Recognizing Design

I have often questioned the motives behind challenging something so intuitively obvious as the fact that our universe is intricately and precariously balanced for the existence of life, even life on earth. When observing the universe, one can only come to the conclusion that it is fine-tuned or designed for life. This truth is what William Paley (1743-1805) tried to convey in his famous "Watchmaker Argument." Though this type of argument is thought to have been refuted by atheist philosophers, nothing could be further from the truth.[1] In fact, the ball is now in the court of those who argue against the design argument. I plan to show why in this short paper. For a more thorough handling of this subject, please see Science and Design by William A. Dembski.

Most people would agree that a thing created by a human for a certain task can be said to have been intelligently designed for that task. And I think most would agree that most of the time one can conclude as much by looking at the thing and the task it performs. If this is so, then what about non-human design? I think that any person with an open mind would agree that this would also apply to non-human design. What about design of the universe itself? I plan to spend most of my argument on this question.

Let me first offer an example: Say you came upon several pillars holding up roof. Would it be safe to say that the pillars were designed to hold up the roof? Here's the answer I received from a self-acclaimed agnostic during a debate:

"Only if the roof were to actually fall if the pillars were removed. Sometimes pillars have decorative purposes only; sometimes they have no purpose at all."[2]

In the analogy I used during the debate, I state explicitly that the pillars do in fact hold up the roof. To which the agnostic eventually replied:

"Now, if the pillars ARE holding up the roof, which can be determined by a detailed enginieering [sic] analysis, then it's safe to say that those pillars were designed to hold up the roof"[3]

I believe that the agnostic is correct here. From his statement, we now have a way to determine if something is designed - study the pillars! More often than not, we would be right to conclude that the pillars were designed to support the roof if that is what they are doing and if removed, the roof would fall.

An agnostic or atheist would now argue that we only recognize the pillars to be designed to hold up the roof because we are familiar with pillars and roofs from human made examples where we can question the designer. The problem he or she runs into during most debates is the fact that I don't have to say who or what designed the pillars before the pillars' designed nature is agreed upon. I don't even have to say where the pillars and roof are. This lack of information didn't seem to matter to the agnostic I quoted above, as well it shouldn't. The pillars could have been on Mars created by aliens and an agnostic or atheist still would have been able to recognize that the pillars were designed to hold up the roof. The agnostic in question actually did recognize them without my saying who or what designed them. This is something he and other agnostics and atheists often claim could not be done without asking the designer.[4] So, in a fit of reasonableness, the agnostic did seem to agree that this human to alien extrapolation when determining design is reasonable enough. What about animal design? Can we recognize such though we cannot ask the designer? Most people would agree that we can and do. What about archeological discoveries where the designers are long dead and cannot be asked about their designs? It is reasonable to extrapolate design in such a case, archaeologists do so all the time.

So can we extrapolate this recognition of design to the universe itself? The answer is yes! Why should we assume that human design would be totally dissimilar from natural design? Don't most agnostics and atheists believe that humans are but a product of nature? Even Christians believe that humans have very natural physical bodies and many natural modes of thinking (to humans' detriment much of the time). So if humans are a product of or operate in the realm of nature, doesn't nature beget nature? How can humans design, all by themselves, something unnatural or totally unlike nature?

One might say that we can tell by observation that some things designed by humans do not follow things observed in nature. At least such a correlation is not obvious. But nature begets nature, right? And didn't those "unnatural" designs start off following nature and over the millennia merely change such that some designs don't appear to totally follow natural designs anymore? Their root-design is still in nature.[5]

Agnostics and atheists will argue that we can only recognize as designed something that we have experience of (like the pillars and roof themselves). Since we cannot recognize if something new (something we have no experience of ) is designed, we certainly can NEVER design something new and still recognize it. So totally unique invention is out of the question according to their objection. Backing their objection up historically, where did humans take their first designs from, since they could not have been "new" designs? Nature.

Thus it follows that we can extrapolate design in natural things, like the universe, from human design because: 1) humans are not outside nature, and 2) since humans do not design anything unique, their designs must have originally come from nature and thus humans do not design anything totally unique to nature.

Using my analogy of pillars holding up a roof, we can easily substitute the "pillars" for the fine-tuned constants of the universe[6] and the "roof" for life in the universe. From this, we must conclude that since we can tell when pillars are designed for a roof, and design in or of the universe should not be expected to be much different to recognize than human design, the pillars (constants of the universe), since they support the roof (life), must have been designed for the roof (life).

With all that said, the conclusion a non-biased reader must reach from this argument is that it is reasonable to assume that

THE UNIVERSE HAS BEEN DESIGNED

Some agnostics and atheists will search and search for some argument, no matter how contrived, to get around my conclusion here. Their entire "religion" relies on it. More open minded agnostics and atheists will at least ponder my conclusion in light of what it might mean to their own existence and to their eternity.

Mark Harpt
markh@wwcw.org

Common Questions

I'd like to thank everyone for their questions. I've typed up short answers to most, if not all, of them. If I've missed any, please E-Mail me.

Notes

1. I use pillars holding up a roof in my analogy here.

2. Chris Lesley in the Harpt - Lesley Debate, March 1997.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. In the book, "The Artful Universe," by John D. Barrow, it is argued that the laws of our universe have imprinted themselves upon us in such a way that our thoughts and actions have been affected. Though Mr. Barrow's reasons for this are totally opposite of mine, my point here is still supported.

6. Numerous constants in the universe are such that if any were different in the least bit, life could not exist anywhere in the universe. See a paper by Dr. Hugh Ross for details.

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