Furthermore, David C. Stove, in his Darwinian Fairytales wrote about Design in Biology:
“We would all say, because we all know it to be true, that calculating-machines, automobiles, screwdrivers and the like, are just tools or devices which are designed, made, and manipulated by human beings for their own ends. Now, you cannot say this without implying that human beings are more intelligent and capable than calculators, automobiles, screwdrivers, etc.”
P. 171
“… the famous old ‘design argument’ for the existence of God …received its classic formulation in William Paley’s Natural Theology, (1802). But of course Paley did not invent the argument. For centuries before he wrote, it had been carrying conviction to almost every rational and educated mind.”
“It continued to do so for another 50 years after Paley wrote. This is a historical fact which deserves to be known and reflected upon, yet it has been almost completely forgotten. Far from having suffered a fatal blow at Hume’s hands in 1779, the design argument entered the period of its greatest flourishing only between 1800 and 1850. In 1829, for example, the Earl of Bridgewater provided a large sun in his will for a series of books to be written by the ablest authors, which would argue, not from revelation or from authority but rationally, for ‘the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation.’ [From a ‘Notice’ prefixed to Bell, Sir C. (1874), The Hand, (9th edition), George Bell and Son, London.]”
p. 181
“… someone who has tried in recent decades, as I have, to convince silly undergraduates of the merits of Paley’s classic book…”
“… in the last 30 years, Paley has had his revenge on Darwinism, for more than a century of undeserved contempt. The explanation of adaptation by reference to the purposes of intelligent and powerful agents has come back into its own. And its reinstatement has turned out to require only some comparatively minor changes to the theology involved.” Continue reading »
