Anyway, a penny for your thought. quoting philosophical investigations.

"If I am inclined to suppose that a mouse has come into being
by spontaneous generation out of grey rags and dust, I shall do well
to examine those rags very closely to see how a mouse may have
hidden in them, how it may have got there and so on. But if I am
convinced that a mouse cannot come into being from these things,
then this investigation will perhaps be superfluous.
But first we must learn to understand what it is that opposes such
an examination of details in philosophy."

The way that we know a watch is designed isn't via making interpretive analogies with anything. The way that we know that a watch is designed is because we're familiar with watchmakers, we know that humans invented watches, that watches are an artifact that we produced.

Normal people, including people who make the above counter-argument, actually think the exact opposite. We can run an experiment with two rooms A and B. A is in disarray with things in no particular order and B is neat and objects have been arranged in a discernable pattern. If someone, anyone, were to be taken into the two rooms and asked which room probably had an occupant then the answer would invariably be room B. I don't think anyone will/can disagree with this deduction. — TheMadFool

This is true. Under all circumstances.

But if you take a room in which movements of self-propelling objects are present, then without any designer they can take up a shape that looks like someone lives there, and several moments later there is disarray. And several moments later again there is the appearance that someone arranged the objects. IF the objects have a self-propelling ability.

The universe is not stagnant. It is not like a room with inanimate objects. Instead, the universe is full of self-propelling objects. It acts semi-randomly; the self-propelling objects take up all kinds of configurations, all different from the previous ones. There are instances when a section of the universe looks like someone lives there (to live with the analogy of your allegory); but mostly, vast amounts of sections look like there is nobody living there.

We can make a distinction between things that people make and things that aren't made by people. — Terrapin Station

The point though, is that there is a number of problems with your approach. The first problem is that if it requires that we see a person making the thing, or that particular type of thing, in order to say that the thing is artificial, then when we find something which has already been made, and we haven't seen a person making that type of thing, we have no way to make any judgement as to whether or not it's artificial.

So TheMadFool has a different approach, claiming that there are certain characteristics which demonstrate that an object has been 'made', or designed, and we can make a judgement based on that criteria. This approach is much more useful, and widely applicable than yours, allowing us to judge a thing by its properties, rather than requiring that we observe the creation of the thing. In many cases, (such as with ancient artifacts) observing the creation of the thing is not possible.

The second problem is even more substantial. This is the fact that you are making an arbitrary division between what is "designed", and what is not designed, based on the assumption that only human beings are capable of designing things. And again, archeological evidence poses a problem here because the humanoid beings, which are not properly "human beings" were designing things. Furthermore, when we see things like a beehive, a bird's nest, and a beaver dam, applying your principles we would have to say that these things are not "designed", because they are not built by human beings. But in reality, "design" is determined by intention, and these things are just as much intentional as anything produced by human beings. All you have done is created an arbitrary division between human beings and the rest of the natural world, one which is not at all supported by the science of biology. Biology gives no such special status to the human species.

I just thought of something and would like your opinion on it.

Consider the universe as the universal set U. Now the design argument works by picking a subset D consisting of human-designed objects and then generalizes it to the set U.

Now, someone may reject the design argument by referring to another subset of U, call it R, which consists of objects that have order e.g. a flower but obviously isn't human-designed.

As you can see both arguments are on an equal footing, referencing a subset of U and then generalizing to U itself. — TheMadFool

What I see as the issue, is how we define what constitutes a "designed" object. Terrapin's approach is to limit "designed" to things made by human beings. But as you can see there are numerous problems with this approach. It is not a useful, or helpful approach, and may lead to misunderstanding in numerous different ways. The more realistic approach is to determine the characteristics of "design", and judge things accordingly. I propose that "intention" is what defines design, such that anytime there is evidence of intention, design is implied, regardless of whether the thing was produced by human beings.

You have a point but if order is insufficient to prove a designer can you give me a counterexample? — TheMadFool

It seems to me that disorder doesn't necessarily mean that their isn't a designer either. People leave messes and are disorganized themselves. If I saw your desk in disarray with papers all over, was it you, or some whirlwind that came in and left your desk in that state? When you look at your child's room and it is a mess, was it the children or a earthquake that caused the mess?

So, it seems to me that in order to establish a designer/non-designer, as opposed to order/disorder (because you can have order or disorder with our without designers) you'd have to establish what the designer's intent/goal was.

What would be the intent/goal of the designer? Why would it create an enormous universe that is mostly inhospitable to life? What's the point?

And it seems to me that in proving the existence of a designer, we aren't proving the existence of a "god" - whatever that is, we would be proving the existence of extra-dimensional aliens.

What would be the intent/goal of the designer? Why would it create an enormous universe that is mostly inhospitable to life? What's the point? — Harry Hindu

I don't bemoan the lack of life in the enormously overwhelming proportion of the universe.

I claim that an all-knowing mind that is capable of creation would not create. It could know instantly what would happen when in this universe. So why go through the effort of making a model, when you know precisely what the model's state and vectors will be at any time in the infinite expanse of time?

Futile work, mere duplication, no purpose, to prove what's already obviously true to the all-knowing mind.

** Christianity and other monotheistic religions claim that the creator created the world and that the creator knows everything.

I'm keeping an open mind about this as I think you're suggesting but I don't see a satisfactory refutation to my argument which I will present again below.

It seems to me that disorder doesn't necessarily mean that their isn't a designer either. — Harry Hindu

Correct but order definitely involves an agent with intent or a plan if you will.

Why would it create an enormous universe that is mostly inhospitable to life? — Harry Hindu

You assume all life has to be like the ones we're familiar with - earthly life forms. However there may be life of a different kind in space or even in stars themselves. Yes I'm speculating but I do want to discourage an earth-centric view of life. I'm reminded of how aliens in movies so closely resemble humans or animals on earth. We've all been surprised by plants and animals found on earth itself haven't we? So why not lend the universe the same amount of regard in terms of possible life forms?

To All

The relevant feature between the universe and a watch is order - a specific arrangement of parts following a set of principles/laws.

The universe is more complex than a watch.

Therefore the universe definitely has a designer.

Order doesn't imply a designer. What tells us that a watch has a designer isn't order. It's the fact that we know that watches are designed. We know their history. We know how they're made.

The point though, is that there is a number of problems with your approach. The first problem is that if it requires that we see a person making the thing, or that particular type of thing, in order to say that the thing is artificial, then when we find something which has already been made, and we haven't seen a person making that type of thing, we have no way to make any judgement as to whether or not it's artificial. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure we do. We're not blank slates in every situation. We know that the sort of thing in question is made by people, because we're aware of that type of thing, its history, etc. That doesn't imply that it's impossible for us to be wrong, but that doesn't matter. When we get info that we're wrong, then we make the adjustment that we need to make.

Order and order-makers may be randomly generated by a preponederantly choatic universe.

This isn't a good example because the water molecules are chaotic to observers without complete information. To those who possess the right information the molecules will be behaving in accordance with the laws of physics. — TheMadFool

Given that definition of "order", there is no chaos at all in the physical universe, since everything physical behaves in accordance with the laws of physics. In that case, your question would be incoherent.

Correct but order definitely involves an agent with intent or a plan if you will. — TheMadFool

This is not true at all. I won't respond to countering this, as this is an internal judgment, which you are unwilling to make. I don't blame you, because in this case I am unwilling to accept the judgement of which you are only capable of making.

I offer to agree to disagree.

But to reiterate, it shows a lack of more profound insight to not be able to see how order can be achieved without an agent or a plan.

And I can prove it too.

Here's the proof:

1. Order can only be achieved by an orderer.

2. Only intelligent planners can be orderers.

3. Planners and orderers have order inside of themselves. They are ordered.

4. Nobody can order himself from scratch.

5. Therefore orderers must be ordered by a previous orderer.

6. This leads to infinite regress of orderers.

7. This is possible.

8. But it does not exclude the chain of events, that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system.

------------

So again, I accept that an infinite regress of orderers can exist, but I reject the idea that an absolute orderer of first order can exist. If 1. and 4. are accepted.

Order and order-makers may be randomly generated by a preponederantly choatic universe. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I would agree if I knew what "preponederantly" and "choatic" meant.

I say order and order-makers may be randomly generated. -- Period. No need to proceed farther.

When we get info that we're wrong, then we make the adjustment that we need to make. — Terrapin Station

How could you ever get info that you're wrong though? If, being created by design required , by definition, that the thing be created by a human being, and this principle is really wrong because something else like another form of creature or something, actually creates by design as well, how could you ever get information that you're wrong? It's impossible that something other than a human being could create through design, by your very definition, so it's impossible that you could ever get information that something which was created in some way other than by a human being, was actually created by design.

You're left with judging whether the thing was created by a human being in order to determine whether the thing was created by design. And accepting this false principle, that human beings are the only possible type of being capable of creating by design, closes you mind to the reality that other things like beehives, birds nests, and beaver dams are created by design as well.

Here's the proof:

1. Order can only be achieved by an orderer.

2. Only intelligent planners can be orderers.

3. Planners and orderers have order inside of themselves. They are ordered.

4. Nobody can order himself from scratch.

5. Therefore orderers must be ordered by a previous orderer.

6. This leads to infinite regress of orderers.

7. This is possible.

8. But it does not exclude the chain of events, that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system. — god must be atheist

To introduce #8, you must reject the conclusion stated as #5. These two contradict each other. But #5 is produced as a conclusion from #1, #3, and #4. So, the order which an orderer has, can only have been produced by a previous orderer, And #8, that an orderer could be produced by chance is excluded by these premises.

To introduce #8, you must reject the conclusion stated as #5. These two contradict each other. But #5 is produced as a conclusion from #1, #3, and #4. So, the order which an orderer has, can only have been produced by a previous orderer, And #8, that an orderer could be produced by chance is excluded by these premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

They are mutually exclusive, yes. But they are both possible.

Much like it is possible that god exists, and possible that god does not exist. One excludes the other, but both are possible.

You have to see that. If you don't see that, then you can't see how your criticism isn't right.

We can run an experiment with two rooms A and B. A is in disarray with things in no particular order and B is neat and objects have been arranged in a discernable pattern. If someone, anyone, were to be taken into the two rooms and asked which room probably had an occupant then the answer would invariably be room B. I don't think anyone will/can disagree with this deduction. — TheMadFool

Just like the earth reveals through subtle hints that it is must be rather spherical, the universe reveals through subtle hints that it must have a beginning. From there arises the idea of a first cause, God.

The fact that order appears out of chaos, however, does not strike me as particularly special, or even as being such hint.

Separate things in an otherwise chaotic system will spontaneously enter and stay in a highly-improbably game-theoretical equilibrium, when such equilibrium is very, very stable.

John Nash describes the conditions in which such equilibrium will arise in his famous 1950 publication, "Equilibrium points in n-player strategy games".

Say that a thing maximizes its own integrity. If it can enter a situation in which other things contribute to its own integrity, it may favour to stay in that situation. If these other things can also maximize their own integrity by maintaining that situation, then none of the things involved, is willing to change the situation. Such situation may be highly improbable, but once it exists, it will refuse to disappear. So, that creates a new, stable thing consisting of a game-theoretical equilibrium between sub-things.

In a next stage, that new, stable, composed thing can improve its own stability by becoming a member in yet another super-thing. If all the things involved react in the same way, you get again a new situation with a super-thing that consists of things that themselves consist of sub-things. That composition pattern just keeps going on, and creates increasingly improbable results, but that are also increasingly stable.

So, incredibly complex and orderly situations tend to arise pretty much spontaneously from chaos. As far as I am concerned, they do not necessarily point to an underlying design. They could just arbitrarily be satisfying the conditions of particular game equilibria.

They are mutually exclusive, yes. But they are both possible.

Much like it is possible that god exists, and possible that god does not exist. One excludes the other, but both are possible.

You have to see that. If you don't see that, then you can't see how your criticism isn't right. — god must be atheist

There is nothing wrong with the criticism, because the one (if it is correct) excludes the possibility of the other. So you could say that each of them, or both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible", as this implies the two of them collectively.

And you state at #8 "it does not exclude the chain of events...", when actually 1 - 5 does exclude that chain of events. By saying this you imply that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, when actually each one excludes the possibility of the other.

The fact that order appears out of chaos, however, does not strike me as particularly special, or even as being such hint. — alcontali

It is actually impossible for order to appear out of pure chaos, this was demonstrated logically by Aristotle. To state the opposite is to misunderstand, or change what is meant by "pure chaos".

Say that a thing maximizes its own integrity. If it can enter a situation in which other things contribute to its own integrity, it may favour to stay in that situation. If these other things can also maximize their own integrity by maintaining that situation, then none of the things involved, is willing to change the situation. Such situation may be highly improbable, but once it exists, it will refuse to disappear. So, that creates a new, stable thing consisting of a game-theoretical equilibrium between sub-things. — alcontali

The problem with this analogy is that you already assume the existence of "a thing", and this implies order. "A thing" is an ordered existence. Lack of order would actually mean a lack of things. In Aristotelian terms a lack of order would simply be the "potential" for existence of a thing. So if you are describing how order comes out of non-order, you cannot start with the existence of a thing, because this is to presume the existence of order already.

So, incredibly complex and orderly situations tend to arise pretty much spontaneously from chaos. As far as I am concerned, they do not necessarily point to an underlying design. They could just arbitrarily be satisfying the conditions of particular game equilibria. — alcontali

Maybe you do believe this, but you seem to misunderstand what "chaos", or complete lack of order really entails.

How could you ever get info that you're wrong though? If, being created by design required , by definition, that the thing be created by a human being, — Metaphysician Undercover

Not by a human being. What I wrote is "I'm using the sense of 'natural' where it's distinct from 'made by a person.'" I chose those words carefully. "Person" is broader than "human." There can be persons of different species, or even "supernatural" types of persons, if there were to be such things.

We learn that we're wrong, when we are, via an investigation into the object in question. Again, we're not simply in the dark when it comes to scientific, forensic, etc. investigations. We can formulate hypotheses and then discover that our assumptions were wrong. The butler didn't kill Mr. Jones, the cook did, for example. We can discover such things via systematic investigations.

The category "designers" contains too many unknowns. At the scale of a room we typically think of a "designer" as organismic: as matter manipulating matter. At the scale of a universe we tend not to think of organismic life as at the heart of the design as organismic life is included in the design. And it can be difficult to imagine non-organismic life. So when in the process of analogizing universes and rooms one sees a need to imagine non-organismic life (with the power to alter matter on a grand scale) one tends to think his imagination has run wild.

Not by a human being. What I wrote is "I'm using the sense of 'natural' where it's distinct from 'made by a person.'" I chose those words carefully. "Person" is broader than "human." There can be persons of different species, or even "supernatural" types of persons, if there were to be such things. — Terrapin Station

OK, what defines "a person"? Is a beaver a person, or a bird a person? Is a rock a person?

We learn that we're wrong, when we are, via an investigation into the object in question. Again, we're not simply in the dark when it comes to scientific, forensic, etc. investigations. We can formulate hypotheses and then discover that our assumptions were wrong. The butler didn't kill Mr. Jones, the cook did, for example. We can discover such things via systematic investigations. — Terrapin Station

Now I understand why we might find ourselves to be wrong. We might assume that a beaver is not a person, or that a rock is not a person, and then find out at a later date that these things really acted as persons. Aren't you really just appealing to a division in the classes of "agency"? There is a type of agent which acts with intention (person) and a type of agent which acts from a simple chemical process (like a cleaning agent).

OK, what defines "a person"? Is a beaver a person, or a bird a person? Is a rock a person? — Metaphysician Undercover

As someone interested in philosophy, this is a good thing for you to think about, as it has long been seen as an important ontological issue that's often very contentious. It's as important as asking, say, "What is/what is to count as justification?" in epistemology.

My comments above do not hinge on a particular definition of personhood, so I don't want to sidetrack things by arguing about that. Any commonly proposed definition you like (with an emphasis on "commonly proposed") would be fine to use. But of course, we have to be familiar with the personhood issue in philosophy to be familiar with commonly proposed definitions.

Here's a bit of background courtesy of two of the most commonly cited sources. It's worth reading the two articles in full (SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ ) (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood)

==========================================================================
SEP: "What is it to be a person, as opposed to a nonperson? What have we people got that nonpeople haven’t got? More specifically, we can ask at what point in our development from a fertilized egg there comes to be a person, or what it would take for a chimpanzee or a Martian or an electronic computer to be a person, if they could ever be. An ideal account of personhood would be a definition of the word person, taking the form ‘Necessarily, x is a person at time t if and only if … x … t …’, with the blanks appropriately filled in. The most common answer is that to be a person at a time is to have certain special mental properties then (e.g. Baker 2000: ch. 3). Others propose a less direct connection between personhood and mental properties: for example that to be a person is be capable of acquiring those properties (Chisholm 1976: 136f.), or to belong to a kind whose members typically have them when healthy and mature (Wiggins 1980: ch. 6)."

Wikipedia: "Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a natural person or legal personality has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.[1]

Personhood continues to be a topic of international debate and has been questioned critically during the abolition of human and nonhuman slavery, in theology, in debates about abortion and in fetal rights and/or reproductive rights, in animal rights activism, in theology and ontology, in ethical theory, and in debates about corporate personhood and the beginning of human personhood.[2]
==========================================================================

I claim that an all-knowing mind that is capable of creation would not create. It could know instantly what would happen when in this universe. So why go through the effort of making a model, when you know precisely what the model's state and vectors will be at any time in the infinite expanse of time? — god must be atheist

How would one know that one is all-knowing? Would that even qualify as "knowledge"? It seems to me that "all-knowing" is an incoherent term and doesn't make sense to apply that to an entity. It makes more sense to just say the "god" IS the universe. If that is the case, then I prefer to use the term, "universe", and not "all-knowing god", as that includes all sorts of unnecessarily loaded implications.

There is nothing wrong with the criticism, because the one (if it is correct) excludes the possibility of the other. So you could say that each of them, or both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible", as this implies the two of them collectively.

And you state at #8 "it does not exclude the chain of events...", when actually 1 - 5 does exclude that chain of events. By saying this you imply that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, when actually each one excludes the possibility of the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know if you had a chance to think it through or you had a chance to proofread your script.

You wrote: "So you could say that ... both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible" Why is one correct and the other incorrect? I think the two say the same thing.

In the second quote, I made a mistake in the wording, and I admit it. It was a fatal mistake. I ought to have written, "if you assume that 1. and 2. are not true, or not necessarily true, then it is possible

that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system. — god must be atheist

I regret the error.

So please reconsider my argument with the above corrections.

The insight I requested (and it came out all wrong, I apologize), is that 1 and 2 can be true, but they also can be false. I am not saying or arguing for whether those two are false or true; but I insist that both alternatives are possible.

Again, congratulations for catching me on this mistake. Please reconsider my stance as corrected in this post. Thanks.

Correct but order definitely involves an agent with intent or a plan if you will. — TheMadFool

No, it doesn't. That was my point - that we need to reject this notion that order and design go hand in hand. It is the goal that we need to determine as the goal is the design.

Order is simply how minds categorize information. Minds look for patterns so that they can make predictions which make it easier to survive. Not only that, but limited perspective of time would make us think that this "short" period of "order" that we live in is how the universe is all the time and forever. It is predicted that the universe will die a slow cold death where eventually all matter breaks apart. Does that sound like design to you?

The fact that we exist is not evidence that there is design. Its' like saying that winning the lottery was designed because how could I win such a randomly determined contest with enormously low odds? The universe isn't random, nor is the emergence of life a low-odds event. It is very possible that life is an inherent property of the universe as much as space and time are - not because of it being designed, but because that is just how things happened and are.

It's like you are claiming that you know that universes can't exist with life without there being design. How do you know that? How do you know the odds of life evolving in this universe, or any other?

How would one know that one is all-knowing? — Harry Hindu

There is nothing to know about god. I am on the opinion that there is nothing humans can learn or know about god until things in this world fundamentally change, furthermore, it is not even guaranteed that there is a god or there are gods. It is merely a belief that there are gods, not knowledge. Much like the opinion that there are no gods is not knowledge, but opinion.

If you reject the assumption that god is all-knowing, then my statement does not stand.

In Judaism, in Christianity, and in Islam the gods are all-knowing. It is a given in those religions, and the believers insist that it's true. I am not familiar with Hinduism, and I admit to that.

So you are saying, that the Hindu gods are not as intelligent and well-informed as the Jewish, Christian and Muslim gods, according to the respective believers of these four religions?

There is nothing to know about god. I am on the opinion that there is nothing humans can learn or know about god until things in this world fundamentally change, furthermore, it is not even guaranteed that there is a god or there are gods, it is a belief that there are gods, not knowledge, much like the opinion that there are no gods is not knowledge, but opinion. — god must be atheist

It's not. You should think about it more objectively. Claiming a god exists is a positive assertion without any evidence. It is an unfalsifiable claim.

There are many unfalsifiable claims - probably more than falsifiable ones. Why would you put weight into any unfalsifiable claim while rejecting others if they all (religious, scientific, etc. claims) have the same amount of evidence - none. The existence of unicorns is just as likely as the existence of gods, but I'll bet your reject the existence of unicorns without being on the fence. That would be inconsistent.

What I do is throw all unfalsifiable claims in the same heap and they all hold the same amount of weight - none - until someone can provide some kind of evidence or make a falsifiable claim in regards to their belief. I am an a-unfalsifiable-beliefist, not just an a-theist.

Claiming a god exists is a positive assertion without any evidence. It is an unfalsifiable claim — Harry Hindu

So is the claim that a god does not exist. Or some gods do not exist. If you don't believe me, prove it to me.

I personally believe that there are no gods or god. But I allow the possibility that they do exist. We just don't have any evidence either way. And we certainly don't have any knowledge what they are, what they want, what they want of us, what they can do, and what they will do. This is unknown to humans at this point, on the odds that there are actually gods (or god).

---------------

Aside from that, I don't claim that a god exists. I claim that it is possible that a god exists. Big difference.

You should think about it more objectively. — Harry Hindu

And you must think about it more philosophically.

The problem with this analogy is that you already assume the existence of "a thing", and this implies order. "A thing" is an ordered existence. Lack of order would actually mean a lack of things. In Aristotelian terms a lack of order would simply be the "potential" for existence of a thing. So if you are describing how order comes out of non-order, you cannot start with the existence of a thing, because this is to presume the existence of order already. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that Aristotle was particularly familiar with self-organizing systems or the concept of spontaneous order:

Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. The evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet and a free market economy have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order.[1].

It is closely related to game theory, which is largely based on the work of John von Neumann and especially John Nash, after the second world war:

Game studies. The concept of spontaneous order is closely related with modern game studies. As early as the 1940s, historian Johan Huizinga wrote that "in myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play." Following on this in his book The Fatal Conceit, Hayek notably wrote that "a game is indeed a clear instance of a process wherein obedience to common rules by elements pursuing different and even conflicting purposes results in overall order."

The principle of emergent behaviour is a similar concept:

An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective. Systems with emergent properties or emergent structures may appear to defy entropic principles and the second law of thermodynamics, because they form and increase order despite the lack of command and central control. This is possible because open systems can extract information and order out of the environment.

Maybe you do believe this, but you seem to misunderstand what "chaos", or complete lack of order really entails. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to be unfamiliar with the concepts of "spontaneous order" and "emergent behaviour" which are quite modern, only a few decades old, actually. Maybe it would make sense for you to read some publications from after the second world war. Unlike metaphysics, mathematics has made incredible progress in the 20th century.

The relevant feature between the universe and a watch is order - a specific arrangement of parts following a set of principles/laws. — TheMadFool

"Intelligent design" theory acknowledges that mere order is insufficient, instead requiring "specified complexity" to count as evidence of design. Its proponents cite well-established scientific fields, such as forensics and archaeology, that have particular methods and criteria for distinguishing intentional agency from natural processes.

However, as with any hypothesis, plausibility depends on acceptance of the underlying assumptions, and an objection such as that of carries some weight. Of course, we also have no experience with universes popping into existence or entirely new kinds of animals evolving, so it cuts both ways to a certain extent.