What IS evidence of design? (CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)

The assertion that there is some evidence of design seems to get batted around a lot but never really explained.In some cases it's pretty easy. For example the keyboard I'm using right now has a "HP" label, a warning telling me to read a safety and comfort guide which it claims will somehow reduce the risk of serious injury, and also a bunch of labels identifying the functions of each of the keys and buttons.If I go out front and look at my car it has Dodge written on it. If I look further inside the door I find Dodge/Mitsubishi which tells me that it was designed by one or both entities. I can look even further and find labels showing the designer for many of the different components in the car from engine to tires to seat-belts to radio to ...We also have a long history and lots of experience of human designers. We can look at a history of human designers going back thousands and thousands of years and see what constitutes a human designed object as opposed to something that was not designed.We can look at two rocks and tell which one was designed as a functional tool and which was not. The way we determine that is by observing knappers today and experimenting ourselves with knapping. We can then look at an unknown sample and see whether or not it shows the same characteristics we seen in the known samples.We can look at a jumble of stones or mound of earth and determine whether it was the result of normal geological processes or human intervention. For example the jumble of rock that was once Stonehenge was determined to be a design because many of the rocks came from locations far away and at those locations there was evidence of HUMAN quarrying.But when we look at living things we do not seem to find similar examples of design.As I pointed out in from an engineering perspective there is no Intelligent Design and again at Some thoughts from a designer, we do not see anything that approaches "Best Practices of Design" in living critters.So what exactly is this "Evidence of Design" that Creationists and Intelligent Design marketeers assert is there?Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add "(CLOSING STATEMENTS ONLY)" to topic title.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Thread copied here from the What IS evidence of design?IS[/b] evidence of design? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Living things are really complicated.TTFN,WK

In Message 35, NoNukes said: So as not to go off topic this thread appears to be the more appropriate one for a response to NoNukes. My response is as follows:

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There is supportive evidence, i.e. supportive to an hypothesis which may not have empirical evidence. There are also hypotheses which have some empirical evidences and other supportive evidences.

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One example of supportive evidence would be corroborative evidences. The more aggregate corroborative evidence supportive to the credibility of the ToE, for example, the more each aspect of the theory is corroborated for advocates of that ideology.

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The same goes for Biblical advocates. The more aggregate corroborative evidence supportive to the Biblical record, the more each account in the record is corroborated.

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But how do you count aggregate negative evidence?Global flood? Young earth? Talking snakes?Or do you just ignore that negative evidence?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Evidence Buz.Do you have anything related to the topic?So what exactly is this "Evidence of Design" that Creationists and Intelligent Design marketeers assert is there?Do you have anything other than word salad?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Supportive evidence is not a different form of evidence. It is instead regular old evidence that supports a conclusion reached from other evidence.Similarly, direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, and corroborating evidence are all just evidence. They are not non empirical.Do you even know what empirical means?

Imo, BB singularity and multi-verse theories have more negative aspects than the above. What is empirical, supportive or what ever will be determined relative to one's ideology.Do you agree with NoNukes that all evidence must be empirical in order to be considered evidence?

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.

Buz do you even know what empirical means?

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

The point of empirical evidence is to eliminate ideological differences. People with different ideological/political/religious backgrounds must be able to make the same observations.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

From the Online Dictionary:

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empirical [ɛmˈpɪrɪkəl]
adj
1. derived from or relating to experiment and observation rather than theory
2. (Medicine) (of medical treatment) based on practical experience rather than scientific proof
3. (Philosophy) Philosophy
a. (of knowledge) derived from experience rather than by logic from first principles Compare a priori, a posteriori
b. (of a proposition) subject, at least theoretically, to verification Compare analytic [4] synthetic [4]

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Do you consider all evidence attributed to abiogenesis as empirical as per the above definition? How about multi-verse theory?

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.

yes.

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

But the same empirical evidence is often interpreted differently, depending on the hypothesis. Such is the case in interpreting what formed the large delta which is Nuweiba beach at Aqaba or what formed the Grand Canyon, as examples.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.

How about addressing the point I raised instead of going off on a Gish gallop on totally unrelated topics?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking me. What does it mean for evidence to be attributed to abiogenesis?I'll take a stab at it though.I'm not aware of any evidence that there are multiple universes. At best the multi-verse is a hypothesis. Biology is not my forte, but I'm not aware of any substantial evidence for abiogenesis.But nobody is claiming that either of those things are established scientific theory in the same way that general relativity and the theory of evolution are. What's your point?