Teleological argument

=== Perception of purpose in biology ===
{{main|Teleology in biology}}

The [[philosophy of biology|philosopher of biology]] [[Michael Ruse]] has argued that Darwin treated the structure of organisms as if they had a purpose: "the organism-as-if-it-were-designed-by God picture was absolutely central to Darwin's thinking in 1862, as it always had been".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruse, Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/darwindesigndoes00ruse_0 |title=Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780674010239 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/darwindesigndoes00ruse_0/page/122 122] |url-access=registration}}</ref> He refers to this as "the metaphor of design ... Organisms give the appearance of being designed, and thanks to Charles Darwin's discovery of natural selection we know why this is true." In his review of Ruse's book, R.J. Richards writes, "Biologists quite routinely refer to the design of organisms and their traits, but properly speaking it's ''apparent'' design to which they refer – an 'as if' design."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Richards, Robert J. |year=2004 |title=Michael Ruse's Design for Living |url=http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Richards%20on%20Ruse.pdf |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=37 |pages=25–38 |doi=10.1023/b:hist.0000020388.99933.5b |s2cid=9034212}}</ref> [[Robert Foley (academic)|Robert Foley]] refers to this as "the illusion of purpose, design, and progress". He adds, "there is no purpose in a fundamentally causative manner in evolution but that the processes of selection and adaptation give the illusion of purpose through the utter functionality and designed nature of the biological world".<ref>Foley, RA., in Morris, SC., ''The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal'', Templeton Foundation Press, 2008 p. 175.</ref>

Richard Dawkins suggests that while biology can at first seem to be purposeful and ordered, upon closer inspection its true function becomes questionable. Dawkins rejects the claim that biology serves any designed function, claiming rather that biology only mimics such purpose. In his book ''[[The Blind Watchmaker]]'', Dawkins states that animals are the most complex things in the known universe: "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." He argues that natural selection should suffice as an explanation of biological complexity without recourse to [[divine providence]].<ref name="Dawkins1986">{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPpaZnZMDG0C&pg=PA1 |title=The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design |publisher=Norton |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-393-31570-7 |page=1 |lccn=96229669}}</ref>

However, theologian [[Alister McGrath]] has pointed out that the fine-tuning of carbon is even responsible for nature's ability to tune itself to any degree.
{{blockquote|text=[The entire biological] evolutionary process depends upon the unusual chemistry of carbon, which allows it to bond to itself, as well as other elements, creating highly complex molecules that are stable over prevailing terrestrial temperatures, and are capable of conveying genetic information (especially DNA). {{omission}} Whereas it might be argued that nature creates its own fine-tuning, this can only be done if the primordial constituents of the universe are such that an evolutionary process can be initiated. The unique chemistry of carbon is the ultimate foundation of the capacity of nature to tune itself.<ref name="biologos.org" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=McGrath |first=Alister E. |title=A fine-tuned universe: the quest for God in science and theology |date=2009 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0664233105 |edition=1st |location=Louisville, KY. |page=176}}</ref>}}

Proponents of [[intelligent design]] creationism, such as [[William A. Dembski]] question the philosophical assumptions made by critics with regard to what a designer would or would not do. Dembski claims that such arguments are not merely beyond the purview of science: often they are tacitly or overtly theological while failing to provide a serious analysis of the hypothetical objective's relative merit. Some critics, such as [[Stephen Jay Gould]] suggest that any purported 'cosmic' designer would only produce optimal designs, while there are numerous biological criticisms to demonstrate that such an ideal is manifestly untenable. Against these ideas, Dembski characterizes both Dawkins' and Gould's argument as a rhetorical [[straw man]].<ref name="Dembski2004" /> He suggests a principle of [[constrained optimization]] more realistically describes the best any designer could hope to achieve:

{{blockquote|text=Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould was in no position to say whether the designer proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives… In criticizing design, biologists tend to place a premium on functionalities of individual organisms and see design as optimal to the degree that those individual functionalities are maximized. But higher-order designs of entire ecosystems might require lower-order designs of individual organisms to fall short of maximal function.<ref name="Dembski2004">{{Cite book |last=Dembski |first=William A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sKVqpXqE0VwC&pg=PA58 |title=The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design |publisher=InterVarsity Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8308-3216-3 |pages=58–59, 61 |lccn=2003020589}}</ref>|author=William A. Dembski|source=''[[The Design Revolution]]: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design''}}