Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[Esquilax]

The inherent problem here is a lack of data. We need examples of designed life, and non designed life. We then examine both to find the differences, and build a predictive model to tell them apart. We test the model on new data to see how good it is. This is how science works.

The trouble here is that design proponents don't actually have any positive indicators of the position they hold. Looking at the support out there for design- specified complexity, irreducible complexity, fine tuning- what you quickly discover is that "designed life," is merely "life what I can't think of a natural explanation for," gussied up in pseudoscientific lingo. Where they aren't assuming by fiat that certain qualities that they oh so conveniently find in life are solely signifiers of design because they can't think of another reason for them to be there, design proponents merely attempt to construct categories out of whole cloth with the aim of building a god-shaped hole with them. Not having any actual evidence, they're left with just making shit up until the gaps in knowledge left by questions they just insist are meaningful happens to form the silhouette of the answer they've already come to.

Seriously, how the fuck is a design guy supposed to even know what signifiers of design are, if they're insisting that every form of life is already designed? There's no point of contrast, if everything is designed then the elements of design appear in every thing, and it'd be impossible not to find them. So the argument really just boils down to pointing at stuff in living entities and insisting that that must be designed, just cuz. As though the limitations of the natural world are restricted by design proponent's willingness to imagine shit other than what they already believe.

"That's irreducibly complex!" translates to "I can't think of how this would work if I took a part out, therefore it couldn't."

"Look at that specific information!" translates to "I can't think of how this particular thing could have arisen naturally, therefore it didn't."

"Oh them finely tuned constants!" translates to "this seems unlikely to me, so magic!"

The entire fucking enterprise is putting creationist ignorance up on a pedestal and calling these lack-witted post-hoc clusterfucks immutable features of reality. It's the same arrogant mystic babble we see from every other pseudoscience, right down to the way its proponents rabbit on about "alternate views" and "thought diversity," as though simply having a thought and figuring out some techno-jargon terms to couch it in means that idea is owed a fucking place at the scientific table.