The Watchmaker

Some things never change, in fact I might argue that it has all been done before, just like “The Barenaked Ladies” say…

If you took philosophy at one of our fine institutions of higher learning, you might remember William Paley’s “watchmaker” argument for the existence of God.

To paraphrase, he used an analogy of a man walking when he stumbles across a watch on the ground, beautifully crafted pocket watch with all of it’s complexity on the ground-- one would have to conclude that there must have been a watchmaker, because a watch like that could not have just appeared by chance. If you want to read the full thing, here’s a link…

If you are reading this and thinking, djobe cannot possibly be advocating the teaching of intelligent design, can he? I thought he was a smart feller?

I tend to think that with most things—we should probably be exposed to lot’s of different perspectives, and the good ones will rise to the top. In the arena of ideas, just like natural selection, the good ones will fare better than the bad ones.

After all, you learned about bad grammar in English class (double negatives, correct use of "ain't")—why wouldn’t you learn about odd, un-testable, unscientific, alternative creation theories in science class?

When someone protests the teaching of an alternative it makes me think that they don’t have the courage of their convictions or trust the persuasiveness of their argument. If you resort to silencing the opposition you must not believe that informed individuals would agree with you.

If you have a persuasive argument, there is no need to silence the opposition—in fact the opposition will only more clearly bolster your own argument.

Do a thought experiment with me….do you object to teaching “our children” about when the greatest minds believed that the earth was the center of our solar system, or when the planet was flat? Do those theories not look ridiculous when compared with the now generally accepted facts about the cosmos? Do you think that exposing children to intelligent design will convert a bunch of kids to throw out evolutionary biology and genetics? (only the stupid ones,---and just like natural selection, they will fail to propagate as successfully as the rest of the population)…