Detecting design or intent in nature

[downbeatplumb]

If we accept your argument then consider this: The first Mycoplasma Laboratorium was not the product of reproduction and therefore it was not the product of the system of biological evolution which is responsible for you and me. Each subsequent generation of Mycoplasma Laboratorium conforms to your definition of evolution and must then be considered part of a completely different system of evolution then the one which is responsible for you and me.

If you are insisting that biological evolution is a "system" by your loose term, then evolution of these things follows exactly as a natural Mycoplasma does. It is not using a different "system" because we made it.

It is a copy that is introduced and goes merrily on as before.

I see it like this, a river flows into the sea. Then you walk up and pour a bucket of water into the sea and claim we must treat that water differently because it came from the bucket not the river.