Grand Designs and Facile Analogies

Much of what we know or think we know, it seems to me, is based on analogy. When we describe a gas as a collection of colliding billiard balls, our model is based on an analogy. When we think of a gene as fighting for its survival against other genes, our model is based on an analogy. When we ask whether a photon is a wave or a particle, however, our analogy breaks down, because the photon has both wave and particle properties. It is thus necessary to use analogy judiciously. The neocreationists Michael Behe (1996) and William Dembski (1999, 2002) do no such thing with their analogies of the mousetrap and the archer. (Perakh, 2001) Behe especially expects his analogy to bear the heavy burden of illustrating his point. If the analogy fails, then the entire argument is likely to fail. Dembski, likewise, leans heavily on a flawed analogy and covers up its failure with mathematical notation and invented jargon.