Have you ever seen the wind? Have you seen history? We see the effects of the wind, but the wind is invisible. We have records of history, but it is by trust we believe that certain historical events happened. Television waves are invisible, but an antenna and a receiver can detect their presence. Have you ever seen your own brain? We all believe in many things that we have never seen. It is not necessary to directly observe something, to understand it exists. A point of difference between William Paley’s argument about the watch and his argument about organisms is that we have seen watchmakers, but have never seen God. I do not believe this point of difference weakens his design argument. The words “see” and “observe” are subjective. Due to seeing other things manifest, we have no reason not to believe similar things will or did as well.
Paley never stated you have to see the watchmaker to understand that there must be one. “…if he is unseen and unknown, but raises no doubt in our minds of the existence and agency of such an artist, at some former time and in some place or other.” (Paley 117) You see a product, and assume, with all logical reasoning, someone made it. I have never seen a watchmaker make a watch right before my eyes, so for all I might know there is no such thing. However, I choose to believe there must be watchmakers because I’ve seen cooks prepare meals, computer technicians fix my computer, and construction workers build houses. Based on observing the world around me, it can be concluded that every product, thing, problem, circumstance, etc. has a creator, so a watch does too. According to this logic, if you directly observe OTHER elements, that ar ...