Proof of God through Design (Part One) ?

UPDATED THRU 12/15/2015

Briefly this argument is as follows.  We know a house has an architect and  a shirt has a maker  etc : etc: . When studying say an eye we marvel at its design and fitness for focusing light rays.  Similarly for  numerous other biological organs and features.  Therefore  we should  conclude plants and  animals have a designer. 

This argument for god logically fails because it is a false analogy.  Humans have empirical experience and therefore know houses need  architects.  But we have no experience that  biological forms require a designer. 

The argument also logically fails because we could then ask who designed the designer of the eye ? We get into an infinite regress . Also there is a logical inconsistency between the premise a design needs a designer, yet god does not need a designer.

The argument also fails because of the fallacy of the god of the gaps. Briefly stated this is when  a lack of knowledge (for example how did the eye come to be)  is plugged with god doing it. Of course that contributes nothing to our knowledge and progress.

An important an empirical refute to the argument of god thru design is evolution . The scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming and is the overwhelming scientific consensus of why there is an eye.  The eye evolved from previous  structures.
  
(Interestingly numerous biological organs or functions have the appearance of poor design and seem like make shift modifications or atrophies of prior organs. For example, why do humans have a remnant tail. These kinds of imperfections and anomalies betray the concept of an actual omniscient designer.)

{ETA 11/15/2014 Page 143 of Zoology by Burnett, Fisher, Zim 1958 "The fact of evolution is incontrovertible." Among other evidence the book presents is embryonic stages of mammals and birds  include fish like and reptile like stages. Fossil progression of say earlier forms of the horse to later forms. Vestigial organs found in many animals including for example horse splint bones. [The latter two examples also prove there was no omniscient designer. Why would a designer place vestigial organs or parts into a design ? Rather, they are there as vestiges of earlier animals from which later animals evolved from.}


Some apologetics try to inject god into the evolution equation. However, evolution operates completely independently of any supernatural beings, so there is no room for god in evolution.  God is simply superfluous. {ETA 7/25/2014 Evolution has no room for a designer. Species were and are still evolving without guidance and  not to some ultimate design. Evolution is governed by randomness, mutation, natural selection, changing environments, myriads of interactions...and is largely unpredictable.}

Some apologetics say the emergence of life forms as described in the Torah is consistent with evolution. However a careful reading of the Torah and an understanding of evolution refutes such a proposal. This would be a topic for another article but consider the fact that evolution is an on going process while the Genesis model is static.  Also,Genesis has god bringing forth land plants then flying creatures and then mammals. While evolution has certain types  land plants emerging  after the emergence of certain types of mammals. Then we have the major hurdle of how to explain away the temporal periods of Genesis.

Finally apologetics resort to alleged low probabilities of the emergence of life. Proof of God via the origin of life itself will be a topic for another post.

UPDATE: The second law of thermodynamics does not refute evolution, since the Earth is not a closed system and receives energy input from the sun.{ETA 10/31/2015 Also scientists explain the rays of the sun come in ordered and are then released by living things and the Earth disordered. And there is pollution/waste products created by living things which is also disorder. So Total Entropy in fact does increase and no violation of second law occurs. Finally, since the Universe is expanding the maximum total allowable entropy is increasing. Therefore small pockets of ordered structures can appear with no violation of the second law.} 

{ETA 12/15/2015 From http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html "Several scientists have proposed that evolution and the origin of life is driven by entropy (McShea 1998). Some see the information content of organisms subject to diversification according to the second law (Brooks and Wiley 1988), so organisms diversify to fill empty niches much as a gas expands to fill an empty container. Others propose that highly ordered complex systems emerge and evolve to dissipate energy (and increase overall entropy) more efficiently (Schneider and Kay 1994). "}

Continued Proof of God from Design Part 2 or Disproof of Evolution

Also see the posts Genesis and Evolution, Proof of God from Origin of Life Proof of God from Thermodynamics