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The argument from design, also known as the teleological argument, is an argument for the existence of God based solely on observations of nature. Though arguments from design go back to the Greeks, the most famous formulation of the argument is that of William Paley in 1802:

“”There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice; arrangement, without anything capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, without the end ever being contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind.

—William Paley and James Paxton, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature, p. 10, Gould & Lincoln, Boston, 1854

“”Paley wrote about finding both a stone and a watch while crossing a heath.While the stone would be regarded as a simple part of nature,no one would question that the watch is an artifice, designed for the purpose of telling time. Paley then alleged that objects of nature, such as the human eye, give every indication of being contrivances. ...

—Victor J. Stenger, The Failed God Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, p. 48, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2007

Note that to make an argument from design assumes a priori that design exists. Philosopher Nicholas Everitt suggests that better terms might be the argument from order, or, the argument to design.

Now, we must be careful not to confuse a preexisting purpose with mere utility or function. A stone can be used to break a window; however, the stone was not designed for that purpose. A salt crystal has a structure. But that structure was not contrived so that food would taste better when sprinkled with salt. Similarly, all living organisms have many parts serving func- tions that are crucial for the survival of the organism. The ques- tion is: did an intelligent agent design that part for its present purpose, or did that function evolve by a combination of accident and the mechanisms of natural selection? In examining evidence for or against design in the world, we should look at whether the system being studied shows any sign of preexisting purpose or plan, or whether it can be seen to have evolved mindlessly by nat- ural selection in response to the needs of survival or other purely physical mechanisms such as self-organization.