William Paley suggested an interesting thought experiment in the 18th century. For it’s time, I’m sure it was absolutely convincing to a populace encompassed by religious beliefs. Unfortunately for Paley, the analogy falls short in establishing a basis for reasonable belief in a god, despite it’s sound logical underpinnings. Elliot Sober, a contemporary philosopher, committed time to analyze Paley’s thoughts on intelligent design. Despite its theological foundation, Sober claims that Paley was actually quite scientific in his method of reasoning due to the lack of resources Paley had in his time.
There are several different arguments that apologists employ to assert the existence of god: the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, and the teleological argument are some. Paley is using his self-devised watchmaker analogy as a supplementary tool to aid the teleological argument by means of abductive reasoning. The teleological argument advocates for intelligent design. Paley is attempting to prove the existence of god through the logical means of intelligent design, and is using the watchmaker analogy to solidify his assertion. He begins with an abduction, the premises.
Observation: “The watch is intricate and well-suited to the task of timekeeping.”
Premise 1: “The watch is the product of intelligent design.”
Premise 2: “The watch is the product of random physical processes.”
Part of the reason why Paley’s argument may be so convincing is because he sets up his premises with that particular argumentative model, the method of abductive reasoning. For example, let’s say that George is wearing a red shirt and looks like he’s in a good mood while he walks on campus: whistling, walking triumphantly with a smile on his face. Now, If we want to figure out why this is the case, let’s establish two reasons for what may have been the cause of this observation.
Either: One, George had a nice breakfast, put on his red shirt and came to campus in a good mood; or two, George’s family is being held hostage, and the perpetrators are commanding him to put on a red shirt and go to school pretending he is in a good mood.
Not many people can pretend to be OK when their family is in danger, especially when given an arbitrary command like putting on a red shirt. It seems that the first reason, that George simply had a delicious breakfast, is more probabilistically the cause of his happiness in comparison to the other -- quite ridiculous -- hypothesis.
The watch has a specific aspect of intricacy, complex in its form of performance. It has dozens upon dozens of parts: made of miniscule gears, screws and all manner of bits and metal; interacting cohesively to achieve the desired function of time-telling. Even if the watch doesn’t maximally perform its function, you can still see that it’s intricate and complex. Paley is pointing out that you can tell just by looking at something whether or not it is the product of intelligent design. Since the watch is complex and intricate in it was designed for a purpose, the likelihood that it is the product of creation is greater than the likelihood that it is the result of a random physical process.
Paley is taking great care to define probability and likelihood differently. We usually combine the two terms when using them colloquially, but Paley insists on different technical definitions when we discuss them. Paley believes they work in a more inverse fashion. Paley would say the probability of George walking around in a good mood given he’s being forced to is not very probable; but, the probability that George is being forced to pretend being in a good mood given he’s walking around appearing to be in high spirits is, in fact, high. This is simply what Paley says is likelihood, the inverse probability of a premise and an observation.
Probability and likelihood should certainly be considered when discussing the plausibility of a claim, but what Paley fails to acknowledge are the factors outside of just the premises and observation. Paley continues after making his analogy -- similarly to the complexity and intricacy of the watch,: all manner of life, galaxy, organism, all entities that exist that are also complex -- also must have been designed by a creator, because it is more likely that such entities are the product of intelligent design, rather than random, physical processes. This is where Paley’s argument fails to be plausible.
Paley’s use of the word complex leaves much to the imagination. Paley claims the watch to be complex and intricate -- true -- but the use of the word complex in this moment is being used to compare the design of a device we know we created, to the apparent complexity we see in natural reality. It seems to be quite false in equivocating the apparent design of the two living and nonliving entities, simply using the word “complex.” Furthermore, Paley fails to consider any other options outside of creation and randomness. Paley only presents two options in his analogy, and further extends that to support the likelihood of intelligent design. We can mend the glaring hole here by simply bringing up evolution by means of natural selection.
Evolution, is not random like Paley is somewhat implying. The mutations that organisms undergo are random indeed, but it is the environment and whichever traits that are the most beneficial to the species that determine which gets passed down generation to generation. That process is not random utterly random, it is a very selective process, coined "natural selection" by Charles Darwin. The knowledge that we have acquired since Paley’s time has opened our eyes to new possibilities of the processes that govern our reality. Paley was indeed logically sound and scientific for his time, he did not have the theories and knowledge we have today.
