Page 37 - UKCAT 2017

Practice Questions
Verbal Reasoning
VR1 – The Teleological Argument
Since the Greeks, the teleological argument has been commonly used to prove the existence of a Creator or Supreme Being. It was famously expressed by William Paley in 1802, who imagined finding a pocket watch on a heath. If you had never seen a watch before, you might marvel at its mechanism and rightly assume that someone with great skill had made it. He pointed to the intricate structure of living things and argued that they were so cleverly put together that some unknown designer must have made them. He went on from there to say that because organs and organisms in nature seemed to have a purpose – bees pollinate owers,
the intricate structure of the eye enables us to see – that a hidden planner is at work. The Universe operates to known rules
– Newton’s Laws of Motion for example – which is a further argument for a planned and purposeful world.
This argument became seriously challenged fifty years later, when Charles Darwin published his theory of natural selection
as an explanation for the variety and complexity of living organisms. This did not presuppose a hidden designer. More than a hundred and fifty years later, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins published a book explaining evolution by natural selection entitled ‘The Blind Watchmaker’.
VR1-1 Dawkins’ title of his book, ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, is appropriate because:
A no watchmaker is blind.
B the structure of living things cannot be explained.
C a Supreme Being must be blind. D natural selection does not
depend on an intelligent designer.
VR1-2 From the passage, teleology can be de ned as:
A arguing that all events have a purpose.
B using Natural Selection to explain a watch’s mechanism.
C arguing that everything happens by chance.
D using Newton’s Laws to predict the future of the Universe.
VR1-3 Which of these assertions is best supported by information
contained in the passage?
A Natural selection depends on a hidden designer.
B Natural selection depends on chance events.
C The operation of the Universe does not depend on hidden
rules.
D The Universe has been carefully
planned.
UKCAT Of cial Guide 2017 37