Claim CI100.1:

Design is self-evident. You just need to open your eyes and see it.

Source:

Wells, Jonathan, 2006. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Washington DC: Regnery, 83.
Anon, Jan. 2003. Feedback. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/jan03.html (2nd from end)

Response:

  1. This claim lacks any substance. It is nothing more than a subjective assertion. That design is far from self-evident is demonstrated by the difficulty people have in trying to describe the objective evidence for it.

  2. There are good reasons why people should see design that is not there.
    • Humans anthropomorphize. We tend to attribute our humanlike qualities to all sorts of things. Since design is what humans do, we attribute it far and wide.
    • Evolution and some human design both involve complex systems dealing with the same physical constraints (Csete and Doyle 2002).
    • Evolution has much in common with a design process. It generates trial-and-error modifications of existing forms and discards the inferior versions.

References:

  1. Csete, Marie E. and John C. Doyle, 2002. Reverse engineering of biological complexity. Science 295: 1664-1669.

Further Reading:

Isaak, Mark, 2003. What design looks like. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 23(5-6): 25-26,31-35.
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created 2003-11-29, modified 2006-8-22