William Paley's Natural Theology?

Question

Do you know what it is?

Answer 1

The basis of Paley's famous 'watchmaker' argument strikes me as intellectually lacking. To wit:

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. 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 I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use."

Paley never revisits the stone of his hypothetical stroll to marvel at ITS apparent design or to gaze in awe at how precisely its position had been planned and ordained. Instead, he takes his speculation as conclusion, then proceeds on a merry tangent without looking back. No testing of hypotheses, no real investigations were required.

Neglecting that stone was actually missing the whole point. To deduce the designer's intentions, what was the purpose of that stone? Its size, its shape, its location, its composition? That small piece of the natural world was actually critical to formulating a natural theology, and yet Paley completely ignored it.

I often wish Paley had found some other object of his era on that heath, such as a tin of snuff. Imagine how absurd his argument would be viewed by almost everyone had that been the item of his "designer."

Answer 2

the unacknowledged bible of the modern paleyists such as behe and dembski