The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God. In broad terms, the watchmaker analogy states that just as it is readily observed that a watch (e.g., a pocket watch) did not come to be accidentally or on its own but rather through the intentional handiwork of a skilled watchmaker, it is also readily observed that nature did not come to be accidentally or on its own but through the intentional handiwork of an intelligent designer. The watchmaker analogy originated in natural theology and is often used to argue for the concept of intelligent design. The analogy states that a design implies a designer, by an intelligent designer, i.e., a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design", where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Prior to Paley, however, Sir Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and others from the time of the Scientific Revolution had each believed "that the physical laws he [each] had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God." The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's book on natural selection put forward an alternative explanation to the watchmaker analogy, for complexity and adaptation. In the 19th century, deists, who championed the watchmaker analogy, held that Darwin's theory fit with "the principle of uniformitarianism—the idea that all processes in the world occur now as they have in the past" and that deistic evolution "provided an explanatory framework for understanding species variation in a mechanical universe." When evolutionary biology began being taught in American high schools in the 1960s, Christian fundamentalists used versions of the argument to dispute the concepts of evolution and natural selection, and there was renewed interest in the watchmaker argument. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins referred to the analogy in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker when explaining the mechanism of evolution. Others, however, consider the watchmaker analogy to be compatible with evolutionary creation, opining that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
History
Ancient predecessor In the second century Epictetus argued that, by analogy to the way a sword is made by a craftsman to fit with a scabbard, so human genitals and the desire of humans to fit them together suggest a type of design or craftsmanship of the human form. Epictetus attributed this design to a type of Providence woven into the fabric of the universe, rather than to a personal monotheistic god.
Scientific Revolution The Scientific Revolution "nurtured a growing awareness" that "there were universal laws of nature at work that ordered the movement of the world and its parts." Amos Yong writes that in "astronomy, the Copernican revolution regarding the heliocentrism of the solar system, Johannes Kepler's (1571–1630) three laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) law of universal gravitation—laws of gravitation and of motion, and notions of absolute space and time—all combined to establish the regularities of heavenly and earthly bodies". Simultaneously, the development of machine technology and the emergence of the mechanical philosophy encouraged mechanical imagery unlikely to have come to the fore in previous ages. With such a backdrop, "deists suggested the watchmaker analogy: just as watches are set in motion by watchmakers, after which they operate according to their pre-established mechanisms, so also was the world begun by God as creator, after which it and all its parts have operated according to their pre-established natural laws. With these laws perfectly in place, events have unfolded according to the prescribed plan." For Sir Isaac Newton, "the regular motion of the planets made it reasonable to believe in the continued existence of God". Newton also upheld the idea that "like a watchmaker, God was forced to intervene in the universe and tinker with the mechanism from time to time to ensure that it continued operating in good working order". Similarly to Newton, René Descartes (1596–1650) speculated on "the cosmos as a great time machine operating according to fixed laws, a watch created and wound up by the great watchmaker".
William Paley
Watches and timepieces have been used as examples of complicated technology in philosophical discussions. For example, Cicero, Voltaire and René Descartes all used timepieces in arguments regarding purpose. The watchmaker analogy, as described here, was used by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle in 1686, but was most famously formulated by Paley. Paley used the watchmaker analogy in his book Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature, published in 1802. In it, Paley wrote that if a pocket watch is found on a heath, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by at least one watchmaker, not by natural forces:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
