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That's not material evidence. That's an assumption.

Sure, a watch on the beach is material evidence, but one cannot extrapolate from that to the rings of Saturn or life on earth.

Pointing to examples of black ravens does not provide material evidence that all birds are black. Similarly, I think watches and life are birds of a different feather. One cannot just assume that one must be like the other.

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Another thought occurs to me. When an intelligent designer is assumed several questions come into play.

1. does that mean the intelligent designer is more intelligent than us?
2. what other creations is the ID responsible for that exist outside of our knowledge?
3. Is there a chance that the ID would not wish to leave any evidence behind to indicate his/her/its presence?
4. If the ID created us, why hasn't he made himself known empirically?
5. what type of proof would we need to show that we are the product of an ID beyond any doubt?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Another thought occurs to me. When an intelligent designer is assumed several questions come into play.

1. does that mean the intelligent designer is more intelligent than us?
2. what other creations is the ID responsible for that exist outside of our knowledge?
3. Is there a chance that the ID would not wish to leave any evidence behind to indicate his/her/its presence?
4. If the ID created us, why hasn't he made himself known empirically?
5. what type of proof would we need to show that we are the product of an ID beyond any doubt?

An intelligent designer isn't assumed, the rest is moot.

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Of course an Intelligent designer is assumed. What would you call it?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
It is an inference supported the observable evidence, and that is the most reliable conclusion one can reach.

If all observations of the origin of information driven machinery consistently require the activity of intelligence, then the inference that those whose origin we don’t observe also required intelligence is a reliable inference – living cells are definitively composed of such machines, and so the claim that such cells are the product of intelligence is in evidence, regardless of the fact that an inference is employed.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Of course an Intelligent designer is assumed. What would you call it?

Not assumed. There is no such assumption in ID. The only axiom of ID is that intelligence can be reliably detected - once accepted, then the rest follows from evidence.

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Unless of course we can think of a process that does not require intelligence, by which "information driven machinery" (whatever you may mean by that) could have come into existence.

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The question was "What sort of material evidence is dismissed as 'supernatural'?" The inference referred to above ("information driven machinery must originate from intelligent agency, and that such machinery is found in biological organisms") isn't dismissed as supernatural, it is simply disputed.

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That is a contortion of reality. ID cannot be detected. It is assumed. Or, if you wish "presumed".

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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That is a contortion of reality. ID cannot be detected. It is assumed. Or, if you wish "presumed".

Well, no, it is already detected by the sciences, so you are ignorant on this count.

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You are saying that an Intelligent designer has been detected only because there is no proof to the contrary. I can say that a giant gila monster lives in the bowls of the earth because there is no proof to the contrary. Well, there are earthquakes. I presume it is when these giant gila monsters move that tectonic plates shift causing the earthquakes

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Unless of course we can think of a process that does not require intelligence, by which "information driven machinery" (whatever you may mean by that) could have come into existence.

It is not sufficient only to 'think of a process' for it to be scientifically valid, it must be experimentally demonstrated.

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The question was "What sort of material evidence is dismissed as 'supernatural'?" The inference referred to above ("information driven machinery must originate from intelligent agency, and that such machinery is found in biological organisms") isn't dismissed as supernatural, it is simply disputed.

I think it is 'disputed' because it is indicative of intelligent agency and implies that an intelligence exists that isn't human. Otherwise, there would be no manufactured 'dispute'.

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It is sufficient "to think of a process" producing X (not requiring intelligence, and that might plausibly have happened) to refute the proposition that X must have been intelligently designed. Then, as we seem to agree, further research is required to find out what actually happened.

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It is disputed either because of the illogic ("X must have been intelligently designed"), or because "information driven machinery" isn't clearly defined and so there is no clear proposition to be accepted.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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You are saying that an Intelligent designer has been detected only because there is no proof to the contrary. I can say that a giant gila monster lives in the bowls of the earth because there is no proof to the contrary. Well, there are earthquakes. I presume it is when these giant gila monsters move that tectonic plates shift causing the earthquakes

No, I am saying, along with science, that intelligence can be reliably detected, you are saying scientists are lying.

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NO, I am saying that your assumption is wrong. Intelligence, as an adjective, is subjective and biological life shows no pattern that repeats itself consistantly enough to remain static.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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NO, I am saying that your assumption is wrong. Intelligence, as an adjective, is subjective and biological life shows no pattern that repeats itself consistantly enough to remain static.

Yes, you are saying that scientists who claim to reliably discern an artefact from a geofact are lying. That isn't particularly scientific in my estimation.

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If you are speaking of artifacts, they are static. Therefore it is safe to assume it was intelligently designed as you observe the original artifact.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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If you are speaking of artifacts, they are static. Therefore it is safe to assume it was intelligently designed as you observe the original artifact.

Well I appreactiate your admission that ID is right when it says intelligence can be reliably detected.

In the case of biology, cells aren't living and don't reproduce until the cellular information and machinery is in place. The same principle applies.

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I didn't say intelligence can be reliably detected. I said an artifact can be recognized as man made. There is a huge difference unfortunately for you.

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As long as any living entity morphs it cannot be accepted as intelligently designed because it is not the same design from one moment to the next.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
It is an inference supported the observable evidence, and that is the most reliable conclusion one can reach.

If all observations of the origin of information driven machinery consistently require the activity of intelligence ...

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Apart from life, the only 'information driven machinery' that one can 'experiment on' is manmade. So these observations boil down to:

"Manmade things appear to have been made by men."

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Or, to provide a parallel argument:

All observations of the origin of information driven machinery consistently require the activity of man, and the inference that those whose origin we don’t observe also required man is a reliable inference.

Now we're getting somewhere! We have met the Intelligent Designer and it is us.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I didn't say intelligence can be reliably detected. I said an artifact can be recognized as man made. There is a huge difference unfortunately for you.

First off, it's artefact. Second off, the reason methods are needed to tell artefacts from geofacts is because both natural and intelligent process can produce flaked rocks that look like tools.

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The means by which this is done have nothing to do with detecting 'humaness', but with determining what can be done by natural processes and chance, and what cannot.

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It is the detection of the intelligent manipulation of materials - if a chimp or a bird modified a structure, the detection scheme would work the same way.

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As long as any living entity morphs it cannot be accepted as intelligently designed because it is not the same design from one moment to the next.

You are begging the question - an entity isn't 'living' until certain processes function, and those functions require information systems and machinery. There is no 'morphing' until the basic structure exists, and such a structure cannot exist apart from intelligence - claims to the contrary are extraodinary, and require extraordinary proof.

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I didn't say methods weren't needed to tell art{e}facts from geofacts.

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Where are you going with this? You don't need a method to tell a living organism from an non-living object.

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This has nothing to do with the problem I presented to you.

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How can an intelligent design be detected when it morphs into something different than what it originally was? Rocks and buildings don't morph. Only living things morph. Therefore, any trace of an assumed intelligent designer is forever lost by constant and unending transformation.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

Your fundamental logical flaw here is that you don’t seem to see that by saying ‘manmade’, you are saying something fundamental about how structures derive – when we say manmade, what we are really saying ‘something that could not exist apart from a certain level of intelligence’

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I didn't say methods weren't needed to tell art{e}facts from geofacts.

Of course - but those methods have nothing to do with detecting humaness.

I didn't say it did. I said man made. It is a type of intelligence, is it not?

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Where are you going with this? You don't need a method to tell a living organism from an non-living object.

Well, no, actually sometimes you do.

I'm thinking that living entities all have something in common therefore the absence of that commonality indicates non-life.

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How can an intelligent design be detected when it morphs into something different than what it originally was? Rocks and buildings don't morph. Only living things morph. Therefore, any trace of an assumed intelligent designer is forever lost by constant and unending transformation.

I am not sure what biological education led you to believe that living organisms 'morph'.

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A living cell, the requirement for all biological functions (including presumably evolution) must exist in order for anything else to happen - and as a cell is composed of information driven machinery, it requires intelligence to exist, whatever 'morphing' you imagine takes place later.

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For all your semantic games, I remain unconvinced that the origins of biological life must be like the origins of a computer. You can examine as many pictures of computers being built as you like, but it will tell you absolutely nothing about the origins of life.

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Intelligent designers can design things without the appearance of intelligence. Undersigned things may have the appearance of design.

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It begs the question to automatically sweep life into the designed category with a 'must' statement. Rather, we should look for the evidence. Where are the toolmarks? Where is the designer's logo? Where is the material evidence? What differentiates the theory of evolution on its own from the theory of evolution-with-designer?