Intelligent Design

[Esquilax]

How about this:
Fixed constraints intelligently imposed on a system implies a design.

There is a ton wrong with your argument here, but we'll start with this: no, constraints imposed intelligently upon a system does not imply design, it implies constraints. An intelligent being can, for example, apply constraints upon a natural system without any specific outcome in mind, and you would, according to the premises of this position, conclude design where there wasn't any originally, nor did any factor into the intelligent changes made.

That's the problem with attempting inductive conclusions based on incomplete data, especially when proposing non-parsimonious causes for the things you're observing.

So consider a rock.
What makes a rock you find on the ground that is the identical to a rock molded by a human in a lab any different?
After all the rock you find on the ground will have the exact same constraints as that of the rock you molded in the lab right?
The main difference is that the rock made in the lab had it's constraints imposed onto itself by an intelligent being whereas the rock in the road had it's constraints imposed onto it by natural causes or random events.

And yet, chuck that intelligently designed rock out into the weather for a few years and it'd erode to the point that you'd think it natural, and chuck that natural rock into the lab to be exposed to some unnatural (yet randomly imposed) new constraints and we could make it such that you'd consider it intelligently designed. That's why the appearance of design is not an adequate indicator of design, especially in the context of pattern seeking human minds with an evolved, inaccurate propensity to see intent where there isn't any.

Another difference is that the rock made in the lab will have it's constraints fixed whereas the rock in the ground got it's constraints(like shape, size etc) the way it is through lots of natural causes and is ever changing.

Umm... what?

No no no. No. The reason a natural rock changes has nothing to do with its natural causes and everything to do with the continued influences on the rock. Wind causes erosion, but wind is not a contributing cause to the rocks it erodes. It's just an ongoing effect that they may or may not be exposed to, and that isn't unique to them, either. You take an intelligently designed rock and put it in conditions conducive to erosion, and it'll erode; so much for fixed constraints, under your model. Likewise you can preserve a natural rock such that it doesn't change; wouldn't you then have to conclude that that rock is intelligently designed?

What you're talking about there has nothing to do with underlying causes and everything to do with things that happen to the rocks after the fact, which obviously isn't an indicator of what the causes actually were. It's also wrong within the context of your initial argument, because things that demonstrably are designed change all the time: it's why you've got to repair machines after a while, because the exact same natural pressures that cause rocks to be "ever changing" and hence natural, also act upon designed things... therefore designed things are natural too?

Main points:

* Design implies intelligent action.
* Resemblance of a design due to natural causes is not a design because of its fluctuating constraints.

Clearly you've never blown glass, if you hold to point two. Glass blowing is all fluctuating constraints leading to different products each time, which is why hand blown objects are often unique even if they're made in a set, yet blown glass is, itself, designed. Hence, fluctuating constraints are not an indicator of whether a thing is designed or natural.

Like take hydrogen for example, it's atomic number, protons and other constraints are fixed.

Only because the definition of hydrogen, affixed to it long after the fact by humans, contains within it the atomic number, quantity of protons, and specific constraints of a hydrogen atom. It's just definitional fiat.

Exactly like the constraints on the rock made in a lab are fixed. If the constraints on the rock are altered by another intelligent being then it becomes another design, but if the constraints are altered by natural causes or random events then it is no longer a design.

So if I chuck a pen outside and the tip rusts, it's no longer designed? Or can we just acknowledge that the designed nature of a thing is not influenced by what happens to it after its initial design?

So ask yourself this,
Has the constraints of something like an element like Hydrogen changed in the history of earth or even our universe? No?
Well then we know it's constraints are fixed.
If it is fixed then it is imposed. (Like assigning an integer variable in a program the value 5. It is imposed.)
If it is imposed there was an intelligent being responsible.
If there was an intelligent being responsible, then it is a design.

I hope, by now, we can see how this is wrong.