Was it a reference to “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” by David Hume? That book debunked the arguments by design 50 years before the watchmaker parabola was written:

“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 surprise 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?“