William Paley and the Divine Watchmaker

In Natural Theology, a book that Charles Darwin studied as a young man, the theologian William Paley pointed out that if you found a watch on a heath you’d naturally assume it had a designer.

Paley argued, that in a similar way, the human eye, a brilliant piece of biological machinery, must have had a designer too. But but does this prove the existence of a Divine Watchmaker?

Narrated by Gillian Anderson. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

From the BBC Radio 4 series about life's big questions - A History of Ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofideas

This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.