Everything is designed

Hi, I'm not sure what kind of fallacy is being made in the following scenario.

A theist tells me that the wonderful complexity of life must come from an intelligent designer just as we assume that cars, chairs, even simple things like cups don't happen by accident but are designed. - obviously watchmaker analogy

To which i reply that there are many natural occurrences such as diamonds, rock formations, natural irrigation, thunder storms, etc that at first glance appear designed and are highly complex, but turn out not to be designed but purely the result of natural processes.

To which the theist replies that they are designed by God!

Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Meyers, Jerry Coyne and Daniel Dennett all have evidence-based responses to this sort of Appeal to Faith.

Dr. Bo defines the fallacy as an

Appeal to Faith

Description: This is an abandonment of reason in an argument and a call to faith, usually when reason clearly leads to disproving the conclusion of an argument. It is the assertion that one must have (the right kind of) faith in order to understand the argument.

Even arguments that heavily rely on reason that ultimately require faith, abandon reason.

Logical Form:

X is true.

If you have faith, you will see that.

Example #1:

Jimmie: Joseph Smith, the all American prophet, was the blond-haired, blue-eyed voice of God.

Hollie: What is your evidence for that?

Jimmie: I don't need evidence—I only need faith.

Explanation: There are some things, some believe, that are beyond reason and logic. Fair enough, but the moment we accept this, absent of any objective method of telling what is beyond reason and why anything goes, anything can be explained away without having to explain anything.

A theist tells me that the wonderful complexity of life must come from an intelligent designer just as we assume that cars, chairs, even simple things like cups don't happen by accident but are designed. - obviously watchmaker analogy

This kind of reasoning commits an extended analogy<> and a weak analogy<> fallacy, which is defined as the following: "When an analogy is used to prove or disprove an argument, but the analogy is too dissimilar to be effective, that is, it is unlike the argument more than it is like the argument."
This is what we find in the analogy you have provided, as a similarity is drawn between the complex living organisms and inanimate objects like cars, chairs and cups in that they both look designed, but there are far more things dissimilar between them than there are similar things, which renders the analogy weak. The dissimilar things include:
1. Organisms are alive, while cars, chairs, and cups are not.
2. Living organisms can produce copies of themselves, which cars, chairs, and cups can't.
3. Through reproduction, living organisms mutate and change incrementally throughout generations, and through natural selection, have been demonstrated to result in diverse, wonderfully complex organisms, which is not the case with cars, chairs, and cups.
4. We can see and document and thoroughly witness cars, chairs, and cups being manufactured by people, but we can't watch organisms get designed from scratch by a designer to conclude they were designed.

To which the theist replies that they are designed by God!

Here, even if we give the theist a pass on his/her weak analogy and accept that organisms and natural phenomena are designed just like cars and chairs, they'd still be committing a non sequitur<>, because all that can be concluded from the analogy is that living organisms and natural phenomena have an intelligent designer, but to conclude that the designer is specifically God (an immaterial, supernatural, omnipotent being who authored one very specific book) is simply not warranted. It does not follow and the argument doesn't give enough support for it.

The Theist requires a Teleological Universe; the Scientist requires a Mechanistic Universe. The Theist's Logic should be applicable to a Teleological Universe, but not a Mechanistic Universe.

In this situation, it seems that the Theist is attempting to envelop a Mechanistic Universe within the logic of a Teleological Universe. I consider the "logical" use of "Why?" versus "How? explanations for phenomena as mutually exclusive.

Fallacy wise, I agree with Abdulazeez. I don't know if the theist actually said "Everything is designed," but clearly, that would imply that God was also designed, which would be a major problem for the theist. I am guessing this was just the title of the post by Jeremy.

Hi, Jeremy!

The theist in your post has room to improve on his presentation of the design argument. He ought to make the nature of his argument clear (because there is more than one variation of design argument) and explicitly express all of the premises of his argument. In its unelaborated form, the argument he presents is more difficult to evaluate than what some of the responses given to it in this discussion would have it seem. I would like to describe two variations of design argument that I think can be drawn from the theist’s language and explain some of the implications that each variation has for how to evaluate them (this will include my reflections on your own reply to the theist, Jeremy.)

To begin, it is not obvious to me that this theist‘s design argument operates upon an analogy. A premise reporting on the complexity of organic life may feature in a design argument that draws no analogous connection between organic life and human artifacts for the purposes of supporting the conclusion. For instance, the chances of life emerging only by natural processes may be reasoned to be highly improbable on an atheistic hypothesis, but probable on a theistic hypothesis. The design argument of this particular variety is sometimes called the argument from improbability. Certain scientists, such as Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, have argued that the probability of life emerging on earth by natural processes is infantismal—specifically, one in 10 to the 40,000th power. Famously, this astonishingly minuscule likelihood was compared by Hoyle to the chances of a tornado raging through a scrapyard and leaving behind an assembled and fully functional Boeing 747. It must be emphasized that in laying out this comparison Hoyle does not describe the Boeing 747 as the subject of an analogy for the purposes of supporting the conclusion of his research. Instead, the description of a tornado leaving behind a jumbo jet serves as an illustration to help communicate the notion of just how irrational he thinks it is for one to believe that life emerged under solely naturalistic circumstances when intelligent design is both an open alternative and one under which the emergence of life is far more probable than it otherwise would be. It can be reasonably thought that the theist in your question is similarly arguing that the staggering complexity of life makes its emergence extremely improbable in the absence of a guiding mind; and he illustrates this by inviting us to reflect on our intuitive understanding that the odds of a far less complex object (a car, for instance) developing by natural processes alone are extraordinarily small, but are more probable if there is an intelligent mind to design it.

That is to say, we can understand the theist’s argument as an improbability argument, rather than as an analogical argument; in the former case, the items listed (cars, chairs, etc.) should be viewed as having an illustrative purpose without intending to provide actual support for the conclusion. If it is right that the theist is arguing not by analogy but from improbability, and that the listed items (cars, chairs, and cups) have an illustrative function only, then classifying this argument as a “watchmaker analogy”—and criticizing the argument for its merits as an analogy—is a mistake owing to a misanalysis of the argument. You say that it is obviously a watchmaker analogy, but my contention is that your analysis could have been incorrect and that the language used in your post by the theist does not make it obvious to the rest of us that your analysis was really correct. The ambiguity of the theist’s language could allow one to just as well draw out an argument from improbability, and this would altogether sidestep the first round of objections raised by Abdulazeez (that Dr. Bennett also agrees with). Maybe, Jeremy, you can reconvene with the theist who told you the argument and then confirm that he intended to present an argument by analogy or whether he intended to defend some other form of the design argument, such as the argument from improbability.

Nonetheless, in the case that the theist is arguing with an analogy, it would still be difficult to say with accuracy or precision where the mistake in reasoning, if any, is occurring. This is because, as mentioned in my opening paragraph, the theist in your post is inexplicit about what the premises of his argument are (let alone the nature of his argument). It is typically important to the success of the argument by analogy that the kind of complexity embodied by organic life has a very particular and special resemblance to the kind of intricacies embodied by certain human artifacts. Yet, the theist does not give premises that contain a detailed report of the purported similarities that organic life has to humanly manufactured items. Instead, the purported similarities between the two kinds of things are left obscurely (and implicitly) summarized to us in the word “complexity”. Without the theist making all of his argument’s premises explicit and without him explaining the relevant specific similarities between life and human artifacts, we are left with an incomplete picture of his argument and so, we cannot proceed into giving an evaluation of it, let alone a fair one. We could attempt to do the theist the favor of adding tacit statements by researching the premises that are commonly found in the design argument by analogy and putting those in his mouth, but this would still presume that the argument is by analogy when it may be from improbability.

Your reply to the argument also gives us something to chew on, Jeremy. In fact, I find it odd that the other Answers on this page only evaluate the theist’s argument and make no evaluation whatsoever, or even mention, of your counterargument, which I think ought to play a role in our discussion. In rebuttal to the design argument, you state that there are some environmental and geological features of the planet that are highly complex and may initially appear marked by designed, but really they are formed by nothing above and beyond the forces of nature. Your rebuttal doesn’t object to any of the premises of the theist’s allegedly analogical design argument (never-mind that his premises are not all explicit, anyways)—you have not attacked his claim that organic life is complex, nor his claim that we would not assume that cars (chairs, etc.) developed by accident, nor have you added tacit statements to his argument and objected to those. You seem to leave those premises alone and instead formulate your response as a series of counterexamples to the theist’s argument; your objection seems focused on showing why these premises, even if true, do not sufficiently support the conclusion that there is probably an intelligent designer of life.

Showing that an inductive argument is weak is not always as simple as proving that a deductive argument is invalid. But to begin the effort of dismissing the design argument, one must keep in mind that the goal of the design argument is that the truthfulness of the premises make it probable that there is an intelligent designer of life (even if it fails to meet this goal, the truthfulness of the premises may at least increase the probability that there is an intelligent designer). So, the way I see it, it is necessary that you expound on your counterexamples by showing why the features and phenomena that you name (diamonds, natural irrigation, storms, etc) exist in such a way that the combined premises of the design argument, if true, would not make it probable that there is an intelligent designer of life.

Now, I am open to an alternative understanding of your objection, but I think that your strategy for blocking the premises of the design argument from supporting the conclusion was to draw a stalemate against the theist’s argument. You reason that since certain complex things having to do with the earth are completely explained by naturalistic processes, even when they initially appear designed, it follows that the complexity of a life, coupled with the initial appearance of design, does not alone make it probable that there is a designer to explain life—the reasons that the theist gives for believing in the intelligent designer do not conclusively point one way or another regarding the existence of a designer. Now, there is a vital element missing from the layout of your supposed counterexamples (rock layers, storms, etc.): you do not finish the vital step of explaining why these things are relevant examples for weakening the design argument.

You see, the success of your objection does itself depend on the construction of a relevant comparison. The complexity of a rock layer (or natural irrigation, or a thunder storm, etc.) must be similar to the complexity of organic life in a pertinent way, in order to support your counterargument. If the complexities of life and thunderstorms are of two significantly different kinds, then the latter’s lack of need of an intelligent designer loses strength as a reason for doubting the former’s need of an intelligent designer. Typically, the analogical design argument claims something to the effect that the complexity of organic life resembles a teleological system. This claim may be one of the tacit statements in the argument presented by the theist in question. With this in mind, your objection would have considerable force if it verified, for instance, that some TELEOLOGICALLY complex systems are the result only of naturalistic processes. It is not clear to me why a diamond, a rock formation, natural irrigation and thunder storms should be thought of as teleological systems and why, thusly, their purely naturalistic origin should shed serious doubt on the probability of organic life being intelligently designed. The comparison that I think you implicitly draw between organic life and planetary features/phenomena does not seem like a pertinent comparison for making your counter examples good ones—the complexity within organisms that the design argument typically describes is of a significantly different kind of complexity than that of a rock layer. For this reason, I think that your 'objection by counterexamples' is weak when it argues that the complexity of the kind embodied by planetary features and phenomena is known to be the result of purely natural processes, and that therefore the complexity of the kind embodied by organic life is either probably the result of natural processes or does not make it probable (when combined with other premises) that there is an intelligent designer.

Again, it would have been easier to assemble good counterexamples if the theist had made all of his argument's premises explicit and had given a detailed explanation of the analogy between life and human artifacts. In the case that the analogy centers around teleological complexity, your counterexamples will need to be revised. I want to discuss the theist’s final remark, as well, but I’ll wait on this, for the moment.

In sum, the theist has not offered a good formulation of the design argument; he must be more explicit about the nature and premises of his argument. However, the ambiguity of his presentation allows for more than one form of design argument to be sensibly reconstructed from what he says: for example, his argument can be reasonably viewed either as an argument by analogy or an argument from improbability (or maybe another kind). The advantage of this ambiguity, then, is that there is room for the theist to circumvent some of the criticisms so far leveled by certain members of this website. If the theist is arguing from improbability, then those on this forum who assessed the argument for its merits as an analogical argument, and those who agreed with this assessment, are misguided and the “results” of the assessment are able to be ignored. If the theist is arguing by analogy, then the assessments should be considered and I think that you, Jeremy, can improve the strength of your own objection to the theist. Your counterexamples rest on an implicit comparison and it will be important to explain why the complexity of rocks and thunder storms is similar to the complexity of organic life in a way that is relevant to supporting the claim that if the former things are not the product of intelligent design, then the latter is not probably (or probably not) the product of intelligent design, either. Or perhaps you will find that an altogether different approach will be more useful as an attack on the argument. I hope that this has been a help.


Thank you, Jeremy.


From, Kaiden

In the example you've given, absent other information, there is no fallacy. Both you and theist are engaged in an argument, neither of which has committed a fallacy (formal or informal). Both of you would have to expound upon your statements to figure out if there are fallacious underpinnings.

Outside of the example, your question has an unwarranted assumption, in that you're assuming there's a fallacy (presumably by the theist) when there isn't: "I'm not sure what kind of fallacy is being made in the following scenario". Perhaps you meant to say "if any", but it came across as you being sure there was one, but not certain what specifically it was.

Finally, the title itself "Everything is designed" is ambiguous. Is that your summary of the theist's argument? Or was that what the theist actually said? One would assume that the theist is not making the the claim that God is designed. As your discussion continues, you'll likely cross that road and it will have to be settled axiomatically.