The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Apollo]

That’s the beauty of the design argument—everything is “design”. All you have to do is call it so. There is no non-design to compare it with so it will always be a win win argument.

Of course calling it so doesn't necessarily make it so. The argument may be wrong.

Like all metaphysical arguments, it isn't something science can solve. We can only argue for or against it, more or less persuasively. That's why it's extremely important to be aware of one's prior metaphysical assumptions, and think about whether they are relevant in any given case. We wouldn't want to take a position merely out of habit.

Great. Now apply this rule to see if “empty space is part of design” or “design failure arguments” are out of habit metaphysics or not —after all, to say “part of design” or “design failure” you need to have some idea of the intent of the designer.

But we don’t have designer’s brain on hand to examine —the best we can do is follow the crumbs (of matter particles) as basis of our clues and at the point where there are no crumbs left, we are not at liberty to make as good assumptions anymore as we did —we have reached a point of conclusion where we can make some conjectures on the crumbs story.