Intelligent Design just a question for evolutionists

Technically? Okay, sure, I guess, in a technical sense, but we all know where you're going. Very few non-creationists make arguments like yours. You can't ask us to deny simple and obvious conclusions.You say you have your own ID views distinct from mainstream ID, but your list of criteria for concluding intelligent design, like specified complexity, are just mainstream ID. Your attempts at logical argument add nothing to ID and for the most part aren't logical. If ID were truly science then it would be possible to draw connections between its tenets and the real world. The problem is in your initial premise. I see that replies to you have divided into several camps on this point. One concedes that life is designed but argues that that says nothing about who or what did the designing, while another argues that evolution did the designing. Another camp calls it apparent design but not actual design. And yet another camp says it doesn't resemble any known form of design by intelligent beings (namely us) that we would recognize, the best we can do seeming to be a pale and very poor mimic of some of life's simpler processes, something we'll undoubtedly get better at, but not something we would have ever designed ourselves.I'm in the camp that rejects your initial premise. By what criteria do you conclude that life or the Earth or the solar system or the universe has the qualities of design. Certainly not by any used by these realms of science, namely biology, geology, astronomy and cosmology.Arguments like, "DNA looks designed," or "The solar system looks designed," or "The universe looks designed," have no evidentiary foundation in the way that Coyote's arguments for flint chips do. We *know* that humans manipulate flint, we know what it looks like, and we recognize it when we see it. But when we look at DNA there's nothing similar to compare to that we know was designed by intelligent beings. And if complexity is evidence of intelligent origin, this hasn't been demonstrated, either.The common ID response, usually some form of "You're denying the obvious because you're beholden to your paradigm," draws the obvious response, "If skepticism is undeserved then provide an unbroken chain of evidence." This is often where the detailed arguments begin, like "Specified complexity can only originate with intelligence, and life has specified complexity," which draws the inevitable response, "Specified complexity is a made up concept, and life wasn't created in a single step but followed processes of very gradually increasing complexity following the known natural laws of the universe."--Percy

It's fine to interpret my mention of DNA as a reference to the genetic code, and I think this is the strongest argument for ID. Placing it into Mike's preferred form:

• Humans are intelligent and design codes.
• DNA is a code.
• DNA the was created by an intelligent designer

This isn't airtight, of course, since there could be non-intelligent origins for codes, but you and Mike acknowledge this. Your argument isn't that codes could only have been designed by an intelligence, but that codes exist in nature that are indistinguishable from human designed codes, and that therefore the possibility of intelligent origins for codes must be considered, or at least shouldn't be excluded.Well, okay, but is this science or religion? In what branch of science or with what natural phenomena does science ever argue, "This could be the result of some agency far more intelligent and powerful than ourselves." None. With rare exceptions such arguments originate with religious adherents.Let's confront the hypothesis of "DNA as an intelligently designed code" in a bit more detail. Upon first learning of the genetic code one could be forgiven for exclaiming, "My God, this couldn't have happened naturally." But then one asks where the DNA came from? From the parents. And where did their DNA come from? From their parents, and so forth back through all the ancestors and finally to when it wasn't even DNA. And how could species ever evolve? DNA copying is imperfect. And how does that not cause extinction of all life? Selection. And so forth with questions of ever broadening scope and answers that lead to an infinite supply of more questions.No investigation of a bewildering scientific mystery finds discovery leading toward intelligent agency. What we learn is always in the direction of the natural. This is one of the things science gradually learned in the centuries after the Middle Ages, that divine providence (or intelligent agent in modern ID lingo) never turns out to be the answer. It is never argued in modern science, "We've tried and tried to find an answer for this, but we can't find one, so one has to consider a power far greater than ourselves."IDists will argue, "No no, not a 'power far greater than ourselves,' just an intelligent agent. Intelligent, like we are, that's all." But it's hard to take them at their word - at heart they seek God, not aliens, for there's no answer for the infinite regression. If life here is the result of an intelligence, then where did that intelligence come from? Ultimately there had to have been a first intelligence, a god, and now the true motives of the IDist is revealed to be no different from the creationist.--Percy

All I can say in response is, yes, that's pretty much what one in your position would be expected to argue, making a plea to accept your position as reasonable with no arguments built around evidence, and with no hint of recognition of how the infinite regression your position leads to theological questions of ultimate origins and not to scientific understanding. There is something *very* inherently religious in what you are arguing. Just as the Earth's history is recorded in the rocks, life's history is recorded in the cells. About Earth's history Faith likes to call geological strata "stacks of rocks" as if they contain no evidence of time and process, and you seem to be making a very similar argument about life. "Evidence? What evidence? There's no evidence here, just an 'exercise in creative imagination,' nothing rigorous or scientific at all."--PercyPS - Some of your reply indicates a possible misunderstanding, so to clear that up, no one's denying the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, maybe even built upon different chemistry (maybe even a nebula a la Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud). Your argument is different, that life possesses unnatural qualities that require an outside intelligent agency. In your view alien life is not just a possibility but a necessity, else we wouldn't be here. But there's still that annoying infinite regression...Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Obviously it does not look like a machine. The image you offerred yourself *does* look machine-like because it was the intended purpose of the drawing to make masses of molecules look machine-like, likely as an aid to understanding. Your image was taken from ATP Synthase: There's only one playing a game. Biologists are not indicating belief in ID when they make such drawings or refer to biological structures as machines. The Earth has an internal heat engine - I wonder how many cylinders it has?This isn't discussion, this is word games.--Percy