Intelligent Design: Did you design yourself?

[Cyberman]

For my money, I'd say that there's no reason that it couldn't be true of the Universe itself in that scenario. However, that's only the start of the journey, not the end. You can't just posit the possibility and then stop there as though you've made some scientific breakthrough and expect to be taken seriously without putting in the work to test the hypothesis. That's the part where creationists constantly and consistently fall down.

So you agree that it could be true that most lineages of life in the universe are the products of intellect?

No, I said that in the scenario you painted I see no reason that it couldn't be true - but that I'm not going to swallow it or anything about it until the work is done to show it to be true.

Creationists, IDiots and CDesign Proponentsists need to show their work just like real scientists have to.

I don't know if you realize it yet or not,

This isn't condescending at all.

but atheists need what creationist have been trying to do....that is have an objective means to differentiate between something that is designed and something that is not designed.

But that's exactly what your side hasn't got. You have no means of discerning design in nature from naturally evolved things. Even the artificially created specimens you've been trumpeting here are known to be designed purely because the designers published papers detailing exactly how they did it.

Without this objective means....the atheist position is much weaker than the theists. Let me explain.

Can I have a lollipop after the story if I'm a good boy?

Imagine walking down a beach and finding a watch. You know the watch was designed and produced by an intellect and did not occur naturally. How do you know this? Not because of the precision and complexity of the device(this is where my argument differs from Paley's). You know it was designed and produced by an intellect and not nature because in your experience you've observed that watches are designed and produced by intellects, and you've never seen them occur naturally. You know this watch you found was the product of an intellect even though you aren't privy to the details of it creation. This is how we currently differentiate the designed from the not designed.

Exactly so. Which is why we can't make the same claims for a tree, a bird, or a blade of grass.

What about lineages of life? Well if you only observe lineages of life coming into existence by being designed and produced by intellects, and never observe them coming into existence naturally, you are in a good position to claim that a lineage of life whose creation details you are not privy too was designed and produced by an intellect. A theists is in a strong position to claim that all lineages of biological life are designed and produced by intellects, because the rule we use to determined what is designed and produced by an intellect and what isn't suggests that biological life is like a watch....something exclusively designed and produced by intellects.

And yet again I'm saying that you can claim anything you like and it doesn't amount to a mosquito's fart unless you test the claim against the real world. Do your home work first, then we can have something to talk about instead of warmed-over Paley.