The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".
The argument is a play on the notion of a "tornado sweeping through a junkyard to assemble a Boeing 747" employed to decry abiogenesis and evolution as vastly unlikely and better explained by the existence of a creator god (although this quote is first attributed to Fred Hoyle, who used it to argue for panspermia, not creationism). According to Dawkins, this logic is self-defeating as the theist must now account for the god's existence and explain whether or how the god was created. In his view, if the existence of highly complex life on Earth is the equivalent of the implausible junkyard Boeing 747, the existence of a highly complex god is the "ultimate Boeing 747" that truly does require the seemingly impossible to explain its existence. The gambit has received extensive criticism.
Context and history
Richard Dawkins begins The God Delusion by making it clear that the God he talks about is the Abrahamic concept of a personal god who is susceptible to worship. He considers the existence of such an entity to be a scientific question, because a universe with such a god would be significantly different from a universe without one, and he says that the difference would be empirically discernible. Therefore, Dawkins concludes, the same kind of reasoning can be applied to the God hypothesis as to any other scientific question.
After discussing some of the most common arguments for the existence of God in chapter 3, Dawkins concludes that the argument from design is the most convincing. The extreme improbability of life and a universe capable of hosting it requires explanation, but Dawkins considers the God hypothesis inferior to evolution by natural selection as an explanation for the complexity of life. As part of his criticism of intelligent design, he redirects the argument from complexity in order to show that God must have been designed by a superintelligent designer, then presents his argument for the improbability of God's existence. (also available via the second review here
Dawkins' name for the statistical demonstration that God almost certainly does not exist is the "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit". This is an allusion to the junkyard tornado. Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who was an atheist, anti-theist and advocate of the panspermia theory of life,Collisions of debris as the vehicle for the distribution of biological material across space. is reported as having stated that the "probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747.
Arguments against empirically based theism date back at least as far as the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, whose objection can be paraphrased as the question "Who designed the designer?" According to philosopher Daniel Dennett, however – one of Dawkins' fellow "brights" – the innovation in Dawkins' argument is twofold: to show that where design fails to explain complexity, evolution by natural selection succeeds as the only workable solution; and to argue how this should illuminate the confusion surrounding the anthropic principle.The notion that "observations of the physical universe must be compatible with conscious and sapient life that observes it" (see Anthropic principle).
Dawkins's statement
Dawkins summarizes his argument as follows;The God Delusion, pp. 157–158. the references to "crane" and "skyhook" are two notions from Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
A central thesis of the argument is that compared to supernatural abiogenesis, evolution by natural selection requires the supposition of fewer hypothetical processes; according to Occam's razor, therefore, it is a better explanation. Dawkins cites a paragraph where Richard Swinburne agrees that a simpler explanation is better but reasons that theism is simpler because it only invokes a single substance (God) as a cause and maintainer of every other object. This cause is seen as omnipotent, omniscient and totally "free". Dawkins argues that an entity that monitors and controls every particle in the universe and listens to all thoughts and prayers cannot be simple. Its existence would require a "mammoth explanation" of its own. The theory of natural selection is much simpler – and thus preferable – than a theory of the existence of such a complex being.The God Delusion, pp. 147–149.
Dawkins then turns to a discussion of Keith Ward's views on divine simplicity to show the difficulty "the theological mind has in grasping where the complexity of life comes from." Dawkins writes that Ward is sceptical of Arthur Peacocke's ideas that evolution is directed by other forces than only natural selection and that these processes may have a propensity toward increasing complexity. Dawkins says that this scepticism is justified, because complexity does not come from biased mutations. Dawkins writes: [Natural selection], as far as we know, is the only process ultimately capable of generating complexity out of simplicity. The theory of natural selection is genuinely simple. So is the origin from which it starts. That which it explains, on the other hand, is complex almost beyond telling: more complex than anything we can imagine, save a God capable of designing it.The God Delusion, p. 151.
Assessment and criticism
Theist authors have presented extensive opposition, most notably by theologian Alister McGrath (in The Dawkins Delusion?) and philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne. Another negative review, by biologist H. Allen Orr, sparked heated debate, prompting, for example, the mathematician Norman Levitt to ask why theologians are assumed to have the exclusive right to write about who "rules" the universe. Daniel Dennett also took exception to Orr's review, leading to an exchange of open letters between himself and Orr.Full exchange of open letters at edge.org. The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny also considers this argument to be flawed.Anthony Kenny, 2007 Presidential Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Lecture (published in Philosophy Volume 82 number 321 (July 2007), pp. 381–397. Cosmologist Stephen BarrStephen M Barr (2003), Modern Physics and Ancient faith (). responded as follows: "Paley finds a watch and asks how such a thing could have come to be there by chance. Dawkins finds an immense automated factory that blindly constructs watches, and feels that he has completely answered Paley's point."Modern Physics and Ancient Faith Paperback – 15 February 2006 by Stephen M Barr
Simplicity of God and materialist assumptions Both Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne raise the objection that God is not complex. Swinburne gives two reasons why a God that controls every particle can be simple: first, a person, as indicated by phenomena such as split-brains, is not the same as their highly complex brain but "is something simpler" that can "control" that brain; and second, simplicity is a quality that is intrinsic to a hypothesis, not related to its empirical consequences.
Plantinga writes:
He continues:
In other words, Plantinga concludes that this argument, to be valid, would require materialism to be true; but, as materialism is not compatible with traditional theology, the argument begs the question by requiring its premise to assume God's non-existence.
In an extensive analysis published in Science and Christian Belief, Patrick Richmond suggests that "Dawkins is right to object to unexplained organised complexity in God" but that God is simply specified and lacks the sort of composition and limitations found in [physical] creatures; hence the theist can explain why nature exists without granting unexplained organised complexity or the extreme improbability of God.Patrick Richmond, "Richard Dawkins's Darwinian Objection to Unexplained Complexity in God", Science and Christian Belief Vol. 19 No. 2 (2007), pp. 99–106.
Some respondents, such as Stephen Law, have suggested that God is or would indeed be complex if responsible for creating and sustaining the universe;The Strengths and Weaknesses of the God Delusion (YouTube). According to Law, God's omniscience would require the retention of and ability to use all knowledge. Richard Carrier also argued that God's mind is extremely complex.
Necessity of external explanations There are many variations on how to express this objection. William F. Vallicella holds that organized complexity as such does not need explanation, because when in search of an ultimate explanation, one must in the end accept an entity whose complexity has no external explanation.Vallicella's discussion with Erik Wielenberg. Dawkins has stated that we should search for simple beginnings for explanations, like in evolution which moves from simple to complex, and so what we ultimately accept with no external explanation must be simple for it to be a good explanation.The God Delusion Debate: Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox And Plantinga writes that when not in search for an ultimate explanation of organized complexity, it is perfectly fine to explain one kind of complexity, that of terrestrial life, in terms of another kind of complexity, namely divine activity. Dawkins addresses this point in his debate with John Lennox over The God Delusion, saying that it would be perfectly reasonable to infer from artifacts on earth or another planet that an intelligence existed, but that you would still need to explain that intelligence, which evolution does, while for God's existence there is no such explanation.
Alister McGrath suggests that the leap from the recognition of complexity to the assertion of improbability is problematic, as a theory of everything would be more complex than the theories it would replace, yet one would not conclude that it is less probable. Dawkins has responded to this point in his debate with Lennox and at other times, saying that while physics is hard to understand, fundamentally, unlike biology, it is simple. McGrath then argues that probability is not relevant to the question of existence: life on earth is highly improbable and yet we exist. The important question in his view is not whether God is probable, but whether God is actual.The Dawkins Delusion?, pp. 24–25 In interviewing McGrath for The Root of All Evil, Dawkins responds that the existence of life on Earth is indeed highly improbable, but this is exactly why a theory such as evolution is required to explain that improbability.Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews (Google Video). In the case of God, Dawkins says, there is no such satisfactory explanation.
On the point of probability, Alvin Plantinga claims that if God is a necessary being, as argued by classical theism, God is, by definition, maximally probable; thus an argument that there is no necessary being with the qualities attributed to God is required to demonstrate God's improbability. Eric MacDonald has pointed out that theists assume the coherence of their position when they make arguments for God when, by Plantinga's standards, they would have to present an argument that the concept of God is not logically incoherent before discussing other arguments.Duking it Out Over the God Delusion Plantinga's objection would seem to apply to all atheist arguments that contend that God is improbable, such as evidential arguments about the problem of evil and the argument from nonbelief. But the reason why theists and atheists do not usually address this prior to making their arguments is because they want to go beyond merely discussing whether God is maximally probable or impossible.
Dawkins's response to criticism in The God Delusion