Paley's Natural Theology

I found Paley's Natural Theology piece fascinating as it was published all the way back in 1826 yet the ideas it explores can still be applied to current debates on creationism and technology (with machines "conceivably" producing other machines). We were told Paley was going to be a straw man, but I don't think we fully explored how his argument was shown to be faulty. I brought up the argument that his image of a complex watch being proof of a designer (as it is too complex to form by accident) doesn't prove God exists, as then we would have to argue how could a complex being (the most complex ever) such as God have come into existence (who designed God?); however I was told this is not the crux of Paley's argument. We instead focused on the reductio ad absurdum aspect, the watch reproducing itself and the question of can their be a design without a designer. First, watches don't make watches of course. And even if a machine was able to reproduce itself, the original designer (at least in this area of the universe) would be man. The fact that man has created something complex, with a design, doesn't prove the existence of God. We didn't have time in class to discuss the current theories on the first spark(s) that produced life from lifelessness (I hope we do soon) but if you grant that life can form spontaneously under the right conditions (temperature, gasses, etc.) and agree that over vast spans of time, evolution can produce mutations, changes and complexity, then the fact that a being has evolved with consciousness, that can create complex tools to better control his environment, does not prove (or disprove) the existence of God. Had the first watch just appeared and then started producing other watches, I think would be a strong indication of a devine hand. However, all life on this planet came from very rudimentary beginnings, so how does something we view as complex today argue for complexity in the beginning?