It’s your demonstration that it’s possible to use suggestive words to make analogies and then, simply by tacitly assuming so, turn them into identities. I will admit that this is evidence of design, but only of design of a bad argument.
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I should change that, but there has been no complaint.
Even ENV has slow days, I guess.
Framing testable hypotheses is my area of professional expertise. I can tell you with full confidence and without malice that you are wrong on this point.
Still not useful. This is no more stringent than claiming “God did it,” or FSM didit, etc., etc… IOW, not stringent at all, since anything we imagine can fill the same role.
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Provide evidence that there is an alternative mechanism that is more capable, and more plausible, than one with intelligence, to instantiate this state of affairs, and you have a go. Good luck with that.
More plausible than POOF! Some magical Intelligence didit? An Intelligence which is unknown and unknowable (“It’s not that kind of science.” - WD). In what way is an unscientific proposition that answers no useful questions MORE plausible that one which attempts to answer based on known physical principles? ID makes God, the Designer, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and anything else we can think of all equally likely. This make ID simultaneously bad science AND bad theology.
Add standard disclaimer: I do not wish to insult my friends who have a sincerely belief, only to debunk claim with no scientific basis.
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I’m not sure OG is the slowest day. Lately we’ve seen some doozies. There’s that quacky nutrition lady and Neil Thomas. Quality control isn’t the ethos there.
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Natural mechanisms (chemistry, thermodynamics, etc) have been demonstrated to exist.
“An intelligent powerful [i.e. non-human] designer” has not been demonstrated to exist.
Therefore natural mechanisms are more plausible.
QED.
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Do you believe we can explain the universe and its potential millions of origin events solely through material processes and without intelligent cause(s)?
This is a philosophy of science question ultimately.The inferred mechanism is intelligence and the identity of the intelligence is not important. What’s important is to identify the challenges of material processes explaining the observation. Understanding what you are up against is critical information when evaluating whether to invest in a project.
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I note there is no response to my comments about hypotheses.
The history of science demonstrates an excellent track record when it comes to explaining the material world. The history of POOF! demonstrates nothing at all.
Let me get this straight- You are essentially saying, Because the question might be hard to answer, we should not try?
That’s a very disappointing philosophy. It also suggests the point where we should stop investing is the point where the action of the Designer is detected, which would be a VERY important discovery for philosophy and science. Also self-contradictory, but whatever.
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Not being to offer a natural explanation at this time does not mean “God did it”. There is a difference between ‘there is a natural explanation" and "I can tell you the natural explanation.’
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Whenever I see this thread, I think the title should be changed to:
Intelligent Design does not plausibly explain the origin of life.
Yes, origin of life seems a difficult problem. But the difficulties are all difficulties for design. We really don’t know if it poses difficulties for nature.
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I do not have an answer to “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
I can live without an answer to that. And, by the way, you also do not have an answer to that.
Intelligence is not a mechanism.
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This is now being called the Johnsonist or Johnsonian gospel of intelligent design creation magic. It’s named after the lawyer who invented it and was honest enough to admit it isn’t science. Rather it is part of an effort to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy.
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And, in fairness, I should also note that Panda’s Thumb has allowed yours truly to make the occasional contribution there. Take that as you will. 
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Hi Neil
We do know that many origin events are difficult for us to explain. If they were not difficult we would have an explanation at this point.
Hi Neil,
Did you ever notice how Bill’s response is always some ill-defined question, and it’s always pretty much the same statement of incredulity rephrased?
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We should remember that nature is not constrained to use the same methods as a human designer.
Cells have a codified description of themselves in digital form stored in genes and have the machinery to transform that blueprint through information transfer from genotype to phenotype, into an identical representation in analog 3D form, the physical ‘reality’ of that description. The cause leading to a machine’s and factory’s functionality has only been found in the mind of the engineer and nowhere else.
All historical, observational, testable, and repeatable examples have demonstrated that information and operational functionality come from intelligent sources.
G. F. Joyce, L. E. Orgel: Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World 1993
A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint; in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions contained in the RNA.
Paul Davies: How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software … ? Nobody knows … … there is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.
If your claims were accurate, you would be saying that they are only found in the minds of humans. There were no humans around 3+ billion years ago when the first life emerged, so your argument falls apart.
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At least to a first approximation, information is nothing. Information is an abstraction. It is a useful fiction. It does not have any objective existence.
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