Evidence to expect given a designer

Doesn't "B" contradict "A"? If it does, you can't very well have both. Basically you are saying that DNA is an artifact. It's a rather poor sort of artifact that doesn't last with time, requires nearly continual maintenance, and is subject to some level of degradation every time it is replicated.An artifact presumes a manufacturing process behind it. Is this manufacturing process no longer operative any where? If DNA requires information, and there are no longer any sources of fresh information to infuse it, how long do you suppose life itself will last? Could we ourselves (Homo sapiens), acting as intelligent designers, create the required information to allow life to exist indefinitely? So why don't we observe the same sets of parameters which would make life possible on all other planets? Earth was designed and no other planet was? So now the whole universe is designed as well. Would this not include every single object contained in the universe? So why doesn't life exist everywhere in the universe? If the universe is fine-tuned for life, it's a poor sort of fine-tuning to allow life to exist on one planet only, out of an entire universe. Other than happening to be infested with life, why is Earth so privileged? Edited by DWIII, : fixed dbl-neg

In the absence of evidence, I wouldn't assume their was a "prior" to the beginning of the universe. In fact, I wouldn't even go so far as to assume that there was a "beginning" in the first place.What's the point of this, anyway? Could not an omnipotent intelligent designer design a beginningless universe, if he so chose? No, but why stop at just "detecting design"? Surely, from the nature of the so-called "design", you could (at least tentatively) infer lots lots more. Let's talk real bonā fidē design, for a change. Just off the top of my head, here's a list of phenomena which I personally would consider evidence of design with respect to various alleged artifacts:

• A preliminary sketch prior to the creation of some specific thing
• Patent applications, or a statement of legal right to be the sole manufacturer of said type of thing
• Proof-of-concept simplified designs as part of a research program
• Test models of increasing functionality
• Competing designs eliminated for reasons of lower efficiency
• Blueprints, a list of components, &/or instructions for assembly
• A record of qualification tests with associated recommended tweaks
• Protected trade secrets
• Inbuilt safety features (with the intended user in mind)
• Instruction manuals &/or warnings against misuse or abuse
• Clearly-labelled control mechanisms
• Brand-name identification
• Storage facilities for available but currently inactive designed objects
• Advertising
• Dates of manufacture, price tags, unique serial numbers, etc.

Does all that sound overly-anthropocentric? It should; it's what humans do (at least some of those things, if not most) when designing something. Would you say that the intelligent designer wouldn't do it that way? Are you quite sure? Design (as humans practice it) is far far more than one end product; it's the entire process that goes behind it. Were we made in the image of the intelligent designer, or not? If you could simply wave a magic wand and make computers instantly poof into existence, how could you call it "design"? You didn't really design anything, did you?Be honest now(!), you are not really all that interested in looking for evidence of a designer; you are instead wishfully touting "evidence" of a daddy who builds a huge mansion in the sky and promises to provide for all of your selfish needs so you don't have to.

Agreed, "the universe poofed in to existence from nothing all by itself" is an illogical conclusion. That's why serious cosmologists infer no such thing. (So as not to unnecessarily de-rail the topic, please refer to my take on this in "Big Bang Theory Supports a Belief in the Universe Designer or Creator God" (Message 6) for the details.) I wouldn't go about imputing that kind of simplistic belief to every believer. And yet, serious believers (such as you) infer some unknown and ultimately unknowable sort of design process instead of "magical poofing", in spite of the fact that your holy writ indicates otherwise when it formulaicly says "And God said Let there be x, and there was x" in the vast majority of the "designer's" creative acts. Is it any wonder then that such simplistic notions abound among run-of-the-mill believers and the unbelievers who put up with them? That is an intriguing notion, that the "omnipotent and omniscient designer" could effortlessly run multiple simulations of potential creations entirely in his own mind. This itself opens a rather large can of worms. I put it to you that your "omniscient designer" would have no problem in perfectly simulating, entirely in his mind (instantaneously or not), an infinite number of different universes with all sorts of initial conditions. I also put it to you that any sentient beings that happen to reside in such a simulation could never know (on their own) that they are existing in one such simulation, and would have no basis for thinking (from their point of view) that their universe was any less than real.So, given the unlimited mind of your postulated "omniscient designer", how could you possibly know that our universe in particular may be nothing more than one of a vast number of simulated partially-failed "test models"? You couldn't. Since your only support is unfalsifiable assertions, your "proof" (so far) utterly fails. All that is left is the real-world evidences which (contrary to your beliefs) point in the opposite direction.

Does a tiny computer program based solely on the mindless repeated application of trial and error qualify as a person?

It's not apparent what is meant by "nothing" in this context. Does empty space qualify as nothing? Quantum mechanics postulates a seething foam of virtual particles continually popping into and out of existence, and has been indirectly verified with such experiments as the Casimir effect. Quantum mechanics is (so far) a vastly successful model of physical reality.If, instead, "nothingness" is some state of affairs which cannot by definition be experienced, then the notion of no thing "coming from nothing" is inherently unfalsifiable.Here's a little sauce for the gander: Scientific observation A-prime. No thing has ever been observed in the act of being created from nothing. (Can be falsified by observing just one case of somebody creating something else out of nothing in violation of the conservation of mass-energy; conjuring tricks or Genesis 1:1 notwithstanding.) You are treading very thin ground here. I doubt that the general concept of intelligent design would be in any way falsified by a successful detection of alien life; on the contrary, it could conceivably bolster it. All it would really falsify is your presumed arrogance that life on this one planet must be the Pinnacle of All Creation.

Not necessarily. See Wikipedia: Convergent series. There is also nothing illogical about thinking about Adam's biological mother. Or the intelligent designer's designer, for that matter.Anyway, how many "moments before the universe began" are we talking about here? How long (in duration) are these individual moments? Do they remain in a strictly linear sequence even though they are not physically part of our universe?I find it interesting that you are committed to the idea that (A) every moment in time must have an associated "prior moment", much in the same way that (B) every day (24 hour period) in time must have a corresponding "yesterday". Strangely enough, general relativity as applied to cosmology allows for A even if B is false, provided that time itself is not quantized.You say that our (presumably finite) universe requires an infinite something temporaneously prior to it in order to exist. What if our (presumably finite) universe already has that feature built into it? Wouldn't there then be no need for an additional stretch of time previous to it? Edited by DWIII, : fixed typo