There was once a fellow named Zeno who made a similar argument.
Aristotle was not convinced.
Dr. Merritt,
are you bringing a proof from Aristotle? But he believed in intelligent
design (see below for his argument), and therefore would be shunned and
blacklisted these days from any scientific circle...
JPK
Aristotle, Physics, Bk II, chap 8:
...[Here is his statement of Darwin's theory, which is quoted by Darwin in
his preface to The Origin of the Species without qualification (as if this
were Aristotle's real opinion!)]...
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake
of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in
order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up must cool,
and what has been cooled must become water and descend, the result of this
being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man's crop is spoiled on the
threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this-in order that
the crop might be spoiled-but that result just followed. Why then should it
not be the same with the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth should come up
of necessity-the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and
useful for grinding down the food-since they did not arise for this end, but
it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in which we
suppose that there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just
what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such things
survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those
which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his
'man-faced ox-progeny' did.
[Here he proceeds to refute it]
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty
on this point. [*****]Yet it is impossible that this should be the true
view.[!!!!!!] For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or
normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance
or spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence
the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat
in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter. If then, it is agreed
that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these
cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they
must be for an end; and that such things are all due to nature even the
champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action for
an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.
Further, where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are for
the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action, so in nature; and as
in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes. Now intelligent
action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so.
Thus if a house, e.g. had been a thing made by nature, it would have been
made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature were
made also by art, they would come to be in the same way as by nature. Each
step then in the series is for the sake of the next; and generally art
partly completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and partly imitates
her. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, so
clearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier
terms of the series is the same in both. This is most obvious in the animals
other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or
deliberation. Wherefore people discuss whether it is by intelligence or by
some other faculty that these creatures work,spiders, ants, and the like. By
gradual advance in this direction we come to see clearly that in plants too
that is produced which is conducive to the end-leaves, e.g. grow to provide
shade for the fruit. If then it is both by nature and for an end that the
swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for
the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of
nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things
which come to be and are by nature. And since 'nature' means two things, the
matter and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since all the rest
is for the sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the sense of 'that
for the sake of which'.
Now mistakes come to pass even in the operations of art: the grammarian
makes a mistake in writing and the doctor pours out the wrong dose. Hence
clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of nature also. If then in
art there are cases in which what is rightly produced serves a purpose, and
if where mistakes occur there was a purpose in what was attempted, only it
was not attained, so must it be also in natural products, and monstrosities
will be failures in the purposive effort. Thus in the original combinations
the 'ox-progeny' if they failed to reach a determinate end must have arisen
through the corruption of some principle corresponding to what is now the
seed.
...
NB Aristotle also railed against the atomic theory...
