Response to the Divine Watchmaker "theory"

"I am going to have to disagree with you as I cock my gun and sit in this here rockin' chair. Just kidding. But you may find some people- including myself- that believe in the Watchwinder Theory OR Reconstructionist Jews. This doesn't make us religious, but it also doesn't make us atheists. Recon Jews believe that G-d doesn't interact with humans- in fact it was basically a roll of the dice and then adios. Therefore I can certainly believe that evolution was created by G-d i.e. the roll of the dice, but that G-d is no longer watching or participating and it is pretty much a free for all. Says you?" - Bubblesworth

First, I want to thank the poster both for reading the blog and for posting a comment. I hope you don't take offense to my response. The problem is that so often the very nature of a religious belief is that any criticism of it is seen as some kind of insult or affront. Be forewarned, I will attack the above assertion, but I am attacking it only as an argument, and as an argument, it is quite weak.

I'm not familiar with reconstructionist judaism, however, this idea of a Watchwinder, is fairly common, and I believe is more commonly associated with deists who referred to god as the "Divine Watchmaker." Considering many of our founding fathers were deists, I will refrain from belittling the argument... too much. Both Aristotle and Plato posited similar arguments which are also referred to as the cosmological argument, the first-cause argument, and the unmoved-mover argument. They're no slouches either, however, I would be remiss were I to allow there to be some shadow of a doubt as to whether I believe the first-mover "theory" is remotely credible, it is not. That is unless you allow the term "God" to be so loosely defined that it loses all meaning. In addition, before Darwin's discovery, it was highly rational to adopt a deist's perspective, after all, how could you explain the apparent design in nature? However, Darwin's discovery was made, and I have little doubt that were these esteemed thinkers aware of it, they would have dropped deism like it was Paris Hitlon's used panties. I'd like to make one small point before I go on to explain this position. If god just set things in motion then walked away from the whole thing... does he check in every once in a while to make sure people aren't including the "o" in the English word that describes him?

I actually wrote the following paragraph last, but I realize that it is probably the only paragraph many people will need, so I've moved it here. If you do not find this sufficient, then feel free to read on. In his book "The God Delusion," Dawkin's deals with most religious arguments in a manner I could only hope to replicate, especially in a hastily written blog. Dawkins points out that though the "Divine Knob-Twiddler" argument is an attempt to explain how everything began, it fails miserably simply because it fails to explain how the Divine Watchmaker itself came into existence. If you are willing to say he is infinite, why are you unwilling to say simply the universe is infinite? If he is finite, then do we need a different Divine Watchmaker that is responsible for creating him? The purpose of the first-cause argument is to try to assuage our common sense supposition that everything has a cause (despite the fact that science has repeatedly shown that our common sense has as many flaws as Lady Gaga's face). The argument is, everything has a cause, God is what we call the cause of the universe. But as Dawkin's points out, if everything has a cause, then something must have caused God... and then something must have caused that cause, and so on. If you are willing to say, "well God is where the requirement stops," why not say that "the universe is where that requirement stops." The point is not which one is right, no one knows what happened, the point is merely that this argument fails in its primary purpose, to explain how we are here. In other words, the Divine Watchmaker doesn't explain how we are here because it doesn't explain how the Divine Watchmaker was created, a necessary link in the chain of our existence.

Before I go on I'd like to point out that I am very uncomfortable with statements like, "Therefore I can certainly believe that evolution was created by G-d." Whether it was the commenter's intention or not, it's statements like these which I think lead to confusion about natural selection. Natural selection is not a "thing" that needs a creator, it is the necessary consequence of DNA. It's not even like the theory of gravity which one could admittedly say, ok, but why is there gravity?" As I hopefully explained in my previous post, if DNA exists then natural selection will occur as the organisms containing beneficial strands of DNA are more succesful at reproduction than those that do not. Saying, "I can believe that evolution was created was created by god," seems rather like saying, "I can believe that god makes balls roll down hills." That a ball rolls down a hill is a necessary consequence of gravity and hills. We simply don't need God to explain the existence of evolution or balls rolling down hills. Now if you want to say, "God created the laws of the universe (including gravity), which led to the creation of the primordial soup, which led to the creation of DNA," that's something else. But the idea that evolution needs some kind of explanation like, "God made it," I believe demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory, which is the very reason I began my "You don't know as much about evolution as you think" posts.

Back to the argument. First of all, the divine watchmaker argument is absolutely not a theory, and it's the use of the word in this context which causes so much confusion in the public. They place natural selection on equal footing with "theories" such as this merely because someone has inappropriately used the word. By definition, in order for something to be a theory, it must be falsifiable; i.e. it must be logically possible that the assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment (Wikipedia). If you could prove to me that there's no such thing as DNA, or if you provided me with human fossils that were the same age as dinosaur fossils we'd have to toss the theory of evolution. Now one might say that it's virtually impossible to present proof against natural selection. Well that's why natural selection has progressed from theory to fact. Every good theory is going to be practically impossible to disprove, but it will always be logically possible to disprove. I can't present you with evidence that the theory of gravity is false, obviously, but theoretically if you could demonstrate that mass was unrelated to gravitational pull then the theory will have to be rejected. How can we falsify the Watchwinder "theory?" If I say that natural selection proves that god isn't responsible for the seeming design in nature, then the commenter can simply say, well god made evolution. If I say that physicists say that X, Y and Z happened which is what created the world, the commenter can always say, "Well god made X, Y and Z happen. Just think about the power of this argument. Before natural selection was discovered, people like the commenter were more than happy to say, "Oh look this proves that god must have set everything up." Then Darwin comes along and they say, "Oh no worries, my answer is still god." What a wonderful "theory!" No matter how the facts or evidence change, the answer remains the same! This is why falsifiability is so important for any legitimate theory. So this is without question NOT a theory, it is an argument.

Theories are also backed by evidence, what evidence is there? Arguments that there is evidence for such a claim always apply the loosest definition of "evidence." For some reason, only rational arguments require hard evidence like a fossil record or experimental evidence, but when it comes to stuff like this, the proponents are usually more than happy to hide behind philosophical arguments mislabeled as evidence and non-falsifiable statements like, "the fact that we are here proves it." Well there are a million arguments which can use our very existence as evidence. "Well a giant dog took a huge dump, and that dump formed the cosmos. Proof? We're here aren't we? Therefore obviously we come from a dog's poop." This of course seems ridiculous, but is it less ridiculous than belief in Quetzalcoatl or the Norse Gods? Of course religious people will dismiss the "dog poop god" off-hand because they wouldn't want to believe we came from poop, and as I will discuss later, the religious mind's desires clearly govern their "beliefs."

Another way of putting it is in logician's terms: "asserting and denying existence statements are not symmetrical... denying an existential statement is actually a universal statement and you can't in principle verify universal statements about what happens everywhere in the universe." (Peter Slezak) I can no more deny the existence of a divine watchmaker, than deny the universe was created by aliens, or dogs or flying spaghetti monsters. I can no more deny any of those, than deny that UFOs, fairies, witches, etc. exist. All I know is that if I lived my life believing in things for which there was only a chance of their existence, and no real evidence, I'd spend most of my time worshiping silly stuff that even the commenter doesn't believe in.

This brings me to my next point. If God just got the ball rolling, what does that tell us about him? Does he need any special properties whatsoever? Does he even need a conscious mind at all? What if "God" was merely a mindless automaton created by aliens and whose sole purpose was to be the first-mover? Should we be worshiping the aliens? What if he was a semi-mindless automoton? What if it took a couple of Gods to "get the ball rolling?" Whatever proof there is that there was a divine watchmaker (though I can't think of any, I do have confidence in the creativity of the religious mind), I can't imagine it excluding the possibility of multiple deities. So I guess my question is, if all you believe God did was roll the die, why bother using the word God at all? I don't know the scientific theories behind the origins of the universe but let's say there was a theory which stated that the universe is infinite but began empty; then a random fluctuation in the fabric of space-time resulted in a small positive area (matter) and a small negative area (anti-matter), which then collided, creating the big bang. Could we call that particle of anti-matter the first-mover? This is what I meant when I referred to using a definition of God which was so loose as to lose all meaning. If all God did was push the boulder over the edge of the cliff, should we really call him God anyway? By the commenter's own admission his only necessary power is the ability to start things off. The judeo-christian God is generally accepted by theological scholars as possessing the three O's: Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence. Since the divine watchmaker doesn't stick around, he's clearly not omnipresent.

This comment also brings up a point I've been thinking about a lot lately-the multiple definitions of the word "belief." Bubblesworth says she "believes" in the Watchwinder theory. But does she believe in it like I believe in this computer? Does she believe it like she believes in gravity? Would she be willing to bet her life on it? I certainly hope not! Obviously she doesn't, how could she, she's chosen to believe it. But I can no more choose to believe in the Watchwinder than I can choose to believe that the world is flat. Not only that but prior to this belief, she chose to believe that the holy trinity created the universe (or something like that, the problem with religious belief is that it is so varied, forming one complete argument against it is nearly impossible), only later in life did she choose to believe in something different. We truly believe in things because there is concrete evidence of their existence or because their existence follows from a set of established premises. I don't choose to believe that metal is hard, I have to believe it because that conclusion is unavoidable. The truth is that when she says, "I believe," what she means is, "I want to believe." She wants to believe that God is a Watchwinder. Why, I have no idea. Such a disinterested deity seems of little interest to me. The best actual explanation is that the commenter has been "infected" by the Watchwinder Meme. But that's another discussion for another time.

Next,I'd like to address this part of her statement, "This doesn't make us religious, but it also doesn't make us atheists." This is a difficult statement to approach, considering it seems to be clearly contradicted within her own statement, e.g. "evolution was created by G-d ." If you believe a god exists or existed at one point (though obviously if he no longer exists he's not really god-like) you are a theist, considering the very first definition in merriam-webster's "theist" entry is: "belief in the existence of a god or god." I don't really see how someone can believe in God, but not be religious. That sounds rather like calling yourself a vegetarian, but eating meat. Of course this is the kind of logical contradiction a religion meme is so good at propagating in its host. Also, the re-branding of Creationism as Intelligent Design is just one example of the seeming desire of religious people to pass their religious-beliefs off as rational arguments. That might also be at play behind this statement. Though I can't deny with absolute certainty that God exists or that he is a Divine Watchmaker (or that he is a flying spaghetti monster, or that he is Britney Spears), I can undoubtedly deny that the arguments behind these assertions are irrational.