Is atheism a scientific perspective?

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The claim was that "intelligence is the only known cause capable of producing specified/sequential information". If I describe the other alternatives and why they are wrong, then this is support for the claim that intelligence stands alone. Rather than shout argument from incredulity, think about the nature of the claim I'm making. For example, imagine someone claims "idea A is the only good idea". In order to support this claim, they must show why ideas B, C, and D are not good ideas. Does that make sense? In order to show that intelligence is the only cause capable, I must show why the other causes are not sufficient. 

Moreover, intelligence is observed to be capable of producing it all the time. Through the input of intelligence, we have developed computer code, written language, radio communication, and have even tampered with genetic code. All of these are specified and sequence based. Intelligence is an adequate cause.

(emphasis mine)

These are radically different claims.  The first is true but unremarkable.  The second would be true if you'd actually shown other causes are insufficient, but you haven't done that.  All you've done is whine about improbabilities and use undefinable terms like "specified information."  Showing that the exact process of abiogenesis responsible for life on this planet is unknown doesn't advance the proposition of intelligent design.  It's just a fallacious argument.  The fact is that nobody has been able to create a filter that can reliably separate out those things that were designed from those that weren't designed.  In its absence, we have a bunch of arguments from ignorance and arguments from incredulity.  If this is the best that the ID movement can produce, it is a very poor showing.  More, because it's a possibility that humans evolved their ability to design things, you haven't even shown that design points to a non-natural process.  That's a complete failure for those hoping that design is the magic bullet that points to God.

You're right, the claim is that it is the only known cause, not that it is the only cause. I should have been more careful with that. Information is defined as that which is conveyed by a sequence of things. The specified part is indicating that the information is used to accomplish a desired function. Couple that with the fact that the sequence is highly irregular, and you start to see how intelligence is a good candidate. Now just because intelligence has repeatedly been shown to be an adequate cause of this information, that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the cause. This is why it is essential to compare the competing hypothesis for the origin of information. When the others fail, and only one remains, we can conclude that the remaining one is the only known cause. We can and should look for other causes, but that doesn't change the fact that only one possible explanation has been identified despite rigorous searching. And the intelligent design advocates have been working hard to develop methods of design detection. William Dembski has worked on this issue. Yes, it is proposed that humans evolved their ability to design things, but this ability relies on intelligence. I didn't say that design points to something non-natural, I said it points to intelligence. You're right that it doesn't necessarily point to God, and that is why the ID community does not attempt to identify the designer(s).

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There is no direct link between atheism and science.

The application of scientific thinking often results in atheism. But not all atheists are scientifically minded.

This was my response as well, though it seems not to have been posted before I shut it down this morning.

There is no link as Rob says and in fact some atheists claim to be spiritual, etc.  But it is quite fair to point out that every mainstream xtian sect embraces empirical claims not based on observation or measurement.  In other words, xtians start off committed to empirical claims for which they do not consult science.  And yet empirical claims are precisely those which make up the domain of science.  That isn't to say such a xtian couldn't be a good scientist in regard to other questions but when it comes to the origins of the universe, the development of life on earth or the relationship between consciousness and the human brain xtians are not good scientists. Instead they seek to cherry pick evidence that supports the empirical beliefs their religion commits them to.

I disagree. A lot of Christians can and have always been good scientists. We have an obvious apparent bias. Given that we all know that science should be protected from personal bias, we are forced to take our bias into account at every turn. On the other hand, non religious scientists do not have their biases labelled. They are still incredibly biased people, but they are not necessarily held up to the same bias-avoiding behavior that religious scientists are.

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Random mutation is proclaimed to be the engine that drives new genetic information.

It's "an" engine, not "the" engine.  Mutations are also the result of fairly predictable biochemical factors such as stochastic switching, whereby the chemical balance in the environment can mask or uncover alleles, thereby affecting which traits are "on" and which ones are "off" at the time of replication.

If you want to an assert that an intelligent agent is somehow directing the process. it's your responsibility to provide evidence for that agent, rather than working backwards and just inferring that it simply has to be there.  (I doubt very much, however, that the clueless git described in the Bible would be capable of such work.)

Mutation frequency is predictable (but highly influenced by environmental contaminants), but mutation location and which base will be incorporated in place of the newly mutated locus are not. And at the time of replication, very few genes are active. And traits don't switch on or off, genes are transcribed with a gradient of rates from none to rapid. Also, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. If you're trying to say that mutation isn't random, then it must be nonrandom. If it is nonrandom, then genomes would eventually converge on the same sequence due to the fact that the same mutations are favorable. 

Also, it is not really unreasonable to say that because intelligence is the only known cause, an intelligent agent must have been present to cause it. You want me to provide evidence for a designer without appealing to what we see in nature?