Re: William Paley

John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:dgldlo$11kd$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> P.J. Gann wrote:
>> "John Wilkins" <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:dg58l0$1g8j$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>>Gary Bohn wrote:
>>>
>>>>"*Hemidactylus*" <ecphoric@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>>>news:1126410343.673288.183620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Josh Hayes wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>"rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx" <rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>>>>>news:1126392179.826545.178490@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>maff wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>William Paley
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Yes, we know. What about him? Is this an ongoing project whose
>>>>>>>explanation I've missed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>DATELINE: Lincoln, Lincolnshire, ENGLAND
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This bulletin: William Paley is still dead.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>He's been ex-Humed.
>>>>>
>>>>>I bet Wilkins at least gets that one. He's a philosopher, unlike
>>>>>the resident bio-bunch.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>We now return you to your
>>>>>>regular fetid and festering sewer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Yes we know, Paley was more or less debunked by Hume. It was quite
>>>>clever, but would have been much funnier had I thought of it.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Ektually, Hume debunked Paley *before* Paley wrote...
>>>
>>
>> How was Paley debunked?
>
> Paley relies on an argument from analogy between the complexity of
> objects due to human design and the complexity of living objects. Hume
> wrote:
>
> "What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much
> that all religious arguments are by Cleanthes reduced to experience,
> as that they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable
> of that inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn,
> that the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a
> thousand times; and when any new instance of this nature is presented,
> we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact
> similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar
> event; and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But
> wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases,
> you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to
> a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and
> uncertainty. After having experienced the circulation of the blood in
> human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes place in Titius and
> Maevius. But from its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is only a
> presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in
> men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker, when
> we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our experience
> that the blood circulates in animals; and those, who hastily followed
> that imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments, to
> have been mistaken.
>
> If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with the greatest
> certainty, that it had an architect or builder; because this is
> precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed
> from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the
> universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same
> certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire
> and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can
> here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a
> similar cause; and how that pretension will be received in the world,
> I leave you to consider."
>
> ...
>
> "Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen,
> he would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to
> determine what kind of scene the universe must be, or to give the
> preference to one state or situation of things above another. For as
> nothing which he clearly conceives could be esteemed impossible or
> implying a contradiction, every chimera of his fancy would be upon an
> equal footing; nor could he assign any just reason why he adheres to
> one idea or system, and rejects the others which are equally possible.
>
> Again; after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it
> really is, it would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause
> of any one event, much less of the whole of things, or of the
> universe. He might set his fancy a rambling; and she might bring him
> in an infinite variety of reports and representations. These would all
> be possible; but being all equally possible, he would never of himself
> give a satisfactory account for his preferring one of them to the
> rest. Experience alone can point out to him the true cause of any
> phenomenon.
>
> Now, according to this method of reasoning, Demea, it follows, (and
> is, indeed, tacitly allowed by Cleanthes himself,) that order,
> arrangement, or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any
> proof of design; but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed
> from that principle. For ought we can know a priori, matter may
> contain the source or spring of order originally within itself as well
> as mind does; and there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the
> several elements, from an internal unknown cause, may fall into the
> most exquisite arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas, in the
> great universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into
> that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these suppositions is
> allowed. But, by experience, we find, (according to Cleanthes,) that
> there is a difference between them. Throw several pieces of steel
> together, without shape or form; they will never arrange themselves so
> as to compose a watch. Stone, and mortar, and wood, without an
> architect, never erect a house. But the ideas in a human mind, we see,
> by an unknown, inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so as to form
> the plan of a watch or house. Experience, therefore, proves, that
> there is an original principle of order in mind, not in matter.
> From similar effects we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means
> to ends
> is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human contrivance. The
> causes, therefore, must be resembling.
>
> I was from the beginning scandalized, I must own, with this
> resemblance, which is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures;
> and must conceive it to imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being
> as no sound Theist could endure. With your assistance, therefore,
> Demea, I shall endeavour to defend what you justly call the adorable
> mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, and shall refute this reasoning
> of Cleanthes, provided he allows that I have made a fair
> representation of it.
>
> When Cleanthes had assented, Philo, after a short pause, proceeded in
> the following manner.
>
> That all inferences, Cleanthes, concerning fact, are founded on
> experience; and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the
> supposition that similar causes prove similar effects, and similar
> effects similar causes; I shall not at present much dispute with you.
> But observe, I entreat you, with what extreme caution all just
> reasoners proceed in the transferring of experiments to similar cases.
> Unless the cases be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence
> in applying their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every
> alteration of circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event;
> and it requires new experiments to prove certainly, that the new
> circumstances are of no moment or importance. A change in bulk,
> situation, arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or surrounding
> bodies; any of these particulars may be attended with the most
> unexpected consequences: and unless the objects be quite familiar to
> us, it is the highest temerity to expect with assurance, after any of
> these changes, an event similar to that which before fell under our
> observation. The slow and deliberate steps of philosophers here, if
> any where, are distinguished from the precipitate march of the vulgar,
> who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are incapable of all
> discernment or consideration.
>
> But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm and philosophy
> have been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you
> compared to the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from
> their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their
> causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and
> other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of
> the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a
> hundred others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active
> cause, by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce
> alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety,
> be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great
> disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the
> growth of a hair, can we learn any thing concerning the generation of
> a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly
> known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree?
>
> But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of
> nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgment concerning the
> origin of the whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so
> minute, so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of
> animals is found to be upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has
> this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must
> thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our
> own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound
> philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.
>
> So far from admitting, continued Philo, that the operations of a part
> can afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole,
> I will not allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the
> latter be very remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground
> to conclude, that the inhabitants of other planets possess thought,
> intelligence, reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men?
> When nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in
> this small globe, can we imagine that she incessantly copies herself
> throughout so immense a universe? And if thought, as we may well
> suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and has even there
> so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety can we assign it
> for the original cause of all things? The narrow views of a peasant,
> who makes his domestic economy the rule for the government of
> kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable sophism.
>
> But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason,
> resembling the human, were to be found throughout the whole universe,
> and were its activity elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding
> than it appears in this globe; yet I cannot see, why the operations of
> a world constituted, arranged, adjusted, can with any propriety be
> extended to a world which is in its embryo state, and is advancing
> towards that constitution and arrangement. By observation, we know
> somewhat of the economy, action, and nourishment of a finished animal;
> but we must transfer with great caution that observation to the growth
> of a foetus in the womb, and still more in the formation of an
> animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature, we find, even from
> our limited experience, possesses an infinite number of springs and
> principles, which incessantly discover themselves on every change of
> her position and situation. And what new and unknown principles would
> actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the formation
> of a universe, we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend to
> determine. A very small part of this great system, during a very short
> time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and do we then pronounce
> decisively concerning the origin of the whole?
>
> Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at
> this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement
> without human art and contrivance; therefore the universe could not
> originally attain its order and arrangement, without something similar
> to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for another part very
> wide of the former? Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a
> rule for the universe? Is nature in one situation, a certain rule for
> nature in another situation vastly different from the former?
>
> And can you blame me, Cleanthes, if I here imitate the prudent reserve
> of Simonides, who, according to the noted story, being asked by Hiero,
> What God was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more;
> and after that manner continually prolonged the term, without ever
> bringing in his definition or description? Could you even blame me, if
> I answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this
> subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You might cry out
> sceptic and rallier, as much as you pleased: but having found, in so
> many other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even
> contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from
> its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from
> the sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always
> been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the
> existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I
> call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have
> place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single,
> individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be
> difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a serious
> countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and
> art like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain
> this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin
> of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships
> and cities arise from human art and contrivance."
>
> [From <http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm#A2> - the
> Dialogies were pushumously published in 1779. Paley wrote in 1794.
> There is evidence Paley had read Hume, but I suspect that he didn't
> think the work concluded against his opinion.]
>
> In short, order does not imply design, and the analogy is weak.
>

Thank you John.

--
Gary Bohn

Science rationally modifies a theory to fit evidence, creationism
emotionally modifies evidence to fit the bible.

.

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