Paley (Fig. 3.3) catalogued a host of biological systems that suggested the work of a superintending intelligence. Paley argued that the astonishing complexity and superb adaptation of means to ends in such systems could not originate strictly through the blind forces of nature. Paley also responded directly to Hume’s claim that the design inference rested upon a faulty analogy. A watch that could reproduce itself, he argued, would constitute an even more marvelous effect than one that could not.26 Thus, for Paley, the differences between artifacts and organisms only seemed to strengthen the
...more
