These are the standard objections to argument #5 on the list provided here...
b) There is a statement that design comes only from a mind, but no explanation of how to tell the difference between order and design. The essence of the argument is that if a man-made product is designed by men, then a nature-made product must be designed by a nature-designer. This is an extremely weak analogy (see above).
c) Although man made products are well within human experience, the concept of a nature-maker or nature-designer is beyond any possible human experience. And of course, any such “nature designer” need not be a god (unless the definition of any being who may be responsible for design in nature is a god). This part of the argument commits the fallacy of composition
d) The argument assumes nature has a purpose and works towards an end. There is no justification or evidence for this assumption.
e) Order could be a necessary attribute of existence. In other words, for something to exist it has to be “ordered”. Therefore everything that exists is bound to be ordered, by definition.
f) The author assumes we can infer the application of intelligent design by examination, especially when living things remind us of something a human might design. However, observations of nature show that order and apparent design can come about by purely natural means, for example: snowflakes; crystals; rainbows; etc.
g) The introduction of the concept of “chance” as a premise, and its instant dismissal by the author, highlights three flaws in the argument:
g1) The author has used the fallacious argument of false dichotomy by stating that nature is either the result of chance or purposeful design. Those are not the only two options. According to evolutionary scientists evolution is not chance. It is the very existence of the non-chance components of natural selection that allows evolution to happen. Natural selection results in order out of chaos, naturally and not by chance or at random.
g2) How do we tell the difference between chance and natural law? If we flipped a coin and we had precise information regarding size, shape, mass, forces, wind speed, humidity, gravitational force, and every physical factor on the coin, the outcome of the coin toss would be predictable. This implies that a chance event is just a lack of precise knowledge of initial states.
g3) Assessing the significance of "chance" requires the probability of an event to be calculated. It is impossible for anyone to calculate the probability of the existence of an ordered universe as there is not enough data available regarding the conditions required. If order is a necessary attribute of existence then the "chance" of an ordered universe existing is 100%
If we assume the existence of a designer...
h) The argument ignores the imperfections that we see in nature. Imperfections in a product suggests imperfections in the maker, which is not usually how God is portrayed. This line of thought also leads eventually to the "Problem of Evil" argument.
i) There are thousands of hypotheses which can explain what this designer or designers might be, without necessarily being God. For example: Nature itself could be self-organising; there could be a team of cosmic designers; the designer or designers do not have to be gods, they could design and create universes using advanced technology; and so on.
j) If the great complexity we see in nature is evidence of a designer, then the designer must be greater than his or her creations. Therefore this designer would have been designed, leading to an infinite regression and the obvious question: Where did God come from?
The analogies in this argument are particularly weak, as a standard evaluation demonstrates:
Truth : The objects being compared (man made products vs natural products) are not similar in the way assumed. They are assumed to be similar in order to prove the argument.
Relevance : Fails as a result of the truth test
Number : The only shared property appears to be "order" or "patterns".
Diversity : The shared properties are of very different types (e.g. Rolls Royce vs Giraffe). They are assumed to be of the same type in order to prove the argument.
Disanalogy : Fails due to the failure in the diversity test.
One of the weakest analogies provided by Religious Apologists is the Watchmaker argument. Click here to see a variation of that argument which uses a Rolls Royce instead of a pocket watch.
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