I Believe In Intelligent Design
People need to start looking at intelligent design as a possibility, and a probable one. It does not disprove the theory of evolution and in fact offers a possible explanation for how evolution started.
(I personally do not believe in evolution, but for the purposes of this post I will treat it as though it is factual because it poses no threat to theism or intelligent design).
Supposing that evolution happened, it only makes sense to ask how it came about. This leaves us with two possibilities: either it happened by chance, or it happened designedly.
The probabilities of that happening by chance are next to zero. Richard Dawkins himself concedes that the chances of life arising on earth are very slim, but he argues that a designer/God is more improbable than evolution happening by chance. In "The God Delusion" he argues: "However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. ...The whole argument turns on the familiar question 'Who made God?'... A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape. This argument... demonstrates that God, though not technically disprovable, is very improbable indeed."
Dawkins is right in saying that evolution beginning by chance is statistically improbable. In treating it as improbable he treats it as a one-time event because he argues that natural selection is nothing like random chance once it has started. He argues that if there were a designer, the designer came from somewhere and this would lead to an infinite regress problem of one designer coming from another. Thus the probabilities of this infinite regress happening are slimmer than the probabilities of natural selection and evolution happening by chance.
But why should the designer/God have to be designed? Or if there is any amount of regress, why must this regress be infinite? Is it statistically improbable to propose that the designer/God either was not designed (i.e. always existed) or at least was designed by some other designer/God that was not designed?
The assumption that evolution/natural selection happened by chance results in an infinite regress of chance happenings that somehow produced an ordered result. Which is more probable? That there is an intelligent designer who always existed (i.e. an infinite being) who designed evolution? Or that there is an infinite regress of chance happenings that caused evolution?
The idea of an infinite being existing always and designing evolution is more probable to me than evolution happening by chance. Thus I believe in a designer.
(I personally do not believe in evolution, but for the purposes of this post I will treat it as though it is factual because it poses no threat to theism or intelligent design).
Supposing that evolution happened, it only makes sense to ask how it came about. This leaves us with two possibilities: either it happened by chance, or it happened designedly.
The probabilities of that happening by chance are next to zero. Richard Dawkins himself concedes that the chances of life arising on earth are very slim, but he argues that a designer/God is more improbable than evolution happening by chance. In "The God Delusion" he argues: "However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable. ...The whole argument turns on the familiar question 'Who made God?'... A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. God presents an infinite regress from which he cannot help us to escape. This argument... demonstrates that God, though not technically disprovable, is very improbable indeed."
Dawkins is right in saying that evolution beginning by chance is statistically improbable. In treating it as improbable he treats it as a one-time event because he argues that natural selection is nothing like random chance once it has started. He argues that if there were a designer, the designer came from somewhere and this would lead to an infinite regress problem of one designer coming from another. Thus the probabilities of this infinite regress happening are slimmer than the probabilities of natural selection and evolution happening by chance.
But why should the designer/God have to be designed? Or if there is any amount of regress, why must this regress be infinite? Is it statistically improbable to propose that the designer/God either was not designed (i.e. always existed) or at least was designed by some other designer/God that was not designed?
The assumption that evolution/natural selection happened by chance results in an infinite regress of chance happenings that somehow produced an ordered result. Which is more probable? That there is an intelligent designer who always existed (i.e. an infinite being) who designed evolution? Or that there is an infinite regress of chance happenings that caused evolution?
The idea of an infinite being existing always and designing evolution is more probable to me than evolution happening by chance. Thus I believe in a designer.
26-30, F
