Detecting design or intent in nature

[bennyboy]

Okay, if you want to call bird actions "intellect," then it's no sweat off my nose. I'd call them "instinct," but whatever.

I do consider instinct to be a form of intellect. Somewhere in this thread we talked about whether or not a paramecium had intellect. Anyways your claim that bird actions are all instinct is in doubt.

Does what you just quoted really look to you like me making a claim to you? I usually use the word "intellect" about species capable of high level cognition and creative problem solving. If you want to say that birds or paramecium have "intellects" and have "implemented evolutionary systems," then fine. I will accept your definition of the word. That's what ". . . but whatever" means.

And here, silly me, I thought you were trying to demonstrate that biological evolution ITSELF was made by an intellect. But we can laugh about that together now, because it turns out you were just trying to give birds a fair shake. And I'm definitely not one to look down on other species.