The Fine-Tuning Argument and ID arguments

Conversation
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Joshua, would you deny the validity of explanatory filter-type inferences when they are employed by, say, coroners? And if not, could you specify the difference between the reasoning of the coroner and the reasoning employed when ID proponents use the EF? I’m not necessarily defending the EF, just trying to get clarity.

To be clear what I mean about a coroner’s reasoning, let me give an example:

A coroner is called in to provide the cause of death of an individual. There are three broad options:

  1. Death by natural causes, (e.g., a heart attack, stroke, etc.)

  2. Death by chance (e.g., the head struck an object after a fall, the person slipped and fell into the water and drowned).

  3. Death by design. (Someone killed the person by deliberate action.)

Doesn’t the coroner have to rule out the first two before he can be certain about the third? For example, if the person died of a heart attack, and then fell against a hard object, say, a stone or machine, a mark on the head from the impact would not in itself be proof of foul play. So the coroner, if he is going to conclude that the mark on the head was produced by deliberate assault, has to show that the kind of mark found on the head is not consistent with marks that would be made by accidental falls etc. He would have to show that certain kinds of mark on the head appear only as a result of deliberate impact delivered by a voluntary agent.

If the coroner can rule out natural causes and accident as the cause of the mark in question, is he not within reason in declaring that a blow on the head was delivered by design?

And if he is within reason in drawing this conclusion, why is such a conclusion in principle not allowable in questions of origins?

Again, I’m not necessarily defending the EF, but merely trying to find out whether your objection to it is on general principles (in which case all coroner’s verdicts of design would be in doubt), or whether you accept the general idea of eliminating chance and natural causes, but find the application of the idea by ID proponents to be sloppy or shoddy.