THE CITY

The City
the analogical and the inductive forms of the classical design
argument. Put simply, the analogical form points out features of
some natural phenomena that are similar to features of human
artifacts and then concludes that since human artifacts are
products of intelligent agency, the natural phenomena in question
must also come from an intelligent agent. The inductive form
bases the design conclusion upon all previous experience of human
designers and their products. It claims that, because products with
certain features are known, by uniform experience, to come from
intelligent designers, it can be concluded that natural phenomena
with artifact-like features also came from an intelligent designer.
Hume’s critique of the former is that the analogy between human
design products and natural phenomena (especially the universe
itself ) is too weak, that the cases are not similar enough to justify
concluding that there is a mind behind the natural world, thus
the argument for a designer based upon the features of the natural
world is a very weak analogy. His contention against the inductive
form of the argument is that we can only infer causes with which we
have actual experience when attempting to explain known effects.
Upon observation of complexity, harmony of parts, and adjustment
of means to ends, we may postulate a designing agency, but only to
the extent that the object in question “has been experienced to
proceed from that principle.” 3 Past direct experience of the same
species of cause is necessary if we are to infer that cause from any
of its alleged effects.
It is not uncommon for today’s opponents of design to employ
the Humean objections. Robert Pennock claims that as soon as one
attempts to move from a phenomenon in nature to an intelligent
supernatural agent, the very concept of design “loses any connection
to reality as we know it or can know it scientifically.” 4 Pennock
does not see how we could justify positing a cause of which we have
no observational knowledge. Similarly, John Wilkins and Wesley
Elsberry emphasize what they see as an “in-principle difference
between rarefied and ordinary design inferences, based on the
background knowledge available about ordinary, but not rarefied,
3
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, in Classics of Western Philosophy
7th edition, ed. Steven Cahn (Indianapolis: Hackett, Inc.: 2006), 863.
4
Robert Pennock, Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics (MIT: 2001), 654.
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