You could try:
quote:
Why, in your opinion, do the designers seem to design close to or within the parameters of evolutionary possibility, and always over the kind of time scale that evolution would require? Do you think that they are deliberately trying to conceal themselves, and make it appear to observers that evolution is the story?
The words "close to" in the first sentence are a polite allowance for his view that there are some complex features that could not evolve, but you're not actually conceding the point.
Saying that might be regarded as being "smartass to him", as you put it, but it's a damn good question, because there's absolutely no reason at all why intelligent designers of life on any planet should proceed in a manner that could possibly give the planet a definite appearance of having an evolutionary history. There's nothing to stop them doing something like, say, a marsupial elephant, which, if found, would blow the present evolutionary view right apart. And they don't need to do amphibian-like fish before they do amphibians, or reptile-like amphibians before they do reptiles, or reptiles with mammal-like characteristics before mammals, etc.
IMO, our intelligent designers must be designing with intent to deceive.
Unless, of course, evolution
is the story.