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Paper Topic #3 The Teleological Argument The Teleological Argument, or the Argument from Design, provides a strong case for God’s existence. Yet this argument, as promoted by William Paley at the turn of the 19th century, is fallible. This paper will expose two flaws in the Teleological Argument—first, that the argument cannot explain the existence of sub‐optimal design in the biological world, and second, in an appeal to the dyadic nature of science, that it cannot explain the elaborate fossil record as well Darwinian Theory can. Each criticism of the Teleological Argument will be presented with a counterargument, and each counterargument will be followed by a response which reveals the counterargument as ultimately unsatisfactory. The Teleological Argument attributes the creation of the biological world to a vastly intelligent mind, which we will refer to as God. The biological world, as the argument begins, is filled with superb function and design. The human eye, for example, consists of an opening which can vary its size depending on the amount of light available, a lens that focuses the light, and a surface inside the eye which interprets the light into signals that the brain can understand (Rachels 12). Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers, and in doing so, help drive the cycle of flower pollination. Intricate structures and relationships such as these could not have come into existence by mere chance. Thus, as the Teleological Argument concludes, the world must have been created by God. We will refer to the superb design and function of the world, wherein creatures and their structures are exquisitely suited to existence, as optimal design. The Teleological Argument offers an explanation for the optimal design of the biological world; it cannot, however, explain sub‐optimal design. The world is riddled with sub‐optimal design. To find examples of this, we have to look no further than the human body: the human appendix, which serves no function, can become inflamed and rupture, possibly resulting in death. The human eye, beautifully designed as it is, has photoreceptor cells which are put in backwards, resulting in a blind spot. The human trachea (windpipe) and the esophagus (the passage down which food moves) are positioned in a way that makes humans susceptible to choking on food. The biological world outside of the human body also exhibits sub‐
optimal design: penguins, even though they cannot fly and have no need to reduce weight, have hollow bird‐like bones. If hollow bones are so great, why don’t other non‐flying animals have them? Some species of snakes have two lungs—one main lung, and one small atrophied lung. These snakes would be able to inhale a larger volume of air if they had one larger lung rather than a secondary, atrophied one. Many cave‐dwelling creatures that live in total darkness have non‐functioning eyes (Sivakami). If they can’t see, why have eyes at all? These, of course, are only a few examples of sub‐optimal design that riddle our world. But the Teleological Argument believers do offer responses to this criticism. One such response is that God, who created a world of mostly superb design and function, added in some sub‐optimal design to create a natural equilibrium (Tsommer). Without God’s addition of sub‐optimal design, all creatures of the world would be optimal—so optimal, that they would be able to escape all predators and endure in all harsh conditions, resulting in a crowded disequilibrium. The Teleological counterargument is unsatisfactory. To say that God created a world of optimal design, and then added in some sub‐optimal design to provide an equilibrium, is also to say that God created an imperfect world. A vastly intelligent mind would surely have been able to create a more optimal world, where humans don’t have appendixes and where cave‐dwelling creatures have eyes that can see in the dark. This is no way would lead to a chaotic, overpopulated disequilibrium. For, if all prey is optimally designed to avoid predators, then all predators are also optimally designed to catch prey. In a world of purely optimal design, organisms would still fall victim to old age, predation, and nature’s wrath. Thus, it balances out. Before we can continue to the next argument, we must first make an appeal to dyadic nature of science. Scientific theories do not stand on their own; they are confirmed and disconfirmed relative to competing theories. Paul R. Thagard, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of Waterloo, argues this in his essay “Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience.” Scientific theories, he says, can be devalued if they are less progressive than competing theories—that is, if a theory cannot explain problems, long‐standing or new, but a competing theory can, then the competing theory gains legitimacy and the other theory is devalued (Klemke 71). We can apply Thagard’s analysis of science to the Teleological Argument and its strongest competing theory, Darwinian Evolution. Thus our angle of attack is to find phenomena in the world that Darwinian Evolution can explain, but the Teleological Argument cannot. We find our answer in the fossil record. How can the fossil record, which consists largely of species that do not exist today, be explained? Darwinian Evolution provides the best answer. Slight mutations in some organisms (attributed to genes, which Darwin did not know about) would give individual members of a species slight variances that were either beneficial or detrimental to their survival. Individual members of a species that were most fit for their environment, due to beneficial mutations, were better able to survive and reproduce, and they passed the beneficial mutations to their offspring. Members with the beneficial mutations prospered and the less fit members died off. Over time, the little variances added up and resulted in the creation of new species. These mysterious fossils, according to Darwinian Evolution, are simply the old species that went extinct in this process. Can believers of the Teleological Argument explain fossils as well as Darwinian Evolution can? If God created everything with optimal design, then species would not be evolving into more optimal versions, and there would not be sub‐optimal species going into extinction. Therefore, the only direct response that the Teleological Argument can muster is that God created fossils and placed them in the earth for some reason which we cannot understand. This reply, however, is unsatisfying. Using Thagard’s dyadic approach to science, the Teleological Argument is certainly devalued by its strongest competitor. Yet believers of the Teleological Argument are better equipped to reply in another way—all they must do is find something that the Teleological Argument can explain, but Darwinian Evolution cannot. What they appeal to is the notion of irreducible complexity. A biological structure is irreducibly complex if it is too complex to have evolved over time; it follows that if any one part is removed from the functioning structure, the structure becomes nonfunctional. The issue of irreducible complexity was examined in the 2005 P.A. court case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. The bacterial flagellum, a microscopic biological version of a rotary motor, became the object of focus. It was obvious that if any gear were removed from the tiny biological motor, the flagellum would have become nonfunctional as a means of transportation (Jones 64‐79). According to believers of the Teleological Argument, the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex. Thus, Darwinian Evolution is devalued, and the Teleological Argument is legitimized. The Teleological response, strong as it may seem, is unsatisfactory. While removing any gear of the bacterial flagellum may cause it to become non‐functional as a transportation unit, it is possible that that the bacterial flagellum once served another function besides transportation. Then, through Darwinian Evolution, it evolved into an increasingly complex structure that eventually took on this new role (Jones 64‐79). Richard Dawkins aptly describes this type of Darwinian Evolution in his best‐selling non‐fiction novel, The God Delusion. Dawkins responds to the question, “What good is half a wing if it won’t let you fly?” Half a wing is certainly not as good as a whole wing, but it is certainly better than no wing at all. Half a wing could save your life by easing your fall from a tree of a certain height. And 51 per cent of a wing could save you if you fell from a slightly taller tree. Whatever fraction of a wing you have, there is a fall from which it will save your life where a slightly smaller winglet would not. (Dawkins 149) The two criticisms presented in this paper—the existence of sub‐optimal design in the biological world, and the ability of Darwinian Evolution to explain biological phenomena more aptly than its God‐
centered competing theory—drive deep wounds into the Teleological Argument. Teleological Argument believers offer counterarguments to both of these criticisms, but their attempts are ultimately unsatisfactory. And while it is likely that intelligent minds will continue to promote this theory, it is unlikely that a vastly intelligent mind created our biological world. Works Cited Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. First Mariner Books edition. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. Print. Jones III, John E. "Creationism." Sakai Resources, Intro to Philosophy of Science. 20 Oct 2005. Web. 23 Oct 2009. <https://sakai.rutgers.edu/access/content/group/aa3a8b84‐80cc‐42b7‐a13f‐ d0c72cab7622/Creationism.pdf>. Klemke, E.D., Robert Hollinger, David Wyss Rudge, and A. David Kline. Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science. 3rd ed. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. Print. Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. Problems from Philosophy. 2nd ed. New York, NY: McGraw‐Hill, 2009. Print. Sivakami. "Examples of sub‐optimal "Design"." Physicspost.com. 18 Feb 2002. Web. 23 Oct 2009. <http://www.physicspost.com/physicsforums/topic.asp‐ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=1586.htm>. Tsommer. "Suboptimal design." CreationWiki.com. 10 Jun 2009. Northwest Creation Network, Web. 23 Oct 2009. <http://creationwiki.org/Suboptimal_design_%28EvoWiki%29>.