What is the Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit?

Answer 1

In the field of apologetics, the argument is largely accepted as a invalid one, beeing incorret in the face of science (in order to have an hypothesis as the best explanation of a event, you don't have to have the explanation of the explanation), in the face of logic (when arguing that the designer would be at least as complex as the universe, one must assume that materialism is truth, but materialism is a view incompatible with the existence of God, and therefore is a logical fallacy of begging the question - it assumes the non-existence of God in the premiss) and in the face of theology (God, as a unbody mind, is not complex; therefore, inferring a complexibility on Him would be incoherent).

Answer 2

The Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit is a term used by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) for an argument for the improbability of the existence of a creator God. He uses it as a counter to the modern form of the argument from design.
Fred Hoyle is said to have 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. The implication is that if we find a 747 aeroplane, we know it must have been designed and built by an intelligent being. This becomes the basis for an assumption that if we find a complex life form, then it must have been designed by an intelligent designer.

Dawkins says that this assumption is false, because the designer would need to be even more complex than the life forms that he designed, and the hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.