In the context of this thread, I see two different primary arguments for design. One is the argument from perfection or perfect design, whereby the universe is perfectly designed for life, and each organism is perfectly designed for its environment.
The other is the argument from just plain old design, whereby the appearance of design is obvious by inspection.
The former argument, the argument from perfection, loses just from sheer incompatibility with the real world. More than 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, and no current species is perfectly adapted to its environment - so much for perfection. Anyone pushing the argument for perfection has to immediately begin qualifying their definition of perfection, usually in theological and religious ways having nothing to do with science. This form of the argument from design usually comes from traditional creationists trying to argue from an ID perspective, but like
Pandas and People all they've done is substitute the phrase "intelligent designer" for "creator" in their vocabulary.
The latter argument, the argument from just plain old design, usually referred to as intelligent design, does not require perfection. A frequent response to this argument is that the designs are too poor to be considered intelligent, but I don't myself understand this argument. If we're correct in believing that human beings are intelligent, then quite obviously intelligence is capable of not only non-optimal designs but even piss-poor designs. The quality of a design is a function not only of the degree of intelligence brought to bear on a problem, but also a matter of practical constraints, of existing technology and expertise, and of available resources in both time and materials.
If we are designed, then it seems to me that whoever designed us is pretty darn intelligent. Given the difficulty we're having designing even just a simple cell, technologically they'd have to be far beyond us. And given that they're doing it on the scale of an entire planet, their resources must be far beyond our own. And given that they never leave any evidence of their handiwork behind they must be extremely clever, even going to the extreme of designing in a way that precisely resembles evolution, including DNA sequences.
Of course there are other variations to these two arguments from design, such as the "design-and-go" designer who, for example, just creates the universe and sets it in motion, then steps back to watch, but those kinds of arguments aren't being considered in this thread.
What the IDists have is an idea, a hypothesis. But instead of submitting their hypothesis to science and the scientific method they instead insist to the public at large that it is valid scientific theory being suppressed by a paranoid scientific community intent on protecting the dogma of evolution at all costs. Unfortunately, the public at large loves conspiracy theories.
Anyway, if I'm correct in claiming that there are actually two distinct arguments from design being considered in this thread, then I think it would be a good idea to make clear which one this thread addresses.
--Percy
™ Version 4.2
