Oops. Sorry that I forgot to answer this.
Is this meant to show that IDists have no real methods for testing intelligent design?
Pretty much. Behe relies on looking at things and seeing that they are "obviously" irreducibly complex; Dembski has an "explanatory filter" that he claims detects intelligent design. But most, if not all, of Behe's examples have been shown to be not "irreducibly complex" (at least not in a sense that would be unevolvable), and so far Dembski is all talk and no show.
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And what are some examples of complex, unintelligent features that rival biological systems?
And that is a good question. I suspect that these "methods" have never been tested because a rigorous control group has never been identified. What we need are very complex systems that we know arose naturally (and I bet no IDer will admit that such exists, meaning that there is no control group), and then see how often these methods give false positives.
Another question, is there any complex biological systems where they have figured out possible evolutionary pathways? If these "ID detection methods" are used on these systems with the state of knowledge before the pathways were figured out, would these "ID detection methods" have figured out that they were not necessarily intelligently designed?
Another question is to use whatever the preferred ID detection method is and make a list of all the complex biological systems and denote which ones were definitely designed and which might have natural origins. Then, as the science progresses, compare the two lists to see if more on the "definitely designed" list defy explanation than on the other list.
Of course, you can't actually ask all this during a Q&A session; this is getting to be a more complex conversation. But hopefully you can see the intent of these questions.
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This would be a great question to ask, but I want to make sure he doesn't blow smoke and not address it.
Yeah, I realized when I made my suggestion that I'm not very good at wording these things very clearly, or in a way that wouldn't invite obfuscation.
But at least, if you word it well enough the audience should recognize that Dembski is avoiding the real intent of the question.
I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." --
jhuger
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