If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but is twelve feet tall and says its name is "Moe", it may not be a duck.
By
D'Archangel
on March 11, 2007
The "looks like a duck" argument in favor of Intelligent Design is a classic argument from incredulity leavened with a dose of false analogy. The canard (heh) goes something like this: Life works in a very precise way, with various pieces that interlock with one another. The only things other than life that we know to exhibit these qualities were designed, therefore life was designed. QED.
The standard rebuttal is that life lacks a number of key features of designed systems, notably an identifiable designer, whose designer is also not identified. The IDiot response is to stick his fingers in his ears and sing "la-la-la, I can't hear you" before making the same claim again.
There's also occasionally a shell-game wherein they claim there is some sort of argument from probability involved. This is almost too stupid to address, but briefly: The vast majority of systems we see every day that could be thought to be designed are not known to be[1], so even stipulating that the probability argument has some validity, it backfires.
D'A
[1]: For the slow, I'm referring to all those living organisms hanging around everywhere.
Agreed
Disagreed
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Discussion (2)
I agree with the title, I may or may not agree with the description.
The argument I am used to is that the way we tell what is designed from what is natural has nothing to do with functionality and everything to do with experience.
If you find a clever watch, you will see it works wonderfully, tells time, and you will probably conclude it was designed by someone.
However, if you find a broken watch that doesn't work at all, you will also likely conclude it was designed by someone (either someone not very good at it or that it broke later). This is because we know that watches aren't natural.
If you find a very clever dog who functions quite well or a really cool sea-shell, you will conclude it is natural. Because we know dogs and sea-shells are natural.
If you weren't familiar with watches or dogs or shells, you might not know.