Is Dawkins arguing that a cause must be greater than its effect?

Question

On the one hand, Dawkins is a rather vocal exponent of evolution. Evolution, to me, appears to hold that greater complexity can arise form lesser complexity (unless we want to argue that the causes conspiring to increase the complexity of a particular part of the universe are summa summarum greater in some sense than the effected increase in complexity in the organism, which isn't obvious to me).

On the other hand, Dawkins requires that God be incredibly complex if he is to be a legitimate cause of the universe, that is, he must be complex enough to produce something like the universe. To him, this contradicts the Christian, or at least Catholic belief, that God is irreducibly simple, composed of no parts, and so on.

Dawkins is not particularly well known for his philosophical erudition, but if we take his claims and evaluate them on their own merit, are there problems between these two positions?

Answer 1

I don't think Dawkins' point is based upon the nature of God but on the mechanism by which God created the universe. As an intentional process, as opposed to a random one, God apparently had to decide on all sorts of things (including forming some sort of internal model of how things would go to be sure they'd end up the way He wanted). A being that can predict how a universe will behave and then create it is in some sense at least more complex than the universe itself (or the foresight would not be assured of working). Since evolution is not posited to have foresight of anything, you can have very simple starting conditions and rules that yield very complex (but completely unpredicted) consequences.

If Dawkins' point was that if X creates Y by any means and any reasonable definition of "creates", then X is more complex than Y, I agree, he's in trouble. I just don't think that's a sensible interpretation.

Answer 2

Dennett talks about this as "Skyhooks" vs. "Cranes"

A Crane is something which can build great complexity, but it rests on simple, fundamental principles. This is like evolution.

A Skyhook (a crane hanging from a helicopter) is something which can build great complexity, but it rests on no firm foundations. This is like creationism.

Some of the criticisms you bring up have been brought up by others who say that Dawkins doesn't differentiate well enough between these two in his Boeing 747 Gambit. He may not have presented the argument perfectly, but others have made it more rigorous.

Answer 3

The fundamental distinction between the hand of Natural Selection and the hand of God(s) is intent.

The Theorum of Evolution states that Natural Selection is non-random, but is absent intent, will, or consciousness. Natural Selection is the expression of natural laws in biology and ecology. In contrast, a creator deity requires an intelligence complex enough to encompass the entirety of existence. Evolution arises naturally from the observed laws of the universe; God does not.

The modern concept of Evolution posits that life began on Earth a simple molecule that was able to imperfectly replicate itself from widely available compounds in its environment. Errors in replication which are beneficial (e.g. slightly longer claws, the ability to metabolize oxygen, etc.) allow one variant branch to thrive while those who lacked that variation die out (or evolve along a different path that is equally beneficial. )

Give this excruciatingly slow process enough time (in our case, about 4 billion years) and you find that the creatures that survived the hundreds of trillions of reproduction cycles are very well suited (i.e. adapted) to the environment they developed in.

So, complexity of life doesn't need a creative will; all it needs is time and resources. The eyeball did not appear perfectly formed at once (God creating complexity), it arose over eons because those individual life forms with better light-detecting cells tend to survive and everyone else gets eaten or starves (nature selecting beneficial traits).

Answer 4

From you: “a designed universe would need a cause at least as complex as the universe, but an undesigned universe would not”. You did know the answer of your question, but you “only dug myself in deeper, involving the nature of "laws" and their causal status and in relation to the effect”. You “dug yourself” in obscure metaphysics that only you understand: “a cause must be greater than its effect.” In which obscure meaning the cause of a nuclear explosion or avalanche is greater than its effect? If "greater" means more complex or has more order, this principle is not a nature law, because the reduction of entropy is a characteristic of the evolution and life:

Wikipedia summary:

Some people think that life, contrary to the general tendency dictated by the Second law of thermodynamics, decreases or maintains its entropy by feeding on negative entropy. But the principle that entropy can only increase or remain constant applies only to a closed system which is adiabatically isolated, meaning no heat can enter or leave. Whenever a system can exchange either heat or matter with its environment, an entropy decrease of that system is entirely compatible with the second law. Living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy. The apparent paradox between the second law of thermodynamics and the high degree of order and complexity produced by living systems has its resolution in the energy that enters the biosphere from outside sources. Entropy reduction is a general characteristic of life.