The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Belacqua]

Hypothesis #1: There is a design and there is a designer who designed the universe how it is.

If you take this hypothesis and extrapolate it to rest of the universe you would expect certain things. Why? To gauge the validity of the hypothesis we'd come up with some predictive behavior consistent to design.  Based on this predictive model we look at the universe and try to figure out how is it "designed".  We later find out that universe is isotropic when it comes to cosmological laws of nature. So if those laws are part of the design (and they must be because they are the ones that enforce everything in universe) then you should see the product of such design isotropically too based on such predictive model.

Since laws of nature are isotropic, the consequent design will be isotropic too. What that means is that we will have more or less similar ratio of matter/energy & their interactions, giving rise to more complex structures etc, making design isotropic characteristic of universe and you'll see more matter based designed objects (planets, galaxies, stars etc) than not. 

As I understand it, the Big Bang theory assumes that space is isotropic. Given this isotropic space, we have ended up with some "empty" areas and some not so empty areas. 
In what way does this argue against design?

Universe would be a consistently "interesting" place rife with design elements than the cold lonely pitch black place that we see.

You think the cold lonely pitch black places aren't interesting? Physicists tell us that there is more going on in those "empty" places than we suspected at first.

I think golf isn't interesting, but it was clearly designed by somebody. 

Again, you're judging a design to be a failure based on your personal taste. 

None of the design arguments we know of presented historically (Movers, watchmaker, guided evolution, irreducible biochemical complexity, fine tuning, so and so forth ) posit #2 & #3 above.

All design arguments made by people aware of the state of the universe posit that the big empty spaces were designed. 

I disagree. A random anonymous name and avatar is better suited for an anonymous forum. I do not expect others to discuss greek mythology here with me. Don't judge a person by the avatar. I could have picked a rocket just the same.

So you're going to choose a name with a meaning, and millennia of historical and mythical associations, and then expect people to ignore all that. It's just a random assortment of letters to you. 

I guess you could call yourself "Chairman Mao" and then expect people to ignore the historical meaning of the name. 

Educated people know what Apollo stands for, what his attributes are, whom he defeated, etc. It's silly to choose a name and then hope people don't think of those things. Maybe you should call yourself Marsyas.

Since design arguments often include discussions of order vs. chaos, and Apollo is a traditional symbol of one side of that debate, your name associates you with an intellectual position, whether you know it or not. If you called yourself Mussolini, people would assume that you supported a certain position, and if you denied that your name had any meaning, it would just be confusing.