaker 1: is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
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  Speaker 1: rep pudiate one of its officials, and, having removed him
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: from the office in which the misdemeanor was committed, immediately
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: appoints him to one of an increased dignity and with
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: a larger salary. Thus we have Professor Fiske saying that
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  Speaker 1: quote Paley, simile of a watch is no longer applicable
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  Speaker 1: to such a world as this unquote idea of God
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  Speaker 1: page one thirty one, and Professor Sorely telling us that
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  Speaker 1: quote the age of Paley and of the Bridgewater Treatises
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  Speaker 1: is past unquote moral values and the idea of God
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  Speaker 1: page three twenty seven, and mister Balfour repudiating Paley as
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: having been ruled out of court by Darwinism, humanism and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: theism chapter two. But as Fisk puts the flower in
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  Speaker 1: the place of the watch, Sorely the moral nature of
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  Speaker 1: man and Balfour the conditions of animal life, it is
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  Speaker 1: not quite clear why, if the Palean argument is invalid,
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  Speaker 1: the new form is any more intellectually ReSpectacle. The essence
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  Speaker 1: of the Palean argument was the assertion of a mind
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  Speaker 1: beyond phenomena, the workings of which could be seen in
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  Speaker 1: the forms of animal life. And whether we find that
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  Speaker 1: proof in the growth of a flower, or in the
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  Speaker 1: moral sense of man, or in the creation of natural
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  Speaker 1: conditions that impel the development of life along a certain road,
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  Speaker 1: the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs
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  Speaker 1: of God in the structure of the world, where otherwise,
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  Speaker 1: indeed are we to find it, and we are still
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  Speaker 1: developing on the supposed likeness between the works of human
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  Speaker 1: intelligence and natural products, and that analogy is wholly false.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: The argument from design aims at proving that all things
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  Speaker 1: are made by a creative intelligence. It is not merely
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  Speaker 1: animals that are designed. They are selected as no more
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  Speaker 1: than striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: theism be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the whole significance of the Palean argument from design is
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  Speaker 1: that behind the manufactured article, which we recognize as such,
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  Speaker 1: there are other articles or other things that are not manufactured.
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  Speaker 1: The traveler, says Paley, who comes across a watch, recognizes
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in the relation of its parts evidences of workmanship. But
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  Speaker 1: he does not see in the breaking of a wave
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  Speaker 1: on the shore, or in the piling up of sand
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  Speaker 1: in the desert, or in a pebble on the beach,
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  Speaker 1: the same tokens of workmanship. In the very act of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: attempting to prove that some things are made, the theist
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: is compelled to assume that all things are not made.
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  Speaker 1: He can only gain a victory at the price of
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  Speaker 1: confessing a defeat. But is there any real analogy between
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the works of man and the universe at large. Let
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  Speaker 1: us take a familiar example. It is we are told,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in a very familiar illustration, as absurd to imagine that
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  Speaker 1: the world as it exists is the work of unguided
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: natural forces, as it would be to believe that the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: rows of letters in a compositor's stick had of their
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: own contained force arranged themselves in intelligible sentences. The absurdity
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: of the last supposition is admitted. But why is that so?
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  Speaker 1: Obviously because we have the previous knowledge that the type
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: itself is a manufactured thing, and that its arrangement in
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: orderly sentences is the work of intelligent men. Thus, what
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: occurs when we come across a particular example of typesetting
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: is that we compare our present experience with other experiences
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  Speaker 1: and recognize it as belonging to a particular class. So
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: with the watch, the only reason we have for believing
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  Speaker 1: that a watch is made is that of our previous
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: knowledge that such things are made. The present judgment is
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: based upon past experience. But the case of animal forms,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and still more, the universe at large offers no such analogy.
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  Speaker 1: We know nothing of world makers, nor of animal makers.
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  Speaker 1: We have no previous experience to go upon, nor have
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  Speaker 1: we any things of a similar kind known to be
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  Speaker 1: made with which we can compare them. Instead of the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: points of resemblance between the two things being so numerous
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  Speaker 1: as to compel belief, they agree in one particular only
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  Speaker 1: that of existence. At most. All we are left with
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  Speaker 1: is the palpably absurd position that because man selects and
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  Speaker 1: adjust means to a given end, therefore any combination of
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: forces in nature which produce a certain result must also
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: be the expression of conscious intention some apparent force. Even
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to this flimsy conclusion might be given if nature could
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: be said to be working towards a given end. But
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: we do not find this. What we see is a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: multitude of forces at work, the action of each of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: which often results in the negation of the other. Put
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: on one side, the larger, but not the least pregnant,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: fact that animal life is only maintained in the face
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of numerous agencies, inorganic and organic, that are apparently bent
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  Speaker 1: upon its destruction. Put on one side also the fact
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  Speaker 1: that multitudes of parasites, as much the result of design
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  Speaker 1: as any other form of life, are constantly preying upon
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  Speaker 1: and destroying forms of life higher than themselves, and there
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: still remain myriads of facts altogether inconsistent and completely irreconcilable
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  Speaker 1: with the hypothesis of a creative intelligence shaping the course
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  Speaker 1: of affairs to a given end. To take only one
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  Speaker 1: illustration of this, what is to be said of the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: myriads of animals that are born into the world, only
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  Speaker 1: to perish before reaching an age at which they can
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  Speaker 1: play their part in the perpetuation of the species. Are
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: we to believe that the same deity who fashioned these
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: forms of life created at the same time a number
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of forces that were certain to destroy them. Clearly, we
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: are bound to assume either that this hypothetical being pursues
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a number of mutually destructive plans, or that there are
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: our number of designers at work and at war with
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: each other, or that none at all exist. If we
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: are to judge nature from the standpoint of human intelligence,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: then we must logically decide that it is full of waste,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: full of bungling, full of plans that come to nothing,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of ends that are never realized, of pain and misery
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that might have been avoided by the exercise of almost
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: ordinary intelligence. There are few animals concerning which a competent
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: anatomist or physiologist could not suggest some improvement in their
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: construction by which their functions might be more efficiently performed.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Nor does it seem quite impossible to have so adjusted
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: natural forces that the development of life might have been
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: accomplished without the present enormous waste of material. It is
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: almost stupid to ask, as did the late doctor Martineau,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: what right have we to judge the world from quote
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a purely humanistic point of view? Unquote, The whole argument
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: from design is based upon a humanistic point of view.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: The atheist is only calling the attention of the theist
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: to the consequences of his own argument. I leave for
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a later chapter the moral aspect of the design argument.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I am at present concerned with its purely logical presentation,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and the crowning charge here is not that it is inconclusive,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: not that it falls short as mill thought of a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: complete analogy. The decisive rejection of it is based upon
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is absolutely irrelevant. The argument has
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: no bearing on the issue. The evidence has no relation
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: to the case. What is the essence of the argument
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: from design? It is based upon certain adaptations that are
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: observed to exist. But adaptation is, as we have shown,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a universal quality of existence. It exists in every case,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and no more in one case than in another. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: when the theist says that because certain things work together, therefore
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: God arranged it, an apt query is, how do you know?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: One may even say, granting there is a God, how
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: do you know that what is was actually designed by him?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It is no use replying that the way things work
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: together prove design, For things always work together. They cannot
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: do otherwise. Any group of forces work together to produce
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: a given result. That is part of the universal fact
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of adaptation, which the theist holds up as though it
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: were a divine miracle instead of, as Malik says, a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: physical platitude. Let us take an illustration from every day life.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: A man tries his hand at building a bicycle. When
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: it is finished, the wheels are not true, the frame
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: is unsteady, the whole thing is ready to fall to pieces,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and is absolutely unwriteable. Is anyone warranted in declaring that
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: because the parts have all been brought together by me,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: therefore the resulting machine was an act of design? Clearly
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: not what I designed was a machine perfect after its kind.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: What appeared was the miserable structure that is before us.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, that machine, with all its imperfections,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: might have been designed by me. I might, for some purpose,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: deliberately have intended to make a machine that would not
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: carry a rider. And when would anyone be logically justified
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in saying, which of the two kinds of machines express
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: my design? Clearly? Only when he had a knowledge of
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: my intention. Apart from a knowledge of an intention preceding
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: an act, the inference of design is unwarrantable. Now, assuming
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the existence of a god and who stands in the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: same relation to the world that I do to the machine,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: how could anyone know that the world as it is
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: expresses design any more than did my homemade bicycle. In
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: this case, as in the former, what is needed to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: justify the assumption of design is a knowledge of intention.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: One must know what the assumed maker intended, and then
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: see how far the actual result realized it. Design, in short,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: although it may be expressed in a physical form, is
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not a physical thing but a psychic fact. You cannot
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: by examining physical processes and results reach design. You cannot
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: start with a material fact and reach intention. You must
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: begin with intention and compare it with the physical result.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Things may be as they are, whether design is involved
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: or not. It is only by a knowledge of intention
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: and a comparison of that with the fact before us
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that we can be certain of design. Proof of design
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: is not found in the capacity of certain clusters of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: circumstances or forces to realize a particular result, but in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a knowledge that they correspond with an intention which we
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: know to have existed before the result occurs. To barret
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: a logical belief in design in nature, three things are essential. First,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: one must assume that a god exists. Second, one must
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: take it for granted that one has a knowledge of
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the intention in the mind of the deity before the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: alleged designed thing is brought into existence. Finally, one must
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: be able to compare the result with the intention and
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of knowing the first
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: two things is apparent, and without the first two, the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: third is of no value whatever, For we have no
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: means of reaching the first except through the third, and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: until we get to the first we cannot make use
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: No examination of nature can lead back to God. Because
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: we lack the necessary starting point. All the volumes that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: have been written, and all the sermons that have been
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so much
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: waste of paper and breath. They prove nothing and can
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: prove nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: at the end. Their God is not something reached by
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: way of inference. It is something assumed at the very outset.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: What the theist does, at every step of his reasoning
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: is to read his own feelings and desires into nature.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: The design he talks so glibly about is in him,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: not outside of him. As well might a maggot in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a cheese argue that the world was designed for him
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: because the agreement between his structure and it are so
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: harmonious in relation to their surroundings. Man and the maggot
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: are in the same position, and in the economy of nature,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: man is of no more consequence than the maggot. There
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: is a more complex synthesis of forces here than there
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a more subtle exhibition of nature's infinite capacity for evolving
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: fresh forms of life. And that is all. It is
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: man himself who paints a distorted picture of himself on
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the surface of things, who reads his own passions and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: desires into nature, and then admires a marvel created by himself.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: To he who correctly visualizes the process of the evolution
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: of deity, the existence of God is hardly to day
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a question for discussion. There is a discussion only of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the history of the belief, and in that is found
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: its strongest condemnation. End of Chapter six