Hi.
The concept of ID is beginning to interest me. After having debated creationists on a Norwegian website at length over exactly this concept, I am beginning to see a pattern in their arguments.
First of all, the debaters never (as far as I hve seen) explicitly states that the designer is the christian God, this is implied or assumed, usually by both parties.
Why? Why, if there indeed is a single omnipotent designer and creator of universes, does this have to be your God?
Personally, I suspect the ID concept is an argument meant to disable evolution (by offering an alternative explanation) rather than serve as proof of the existence of God.
Secondly, why cannot ID believers see the fundamental difference between inanimate objects and living organisms? Design is so often inferred through complexity and examples of inanimate objects that have to have been designed because of their appearance, function, etc, like "aluminium cannot fly, but a plane made of aluminium can", etc. I see this kind of argument on this board, as well.
I have tried again and again to explain to these creationists the fundamental difference between living and dead objects (inheritance of traits, reproducing capabillities), but they just don't seem to understand. What can be done to make you understand this important difference?
Thirdly, some of the implications of ID, should it be real, is rather difficult to understand for me.
Why, for instance, are most features of organisms imperfectly designed? I cannot think of an organism that clearly is a near-perfect compromise of solutions to all the different problems organisms have to deal with (with the possible exception of spiders!), like human-designed objects usually are. If we try to design something we try to make it as good as possible, right? Why for instance, haven't the Great Designer made sure that the survivabillity of the cheeta is better, for instance by making it bigger (thus enabling it to keep a larger portion of its prey).
My point is, all these constraints on an organism's "design" is better explained by evolutionary history rather than an "as is" design history.
Furthermore, if all organisms are designed "as is", why can we elucidate seemingly congruent phylogenetic relaionships based on morphological and molecular analyses? Why is kinship implied in the overall design? There is absolutely no need to!
Sorry for all these questions, but I believe you ID followers have a lot to explain, far beyond pointing at the mere complexity of things.
The Arachnophile