Detecting design or intent in nature

[bennyboy]

Benny, the evolutionary system which created you is not an example of an evolutionary system known not to have required an intellect because we have no observations of its coming into existence.

No, it's not. It's a example of an evolutionary system whose origins are unkown.

I know you believe it came into existence without intellect, but that belief of yours is based on faith and not any objective observation.

I've never said this. In fact, I've specifically said I don't make a faith-based stance on evolution, because I have no desire to positively assert relationships which are unknown to me, and which are not even required to understand the evolutionary mechanism.

My belief that evolutionary systems require intellects is based on observations I have made of evolutionary systems whose circumstances of origination are known to me and I find each an every one of them requires intellect.

Evolution in the universe and the man-made evolutionary systems have not been demonstrated by you to be peers. You have not established that evidence about evolution on a local scale is applicable to evolution on a universal scale.

Based on observations the proposition that all evolutionary systems require intellect is more likely to be true than the proposition that not all evolutionary systems require intellect.

No, it's not.

Let's take the logical thread: "All animals we know of are organic, i.e. based on carbon compounds. Every specific of organic life is evidence that all life is organic. Therefore, it is most likely that all life forms are organic."

This is a logical fallacy, because we have not established that the specific circumstances on Earth generalize to all possible physical systems which might sustain life. Our evidence doesn't get to "jump" from one context up to a more general one unless we can establish an as-above-so-below relationship.

Or how about this one? All evidence we have of intellect occurs in humans. Therefore, we have mounting evidence that all intelligence in the universe is human. (your evidentiary process in action, here). Therefore, since it is most probably that all intelligence is human, any evolutionary system pre-dating the human intellect has brobably not arisen as a product of design or intelligence.

I don't think you'll accept this line of reasoning, but it is the same (false) process by which you are using evidence about apples to draw probabilistic conclusions about oranges.