I have a nomenclature question. What definition of the word "design" is in play in the term "intelligent design?" Is it the "intent" definition? Is it the "devised within the mind" definition? Is it the "carefully planned out in advance before constructing" definition? Or doesn't it matter?
Excellent question, and another that shows light on the heart of the issue. Just like
information and
kind I think design is a word the ID crowd would be happy to leave nice and fuzzy. The re-worded creationism definition applied to ID in
Of Pandas and People specifies only that life began through an intelligent agent and doesn't speak directly of design as such. Dembski's Design Inference hinges on the assumption that anything sufficiently improbable is designed. While that may be of interest to philosophers it doesn't help us much.
When I started this thread I believe I was angling more for the intent definition. Human technology has been a gradual progression with few sudden leaps. From stone choppers all the way to nanotechnology we've learned mostly by trial and error. Except for fortunate accidents of discovery, humans advance technology by intent.
If the intelligent designer made errors they tend to be explained in a manner that is strangely consistent with religious beliefs (for example the idea of genetic entropy espoused by others on the board that just happens to match the idea of man fallen from grace). If we take the words intelligent design at face value then we should be able to discover not only evidence of design but evidence of intelligence. I don't know if that subject is worth a thread of its own or not.
For the moment let's associate design with intent. If any of the ID folks care to take issue with that I'd be happy to hear from them.