Detecting design or intent in nature

[bennyboy]

Observation supports the proposition that it is likely all evolutionary systems require intellect......and folks that is just the way it is. You will have to deal with it.

So where did the intellect that created the first evolutionary system come from?

The proposition that all evolutionary systems require intelligent design is, quite simply, falsified by the fact that you cannot provide an answer that squares with what you're saying: if the first intellect wasn't itself intelligently designed, then evolutionary systems can come about without intelligence. If it required intelligence, then you have an infinite regress within a temporal framework on your hands, and that's impossible.

... And folks, that is just the way it is.

I don't think this line actually harms Heywood's arguments. Nothing personal, but the God idea in its essence represents a remedy to infinte regression. So in a world where you can accept that God represents that philosophical quantity, formula or entity which remedies infinite regress, there's no problem seeing God as the creator of the first evolutionary systems, or of a universe of which evolutionary systems will be guaranteed to pop up.

The real problem is that so far as we know, the God idea as a remedy to philosophical problems is just a cop-out, and since there's no concrete evidence for such an entity either, there's no reason to think such an entity might have created evolution, or anything else describable as "intelligent."