Q&A: Help! How to deal with this catholicism class “Intelligent Design” nonsense?
Posted by James on July 30, 2012 · 16 Comments
Question by : Help! How to deal with this catholicism class “Intelligent Design” nonsense?
So our last catholicism class was about the watchmaker argument. Well it’s really a stupid theory and simply doesn’t make any sense. The theory is that –The complex inner workings of a watch necessitate an intelligent designer and that simply shaking(evolution) is not enough. She even told us to try fixing an old watch by shaking it, according to her if evolution is correct it should work. The problem is we need to prepare a report on this, i know this theory is nonsense, so what should i do?
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That is a JW argument. Tell them that
What do you think? Answer below!
Your teacher argues- incorrectly- that evolution is akin to shaking (crude application of energy) raw materials (amino acids, nucleotides, lipids, carbs, etc.) needed to make a watch (life) and hoping to produce a watch. This is a horrid metaphor for several reasons.
First, biological and biochemical evolution are both driven by natural selection. What works well enough to reproduce continues on; what doesn’t work, doesn’t reproduce. This is a simple but powerful principle of the natural world that gradually creates biological systems of increasing complexity through the versatility of our genetics.
It is true that chance is an important element in evolution, but the biodiversity we see today is no accident. Instead, it is the logical consequence of life that must be “good enough” to pass on its genes. Random changes in the instructions for our bodies’ layouts happen regularly in our germline (reproductive) cells, putting the next generation to the ultimate evolutionary trial by fire. I strongly encourage you to read books on genetics or take courses in genetics to fully appreciate how this is possible. If you have questions on this subject, my e-mail is open.
Secondly, the complexity of biological systems may be irreducible (by Behe’s definition) in modern-day organisms, but if one lends credence to evolution, then it follows that such systems were once not irreducibly complex early in evolutionary history. We commonly run across examples in nature of re-tooling old structures and innovations to suit new purposes. Flower petals, for example, are the specialization of leaves to attract pollinators (ever looked at a poinsettia?).
I argue that it is the development of specialized systems and their eventual, chance alignment (through the aforementioned mechanism of mutation/natural selection) to render these systems into parts of greater complexity than the genetic changes that refine the function of a single piece of that system alone. It follows that interdependence comes about from the refinement of pieces of this initially claptrap system such that they advance the function of the whole and not the original function of the individual piece.
What do I mean by that? Let’s return to the flower example. One may see that the flower develops from specialized leaves that grow near to the plant’s reproductive organs (something that the plant “knows” from the chemical signals produced by its parts during development). The leaves may have to change in size, color, and shape to form the attractive or pollen-catching parts of the flower.
The developmental scheme of petals has been subtly altered over the course of evolutionary history such that they resemble those of the modern flower yet have lost their original function as surfaces to capture sunlight or exchange gas with the air. If you were to then remove these specialized leaves from the flower, the flower’s ability to catch pollen or attract pollinators would be significantly diminished. Rose petals got there by chance, to be sure, but that chance is overseen by Dawkins’s blind watchmaker.
Finally, your teacher may ask about the origins of life itself and not about the development of complex systems through evolution. This is an area far more murky to science. If I were to give you a straight answer, it would be that we do not know how it happened. However, that does not rule out the possibility of this “abiogenesis,” the generation of life from non-living materials. This is not an area I’m well-versed in, but one popular theory is that ribozymes – enzymes made from RNA, a less stable chemical that is similar to DNA – were responsible for the origins of the first crude cell-like compartments. The ribozymes themselves were produced by the catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide and water into nucleotides (I’m fuzzy on the origin of the aromatic nucleobases themselves, however) by minerals, which thanks to a combination of selection and spontaneous polymerization produced the first crude ribozymes.
If one were to entertain this theory, it would follow that the catalytic sites happened somewhere to be appropriately shaped for life. Was this the doing of God, or a coincidence? That’s something you’ll have to decide on your own- the point is that even the naturalistic theory is not “shaking parts in a watch.”
It boils down to this: We definitely have good reason to believe that evolution produced modern-day biological complexity and diversity. Abiogenesis could also be a very precise process without needing to incorporate intelligent design. Keep that in mind the next time you head to the classroom- and maybe when you write your report.
That’s not a theory, that’s an argument.
Watches are not biological organisms. Bad analogy. FAIL.
It’s a strawman argument. Lookup what that is and incorporate that.
However, with religion, it doesn’t matter how much sense you make. What they want to hear is all about god. It won’t matter what you say and how much it makes sense, unfortunately. You could always just give them the “god is good because”, then when you are done with that school run far away knowing you’re right and they are wrong.
As a Christian I must inform you that the Catholic Church is nonsense anyways, and holds to the theory of evolution just like atheist on this forum do, so you don’t have to worry about them making you a ” Godly ” girl, as the Catholic Church is every bit as evil and lost as militant atheist.
Unless you want an F, just go along with it. Tell them what they want to hear, since that’s all they listen to anyway
I would look at both sides of the story, unlike what most people like yourself have done. Catholics are wrong on evolution, and apparently, intelligent design. You have also misstated the theory, which makes it a straw man argument.
If you want further bad arguments to write about, get the God Delusion. I love that book, since it strengthened my faith in creation quite a bit.
Tell your teacher the Catholic church sees no quarrel with evolution.
In addition tell her a Catholic Bishop came up with the big bang theory.
Your assignment is to prepare a report on it. Nowhere in the directions you’ve presented does it say the report has be defend the position of the watchmaker argument. Just write a report about why the watchmaker argument fails.
Main points to include are these:
–It is a false analogy. Watches aren’t made of self-replicating molecules or components. They are not subject to selective pressures. Therefore, watches are not, in any way, associated with evolution.
–A key to good design is -minimum- complexity. Having something be overly complex is just as bad as having something not complex enough to do the job. What we see in biology is a myriad of redundancies in our DNA. There are entire sections of DNA that do not code for anything. There are multiple instances of ERVs which no longer code for the viruses after our ancestor got over the illness.
–Just because something is complex does not mean it was designed. Crystal structures have a known naturalistic formation method that requires no designer. However, that structure is very complex.
–The reason why we know a watch needs a designer is because they cannot form on their and because we have watched designers design watches. We do not infer an unknown designer until we have directly witnessed a similar designer do similar work.
My answer depends on one thing: is this class for school, or is it just some religious class that doesn’t really matter?
If it’s the first, then write a report explaining the argument but include a paragraph with a counterargument (i.e., explain what evolution actually is, and how it’s not analogous to shaking a watch). Don’t flat-out say that the watchmaker argument is wrong, though, or your teacher will probs fail you.
If it’s the second, then write one paragraph on what the argument is and spend the rest of the report demolishing it.
I’m Catholic but consider myself to be agnostic my atheist mates at my Catholic school got out off class by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
You find another school. For you to stay there would be a waste of your time and theirs. If you live under your parents’ roof and don’t have a choice in the matter, then as another answerer indicated, you play along until you can make school decisions on your own.
In the meantime, you can minimize your misery by thinking of this as an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone else. In the field of Sociology, this is referred to as “beginner’s mind” in which you try to let go of ethnocentrism and your own notions of what is “correct” or “better” and try to learn about a culture from that culture’s point of view.
This is quite helpful, worth a look at for your report.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
Be careful not to say it is a stupid theory without giving a reason and if it is catholicism class you could get deducted marks for it. Back everything you say with evidence.
It should work yes but it takes time, much longer than our life time and as evolution has had quite a few million years to get started it must have happened at some point because as your teacher said, “If you shake it enough times it will form a watch”.
If you put the ingredients to make amino acids which make up proteins which then form together to make the first single celled organisms and so on so on. In the right conditions the law of the the multiverse says that in the whole of time and space every possibility happens, it just so happens to be our universe.
Be honest and prove your point. I believe your teacher is right, but you need to struggle with the issue till you believe it. The problem is you haven’t looked closely enough at creation. It can’t be an accident.
Look closely. Watches do evolve, they started with a stick and a shadow. But they did not evolve without intelligent designers working to improve them. Even the simplest creature in creation is vastly more complex than a watch. Look closely. God bless, Jesus loves you.
Mary is not a god you could say this to your teacher for according the catholics she is a god this is against the 10 commandments for the first commandment is ( You will have no other God beside me ) so this is what you tell her , also mary had other children after Jesus she is the mother of James the apostle , Sholom
The watchmaker argument is neither a theory nor an argument – it’s just an analogy and a poor one at that. Here’s more:
http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/watchmak.htm
I thought most Catholics these days were theistic evolutionists.
The watchmaker argument is outdated and really only works for things like the fine-tuning of the universe. Your teacher should look up the arguments of guys like Dr. William Lane Craig, Dr. Stephen Meyer, and Dr. Alvin Plantinga and teach those. Consequently, if you read their books and listen to their debates, I think you will quit calling ID “nonsense.”