The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Anomalocaris]

The biggest difference between living beings and the watch is the nature of the atoms on which they are primarily based.

Atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen can self-assemble into complex molecules through natural order. The atoms comprising the watch cannot.

The watchmaker argument seems logical on the surface but if examined closely, one can see a false equivalence.

They can, it is just vastly more unlikely.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Obviously we can be mistaken about these qualities. (Affordances?) I might perceive a gap in the wall as a place to walk through, when in fact it's a large window with clean glass, and I end up bumping my nose. So the ____-ability of something would be falsifiable. 

Yes, that is the basic premise. I do want to add, since you emphasized use, that an object's use is a reflection of my ability to use it. And it is this ability to do something that I'm focusing on for the purposes of testability. If I can grasp something, it is graspable. If I can design something, it is designable. Design is very much a product, the result of activity, which can be emulated.

So what we perceive as designable will be predetermined by the metaphysical assumptions we have about the world. There's a danger of begging the question. 

Yes, but under my specific definition (which could be nearsighted or wrong) we can test it out. It is less about what we perceive and more about what we can do. We can discover what is designable by simply designing it. It is this attempt at replication that constrains designability, just like graspability is constrained by our inability to grasp a wall.

There could be randomness built in, in which some things are allowed to evolve randomly, while others are made intentionally. 

I agree; but with randomness specifically it can still be simulated. Scientists often create computer programs in which randomness and evolution are allowed to occur, so that they can measure the end result of competition. I've seen similar simulations of the cosmos where gravity is given to pixels on a desktop, and are set in motion. The end result is similar to orbits in solar systems and galaxies.

Or God could design the system and the natural laws, and then put them in motion so they evolve in a pre-determined way. Would that be considered designed or not designed?

I think yes, it would be considered designed, but two questions need to be answered first to determine that:

1. Is assimilation sufficient to infer designability? With events like randomness and the butterfly effect, it might be impossible to recreate the exact outcome; but if we could set similar laws in motion and end up with a hundred similar universes, is that similarity sufficient to infer designability?

2. And specifically, is simulation a valid form of testing? This is important because we cannot create matter, but we can simulate it. Is that enough?

[The Grand Nudger]

We an propose that absolutely everything in the universe is designable, if we like, but that won't help us move an inch towards whether or not any given thing is designed. Bit like saying that every person is shootable won't tell you which one of them is full of holes.

There's no reason to advance the argument, or refute it. It's completely uninformative.

[John 6IX Breezy]

It doesn't tell you whether a specific thing is designed; but it does tell you that if a specific thing cannot be designed, then intelligent design falls flat.

That's more than informative—it's lethal.

[The Grand Nudger]

Intelligent design isn't predicated on whether or not a thing is or isn't designable, but whether or not it's designed.

It's not called intelligent designability, after all. I don't even know why you're wondering about falsifiability for ID, it's already been very publicly falsified. It posited an irreducible complexity that does not exist.

[Foxaèr]

It's only informative if you're inserting something that hasn't been proven to exist.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not informative then, either, as it doesn't tell us which designable things are....designed.

Which, of all the designable things, is the designed thing that supports the superstitious belief in meat fairies? Not an eye, not a bacterial motor. Not a rock, not a leaf, not a planet. Not a house or a car or a jet or blimp or a valentines day card. Mounds and mounds of certainly designed and possibly designable things. Just pick any one.

Where in the entire universe are we supposed to look and see the things that these cultists swear to christ they see?

[Foxaèr]

Meat fairies: fairies made of meat or fairies who eat meat? Inquiring minds want to know.

[The Grand Nudger]

Both, and also sausage makers, to hear the stories told. God wrestled with jacob on the road, and, fought to a standstill, bit him in the thigh.

Hence, his given name. Israel - he who wrestles with god. I think that we can strike the human body of the list of potentially designable things that could be god-designed. You'd think he could wrestle some scrawny canaanite refugee to the ground if he knew anything at all about our frame - I know I can.

[John 6IX Breezy]

It's only informative if you're inserting something that hasn't been proven to exist.

Intelligent design doesn't tell you who or what the intelligence is. Simulation theory is a claim about intelligent design. Belief that we are the product of accelerated evolution by alien life, is a claim about intelligent design. Gods or the supernatural is not necessary.