An Information Test For Artificial vs. Natural Selection?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@dga471

I cannot imagine how it could be accomplished without making use of cheat information (e.g. artifacts left by the humans, like camera footage).

To be Devil’s advocate, imagine if we were to land on Pluto and found a large tractor there. Would we be justified in inferring that it must have been put by humans or some intelligent life forms, instead of emerging from natural processes? (This is inspired by a case described by Plantinga.)

That is a different problem and you know it. Hehe. We are talking about something else here. It also falls into the category of “cheat” variables.