Detecting design or intent in nature

[bennyboy]

Not plausible to you, maybe. The conditions today are so utterly different than 3.8 billion years ago that a new occurrence of abiogenesis is almost certainly impossible.

Until you understand what conditions abiogenesis can occur under it is silly to make claims like this. Maybe abiogenesis requires intellect.

Maybe it requires a magic space monkey. Maybe it requires a quantum spark from the 21st dimension. Maybe it requires a voodoo dance. Or maybe it just requires those features of the universe which we can actually observe to exist and to affect causality.

It's a pretty simple logical extension at work here:
-we know life exists in the physical universe
-we have not found any evidence of God, or of intellect creating the life.
-it therefore seems likely that life was created due to physical processes

We don't need to prove that life was created due to physical processes, because there are currently no other supportable hypotheses for why life exists.

Now, if you find some evidence of God, then fine. But you can't use the existence of life to prove God (or intellect), and then go on to say God must have created life. That's because circles are worse than bad-- they represent an epic logic fail. Why oh why can't you see that your lines in support of God-- ALL of them-- beg the question?