Detecting design or intent in nature

[Esquilax]

Using this thinking, a automobile would be undesigned because it originated as part of one unbroken chain of evolution occuring on earth.

My thinking said nothing at all of design, since I was speaking directly to your claims about observations and intelligences. Did you actually read what I wrote? Because I thought it was pretty clear.

Your initial argument was that evolution must be designed, because all the evolutionary systems of which we know the origins were designed. You appeal to observations to make that point, and when anyone else argues with you, your response is to say that we have no observations of naturally occurring evolutionary systems. But if observations are the stopper on arguments for natural evolution, then by the same token, the lack of observations for intellects that did not arise on Earth as part of Earthly evolution also puts a stopper on the argument you're making for Earthly evolution being designed by intellect. If, as you've been saying so far, no observations= no valid argument, then no observations of intellects besides Earthly ones= no valid argument for those, even though that's the argument you're making. One way or another, you're violating the tenets of your own position.

Does it bother you at all, that I've had to simplify my argument so much just to get through to you? Do I need to do it again?

You are conflating the quality of being human with the quality of intellect. The are different things entirely.

The quality of intellect may not be unique to humans, in fact I would say that we know it isn't, given that apes and dolphins and so on exist. But that's also not germane to my argument at all, because my argument is that you have no observations of intellects that did not arise as a result of Earthly evolution, which is still true whether intellect is unique to humans or not, and contradicts your claim that one needs observations in order to make valid arguments. Every time you respond to me you don't even touch the meat of what I'm saying; I wonder why that is?

Incidentally, do you have anything to say- perhaps anything relevant this time- to the problem of regression your argument will inevitably lead to? The one I detailed above? This one:

You know what else has never been observed? Intellects arising that are not the product, either directly or indirectly, of evolutionary systems. So what you're arguing for, based on observations, is that evolutionary systems arise via intellect, but based on observations it's equally true that we have no examples of of intellects arising without an evolutionary system as the source. You're arguing for a self refuting position in yet another way, as if all evolutionary systems are based in intellects, as you claim, then eventually you'd need to be positing the existence of an evolutionary system that was born of an intellect that didn't require one to come into being, contradicting your claim to only be working from observations. On the other hand, if you're willing to bear out your argument consistently, then eventually, by necessity, you'd need to find an original evolutionary system that did not require intelligence to exist, that arose naturally, in order to give rise to this chain of intellect-based evolutionary systems that you claim to observe.

Either way, your argument is fucked.

You know, the one you conspicuously skipped over when responding to me just now?