Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[AAA]

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.

And you have no way to define that rigorously.  This is a backward definition.  It implies design in the way you've formulated it, which makes it nothing more than begging the question.  Can you use it in a sentence?  Show how fairy rings do not contain specified information in a way that doesn't implicitly reference design.

Couple that with the fact that the sequence is highly irregular, and you start to see how intelligence is a good candidate.

This is mere complexity and is back to the argument that it couldn't arise by pure chance.  Since evolutionary processes have already been demonstrated to produce greater complexity from simpler origins, it makes some form of evolutionary process an equally viable candidate.

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.

Rigorous searching doesn't change this from an argument from ignorance.  It's unsound to conclude that the cause was intelligence until all possible alternative causes have been explored.  Not just 'known' causes but all possible.  This you've failed to do.  That's why you have all this talk about known causes, instead of a positive argument for design.  If you had a positive argument, you'd use it.  Therefore an argument from ignorance is the only known argument for intelligent design.

And the intelligent design advocates have been working hard to develop methods of design detection. William Dembski has worked on this issue.

The same could be said for abiogenesis.  It means little without any actual results.  Despite "rigorous searching" no positive argument for design has been developed.  

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).

This is disingenuous twaddle.  We all know your end game.  You're not fooling anyone.

Define 'define' so that I know what definitions count. Also please define 'rigorously' so I can meet that criterion. I'm joking of course. Maybe instead of getting hung up on the quality of the definitions (which I did provide), maybe deal with the concept of the argument. 

And when did evolutionary forces produce higher complexity? Are you talking about things like horizontal gene transfer, because I would accept that it increases complexity, but only by adding pre-existing information to the system.

And for the third time, I am not saying that design is the only cause. I'm saying that it is the only known cause. There has been a thorough search, but obviously not all possibilities have been considered. So we literally have to investigate every possible explanation for any observation before we can say that we believe one stands out as best? If you follow your own type of reasoning, then you do not have any beliefs about anything because you are waiting for us to investigate possible explanations that nobody has thought of yet. 

And I've used positive evidence. We see intelligence creating information all the time. Scientists are constantly creating RNA sequences in the lab to guide CRISPR-CAS 9 machinery. If I go back to my university and create a functional protein by linking a series of amino acids in a desired way, then will I have given positive evidence that intelligence is an adequate cause?

I believe that the designing intelligence is God, but that is simply not the type of claim that ID is making. There are ID proponents who do not believe this.

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Again, I think that some of these scary features of our world that you are referring to can be considered mechanisms to ensure that the genetic integrity is maintained. For example, we have mechanisms to avoid bacterial infections. When we have a poor diet/ lifestyle, we are more susceptible to being overcome by these infections. They may be a mechanism to weed out those who are not living healthy lives.

If such things are designed, what does it say about the designer?  Nature is beautiful in many respects, and horrifying and deadly in many others.  If these horrors are being used to weed out the weak then it feels as if the intelligent designer is... Wes Craven?

I think that putting mechanisms in place to preserve the integrity of the genetic code is more moral than letting our genetic code degrade to the point  where we suffer defects and functional disparities.