Q&A: The Watchmaker Argument
The Watchmaker Argument
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
I apologize for asking (I’m sure the answers appear on the site dozens of times already).
So only if you’re available, I’d be glad to get a short response to a guy I respect who claims to dismantle the watchmaker argument in the following short video that came out two hours ago: https://youtube.com/shorts/2yJYEDQr7nE?si=qE2tdCgUXIq0KrGU
Answer
There are quite a few flaws here. He also attacks straw men, which are easy for him to attack. He also mixes up the argument from complexity with the argument from design, and more.
Briefly, I’d say that if the argument were based on an analogy to a watch, then some of his refutations might perhaps have a point. But as I understand it, the watch is brought here only as an illustration of a more fundamental argument: a complex thing does not come into being spontaneously. And it makes no difference whether it is natural or artificial. This is a statistical matter (similar to the second law of thermodynamics, which certainly does not deal only with artificial objects). The only difference between an artificial object and a natural one is that natural processes are explained by the laws of nature. But the statistical consideration leads to the question of who is responsible for these being the laws of nature, since these are special laws within whose framework very complex creatures come into being spontaneously. There is room here for further refinements, but at the level of resolution of this shallow video, this is enough.
Discussion on Answer
“The question is which of them is *more probable* and more plausible given our background data.”
Is there an explicit argument for why it is more probable and more plausible, given our background data, that the universe, life, or any other natural phenomenon you choose was created by design?
@Avivi — There is. Whether it is convincing or not, each person will have to decide for himself. If you have time (the PDF I’m attaching is 80 pages), take a look at Robin Collins’s article published in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology:
The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe
יש ללחוץ כדי לגשת אל final-blackwell-fine-tuning-proof-1-16-09-copy1.pdf
My main point is that the above video is a joke, and the “refutations” in it do not even begin to scratch the surface of serious arguments.
The principle of Occam’s razor puts an end to this discussion in a second.
I’m too lazy to spell out this simple proof.
His video is a good example of a sad phenomenon: the frequent use of “logical fallacies” to cover for bad arguments.
(1) “Just because you can’t think of something complex without a designer doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. That’s an argument from ignorance” — “the watchmaker argument” and similar arguments are abductive arguments — inference to the best explanation. The claim is not that we “can’t think of something.” I can think of all sorts of things. The question is which of them is *more probable* and more plausible given our background data.
(2) “Just because every complex thing you can think of is the product of design doesn’t mean every complex thing is the product of design. That’s a hasty generalization” — no serious philosopher claims such a thing. The argument, in its stronger version, is not inductive in that simplistic way but abductive. If the creator of the video wants to discuss it, he should discuss that version. I’ll give you an analogous argument: I see smoke coming out of the forest -> the best explanation is a fire (maybe I’m wrong, maybe there’s a smoke machine there; but my explanation is the most plausible one).
(3) “The watch is artificial; the human being is natural” — if by “natural” he means “it has no designer,” then that is simply begging the question. Our argument seeks to show that a human being is not “natural” in that sense. And nobody is asking “can you imagine it?” — that is not the argument at all.
In short: the argument is abductive — from the observation that something (the universe, a human being, whatever it may be) “looks designed,” to the hypothesis that it is indeed the product of design. To deal with it, it is not enough to babble about logical fallacies. There are two substantive ways to criticize it:
(1) Challenge the description or the explanation: show that the appearance of “design” is an illusion / a mistaken description, or that the hypothesis “there is a designer” is a bad explanation.
(2) Offer an alternative explanation that accounts for the same facts to a similar degree (and preferably a better one).