Here's David Hume on "Intelligent Design"
(from his DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION )
Am I wrong, or is this not Activity Theory ?
But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain
uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to
the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the
ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful
a machine? And what surprize must we feel, when we find him a stupid
mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long
succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections,
deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds
might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system
was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow,
but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of
world-making.
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