"Hallmarks of Creation" vs. Actual Signs of Artificial Products

[Pixel42]

I thought the point of the argument from design is the fact that there isn't an important difference between the living stuff and the watch; you "know" as soon as you see the watch that it was designed, so you should "know" the equally complex living stuff was also designed.

But there is an important difference, of course, which is that the living things can reproduce themselves and the watch cannot. There aren't any male and female watches who mate to produce lots of baby watches which are similar to their parents and yet differ from each other, on which natural selection can act. So for the watch there are indeed only two possible explanations: it either spontaneously assembled, which is clearly ridiculous, or it was intelligently designed. For living things, however, there is a third possible explanation: that they are the end result of millions of years of evolution by natural selection.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I thought the point of the argument from design is the fact that there isn't an important difference between the living stuff and the watch; you "know" as soon as you see the watch that it was designed, so you should "know" the equally complex living stuff was also designed.

So why don't you "know" as soon as you see the forest that it was designed?

But there is an important difference, of course, which is that the living things can reproduce themselves and the watch cannot. There aren't any male and female watches who mate to produce lots of baby watches which are similar to their parents and yet differ from each other, on which natural selection can act. So for the watch there are indeed only two possible explanations: it either spontaneously assembled, which is clearly ridiculous, or it was intelligently designed. For living things, however, there is a third possible explanation: that they are the end result of millions of years of evolution by natural selection.

Yes: it's comparing apples to oranges- or rather, apples to i-pods.
Using something that is clearly manmade, and cannot reproduce itself, as an analogy for something that clearly isn't, and can't, to prove they are both the same, makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Pixel42]

So why don't you "know" as soon as you see the forest that it was designed?

Because of Darwin.

Had I lived before he worked it all out it would probably have seemed as obvious to me as it did to those who first articulated the argument from design, and still does to those who haven't bothered to educate themselves about what Darwin actually discovered.

 

[sphenisc]

I thought the point of the argument from design is the fact that there isn't an important difference between the living stuff and the watch; you "know" as soon as you see the watch that it was designed, so you should "know" the equally complex living stuff was also designed.

But there is an important difference, of course, which is that the living things can reproduce themselves and the watch cannot. There aren't any male and female watches who mate to produce lots of baby watches which are similar to their parents and yet differ from each other, on which natural selection can act. So for the watch there are indeed only two possible explanations: it either spontaneously assembled, which is clearly ridiculous, or it was intelligently designed. For living things, however, there is a third possible explanation: that they are the end result of millions of years of evolution by natural selection.

And therefore eyeballs and viruses are designed.