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Atheism 101: how to defend against a teleological argument
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The all-seeing eye.
The teleological argument – or argument from design – goes something like this: the universe is full of order and complex design – too much so to have occurred by random chance. There must be an ultimate designer. Therefore, God exists.
This argument is a favorite among believers, usually as a way to explain how evolution is not possible, and comes in a variety of flavors. An oft-used analogy is the Watchmaker, which essentially argues this: if a pocket watch was found on a beach, it is reasonable to deem, from the complexity of the gears, that the watch needed a designer. After all, a fully-formed watch could not just appear on a beach by pure chance; and further, if any one of the hundreds of working parts were removed, the watch could not function. This analogy is honestly too absurd to even begin to address, as living organisms cannot be compared with machinery. As far as I know, watches do not procreate; therefore I will dismiss this example outright.
Thus, the argument I will address here is another popular teleological choice: the human eye – a complex and vital organ, without which life would be rendered impossibly difficult. Now we have something with which to work.
For the sake of not making this any longer than it need be, I will assume we all have a basic understanding of how the eye functions, without having to go into explicit detail. As such, I take it we all agree the eye is fairly complex in structure and we would all prefer to hang on to them for as long as we can. But are eyes so complex that the involvement of a creator (sorry – Creator) is all but imminent? Hardly. Let me tell you why this argument is a lost cause for believers.
First, this concept of completeness – that our eyes just popped into existence, fully intact and ready to ogle an attractive group of Neanderthals, circumventing evolution – is a bit much. Where did believers come up with this? Who knows, but they truly believe the eye is far too complex to have been formed as a result of evolution. Look, when you have several billion years (bold lettering added for emphasis) with which to work, anything is possible. This concept of time is all but lost on us, as we cannot even begin to fathom the enormity of a thousand or 10 thousand years, let alone the several billion years (again, for emphasis) in which life on this planet has existed.
The point? The eye evolved ever … so … slowly – painstakingly so – most likely starting out as a patch of skin, sensitive to light, increasing in complexity with each passing generation. (This is obviously a very truncated version of the evolutionary process, so click here to see an excellent video on the evolution of the eye.) Why is the concept of evolution so difficult to grasp? We gladly accept that eye color is a trait passed through heredity, but somehow the mechanics of the eye are not afforded this same conclusion.
Secondly, our eyes are anything but a superiorly crafted organ. How many of you wear some type of corrective eye wear? I do – contact lenses, for myopia. In school, I learned that by the age of 20, between 25 and 50 percent of adults worldwide need glasses or contact lenses to correct myopia. Let us not even get into the degradation of our eyes as we age, moving from myopia into presbyopia. Then there are those who suffer from cataracts, blindness, color blindness, astigmatism, depth-perception issues, and on and on. At this rate, I think the eye just barely ekes out with a better record for reliability than the Ford Pinto.
And get this: our eyes also perceive images upside down. Yep. It takes the work of our brain to correct this bizarre flaw, so we do not view the world around us as through the concave side of a spoon. Who would have designed such a thing? Oh, right … .
Finally, within the animal kingdom, our eyes can hardly be considered Best in Show. For example, the eyes of an eagle are vastly superior to our own. The human eye has something like 200 thousand vision cells in the most concentrated part of the eye, whereas an eagle eye has on the order of 1.5 million cells. Holy crap! One would think that as the most highly-regarded species of this planet, we would have the best eyes with which to view the order and design laid out before us, but such is not the case.
What does all of this mean? The eye is hardly the product of an omnipotent, perfect, sentient being. Is this really the best God could do? Could God not create an eye without flaws; and if God could, why did God choose not to? That seems like a fairly big waste of talent. (And the imperfections of the eye are just the tip of the iceberg. Think of all of the other design flaws within our bodies. Funny, how it takes human scientists and doctors to design things like artificial hips, to replace those “perfectly” designed by God.)
So, the eye. Complex and beautiful? Unequivocally, yes. Warranting a designer? No. Yet, believers using a teleological argument would have you believe the opposite; that the eye is truly the epitome of omnipotent design, proving God’s existence. The truth is, despite its obvious complexity, the only thing the eye exudes is the imperfection of the long, arduous process of evolution – much like the writing of this article.
(As an epilogue, let me add that this is just one of the many teleological arguments made by believers, and as such, this is just one defense. The point of the article is to simply highlight the flaws in both the premise and conclusion of a teleological argument (the universe, and everything in it, has order and design, necessitating a designer; therefore, God exists.), and how to deconstruct it, pointing out its invalid nature. Have fun applying this recipe the next time you happen to be involved in this type of debate!)
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