Lack of a Better Explanation Is Not Evidence for Your Explanation

I have touched upon this in previous posts (see God of the Gaps and The Argument from Design, for example), but time and again we see theists offering as evidence (or even as “proof”) for the existence of a god of some sort the supposed fact that science is unable to explain something. Whether it be the origin of the universe itself, the origin of life on this planet, the apparent complexity of life, the existence of consciousness, or what have you, the argument is made over and over (and over) again that this supposed inability of science to explain something somehow “moves the needle toward,” “provides evidence of” or even “proves the existence of” some sort of creator or designer.

Now, aside from the fact that most people who make these sorts of assertions are typically ignorant as regard to what science actually says about the supposedly inexplicable mysteries and are instead just parroting talking points they have heard from other theists, the crucial point that gets ignored by these people is that the simple fact (if true) that science cannot currently explain something, whether it be the origin of the universe, the origin of life on earth, how consciousness works, or what have you, does not, by itself, in any way whatsoever “point to the existence of a creator,” since we have absolutely zero independent evidence whatsoever that a “creator” actually exists or even could exist.

Claiming that our inability to explain something is somehow evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence is the very definition of the Argument from ignorance fallacy. For example:

• “I saw a shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye that science can’t explain — it must be a Ghost!” Wrong, unless you can first show that ghosts do, or at the very least possible can, exist. If you have no independent evidence for ghosts, there’s no way that ghosts can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• “I saw a light in the sky moving in a manner that science can’t explain — it must be an alien spacecraft from another star system!” Wrong again, unless you can first show that aliens from other star systems are, or at the very least possible could be, visiting are planet. If you have no independent evidence that aliens from other star systems are visiting us, then there’s no way that aliens can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• “Life originated on earth some 3.5 billion years ago and science can’t explain how it happened — it must be the result of God who created the universe!” Wrong, wrong, wrong, unless you can first show that such a creator does, or even possible could, exist in the first place. If you have no independent evidence for such a creator, there’s no way that a creator can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• Etc., etc., etc.

To reiterate, lack of an explanation cannot, by itself, be evidence for some other explanation if that other explanation has no other evidence to support it.

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On a related note, those who assert a god of some sort as the best explanation for something fail to understand that they are actually just offering a proposed answer to the problem and not actually an explanation. If “God did it,” how did He do it? Where did God come from? What is God made of, if not matter or energy? What does it actually mean to exist “outside of space and time”? What is it, exactly, about God that lets Him be the “Uncaused Cause” or “Prime Mover”?

No explanation. Just an assertion that leads to lots of additional unanswered questions.

Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

In most of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence. 

With such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God. The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way, does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.

Well, that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist), but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I claim to be able to know anything.

First of all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God, whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually supported by the history of modern Deism:

Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.

— Deism - Wikipedia

In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.

Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. Every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design), the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence.

There have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal attempts:

• God of the Gaps
• The Argument from Design
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Fine Tuned Universe

To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to incorrect conclusions.

Finally, even if the Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly exist. For more on this, see:

• Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless
• The Logical Impossibility of God

Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.

Atheism and Evolution

As evidenced by probably half of the questions posed to atheists in various public forums, many theists seem to think that atheism and the theory of evolution (or “Darwinism” for those who want to imply that evolution is just some sort of cult of personality that atheists belong to based solely on faith) are inextricably linked. Apparently, either all atheists believe in evolution as their religion instead of believing in God, or else a belief in evolution is what caused people to become atheists in the first place.

In this post I want to try and unpack this a bit. First, to explain what atheism really means and what the real relationship between atheism and evolution is. And second, to try and understand why theists keep insisting on a relationship that isn’t there.

First, the facts:

• Atheism is neither a belief system nor a community of like-minded individuals. There is no official atheist doctrine, there are no appointed atheist leaders, and there are no requirements to be an atheist other than simply not believing in God. Or gods.


• Yes, many atheists accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, but not all do and you can certainly be an atheist and not accept it. Just like you can be an atheist and think the world is flat or that aliens are regularly abducting people or that world leaders are being replaced with lizard people. Being an atheist is not the same as being a scientist or a rationalist or a materialist — it simply means that you do not believe in God. Or gods.


• And, while many atheists do accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, they do so for the same reason they accept, say, the theory of gravity. It’s a coherent, well-established theory that explains observed phenomena that has been supported by observable evidence and is backed up by numerous other fields of study. And, keep in mind, the “theory” of evolution is the current best explanation for the observed fact of evolution, just like the “theory” of gravity is the current best explanation for the the observed fact of gravity.


• It’s important to note that many theists also accept the theory of evolution for the same reasons many atheists do. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most theists accept it (although some still want to include God as the ultimate driving force behind it). The whole denial of evolution thing is really just limited to a very small number of Christians and Muslims world-wide who take their scriptures extremely literally and feel threatened by anything that could be seen to contradict those scriptures in any way (more on this later).


• Finally, while it’s certainly possible that some atheists lost their faith after learning the details of the theory of evolution (e.g., because their faith was based on an assumption that God was required as an explanation for why life on earth is the way it is), the vast majority of atheists were not looking for an explanation regarding the diversity of life on earth in the first place and didn’t choose to replace their religious beliefs with the “religion” of evolution. They simply lack a belief in God, whether because they were not raised to believe in God in the first place, because they were taught about God and found the notion to be rather silly, because they carefully considered the evidence for God’s existence and found it lacking, or any of a thousand other reasons.

Second, the theories:

• As stated above, many (if not most) theists in the world have no trouble accepting the fact that all species — including man — have evolved over long periods of time to reach their current state. They do not take their scriptures to be 100% literally true and are fine with that, focusing instead on the principles and promises made in those scriptures. A small subset of theists, however, acknowledge the hypocrisy involved in only believing in part of holy scriptures and therefore take an “all or nothing” approach. And, since the holy scriptures clearly state that God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over all other creatures on earth, acknowledging the fact of evolution (and accepting the validity of the current theory of evolution by natural selection) would be to deny the validity of the scriptures and the very foundation of their faith.


• These theists who take their scriptures literally know full well that most of what is written in those scriptures either cannot be verified by modern science or is directly contradicted by modern science, whether it be archaeology, geology, cosmology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, or what have you. But the whole concept of evolution in particular bothers them, since it undermines the whole idea of humans being uniquely special creatures in God’s eyes. OK, so maybe the world wasn’t really created 6000 years ago and maybe Noah didn’t really have an ark full of animals and maybe Moses didn’t really part the Red Sea, but we sure as heck didn’t come from monkeys!


• As a result, for those theists who take their scriptures literally and whose world view revolves around the notion that humans are special, it is only natural to assume that everybody else’s world view revolves around the fundamental question of how humanity got here and what is humanity’s relationship with the rest of the universe. Thus, since their worldview revolves around “God did it,” atheists must have a worldview that revolves around “God didn’t do it.” And, since a belief that “god didn’t do it” requires some alternate explanation, that explanation must be “Evolution”.


• So, in the eyes of these theists, it is incomprehensible that somebody could simply not believe in God (especially their God) without having an alternative belief system in place. And, since these theists acknowledge (whether explicitly or implicitly) that their belief system is fundamentally based on faith (belief without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary) and a reliance on the testimony (anecdotal stories) of others, they assume that atheist must also base their belief system on faith and testimony.


• This false equivalence leads to two separate phenomena. First, there is an ongoing attempt to argue that atheism is no better than theism since both “isms” are equally reliant on “faith” and “testimony” and therefore atheists have no right to feel at all superior to theists (and theists are perfectly justified for not feeling at all inferior). Second, there is an ongoing attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in the mistaken belief that doing so will somehow convince atheists that the explanation for how humanity got here must actually be “God did it” after all.

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For more of my musings on the subject of evolution and religion, please see the following:

Accepting Evolution
The “Theory” of Evolution
Evolution and Why Labels Don’t Matter
Another Evolution Analogy
 

For more discussion of what, exactly, it means to be an atheist, please see the following:

What is an Atheist?
No, Atheism Is Not a Belief System
Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

Which is Easier to Believe, that Life Was created by God or by Chance?

OK, this question gets asked a lot by theists in a lot of different ways. At its core, it’s simply a form of the classic “Argument from Design” that I addressed here:

The Argument from Design

But let’s look at this from a slightly different perspective, shall we?

Time and again, we see theists claiming that it is just too improbable or inconceivable to imagine that life could have originated “by chance” and therefore the most reasonable explanation is that it was created by the omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God described by the particular religion of which they happen to be a member.

Unfortunately for theists, the life we see on earth is far from what we would actually expect to see if it were actually created by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God, the way we would expect to see a finely crafted watch from a master watchmaker. Instead of perfection and fine craftsmanship, we see eyes that have blind spots, vestigial organs that occasionally burst open and kill us, cells that periodically start reproducing uncontrollably (cancer), a propensity for genetic flaws that cause all sorts of diseases such as Downs Syndrome and Tay-Sachs disease, a whole system that gradually breaks down as you get older, etc., etc., etc. So much for “fine craftsmanship,” eh?

And that’s just the human condition! Sure, it’s pretty amazing that plants and animals so closely depend on each other for survival and it’s so cool that bees are attracted to beautiful flowers who need the bees to spread their pollen. What a great design! How perfect! But then you also have the fact that there are parasites that have to lay their eggs in living hosts so their larva can hatch and eat their way out to survive. Not quite so beautiful and perfect. And then there’s the whole predator/pray relationship where some animals have to brutally kill other animals to survive (and the prey animals have to be brutally killed in order to not overpopulate and starve to death). And don’t forget that the rest of the animal kingdom also gets nasty diseases and suffer accidents and experience pain and agony. Oh, look — A Tasmanian Devil with face cancer:

[Where’s the perfect design in all of that?]

As a result, theists find themselves in the position of coming up with a whole bunch of additional justifications and rationalizations as to why life is so flawed when it was supposedly created by a perfect being, including one or more of the following:

• All of nature used to be perfect before Adam sinned and caused the entire universe to enter a fallen state. Which means, what, God is a sadistic bastard who set up a system whereby ALL OF NATURE would need to suffer for the sins of one person instead of just punishing that one person?
• God specifically gave us these flawed bodies to provide us with obstacles in life to be overcome or to test our faith or some other reason known only to him because he works in mysterious ways. And I guess all those cute, furry animals that die horrible agonizing deaths also have important lessons to learn as well, huh?
• It doesn’t matter whether life is flawed right now, since life is but a twinkling of an eye compared to all eternity and we’ll all have perfect bodies in the next life.
• “You are assuming the human body can be better designed under these circumstances. Maybe it can’t. You are also assuming it is not a work in progress. You can probably imagine the first watches were not fine tuned machines.” [An actual response I received from a theist, who apparently thinks an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect being needs theists like him to make excuses for His shoddy workmanship and who doesn’t understand what “omnipotent” actually means.]

It doesn’t matter what your personal favorite justification is. The point is that, despite what theists claim, the evidence of our senses does not automatically give us reason to believe in the sort of God that most theists claim to believe in (omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect) and theists MUST tack on other conditions for which there is no evidence.

Naturalism (or “atheism”, if you insist), on the other hand, requires no such additional caveats and conditions and justifications to be believable. We know from observation that there are natural laws that govern how the universe works. And, although we may not have perfect knowledge of every natural law, there is no reason not to believe that those laws can explain every single observed phenomenon, including the origin of life itself.

So, which is easier to believe? That the natural world evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe, or that the natural world was designed by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God who, for some reason we can’t quite figure out, decided to make the world look as if it had evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe? My money is on the former.

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One final thought. To many theists, there are only two options — either life was created “by God” or else it happened “by chance.” And “by chance” apparently means completely randomly, entirely by coincidence, etc. This is a false dichotomy, however. “By chance” in this context simply means without being directed by any sort of intelligence, yet still according to natural laws that guide and constrain the outcome.

Doesn’t the Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World Prove that God Exists?

A question that gets frequently asked of atheists is how we can possibly look at all the wonders of the natural world and not believe in God? Now, sure, this is partially just a restatement of the classic “Argument from Design” (which I cover in detail here), and it also involves a fair amount of arguing from ignorance or incredulity (“I can’t personally imagine how such a thing is possible without God, therefore it must not be possible”). But I think it actually goes a little deeper than that.

After all, once upon a time, we really did have no idea what caused sunsets, how mountains formed, how rock structures came to looked like they were carved into interesting shapes, etc., so it only made sense to think that such things were specifically created for our benefit. But now we obviously are able to explain how all these things are caused by purely natural forces and principles, so this question can’t just be due to sheer ignorance of how the natural world works. There must be more to it than that.

But hey — maybe all this means is that God created all the natural laws in the first place and therefore is ultimately responsible for it turning out the way it has. Sure, God didn’t personally sculpt the amazing rock formations seen in Utah’s Zion National Park or the Grand Canyon, but can’t we still give Him the credit for creating the rocks and wind and water and setting up a natural system whereby rocks can be eroded by wind and water? And sure, maybe God doesn’t personally paint every single beautiful sunset by hand, but we can still praise Him for creating the water cycles that causes clouds to form and making it so that sunlight refracts when it strikes water droplets, etc., right? And, OK, so maybe God didn’t personally cause those majestic mountains to rise out of the crust and get covered with snow, but we can still worship Him for coming up with the idea of plate tectonics and snow in the first place, right? After all, God created the entire universe from scratch, and therefore every beautiful and awesome and great thing we see in that universe must therefore be the result of God’s will, right?

So, maybe the argument is not simply about how could all these things exist without God but instead why would they all be so majestic and beautiful and awe-inspiring without God. Surely God must have set things up so that the end results would be so amazing, right?

OK, let’s play that game. The natural world is full of amazing, beautiful, wonderful and awe-inspiring things that prove that God exists and loves us enough to share all this beauty with us. Gotcha. Now let’s take a look at all the things in the natural world that aren’t so great shall we? Let’s look at the volcanic eruptions instead of just looking at the majestic mountains. Let’s look at the vast dust storms instead of just looking at the pretty sunsets. Let’s look at the floods and earthquakes and droughts and lightning strikes and tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis instead of just looking at the amazing rock formations. And then go look at the children dying of genetic diseases and the ugliness of things like Ebola and smallpox and parasitic infections and flesh-eating bacteria. Care to look at some picture of people with half of their face eaten off? Seriously — go ahead and do a Google image search for flesh-eating bacteria. It’s OK, I’ll wait for you to finish vomiting at the sight and come back here.

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Still with me? Wonderful. Now, after looking at all that ugliness in the world, you go ahead and tell me that it’s all a testament to just how depraved and sadistic and cruel God is, since He created the universe from scratch and therefore every horrible and ugly and terrible thing we see in that universe must also be the result of God’s will.

• No, you can’t claim that the ugliness is just random stuff not under God’s direct control or all the work of Satan.
• No, you can’t claim that all the bad stuff is the result of man’s exercise of free will, since I didn’t even mention anything related to man’s inhumanity to man.
• No, you can’t claim that Adam and Eve sinned and somehow caused the entire universe to enter a “fallen” state since (a) that would mean that a supposedly loving God decided to punish the entire universe for the sins of two people and (b) it would also negate all the previously “great” things that you previously gave God credit for. I mean, seriously — either the world is full of ugliness because it is in a fallen state or else it is full of beauty and greatness because of God. You can’t have it both ways.

So, please. Go ahead. You admit that all the ugliness in the world is evidence that God is a sadistic bastard (or, perhaps doesn’t exist at all), and I’ll admit that the beauty in the natural world is evidence that He does exist and loves us so much that He wants to share His glory with us. You don’t get to just look at the good and ignore the bad and claim that it somehow proves something.

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Having said all that, let me just make it clear that I do think there are many beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring sights in the natural world, both here on earth and out in the rest of the known universe. And no, I don’t think the entire universe is a dark and depressing place just because there are also many ugly, hideous and scary things as well. I take the good with the bad and understand that this is what happens when you have a universe that operates on impersonal natural principles and that wasn’t designed specifically for our benefit.

The Argument from Design

I’ve touched upon aspects of this in other posts, but I thought it was time to try and put all my thoughts on this subject together into one post.

The so-called “Argument from Design” is one of the most common and most powerful arguments that theists have at their disposal when they want to argue for the existence of God.  It gets trotted out during nearly every debate between theists and atheists, it underpins the entire “Intelligent Design” movement, and is often the sole argument that your average, run-of-the mill theist (as opposed to professional apologists) can think of when asked to justify his or her belief in God.  And when I say it is a powerful argument, I simply mean that it is highly persuasive, not that it is actually a particularly sound or valid argument.

In a nutshell, the Argument from Design simply states that the entire observable universe provides evidence that some intelligent being purposely designed it, and this being is what we commonly call “God.”  A more formal statement of the argument might look similar to the following:

1. Much of what we can observe in the universe has the appearance of being designed.
2. Things that appear to be designed most likely were designed, especially when they are too complicated to have happened any other way.
3. Anything that is designed must, by definition, have a designer.
4. The act of designing requires intelligence and purpose.
5. Therefore, there must be an intelligent and purposeful being or entity who designed the universe, and this is a label that fits our traditional notions of God.

Let me try and tackle these points one at a time.

Much of what we can observe in the universe has the appearance of being designed.

It is certainly true that much of what we can observe in the universe, especially here on Earth, has the appearance of being designed.  The key word, of course, being appearance.  To say that everything we observed actually is designed is to assume the very point being argued, so we have to stick with appears to be designed at this stage in the argument.  We also need to keep in mind that the whole “appears to be designed” thing really doesn’t apply to everything we observe.  Yes, we have learned through centuries of careful scientific observation how cells work like tiny machines and that higher organisms are made up of trillions of cells working together in unison.  But much of what we observe beyond our planet has the appearance of sheer chaos.


Things that appear to be designed most likely were designed, especially when they are too complicated to have happened any other way.

This is really the crux of the entire Argument from Design.  If something appears to be designed and there’s no way for it to have happened other than being designed, it must therefore have been designed.  This is the argument made so famously by William Paley some two hundred years ago when he used a pocket watch as an analogy to the natural world.  When we encounter something as complex as a pocket watch, the very fact of its existence and complexity testifies to the fact that it was designed by an intelligent creator and did not just occur by chance.  Similarly, we can look at the natural world – the complex organisms, the cycle of the seasons, the movement of the stars and planets – and know that it couldn’t all have happened by chance.

Another, more modern, analogy compares the natural world to a painting found hanging from a tree in a forest.  Only a fool would see that painting, frame and all, and think it possible that it could have just happened by the chance accumulation of elements over time or that it just grew there exactly like that.

The problem with analogies, however, is that they are just that – analogies.  They are attempts to explain something by comparing it to something else and are not statements of fact or proofs in and of themselves.  As a result, an analogy is only as good as the things being compared.  In this case, the watch and painting analogies fail for a number of reasons, including the following:

• In both analogies, the object in question is found in isolation in a situation where it is clearly different from its surroundings.  Nature, on the other hand, is a unified whole.
• It’s easy to identify a watch or a painting as designed because we have seen numerous other examples of watches and paintings that have all been designed.  We know the processes involved in making a watch or painting a picture, so it’s safe to assume that any other watch or painting we discover was made in a similar fashion.  The same is not true with items in nature, however.  We have never seen anybody make a cell or a bear or a tree and therefore can’t say that the process must be the same as things made outside of nature.
• We can “know” that a watch or a painting is designed because there is no other way to explain how it could come to be.  The same used to be true for items in the natural world, but we now have much greater knowledge and can explain how seemingly complex natural items could arise purely by natural processes.  And keep in mind that “by natural processes” is not the same thing as “by random chance,” since natural processes can include a great degree or organization and direction, even if not driven by any purposeful intelligence (see my post on Accepting Evolution for a more in-depth discussion of this).
• Any claim that something “couldn’t impossibly have occurred unless it was designed” is really just a statement of personal ignorance as to the mechanisms involved.  This is often referred to as the problem of “Irreducible Complexity,” which sounds scientific, but is really just a made-up term that means “I don’t understand how evolution works.”  It used to be argued, for example, that the human eye was so complex that it had to have been created all at once and couldn’t possibly have evolved over time.  Recent studies have shown, however, exactly how a complex eye could have evolved over time, starting from light-sensitive cells and eventually becoming the imperfect organs we have today.  “But what good is a partial eye,” you may ask?  Just look at all the creatures alive today that have less evolved eyes and ask them how their “partial eyes” benefit them compared to not having any eyes at all.

Anything that is designed must, by definition, have a designer.

Well, true, I suppose that’s purely a matter of definition.  If you assume that something is designed, it must have a designer of some sort.  The problem with this (aside from the fact that it’s really just a tautology like saying “anything painted has a painter” or “any thought has a thinker”) is two-fold:

• As discussed above, the mere appearance of design doesn’t necessarily mean that something was, in fact, designed.
• The word “designed” presumes the existence of intelligence and purpose, whereas more neutral terms like “created” or “formed” do not.  A falling meteorite can create a crater.  Years of dripping water can form marvelous looking stalactites and stalagmites in a cave.  Neither of these occurrences involves purpose or intelligence.  Unfortunately, some people like to use the term “design” to simply mean “created” or “formed” and thereby claim that some purposeful and intelligent designer must, by definition, have been behind it.

The act of designing requires intelligence and purpose.

This point is really nothing more than anthropomorphism at its worst.  Since we design things and we are intelligent and purposeful, we assume that all things that are “designed” must also be done by some entity that is intelligent and purposeful.  However, as discussed previously, what many people call “design” is more properly referred to as “creation” or “formation” and these words do not require any sort of intelligence or purpose at all.

Therefore, there must be an intelligent and purposeful being or entity who designed the universe, and this is a label that fits our traditional notions of God.

Well, since I’ve already addressed the problems with all the underlying premises, there’s no further need to show why this conclusion is false.  I will point out the leap in logic, however, required to go from “an intelligent being who designed the universe” and “my personal concept of a God.”  There are many different and contradictory notions of God throughout the world and throughout history, and everybody who uses the Argument from Design seems to use it to justify a belief in a different God.  If the Argument from Design works just as well to “prove” the existence of Jehovah as it does Allah, Shiva or Zeus, maybe the argument isn’t quite as powerful as it’s cracked up to be.

In reality, all the Argument from Design attempts to prove is the existence of some sort of intelligent designer.  Sure, it could be the particular God of the person making the argument, but why assume so?  Heck – given all the observable flaws with the natural world (genetic diseases, blind spots, vestigial organs, etc.), one might argue that the Argument from Design best provides evidence for a malevolent or incompetent god or gods instead of the all-powerful, all-loving Christian God.

The Scientific Method vs Theism

As an atheist, I have come to appreciate the scientific method as the best – if not only – way to determine truth. The basic principles of the scientific method are (a) observing a phenomenon, (b) coming up with a hypothesis to explain that phenomenon, (c) performing experiments and/or gathering data to support that hypothesis and (d) refine the hypothesis to fit the experiments and data (or even reject the hypothesis entirely if the experiments and data disprove it). The key point is that the hypothesis needs to match the evidence and not the other way around.

When I was a theist, however, I was taught to start with an acceptance that God existed, the scriptures were true, etc., and then look for evidence to support that belief if necessary. This is superficially similar to the scientific method (and many theists claim that they in fact follow the scientific method), with one key distinction. Whenever data is discovered that fails to support (or even contradicts) the belief in God, the data needs to be tweaked (or sometimes outright ignored). If, for example, geological evidence clearly shows that the Grand Canyon was created via slow processes over millions of years and this data contradicts the notion that the earth is only 6,000 years old, it’s important to selectively ignore the evidence until you can explain the remaining evidence as having been produced by a global flood.

Proponents of “Creation Science” (a.k.a. Intelligent Design”) often point to, say, the perfection of the human eye as proof that it must have been the product of a divine, perfect creator. The eye, the argument goes, is just too complicated and works so well that it couldn’t possibly have happened just by chance. Ignoring for the moment the fact that this is really just an argument from ignorance (“the eye is just too complicated and works so well that I personally can’t understand how it could possibly have happened just by chance”), and also ignoring for the moment that the Theory of Evolution explicitly posits the concept of natural selection as the driving force behind the development of complex structures such as the eye instead of chance, this argument does have the superficial appearance of following the principles of the scientific method. The phenomenon of a complicated, perfectly functioning eye is observed, and the existence of a divine, perfect creator is offered as a theory to explain that phenomena.

Where things go off the rails, however, is when you point out that the eye is not, in fact, perfect. The human eye has a blind spot inherent in its design, which is perfectly explainable when you consider how the eye might have developed over millions of years but doesn’t make much sense for a perfect creator to have done it that way. In addition, human eyes are susceptible to all sorts of abnormalities and diseases, and many people have to resort to corrective lenses or surgery in order to see clearly. In fact, many people are actually born completely blind. Under the scientific method, evidence that contradicts a particular theory causes the theory to be refined or rejected. Under “Creation Science”, however, the response is typically that we live in a fallen state due to the sins of Adam and that is why the eye is currently not perfect (or why people get diseases or why animals feed off each other or why there is so much pain and suffering in all aspects of the natural world, etc.). And this is because, rather than truly following the scientific method to fit the theory to the facts, theists start with a set of assumed “truths” (i.e., that God exists, that He created the universe in a perfect state originally and that we now live in a fallen universe due to the sins of Adam) and then look for any observable facts that support those “truths” while rejecting any that don’t support them.

If perfection of design proves the existence of a perfect creator, imperfection of design can’t somehow also prove the existence of the same perfect creator.  Looking just at the observed phenomena, without any preconceived, unchallenged assumptions as to the existence and nature of God (which is, of course, the very thing that is supposed to be proved so it can't be assumed), imperfection of design is instead evidence of an imperfect creator, or perhaps a malevolent creator, or of no creator whatsoever.  The one thing it absolutely cannot be is evidence of a perfect creator, unless you already believe in the God of the Bible and are simply looking for a justification of that belief instead of actually trying to come up with a theory that best explains the evidence.

People are, of course, free to believe whatever they choose to believe, and the whole reason churches exist is to let people with similar beliefs congregate and share those beliefs with one another. And there’s nothing wrong with that (assuming, of course, those beliefs don’t lead the believers to harm other people as a result). But this essential difference between the scientific method and theism is one of the main reasons why “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design” has no place whatsoever in a science classroom. Call it what you will, it just isn’t scientific as long as it exists to fit the facts to the theory instead of the other way around.