>Perhaps it's curious to you that he didn't use an example
>from nature, you know, since they're obviously everywhere.
They are everywhere, and they are pointed out repeatedly. But what is the use if people won't listen? For instance, the latest post of the month on TalkOrigins shows the, to quote the author, incredibly stupid design of a *very* complex (IDists would say "irreversibly complex") structure of mammalian kidneys. It is one of many thousands natural arguments against ID:
The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: May 2005
>You can't convince me intelligent design is "junk science" if
>you rely upon it for your analogies to work.
The trouble is, many people who believe in ID have a very deep emotional commitment to it (such as tying their God to ID). Many arguments have been tried, in order to find a chink in the armor and get a person to, just for a few minutes, really look at the data. Some are better then others.
If you want the simplest argument against ID, here you go: it's wrong. And in order to understand what I mean when I say "wrong", I'll use an analogy.
Imagine you have met a person who tells you "President Bush is the worst president America has ever had, because he eats babies for breakfast." Now, this person is lying. President Bush could be the worst president America ever had, he could be the best, he could be anywhere in between - the simple fact is, he doesn't eat babies for breakfast.
It is exactly same with evolution and ID. Evolution could be right, it could be completely wrong, the arguments ID-proponents use are wrong in either case. Flagellum is not irreducibly complex. Blood clotting mechanism is anything but irreducibly complex. Human immune system is not irreducibly complex. Regardless of whether life evolved or was created, we have found nothing so far that would indicate intelligent input (we have found a lot to the contrary, however).
The ID is based on bogus math and bogus biochemistry, both of them wrong *even if evolution is totally wrong*. It is as simple as that.
The popular success of ID is entirely based on the fact that their arguments are wrong in a very complicated ways. ID proponents say something, people believe them (because they think, incorrectly, that ID supports their theology, or their vanity). If scientists just say the truth, people simply won't believe them, since their personal beliefs are being contradicted. Thus, scientists are left with the tall order of first teaching everyone biochemistry and genetics, and *then* pointing out the errors. Since this requires an audience willing and capable of learning such complex ideas, this is rarely successful, and ID "wins".
A good measure of the real-world relevance of ID is the position of the Discovery Institute (the main ID think-thank) towards teaching ID. They openly admit they don't know how to teach ID, that they wouldn't know what to say. What they want, instead, is for kids to be taught about "deficiencies in evolution" (as if the problems with one thing are evidence for another; kind of like proving existence of flying unicorns by poking hole in the theory of aerodynamics). Then they offer false arguments against evolution.
So there you have it, the simplest argument against ID, with explanation and commentary. In a perfect world, it would be enough. In the world we live in, people simply won't believe it. They will ask me to prove to them that, for instance, flagellum isn't irreducibly complex. To do that, I will have to teach them biochemistry, genetics, even a lot of biophysics - a task that required many years of very difficult classes and years of hands-on work for myself. Since I'm supposed to do it in a few paragraphs on an internet forum, I will fail. And so the propaganda goes on...
BTW, this is also the answer to the often-heard question "why scientists won't debate ID proponents". They know they can't teach people enough science within the scope of a debate, and they know that, without understanding enough science, people won't understand their arguments.
M.
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