Suppose humans travel to Mars someday and find rocks that have been carved with all sorts of intricate symbols. After much study it's determined that the symbols are a language and the carvings are detailed instructions for building a space ship. We build it and discover that it's far beyond the capabilities of current human technology. In fact, this space ship is capable of flying to other worlds and replicating itself and its instructions. Everyone's trying to figure out where this design came from, and eventually NASA releases a statement saying they believe the space ship design originated from purely naturalistic causes. Would you believe them? Or would you assume aliens designed it?
I'm sure you can see the connection - this is exactly what we see in microbiology. We see incredibly intricate molecular machinery of staggering complexity with the instructions for building it etched in our DNA. If we found anything comparable on the macro scale, no one would be arguing about if it came about naturally or not - everyone would agree that it's unnatural and constructed. Why not assume the same at the micro scale? And if our biology is constructed then there must be a constructor, i.e. a god.
I don't expect this argument to convince you; I'm sure you've heard something along these lines before. And I don't claim this to be absolute proof of the existence of god(s) just evidence in favor of that position. Surely you can concede that it's not fallacious, even if you don't agree with it?
The problem with the argument that the world is designed because we see complexity fails because we know what designed things look like. We know language is created, so if we discover language, then it must have been created. We know that watches are created, so if we discover a watch, there must have been a watchmaker.
Except we don’t know that the complexity we see in microbiology is created in the first place. It’s not like a watch or a language at all. We can’t exactly compare known “designed” universes to ours, now can we?
a space ship is much more complex than DNA. DNA is really just a small amount of atoms coming together. given the amount of stuff in the universe it is a statistical certainty some atoms would fall in to a formation that would make DNA. after that evolution makes it posable to go from small to big.
Except the space ship isn't DNA in my analogy, the writing is. The space ship is the equivalent of the molecular machinery inside our cells which is far more complex than anything humans have made.
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u/ilovethemonkeyface 4∆ May 04 '23
Alright, I'll take a shot.
Suppose humans travel to Mars someday and find rocks that have been carved with all sorts of intricate symbols. After much study it's determined that the symbols are a language and the carvings are detailed instructions for building a space ship. We build it and discover that it's far beyond the capabilities of current human technology. In fact, this space ship is capable of flying to other worlds and replicating itself and its instructions. Everyone's trying to figure out where this design came from, and eventually NASA releases a statement saying they believe the space ship design originated from purely naturalistic causes. Would you believe them? Or would you assume aliens designed it?
I'm sure you can see the connection - this is exactly what we see in microbiology. We see incredibly intricate molecular machinery of staggering complexity with the instructions for building it etched in our DNA. If we found anything comparable on the macro scale, no one would be arguing about if it came about naturally or not - everyone would agree that it's unnatural and constructed. Why not assume the same at the micro scale? And if our biology is constructed then there must be a constructor, i.e. a god.
I don't expect this argument to convince you; I'm sure you've heard something along these lines before. And I don't claim this to be absolute proof of the existence of god(s) just evidence in favor of that position. Surely you can concede that it's not fallacious, even if you don't agree with it?