"I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of complaint, and now the small trifling particulars of structure often make me uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, it makes me sick!"
-Charles Darwin (Letter to Asa Gray, dated 3 April 1860, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin)
Darwin's statement amazes me and piques my curiosity. Why did the sight of eyes in a peacock's feather make Darwin sick and cold all over? Because it looks like someone had literally and intentionally designed it with thought. Even Darwin, who came up with the most influential theory in modern history, cannot comprehend the intelligence of design in beauty.
Written before Darwin in 1802, William Paley's Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearance of Nature best illustrates how humans have the eye for design. We know design, we recognize design:
"But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given,--that, for anything I knoew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone?...For this reason, and for no other, viz,. that, when we come to inspect the watch we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are famed put together for a purpose....[Description of watch omitted.] This mechanism being observed... the inference, we think, is inevitalbe, that the watch must have had a maker....who comprehended its construction, and designed its use."
In short, Paley says we recognize when something has been made with intelligence such as a watch. When we see a watch, we believe without question and hesitation, that the watch must have had a watchmaker.
...The design in the world and the design of our bodies must have had a Designer.
Yay for design!
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