Philosophy: design criticisms

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  • Criticisms
    • David Hume
      • bad analogy - uniqueness of universe
        • if we see a house, we know from our knowledge of houses that it had an architect, a designer
        • we cannot have this and knowledge and experience of universes
          • as we dot not see them being built in our day to day lives, like houses
        • because of this we cannot conclude that the universe has a designer
      • a multiplicity of causes
        • there may be any number of causes for the creation of the universe
        • the universe bears closer resemblance to an animal or vegetable than anything else
          • 'spun from the bowels of a spider'
        • Hume does not believe this but says there is as much evidence for this as there is for a designer God
      • principle of causality: gardener analogy
        • in terms of cause and effect, the effects limit the cause
        • if a gardener creates a beautiful garden the we can assume that he has talent in regard to gardening
        • what we don't know is whether the gardener is a nice person or not
      • botched worlds
        • the world is not perfect so we cannot say that the creator is perfect
        • there may have been attempts at creating a world before it worked
        • it is too much credit to say that only one God who created the universe
        • it takes away from God's omnipotence to say that he made mistakes
    • Charles Darwin
      • theory of evolution challenges Michael Behe's irreducible complexity
      • things develop (go through evolution) in order to survive
    • Epicurean hypothesis
      • there is an infinite number of universe and worlds
      • therefore the one that is designed is by chance not creation
    • Richard Dawkins
      • The Blind Watchmaker
      • God does not need to explain complexity, for example how the human eye has developed to detect both light and dark which happened through evolution
    • J S Mill's problem of evil
      • the human body isn't perfect the appendix may have to removed in certain situations
      • therefore design is not perfect, there are errors

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