Confusing mice with mousetraps

I think you are right about a major hole at the
heart of ID, but think you may be wrong about what that
hole is.It's not so much that living and non-living things are
radically or fundamentally different, but that there are NO
established criteria for detection of design that stand up
to any scrutiny.Sorry to jump in late on this (I have read through most of the
thread).

All built of the same 'stuff', subject to the
same 'laws' of chemistry and physics ... they kinda
just exist and do what their chemistry demands.Knowing about the designer isn't detecting design. It's
knowing that something was designed.I doubt there IS any way of detecting design 'by inspection'.

I don't believe that we can directly detect design
in objects that we KNOW have been designed by other
humans.So commonality with the supposed designer is irrelevant.

Yes.Just by looking at an artifact we cannot say that
it was designed. We assume design based upon experience
of designed objects, but that's not the same as formally
determining that something was designed.We assume that the great pyramid was designed since it conforms
to our knowledge of 'designed' buildings/structures. It is composed
of blocks (which we know are used by people in construction) and
possibly we can still detect some tool marks on the stones.It's still an assumption not a strict determination. It requires
KNOWLEDGE that such things ARE designed.

You cannot prove that anything is designed.

I thought I already said that.We infer design from knowledge of similar things that
we KNOW were designed.Without knowledge of similar design there would be nothing
to (objectively) identify anything as designed or not.